Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1918-12-18
THE MOST FASCINATING
BOOKS OF ALL.

nave never D0Su WIltlOn NdnO liACy
are still the most fascinating of ALL
| think my favorite is Professor So
and Sos History of Trade Routes
from the Earliest Tines magn1f1-
cent treatise, incomplete in three
volumes. The title may not allure
you; possibly you suspect it of pro-
missing as much dullness as the title
of this lecture, and it is even con-
ceivable that you secretly extend
your mistrust to professors as a
class. Well, concerning us, as men,
you may be right: the accusation has
been leveled: but l shall try to per-
suade you that you are mistaken
about the book.
Now few examples. Take the
secret of the famous purple that was
used to dye the emperor's robe. AS
Browning asked, Who fished the
Murex up?" How did they reach the
dyeing vat? What was the process?
Was the trade monopoly? Again,
you remember that navy of Tarshish,
which came once in three years
bringing Solomon gold and silver,
ivory and apes and peacocks. Who
would not wish to read one of it's
bills of lading, to construct picture
of the quays as the vessels freighted
or discharged their cargo? AS who
would not eagerly read a description
OF that lumberer's camp on Leban-
on to which Solomon sent ten thous-
and men month by courses: "a
month they were in Lebanon, and
two months at home: and Adoniram
was over the levy? The conditions,
Won coo must I1ouo hooY bor6 Al q
cOrvee was enormous.
Yet Where lay the famous
tin islands, Cassiterides? How were
the great ingots of Cornish tin de-
livered down to the coast and shipp ed
on to Marseilles, Carthage Tyre?
We know that they were shaped pam
nierwise, and carried by ponies. But
where was the island of Ictis, where
the ships received them? Our latest
theorists will not allow it to have
been St. Michael's Mt.-the nearest
of all, and the most obviously CORE
spondent with the historians de-
scription.
For what other hidden port of
trade was that Phenician skipper
bound who, held in chase off the
Lands End by Roman galley and
desperate of cheating her, deliber-
ately tradition tells) drove his ship
ashore to save his merchants Sc
cret? Through what phases, before
this, has run and shifted the CONNER
cial struggle between young Greece
and ancient PhRnicia imaged for us
in Mathew Arnold's famous simile
"As some grave Tyrian trader, from
the sea,
Deserted at sunrise an emerging
prov
Lifting the cool-hair's creepers
stealthily,
The fringes of a southward-fac-
ing brow
Among the Egean isles
And saw the merry Grecian coaster
come,
Freighted with amber grapes, :.
Green bursting figs, and tunnies
sttep'd in brine;
And knew the intruders on his an
Gent home,
"The young, light-hearted masters of
the waves;
And snatched his rudder, and
shook out more SAIL
And day and night held on in
dignantly
Ger the blue Midland waters with
the gale,
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sic
lily,
To where the Atlantic raves
Outside the Western Straits, and
unbent sails
There, where down cloudy cliffs,
through sheets of foam,
Gbu fro IF oly orc day1y Tl1or
ianS come;
And on the beach undid his corded
bales"
What commerce followed the cut
ting of Rome's great military roads 2
that tremendous one, for instance,
hewn along the cliffs close over the
rapids that swirl through the Iron
Gates of Danube. BY what caravan
tracks, through what depots, did the
great slave traffic wind up and out of
Africa and reach the mart at Con-
stantinOple? What sort of men work
ed goods down the Rhone Valley; and
If by water, by what contrivances?
To come little later, how did the
Crusaders handle transport and COM
missariat? Through and along what
line OF entrepOts did Venice, Genoa,
Seville ply their immense venture?
Why, and on what instance, and how,
did England and Flanders come to
supply Europe, the one with wool,
the other with fine linen and naper-
ies!-From "The Commerce of
Thought" lecture by Sir Arthur
Quiller-Couch.
A NEW GERMANY.
The old system in Germany, if not
Irnf dnrA, 80. Il. =.