ps unrealised, tempestuous waves beat
against their shores, and melancholy winds swept over the face of
endless ocean solitudes.

And still, according to their untutored minds, the world is flat, the
world is very small and it is surrounded by ever-flowing waters, beyond
which all is dark and mysterious.

Around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, revealed by the boundless
energy and daring skill of the Phoenicians, there were colonies along
the coasts of Africa and Europe, though they were not yet called by
their names. They have discovered and explored, but they have kept
their information to themselves, and they have specially refused to
divulge their voyages to the Greeks.

A story is told at a later date than this of a Phoenician shipmaster
who was bound for the Tin Islands, when he suddenly discovered that
he was being followed by a strange ship evidently bent on finding out
where these unknown islands lay. The Phoenician purposely ran his ship
on to a shoal in order to keep the secret of the discovery. When he
returned home his conduct was upheld by the State!

But though the Phoenicians have left us no record of their travels
and voyages, they had been the carriers of knowledge, and it was from
them that the Greeks learnt of "the extreme regions of the world" and
of the dim "far west." Indeed, it is highly probable that from the
Phoenicians they got material for their famous legend of the Argonauts
and their adventures in the Black Sea. Though the story is but legendary,
and it has been added to with the growing knowledge of the world, yet
it gives an idea of the perils that beset the sailors of those remote
ages and of their limitations.

And again we must remind ourselves that both the Phoenicians and early
Greeks had, like the Egyptians and Babylonians, childish ideas as to
the form of the earth. To them it was a circular plane, encircled by
the ocean, which they believed to be a broad, deep-running river
flowing round and round the world. Into this ocean stream ran all the
rivers and seas known to them. Over the earth was raised a solid
firmament of bronze in which the stars were set, and this was supported
on tall pillars "which kept the heaven and the earth asunder."

The whole delightful story of the Argonauts can be read in Kingsley's
"Heroes." It is the story of brave men who sailed in the ship _Argo_,
named after the great shipbuilder Argos, to bring back the Golden
Fleece from Colchis in the B