The Hot Swamp

CHAPTER ONE.

A ROMANCE OF OLD ALBION.

OPENS WITH LEAVE-TAKING.

Nearly two thousand seven hundred years ago--or somewhere about eight
hundred years BúCú--there dwelt a Phoenician sea-captain in one of the
eastern sea-ports of Greece--known at that period, or soon after, as
Hellas.

This captain was solid, square, bronzed, bluff, and resolute, as all
sea-captains are--or ought to be--whether ancient or modern. He owned,
as well as commanded, one of those curious vessels with one mast and a
mighty square-sail, fifty oars or so, double-banked, a dragon's tail in
the stern and a horse's head at the prow, in which the Phoenicians of
old and other mariners were wont to drive an extensive and lucrative
trade in the Mediterranean; sometimes pushing their adventurous keels
beyond the Pillars of Hercules, visiting the distant Cassiterides or Tin
Isles, and Albion, and even penetrating northward into the Baltic, in
search of tin, amber, gold, and what not.

One morning this captain, whose name was Arkal, sauntered up from the
harbour to his hut, which stood on a conspicuous eminence overlooking
the bay. His hands were not thrust into his pockets, because he had no
pockets to put them into--the simple tunic of the period being destitute
of such appendages. Indeed, the coarse linen tunic referred to
constituted the chief part of his costume, the only other portions being
a pair of rude shoes on his feet, a red fez or tarbouche on his bushy
brown locks, and yards of something wound round his lower limbs to
protect them from thorns on shore, as well as from the rasping of
cordage and cargo at sea.