It is believed that the enterprises of the Phoenicians in the early ages took them but a short distance, if at all, beyond the confines of the Mediterranean.

It is merely known that, in the period of which I speak, a more adventurous spirit began to be manifested, and the Straits of Gibraltar were passed and settlements were made in Iberia.

But how far these adventurers actually penetrated has been recorded only in those documents that are in the hands of my people--descendants of the boldest of these mariners who pushed their galleys out into the Atlantic.

At this time the king of Tyre was Abibaal, soon to be succeeded by his son Hiram, the friend, you will remember, of King David,--" Mr.Frothingham, who did not go to the theatre for fear of exciting his imagination, uttered the soft non-explosion which should have been speech.
"King Abibaal," continued the prince, "who maintained his court in great pomp, had a younger and favourite son who bore his own name.
He was a wild youth of great daring, and upon the accession of Hiram to the throne he left Tyre and took command of a galley of adventuresome spirits, who were among the first to pass the straits and gain the open sea.

The story of their wild voyage I need not detail; it is enough to say that their trireme was wrecked upon the coast of Yaque; and Abibaal and those who joined him--among them many members of the court circle and even of the royal family--settled and developed the island.