Page 132 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

ot the bowstring. And on a belt at their waists they each wear a
broad-bladed bronze dagger. Among the buckskin-clad and

stone-armed crowd the newcomers in their woven finery and
weapons of bronze stand out like beings from another world.

And then the main party arrives, a train of covered oxcarts
and of pack asses. They are the first donkeys that many of

the northerners have seen, and they arouse excited comment,
until it is stilled by the sight of the goods being unloaded, with

carefully casual ostentation—and under a strict guard of bow­
men. As they see bolts of cloth and skins of wine, and finally

bundles of bronze daggers disappearing into the newly pitched
tents, the traders of stone axes at last realize the competition that

they are faced with, and, as one man, they turn their backs and
make for their tents to discuss their tactics in the face of this

new threat to their livelihood.
The apprentices whom they leave to keep a watch on the

newcomers are less troubled, though more excited, and they dis­

cuss among themselves whether the dark strangers can be real
Egyptians. But the middle-aged traders—they are the same men
who as apprentices had seen the consecration of Stonehenge—

know better. They have heard of the activities of the new trading

companies from Spain, and guess that the caravan has been sent
from one of the newly established trade posts in central France.

It is a bad market for the ax traders. Though they have with
one accord reduced their prices, and do a deal of trade among

the poorer farmers, the bulk of the trade goes to the beaker peo­
ple. (That is our name for the Spanish traders, for they used, and

were buried with, richly ornamented bell-shaped drinking cups
of pottery.) For the prices demanded by the new traders,

though high, are not extravagant, and they know just what they
want in exchange, furs and semiprecious stones such as jet and

amber and the local callais. They have even set up a forge, and

two bronzesmiths work there all day long, producing daggers
or bracelets to order, or, for a consideration, resmelting and re­
casting such bronze as the community has got hold of in earlier

years.