Soon after the date of this voyage, Tyre was besieged and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The inhabitants succeeded in escaping with their property to an island near the shore, where they founded New Tyre, which soon surpassed, both in commerce and shipping, the city they had abandoned. The Phoenicians seem now to have advanced with their system of colonization farther to the south upon the coast of Africa, and farther to the north upon the coast of Spain. They discovered the Cassiterides--now the Scilly Islands--upon the coast of Cornwall, and retained the monopoly of the trade in the tin which they found there. They carried spices and perfumes, obtained from Arabia, to Greece, where they were employed for sacrifice and incense. They also sold there the manufactures, purple, and jewels of Tyre and Sidon. From Spain they obtained silver, corn, wine, oil, wax, wool, and fruits. They procured amber in some place which they visited in the North,--doubtless the shores of the Baltic. As the value of this article was equal to that of gold, they desired to retain the monopoly of the trade and to keep all knowledge of the regions yielding it from their commercial rivals. Hence the secret was most carefully hoarded. A remarkable circumstance connected with the maritime history of the Phoenicians was their jealousy of the influence of foreigners. When a strange ship was observed to keep them company at sea, they would either outsail her, or at night change their course and disappear. On one occasion a Phoenician captain, finding himself pursued by a Roman vessel, ran his ship aground and wrecked her, rather than lose the secret which a capture would have revealed. This act was deemed so patriotic that the government rewarded him, and compensated him for the loss of his vessel. New Tyre was destroyed by Alexander the Great, 324 B.C. The inhabitants were either put to death or sold as slaves, and thus the maritime glory of the Phoenicians came to an untimely end.