DISCOVERIES OF THE PHOENICIANS. 445 



The progress of the great mariners of old in the Indian Ocean 

 was no less remarkable than the extension of their Atlantic 

 discoveries. Far beyond Bab-el-Mandeb their fleets sailed to 

 Ophir or Supara, and returned with rich cargoes of gold, silver, 

 sandal-wood, jewels, ivory, apes, and peacocks, to the ports of 

 Elath and Ezion-Geber at the head of the Eed Sea. These 

 costly productions of the south were then transported across the 

 Isthmus of Suez to Bhinocolura, the nearest port on the Medi- 

 terranean, and thence to Tyre, which ultimately distributed 

 them over the whole of the known world. 



The true position of Ophir is an enigma which no learned 

 GUdipus will ever solve. While some authorities place it on the 

 east coast of Africa, others fix its situation somewhere on the 

 west coast of the Indian peninsula; and Humboldt is even of 

 opinion that the name had only a general signification, and that 

 a voyage to Ophir meant nothing more than a commercial ex- 

 pedition to any part of the Indian Ocean, just as at present we 

 speak of a voyage to the Levant or the West Indies. 



But whatever Ophir may have been, it is certain that the 

 Phoenicians carried on a considerable trade with the lands and 

 nations beyond the Gates of the Eed Sea. Their trade in the 

 direction of the Persian Gulf was no less extensive. Through 

 the Syrian desert, where Palmyra, their chief station or em- 

 porium, proudly rose above the surrounding sands, their caravans 

 slowly wandered to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, to 

 provide Nineveh and Babylon with the costly merchandise of 

 Sidon and Tyre. Following the course of the great Mesopo- 

 tamian streams, they reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, 

 where they owned the ports of Tylos and Aradus and the rich 

 pearl islands of Bahrein, and, having loaded their empty camels 

 with the produce of Iran and Arabia, returned by the same way to 

 the shores of the Mediterranean. How far their ships may have 

 ventured beyond the mouth of the Persian Gulf is unknown, 

 but the researches of the learned orientalists, Gesenius, Benfey, 

 and Lassen, render it extremely probable, that, taking advantage 

 of the regularly changing monsoons, they sailed through the 

 Straits of Ormus to the coast of Malabar. 



The. progress of the Phoenician race in the technical arts, as 

 well as in the astronomical and mathematical sciences so highly 

 important for the improvement of their navigation, was no less 

 remarkable for the age in which they lived, than the vast 



