CHAPTER IX--SHIPS, NAVIGATION, AND COMMERCE.
Earliest navigation by means of rafts and canoes--Model of a very primitive boat--Phoenician vessel of the time of Sargon--Phoenician biremes in the time of Sennacherib-- Phoenician pleasure vessels and merchant ships--Superiority of the Phoenician war-galleys--Excellence of the arrangements--Pataeci--Early navigation cautious--Increasing boldness--Furthest ventures--Extent of the Phoenician land commerce--Witness of Ezekiel--Wares imported--Caravans-- Description of the land trade--Sea trade of Phoenicia--1.
With her own colonies--2.

With foreigners--Mediterranean and Black Sea trade--North Atlantic trade--Trade with the West Coast of Africa and the Canaries--Trade in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
The first attempts of the Phoenicians to navigate the sea which washed their coast were probably as clumsy and rude as those of other primitive nations.

They are said to have voyaged from island to island, in their original abodes within the Persian Gulf, by means of rafts.[91] When they reached the shores of the Mediterranean, it can scarcely have been long ere they constructed boats for fishing and coasting purposes, though no doubt such boats were of a very rude construction.

Probably, like other races, they began with canoes, roughly hewn out of the trunk of a tree.

The torrents which descended from Lebanon would from time to time bring down the stems of fallen trees in their flood-time; and these, floating on the Mediterranean waters, would suggest the idea of navigation.