THE DISCOVERY 



5 



forth upon the land, they always came trooping 

 back to her. Many times that fateful man, 

 Ulysses, suffered shipwreck and dire disaster; 

 yet still he " languished for the purple seas." 

 The pathway was dangerous — the Greek epics 

 keep calling it the " shadowy," the " black," 

 the "treacherous"; and the Hebrew books the 

 " noisy," the " roaring," the " raging " — but 

 still men ventured along it. It was a dream to 

 the explorer, a means of gain to the trader, a 

 refuge to the robber; and so the boats kept 

 reaching farther seaward from port and cape 

 to headland and island ; and year by year more 

 sails appeared flecking the floor of blue. 



But many centuries were to elapse before men 

 came and went freely along the ocean high- 

 ways. The fear of the wave kept them back; 

 the lure of the wave drew them on. How tim- 

 idly and awkwardly the pre-Homeric traders 

 coasted the eastern end of the Mediterranean ! 

 No one knows if the Chaldseo- Assyrians and the 

 Egyptians did even that much. They may 

 have achieved no more than the navigation of 

 their own rivers. As for the Israelites, the sea 

 was always a barrier to them, never a highway. 

 They had ports in the Eed Sea and carried on 

 an Oriental trade to be sure, but not without 

 Tyrian and Sidonian help. The Bool' of Kings 



Sea-rovera 

 and sea- 

 lovers. 



The first 

 coasters. 



