1

the kingdom, particularly in Lancashire, So merfetfhire, and Denbighshire.

The laft article of traffic between the old Britons and the Phoenicians, mentioned by Strabo, was the fkins of beafts, which probably formed one of the oldeft fpecies of barter practifed in the dawn of fociety and in the infancy of commerce. This species of exchange, indeed, is very reasonably presumed of a race exifting in a state bordering upon favage, whofe principal delight and whose conftant employmert confifted in hunting the innumerable animals that browsed on their mountains or roamed in their forefts. They muft also have had among them the art of preparing and preserving these skins, fince we are informed, by ancient authors, that they' covered with hides the wicker boats in which they failed about the creeks and harbours of their indented coafts.

On the subject of these wicker vessels, it may be observed, that, fragile as they may appear, they were ftrong enough for a race who probably never ventured beyond the creeks and harbours of their native coaft; and it is deferving of remark, that, according to Pietro D'Ella Valle, the very fame kind of boats, formed of reeds, compacted together

1

in the manner of hurdles,* and covered with the skins of animals, are at this day used, probably on account of their lightness, on a fhore abounding with coral rocks, where heavier veffels might be in danger of being dashed in pieces, by fome of the bordering nations who are accustomed to traffic along the coaft of the Arabian Gulph. Travellers, alfo, who have vifited the Icelandic Seas, affirm, that the veffels of that northern race are compofed of long poles ftrongly bound round with leathern thongs, and covered with the skins of fea-dogs, fewed together with the finews of that animal. No doubt the Cornifh coaft abounded with feals and other marine animals, whose skins might be applied to a similar purpose by the Britons; or, if not, animals by land were by no means wanting who might afford them plentiful fupplies of this kind, not only for domestic use but for exportation. The fertile island of Britain indeed feems ever to have nourished a numerous and vigorous breed of cattle, more than fufficient for the confumption of its own offspring. The ox, grown to a vast magnitude in her rich and extensive pastures, lent them his hide, an ample

Travels, vol. i. p. 269.

fhelter

fhelter and defencé from the violence of the Iwaters and the weather. The fkins of that animal, alfo, formed the covering of their reed-built huts, and of thofe large granaries of corn, laid up in the ear, for which, according to ancient authors, they were not lefs famous than their fons. Her breed of fheep, too, though neither fo numerous nor fo famous as those of modern æras, afforded the old Britons abundance of fkins for exportation: flocks of goats, however, an animal equally valued by them for its milk and its flesh, were in ancient far more abundant and cherished than in modern Britain; and it is probable that both the wool of the former, and the hair of the latter, being afterwards properly prepared, received the impreffion of the beautiful dye of Tyre. To these may be added, the innumerable fpecies of game of every kind, with which her vaft forefts were anciently ftocked, the wild boar, of delicious flavour; the red and the fallow deer, of fuperior beauty and fize; the wolf, the fox, and · beaver, valuable for their fur; and the fleet hare, equally eftimable for his flesh and his fkin; that flesh, which, according to Cæfar, was forbidden to be tafted by the old Britons, but is happily not fo by their progeny: these,

with the various kinds of the feathered race, valuable for their flavour and fine down, fo well calculated to gratify the pride and indolent luxury of the Eaft, demonftrate the treasures of this kind poffeffed by those who made this fpecies of commodity a principal object of foreign traffic.

I cannot conclude this head without an other obfervation, which naturally arises from a part of the fubject before difcuffed. When we read of these wicker boats, with their integuments of hides, of our ancestors, how is a modern Englishman tempted to smile at these first rude efforts of British mariners to navigate the ocean; who, timid, and creeping close to the fhore, little dreamed of those stupendous ftructures, in the form of ninety and one hundred gun fhips, in the womb of time to be launched on its furface by their daunt、 less posterity; much less that a numerous fleet of thefe, iffuing from the fpacious haven of Falmouth or Plymouth, would ever boldly fail to the diftant latitudes of Phoenicia itself, and roll the thunder of Britain around the fhores of that Afia to which their tin, their lead, and their fkins, were exported.

In refuming our account of the Phoenician tin-trade, the firft circumftance deferving at

VOL. VI.

tention

tention is the account given by Orofius, a learned Spanish writer of the fifth century, of an ancient Pharos of admirable workmanship, erected at Corunna, on the coaft of Galicia, in Spain; which province, it has been before obferved, lies directly oppofite, in a fouthweft direction, to Cornwall.* This Pharos is by the fame Spanish writer afferted to have been erected by Hercules, that is, the chief of the first Tyrian colony which traded to Britain, affuming the name of the founder of Tyre, and the appellation originally bestowed upon it was the ufual one given to the monuments faid to be erected by that hero, to perpetuate the memory of his progrefs and exploits, viz. COLUMNÆ, afterwards corrupted into Corunna. Orofius acquaints us, that this Pharos was there placed, ad fpeculum · Britanniæ, for the direction of fhips bound thither from Britain; and it is furely a very remarkable circumftance, that the oppofite land, confifting of a promontory running about three miles into the fea, on the Cornish, or rather Devonfhire, coaft, is called Hertland, or Hertey-Point; that is, Herculis Promontorium, or, as it may be expreffed in

* Vide Pauli Orofii adverfus Paganos Hift. lib.i. p. 17.

maritime