HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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in the fictitious allegory of those early times, to have delivered the princessHesione from a monster, raised by some divine interposition out of the sea, andto which she was exposed by express command of the Oracle. The tragicalconclusion of this story, in which truth and romance contend with each other, iswell known. Laomedon refusing a recompence equal to the expectations, orprobably the deserts of his former ally, was immediately involved in a war whichended in his destruction. The princess his daughter was bestowed by her for-mer deliverer, on Telamon, the son of CEacus, who accompanied him, and whois falsely said to have afterwards been one of that renowned hord of freebootersalready mentioned, and classically known by the name of the Argonauts *.

It is extremely easy to state, in the plain language of reason and commonsense, the developement of this fable. Rameses, one of those personages honouredwith the name of Neptune, being a chief of restless disposition, quitted JE gypt,his native country, incited either by a thirst of effecting some territorial discovery,or a lust of acquiring, by conquest, the dominion of some foreign country.Chance, or inclination, conducted him and his followers to that spot where theirbravery as warriors, their skill in passing through a country by means thendeemed preternatural by all not acquainted with them, procured them to behonoured and feared as beings of a superior or a divine rank. The marinemonster we may very fairly interpret to have been a vessel, conveying to thesame spot some unknown adventurers equally bold, but who, being less powerful,or less fortunate than themselves, fell before them an easy and inglorious conquest.

Sesostris, brother of Armais king of ./Egypt, who, having dethroned the latter,possessed himself of the diadem, and reigned afterwards king of that countryfor many years, appears the first prince or potentate who rendered himself con-

xal noXus txltaxv xaxet, xai zstp'i ri y-iax rr,s Ar,£uys.” The Phoenicians attained to a very great excellencein the science of navigation; having passed beyond the columns of Hercules, they founded cities, andeven penetrated into the middle of Libya. Schaeffer proceeds to state, that even the Indian Ocean wasnot unknown and unexplored by the Phoenicians before the time already mentioned, as is very apparentfrom the gold and jewels which, on the evidence of Job, who is said to have lived long before Jason,(that is, about the year of the world 2400) were brought by them into Arabia from Ophir. This cir-cumstance certainly places the Phoenicians among the earliest of the ancient navigators, the Greeksthemselves having been almost totally ignorant of the science till the time of Jason. The Red Sea issupposed also, by the same author, to have derived its appellation merely from having been first navigatedby the Phoenicians .—“ Nam rubrum mare quid est aliud quam Phcenicium (in allusion to the famous redor purple dye of Sidon) a Phoenicibus qui suis classibus coloniisque illud frequentarent.” — Schaffer.Lib. 1. Cap. L

* The argonautic expedition certainly did not take place till upwards of forty years after this time.

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