THE ISLE OF HONEY 19 



And how long ago this is who shall say ? The 

 whereabouts of the Phoenician Barat-Anac, the 

 Country of Tin, remained a secret probably for 

 ages, jealously guarded by these ancient mariners, 

 the first true seamen that the world had ever known. 

 They were expert navigators, venturing enormous 

 distances oversea, even in King Solomon's time'; 

 and that was a thousand years before the advent 

 of Caesar. In all likelihood they had been in fre- 

 quent communication with the Britons centuries 

 before the Greeks took to searching for this 

 wonderful tin-bearing land, and still longer before 

 the name Barat-Anac became corrupted into the 

 Britannia of the Romans. And it is hardly to be 

 supposed that a people of so ancient a civilisation, 

 and of so great a repute in the sciences and refine- 

 ments of life, as the Phoenicians — a people from 

 whom the early Greeks themselves had learned 

 the art and practice of letters — could remain in 

 touch, century after century, with a nation like the 

 Britons without affecting in them enormous im- 

 provement and development in every way that 

 would appeal to so high-mettled and competent a 

 race. 



For high-mettled and capable the Britons were 

 even in those old, dim, far-off days. Caesar's 

 account of them, read between the lines, accords 

 ill with the commonly accepted notion of a horde 

 of savages, pigging together in reed hovels, and 

 daubing their naked bodies blue to strike terror 



