Thus, his Excellency, complaining of the times, regretting his losses, cursing America and its Gold Mines; and having done, drops the narghile tube from his hand and dozes on the divan.
“I muse meanwhile on Time, who sees in a citadel of the ancient Phoenicians, after many thousand years, that same propensity for gold, that same instinct for trade.
The Phoenicians worked gold mines in Thrace, and the Syrians, their descendants, are working gold mines in America. But are we as daring, as independent, as honest?
I am not certain, however, if those Phoenicians had anything to do with bubbles. My friend Sanchuniathon writes nothing on the subject. History records not a single instance of a goldmine bubble in Thrace, or a silver ditto in Africa.
Apart from this, have we, the descendants of those honest Phoenicians, any of their inventive skill and bold initiative?
They taught other nations the art of shipbuilding; we can not as much as learn from other nations the art of building a gig.
They transmitted to the people of the West a knowledge of mathematics, weights, and measures; we can not as much as weigh or measure the little good Europe is transmitting to us.
They always fought bravely against their conquerors, always gave evidence of their love of independence; and we dare not raise a finger or whisper a word against the red Tyrant by whom we are degraded and enslaved.