Migrating, like the first Egyptians, westward, they had settled around the Levant, to the north of Palestine. Already, in prehistoric days, they had expanded still further westward into Greece, founding Thebes in Bœotia, and teaching the barbarian inhabitants of that country the elements of civilisation. Everywhere in the ancient world, from remote ages until a century or two before the Incarnation, Phœnician ships were as numerous in the waters of the Mediterranean, as British vessels in all parts of the world are to-day. Possessing a genius for trade, a keen love for the sea and for travel, they had the complete mastery of the commerce and fisheries of the Ægean Sea, until as late as the eighth century B.C. They dragged up from the waters its shell fish to make purple dies; they burrowed into the earth to extract silver; they opened up commerce wherever it was possible, exchanging such products of the East as woven fabrics and highly-wrought metal work. They built factories on islands and promontories, and gave to the towns along the coast-line—especially of the eastern side of Greece—Phœnician names. Troubling but little about inland situations, they made their strong settlements to be their island homes. Although eventually the Phœnicians were driven out of the Ægean, yet their effect on the inhabitants of Greece was a lasting one. As Greece had received from the Phœnicians her first culture, so she had adopted their religion and their species of ships. We shall see, presently, how very similar the ships of the Greeks and Phœnicians were. But before proceeding thus far, let us remember that, though the Phœnicians were developing while the Egyptians were declining, yet, indubitably, they owed a vast amount to the civilisation of the latter. Why the Phœnicians, more than any other people, were influenced by the Egyptians is not hard to understand if we realise that they alone were allowed to trade to the mouths of the Nile. The Egyptians guarded their kingdom inviolate against all other merchants of the Mediterranean, although Achaian pirates from the North at times swept down to the Nile Delta. Not until the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, when Egypt was reunited, and again made a strong kingdom, were the Milesian and other Greek traders allowed to begin commercial operations with the land of the Pharaohs.