and mastic-wood; metal-work and woollen wares from Chalcis,
Phoenician and Syrian craft with gaily-colored sails, and freighted
with cargoes of purple stuffs, gems, spices, glass-work, carpets and
cedar-trees,--used in Egypt, where wood was very scarce, for building
purposes, and taking back gold, ivory, ebony, brightly-plumaged tropical
birds, precious stones and black slaves,--the treasures of Ethiopia;
but more especially the far-famed Egyptian corn, Memphian chariots, lace
from Sais, and the finer sorts of papyrus. The time when commerce
was carried on merely by barter was now, however, long past, and the
merchants of Naukratis not seldom paid for their goods in gold coin and
carefully-weighed silver.

Large warehouses stood round the harbor of this Greek colony, and
slightly-built dwelling-houses, into which the idle mariners were lured
by the sounds of music and laughter, and the glances and voices of
painted and rouged damsels. Slaves, both white and colored, rowers and
steersmen, in various costumes, were hurrying hither and thither,
while the ships' captains, either dressed in the Greek fashion or in
Phoenician garments of the most glaring colors, were shouting orders to
their crews and delivering up their cargoes to the merchants. Whenever a
dispute arose, the Egyptian police with their long staves, and the Greek
warders of the harbor were quickly at hand. The latter were appointed by
the elders of the merchant-body in this Milesian colony.

The port was getting empty now, for the hour at which the market opened
was near, and none of the free Greeks cared to be absent from the
market-place then. This time, however, not a few remained behind,
curiously watching a beautifully-built Samian ship, the Okeia, with a
long prow like a swan's neck, on the front of which a likeness of the
goddess Hera was conspicuous. It was discharging its cargo, but the
public attention was more particularly attracted by three handsome
youths, in the dress of Lydian officers, who left the ship, followed by
a number of slaves carrying chests and packages.

The handsomest of the three travellers, in whom of course our readers
recognize their three young friends, Darius, Bartja and Zopyrus, spoke
to one of the harbor police and asked for the house of Theopompus the
Milesian, to whom they were bound on a visit.

Polite and ready to do a service, like all the Greeks, the police
functionary at once led the way across the market-place,--