It should also be remembered that the Mediterranean possesses the singular advantages of a very considerable number of excellent harbours and roadsteads, with numerous islands, projecting promontories, and deep bays, affording excellent shelter for small undecked craft; and, more than this, that the two nations who were, in remote ages, the most eminent among its merchant navigators, the Tyrians and Carthaginians, were, as a rule, peaceful traders, and slow to take up arms except in self-defence. The Indian Ocean, within prescribed limits, and the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, afforded somewhat similar facilities, from the moderate distance between the opposite shores, and from the periodical winds, which change their direction twice in the year—a fact which could hardly fail to have been early recognised, though the reason of this change may have remained long unsuspected. Bearing, therefore, these physical facts and conditions in mind, it is not unreasonable to believe that long and distant voyages were accomplished with no greater nautical science than has been generally conceded to the most ancient mariners. [Sidenote: Tyre.] We find, too, as might be supposed, that the nations who held in their hands the means of conducting the largest amount of maritime commerce were the most prosperous as well as the most powerful. The small state of Phœnicia, of which, in its most prosperous days, Tyre was the capital, though insignificant in territory and population, as compared with either Syria or Egypt, possessed in some respects far greater power than either. Holding, during many centuries, the command of the sea, she was able, in great measure, to control them as she pleased, and to prohibit their intercourse with any nations that could not be reached by their caravans. Phœnicia, therefore, as the leading maritime state at the earliest period to which any reliable records ascend, is entitled to the first consideration in any work having for its object an historical account of Merchant Shipping. To trace the course of the extensive maritime trade of the Phœnicians is to elucidate the progress of navigation in ancient times. [Sidenote: Argonautic Expedition.] Before, however, we speak of the Phœnicians we must briefly notice two maritime adventures, which, though fabulous in most of their details, were highly estimated by the ancients, and had, doubtless, some foundation in fact. The first of these, the Argonautic Expedition, as it was called, was evidently a commercial enterprise, promoted by reports of abundant deposits of gold along the eastern shores of the Black Sea. It is remarkable that the name of the ship from which the expedition itself derived its appellation is almost certainly taken from the Semitic word _arek_, “long,”[58] suggesting that it was perhaps the first “long” ship, and indicating a direct connection with the Phœnicians, who spoke the dialect to which this name belongs. [Sidenote: Queen Semiramis.]