'^4 On the Phceiiician Tin Trade in Cornwall, hij 11. Edmonds. 
arrived ; the other, for its being afterwards shipped with the least 
possible delay and trouble. In those remote ages, when walled 
towns were as common in the Land s-end district as they were in 
Palestine, — when every hill-top, numerous as they are, and every 
cape or headland capable of fortification, had been converted into 
strong-holds, it is evident that, during the absence of the Phcenician 
ships, some strongly fortified place was required for the safe custody 
of the tin purchased from the natives ; and no place in Cornwall was 
by nature so strongly fortified as the Mount. It was also well sup- 
plied with fresh water and a pleasant residence, and therefore, 
probably, the constant habitation of Phoenician merchants. For 
the Phoenicians, according to Thucydides, had resident merchants 
or " settlements all round the coast of Sicily," and "secured the 
capes on the sea, and the small circumjacent islands, for the pur- 
pose of trafficking with the natives." * This strongest of all 
Cornish fortresses had also on its inner side a port well sheltered 
from all storms, into which ships could always safely enter when 
the tide was in. 
From this port and fortress the Phoenician merchants may have 
come to the mainland to purchase not only tin, but other com- 
modities also. Dr. Smith observes that " as salt was a commodity 
imported into Britain, in return for the tin exported, it does not 
appear improbable that Cornish fish, as well as tin, was taken from 
thence by the Phoenicians and carried to distant markets;"! 
know that in the time of Nehemiah " the Tyrians had a fish mar- 
ket at Jerusalem," Neh. xiii., 16 ; and a cargo, partly of fish and 
partly of tin, is safer than one exclusively of tin. 
More need not be said in proof of the Mount being the ancient 
Iktin, particularly as the only other competitors for this honour 
are the Isle of Wight; Drake or St. Nicholas Island, in Plymouth 
Sound ; the Black Rock, at the entrance of Falmouth Harbour ; 
* See Trans, of Geol. Soc. of Corn., vol. iii., p. 120. 
+ Cassiterides, p. 49. 
