our front lay the great sea, the Mediterranean, as men learned to call it, blue as the sky above it, teeming with the fish we needed, and treasure-bottomed because of the rare things which, by lucky happening, we found there. Far in the offing above the tideless waters could be seen a dim blue speck where the sky and water blended, the island Yatnan--the Cyprus of the future--an island of kindly people to be some time followed by others called the Greeks, with whom we were already beginning to do a little trading. For we were traders! Traders, boat-builders and sea adventurers were we, above all other peoples. The world had learned to barter, it may be from those who had first discovered copper, which all men needed and for which they would exchange that which they had, and we were those who had already made bartering our chief and earnest occupation. This had been the way with us even at the mouth of the Euphrates, whence we had come and where between contemptuous Babylonian and rude Assyrian we had been much oppressed, and so had fled to find this treasure strip. Warriors we had never been, though sometimes, at bay, we had fought well, nor had we been skilful hunters within the memory of our generation. Dark-haired and swarthy, sprouted from an ancient race to the south, some said, we had come to this new land to make, if we might be favoured of our dark god, a better future. Most skilled were we in the many arts, but better still, for us, in traffic in that which we made. We dealt much with the stronger races which endured but did not mingle with us. Now we were to trade from our own land as a vantage ground. The outcome was what no man could dream. We had built our houses at Akko and had sowed our fields and planted our trees and vines and had builded our boats, and in them had already begun to range the coasts for such trade as might be found, though not so far at first, because as yet we had few goods for barter save the fine linen which the women wove so well, and wool, and cedar timber, and besides, we were not yet acquainted with the strange shores. Our first trade, as I have said, was with the people of the large island Yatnan, which was so near to us, and from this alone arose in time a mighty business of ours, for in Yatnan was much copper, and the people were such we did not fear. Soon, too, there came to us such aid from what the sea gave us, that our traffic, we were assured, must surpass all we had hoped for, our fabrics having given to them suddenly a value never known before.