Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1890-05-29

idea that there coulu De Sucn lofty
mountains under the equator, but
Stanley, in his now famous march to
the sea-" skirted the foot of range of
snow-clad mountains, called by him
Ruwenzori, from whose streams is
formed the newly discovered Lake AL
bert Edward, the EXTREMIST source of
the Nile.
So Herodotus, the Father of History,
repeatedly asserted that the Pheni-
clans thought that they originally came
from the Erythr@an Sea or Persian
Gulf. This statement modern schol-
ars have found very difficult to believe
the writer's of the article Phenicia
in the last edition of the Encyclopedias
Britannica style it "a mere blunder.
An English traveller, however, has very
recently made discoveries in the Bah
rein Islands in the Persian Gulf which
render it almost certain that the great
historian was right,
These islands are small group ly'
ing about twenty miles off the Arabian
coast, and were formerly of great com
mercial Importance. The inhabitants.
besides possessing pearl fishery
which was noted in the days of Alex
ander the Great, and now produces
the finest pearls in the world, carried
on an important trade with Arabia an6
Persia. This they have almost entirely
lost but with the construction of the
Euphrates Railway it will doubtless
spring up again,
One of the two principal towns has
q singular water-supply in a spring
which at high water is six feet below
the surface of the sea. water il
brought up either by divers who &c
down with skins, or by pushing a hol
low bamboo down into it. At low tide
there is very little water over it, anG
women with large amphorm and goat
skins, which look very real and life
like, though headless, wade out anG
fetch what water they require" The
Arabs believe that this and severai
other similar springs on the coast come
from the Euphrates, which they thinl
flows beneath the Persian Gulf in ar
underground channel, legend as ole
as the days of Pliny.
In the northern part of the largest
island, which is twenty-seven miles
long by ten broad, there is very re
markable collection of sepulchrai
mounds, covering an area of many
miles. Some of these are elevated
only few feet above the level of the
desert. Others are more than forty
feet high, and about four hundred feet
in circumference. Several of these
have recently been excavated by Mr.
j. Theodore Bent, well-known Eng
lish traveller who has given an account
of his discoveries to the Royal Geo
graphical Society.
He says that they consist of tive
chambers, the one above the other, az
is the case with some Phnnician tomb.
just uncovered in ancient Cartharge
In the upper chamber of one which ht
examined were the bones of an animal
presumably horse, and innumerabl,
fragments of ivory-boxes, ornaments
bits of small statues. Many of these
fragments were ornamented with pat
terms which bear close and unmis
taxable resemblance to ivories found
in Phenician tombs on the Mediter
ranean. Our readers will doubtless
remember that King Solomon got ivory
by means of the ships of Hiram, the
Phenician king of Tyre.
LhC lOMCl Ndo CuIt
fully constructed than the upper, and
contained human bones together with
the remains of drapery which had been
hung around the walls, another Phe'
nician custom. The ivory fragments
have been deposited in the British
Museum, and one of the officials has
recently publicly said that "as far as
the evidence went at present, he
thought the Museum authorities were
prepared to admit that the Bahreis Isl
ands probably represented primitive
site of the Phoenician race"
This probable confirmation of the
statement of Herodotus is certainly
more satisfactory than the favorite oc
cupation of some modern writer's, the
proving the falsity of stories which
have always been confidently believed
such stories, for instance, as that o
the Swiss hero, William Tell.