Ancient Mariners 59 



the Phoenicians were also exploiting the pearls of the Red Sea 

 and the Persian Gulf, the incense of Sabaea and Ethiopia, and 

 gold and precious stones whei'ever they could be obtained in the 

 neighbouring countries. 



This lucrative trade only served to whet their appetite for 

 yet bigger enterprises. Early in the first millennium B.C. the 

 Phoenicians or their agents began to exploit India and Ceylon. 

 The pearl-fishers of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf played a large 

 part in these expeditions, for one of the primary objects was the 

 collection of pearls and other shells to which a special significance 

 and value had come to be attached. Hence during their easterly 

 wanderings the seamen settled upon any coast where pearls were 

 found ; and these places became the centres where the customs 

 and beliefs of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian coast- 

 lands were planted, and to this day have retained these persistent 

 evidences of the alien influence that came from the West. The 

 cultural uses of shells, such as the conch shell trumpet, the 

 cowrie and the pearl, naturally play a much more obtrusive role 

 in India than they do in the West, because the immigrant 

 elements of civilization which were introduced from abroad were 

 brought by the men who were searching for these things, In his 

 book " Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture " 

 [^Manchester University Press, 1917] Mr. Wilfrid Jackson has 

 collected the evidence in substantiation of this. 



But the wanderers did not restrict their operations to the 

 coasts : they i-oamed inland and searched for precious metals and 

 stones. Wherever gold or copper was discovered the immigrants 

 settled down to exploit such wealth, and not only left behind 

 them such persistent records as megalithic monuments, but many 

 distinctive practices, customs and beliefs. 



The practice of terraced irrigation, the worship of the sun, 

 mummification, the belief in a sky-world to which the blessed 

 dead go, and many scores of equally distinctive beliefs, legends 

 and myths, blaze the pathway of these wanderers from the West. 



It is important to remember that these people must have 



