There came a time when vast beds of the shell-fish, and of even more productive quality, were found near swiftly expanding Tyre, and great dyeing was done there, and trade came widely in the colouring and its fabrics until priests, senators, emperors, and the great of all the known world must garb themselves in Tyrian purple as most worthy of their dignity. Surely never were a people’s fortunes so affected as were ours by what might be deemed so small a thing as the juice in the head of a sea creature! But this discovery of the purple dye had but lately come and diverted us only a little from a host of things of greater purport. Our boats and our plans for our sea-roving as we might extend it, were what absorbed us chiefly. Nowhere were better boats than those we had already learned to build, but we were ever seeking their improvement, since our fortunes were dependent upon them. Biremes, as our boats or ships of the better sort were called, were better than those owned by our fathers, not short and rounded and caulked with bitumen, as had been the boats of only a little time before us, but longer and caulked with tar, which we had learned to make, and, in our latest ventures, double-decked so that the oarsmen could work below while their masters were above them. Good ships were these, riding the rough seas well, and much we prized them. Our only lack was in the oarsmen. We needed galley-slaves, and had but few, and oftentimes the trader and his people must needs take care to the oars themselves. As for me and my companions in sea ventures, we had but two, dark creatures we had found castaways upon a bare island some distance to the south, and certainly of some poor tribe, for the broken canoe we found with them was crude of form and by no means fitted for a sea trip. Blown away they doubtless were from the great continent which bounded the sea on the south, a land almost unknown to us, though we were somewhat acquainted with the people, ancient almost as we, who dwelt on the shores of a great river with many mouths which came into the sea not far from its eastern end. Intelligent the captives proved, in a slow way, and docile enough, though possessed of enormous appetites, which we must gratify or else lose of their strength in the rowing, but which were nevertheless somewhat of a burden on us. However, we hired them to the husbandmen when not upon a voyage, and so regained a little of their keeping cost. We were ever thrifty, we Phœnicians!