and perhaps India, which had hitherto been confined to the Egyptians and the Arabs.  He had also, by his land power, a command of the trade routes along the Coele-Syrian valley, by Aleppo, and by Tadmor, which enabled him effectually either to help or to hinder the Phoenician land traffic.  Thus either side had something to gain from the other, and a close commercial union might be safely counted on to work for the mutual advantage of both.  Such a union, therefore, took place.  Hiram admitted Solomon to a participation in his western traffic; and the two kings maintained a conjoint “navy of Tarshish,"[1496] which, trading with Spain and the West coast of Africa, brought to Phoenicia and Palestine “once in three years” many precious and rare commodities, the chief of them being “gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.”  Spain would yield the gold and the silver, for the Tagus brought down gold,[1497] and the Spanish silver-mines were the richest in the world.[1498] Africa would furnish in abundance the ivory and the apes; for elephants were numerous in Mauritania,[1499] and on the west coast,[14100] in ancient times; and the gorilla[14101] and the Barbary ape are well-known African products.  Africa may also have produced the “peacocks,” if tukkiyim are really “peacocks,” though they are not found there at the present day.  Or the tukkiyim may have been Guinea-fowl—­a bird of the same class with the peacock.

In return, Solomon opened to Hiram the route to the East by way of the Red Sea.  Solomon, doubtless by the assistance of shipwrights furnished to him from Tyre, “made a navy of ships at Ezion-Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom,"[14102] and the sailors of the two nations conjointly manned the ships, and performed the voyage to Ophir, whence they brought gold, and “great plenty of almug-trees,” and precious stones.[14103] The position of Ophir has been much disputed, but the balance of argument is in favour of the theory which places it in Arabia, on the south-eastern coast, a little outside the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.[14104] It is possible that the fleet did not confine itself to trade with Ophir, but, once launched on the Indian Ocean, proceeded along the Atlantic coast to the Persian Gulf and the peninsula of Hindustan.  Or Ophir may have been an Arab emporium for the Indian trade, and the merchants of Syria may have found there the Indian commodities, and the Indian woods,[14105] which they seem to have brought back with them to their own country.  A most lucrative traffic was certainly established by the united efforts of the two kings; and if the lion’s share of the profit fell to Solomon and the Hebrews,[14106] still the Phoenicians and Hiram must have participated to some considerable extent in the gains made, or the arrangement would not have continued.