and bid the Reader, too, farewell. Truly, we would end here this Book of Khalid were it not that the greater part of the most important material in the K.L. MS. is yet intact, and the more interesting portion of Shakib’s History is yet to come. Our readers, though we do not think they are sorry for having come out with us so far, are at liberty either to continue with us, or say goodbye. But for the Editor there is no choice. What we have begun we must end, unmindful of the influence, good or ill, of the Zodiacal Signs under which we work.
“Our Phoenician ancestors,” says Khalid, “never left anything they undertook unfinished.
Consider what they accomplished in their days, and the degree of culture they attained. The most beautiful fabrications in metals and precious stones were prepared in Syria. Here, too, the most important discoveries were made: namely, those of glass and purple.
As for me, I can not understand what the Murex trunculus is; and I am not certain if scholars and archaeologists, or even mariners and fishermen, will ever find a fossil of that particular species. But murex or no murex, Purple was discovered by my ancestors. Hence the purple passion, that is to say the energy and intensity which coloured everything they did, everything they felt and believed.
For whether in bemoaning Tammuz, or in making tear-bottles, or in trading with the Gauls and Britons, the Phoenicians were the same superstitious, honest, passionate, energetic people. And do not forget, you who are now enjoying the privilege of setting down your thoughts in words, that on these shores of Syria written language received its first development.
“It is also said that they discovered and first navigated the Atlantic Ocean, my Phoenicians; that they worked gold mines in the distant isle of Thasos and opened silver mines in the South and Southwest of Spain.