Ancient Mariners 65 



makes the following remarkable statement with reference to the 

 pilots furnished to Solomon by Hiram of Tyre, "To whom Solomon 

 gave this command that they should go along with his steward 

 to the land that of old was called Ophir, but now the Aurea 

 Chersonesus^ which belongs to India, to fetch gold " (Antiquities 

 of the Jews). 



The land to which this term is now generally admitted to have 

 been applied is the Malay Peninsula, for, to quote Sir Hugh Clifford,^ 

 " the recent discovery in the Malayan State of Pahang — the home 

 of apes and ivory and peafowl — of immense gold mines of very 

 ancient date and of a workmanship that has no counterpart in 

 South-eastern Asia, supplies an ample reason for the designation 

 ' golden ' so long applied to the Chersonese." 



" M. Auguste Parie in the second volume of his monumental 

 work on Indo-China contends that ancient Kambodia is the 

 original Ophir" (Clifford, p. 12), but this claim will not bear 

 examination. There can be no doubt that Ophir was the great 

 mart in Arabia, whence the spoils of the Far East were brought. 



Cambodia (see map, X) was the seat of one of the most 

 remarkable ancient civilizations. It is of peculiar importance in 

 the study of the migrations of early culture, because it received 

 the impress of western civilization, Egyptian, Babylonian and 

 Indian, at a relatively early period ; and by reason of its protected 

 situation it preserved the effects of these influences long after 

 they had become profoundly modified in the West. Moreover, as 

 the extreme south-eastern corner of Asia, it was the natural 

 point of departure of the cultural drift from Asia to America, so 

 that the early civilization of Mexico and Central America bears 

 clear indications of Cambodian influence. 



Western influence probably reached Cambodia as early as 

 the seventh century B.C., and the germs of its great civilization 

 were planted by the immigrants who settled there to mine for 

 rubies and sapphires and the silver of the Cochin-China coast. 



The coast of China offered little attraction to the ancient 

 ^ " Further India," 1904, p. 13. 



