its narrow and shallow havens. It was the
nature of the country itself which contributed more than anything else
to make them mariners. The precipitous mountain masses which separate
one valley from another rendered communication between them difficult,
while they served also as lurking-places for robbers. Commerce
endeavoured to follow, therefore, the sea-route in preference to the
devious ways of this highwayman's region, and it accomplished its
purpose the more readily because the common occupation of sea-fishing
had familiarised the people with every nook and corner on the coast.
The continual wash of the surge had worn away the bases of the limestone
cliffs, and the superincumbent masses tumbling down into the sea formed
lines of rocks, hardly rising above the water-level, which fringed
the headlands with perilous reefs, against which the waves broke
continuously at the slightest wind. It required some bravery to approach
them, and no little skill to steer one of the frail boats, which these
people were accustomed to employ from the earliest times, scatheless
amid the breakers. The coasting trade was attracted from Arvad
successively to Berytus, Sidon, and Tyre, and finally to the other
towns of the coast. It was in full operation, doubtless, from the VIth
Egyptian dynasty onwards, when the Pharaohs no longer hesitated to
embark troops at the mouth of the Nile for speedy transmission to the
provinces of Southern Syria, and it was by this coasting route that the
tin and amber of the north succeeded in reaching the interior of
Egypt. The trade was originally, it would seem, in the hands of those
mysterious Kefatiu of whom the name only was known in later times. When
the Phoenicians established themselves at the foot of the Lebanon, they
had probably only to take the place of their predecessors and to follow
the beaten tracks which they had already made. We have every reason to
believe that they took to a seafaring life soon after their arrival in
the country, and that they adapted themselves and their civilization
readily to the exigencies of a maritime career.*

* Connexion between Phoenicia and Greece was fully
established at the outbreak of the Egyptian wars, and we may
safely assume their existence in the centuries immediately
preceding the second millennium before our era.

In their towns, as in most sea-ports, there was a considerable foreign
element, both of slaves and freemen, but the Egy