traditions, to be found on all the shores of the Mediterranean down to Roman times, bore witness to the pervasive influence of the old Canaanite colonisation.  At Cyprus, for instance, wo find traces of the cultus of Kinyras, King of Byblos and father of Adonis; again, at Crete, it is the daughter of a Prince of Sidon, Buropa, who is carried off by Zeus under the form of a bull; it was Kadmos, sent forth to seek Buropa, who visited Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades before building Thebes in Boeotia and dying in the forests of Illyria.  In short, wherever the Phoenicians had obtained a footing, their audacious activity made such an indelible impression upon the mind of the native inhabitants that they never forgot those vigorous thick-set men with pale faces and dark beards, and soft and specious speech, who appeared at intervals in their large and swift sailing vessels.  They made their way cautiously along the coast, usually keeping in sight of land, making sail when the wind was favourable, or taking to the oars for days together when occasion demanded it, anchoring at night under the shelter of some headland, or in bad weather hauling their vessels up the beach until the morrow.  They did not shrink when it was necessary from trusting themselves to the open sea, directing their course by the Pole-star;* in this manner they often traversed long distances out of sight of land, and they succeeded in making in a short time voyages previously deemed long and costly.

* The Greeks for this reason called it Phonike, the Phoenician star; ancient writers refer to the use which the Phoenicians made of the Pole-star to guide them in navigation.

It is hard to say whether they were as much merchants as pirates—­indeed, they hardly knew themselves—­and their peaceful or warlike attitude towards vessels which they encountered on the seas, or towards the people whose countries they frequented, was probably determined by the circumstances of the moment.* If on arrival at a port they felt themselves no match for the natives, the instinct of the merchant prevailed, and that of the pirate was kept in the background.  They landed peaceably, gained the good will of the native chief and his nobles by small presents, and spreading out their wares, contented themselves, if they could do no better, with the usual advantage obtained in an exchange of goods.

* The manner in which the Phoenicians plied their trade is strikingly described in the Odyssey, in the part where Eumaios relates how he was carried off by a Sidonian vessel and sold as a slave:  cf. the passage which mentions the ravages of the Greeks on the coast of the Delta.  Herodotus recalls the rape of Io, daughter of Inachos, by the Phoenicians, who carried her and her companions into Egypt; on the other hand, during one of their Egyptian expeditions they had taken two priestesses from Thebes, and had transported one of them to Dodona, the other into Libya.