Nor was the sowing and reaping any loss of time; for the monsoons in the Indian Ocean would not permit them to proceed any faster. A ship sailing from the Red Sea with the N.E. monsoon in the summer or autumn, would meet with the S. W. monsoon in the beginning of December, which must have detained her in some of the harbours on the eastern coast of Africa till the next April. During this time, in that warm climate, corn might be sown and reaped; and any other articles, either of provision or merchandise, might be taken on board. Then the N.E. monsoon would carry her to the southern parts of Africa, into the region of variable winds. This regular course and changing of the monsoons was familiarly known to the navigators of Solomon's ships, and was the cause of their spending three years in the voyage to and from Ophir. "In going and returning they changed the monsoon six times, which made thirty-six months. They needed no longer time to complete the voyage, and they could not perform it in less.”* It is not pleaded that the voyage of Necho was undertaken for the sake of commerce; if the authenticity of it were established, * Bruce's Travels, b. ii., chap. iv.

or,

that it would prove the practicability of a voyage from the Mediterranean to India round the Cape of Good Hope, by the vessels then in use and the nautical skill then acquired. The voyage of which Herodotus speaks might have been a voyage of discovery; such a one as was perfectly agreeable to the genius of the people by whom it was performed, and of the prince by whose order and at whose expense it was undertaken. "The progress of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, in their knowledge of the globe, was not owing entirely to the desire of extending their trade from one country to another. Commerce was followed by its usual effects among both those people. It awakened curiosity, enlarged the ideas and desires of men, and incited them to bold enterprises. Voyages were undertaken, the sole object of which was to "discover new countries and to explore unknown seas."* The knowledge acquired in these voyages of discovery might afterward be subservient to commerce; and though the Phoenicians might not think it convenient to circumnavigate Africa more than once, yet that they carried on a commercial intercourse with different parts of that country, and particularly with places

* Robertson's America, vol. i., p. 11, 4th edit.

situate on the eastern coast, in the Indian Ocean, we have evidence from the sacred writings. In the reign of Solomon, "the king's ships, with the servants of Hiram and the navy of Tharshish, every three years brought ivory,* apes, and peacocks, besides silver and the gold of Ophir," which is with great reason supposed to be the country now called Sofala, on the eastern coast of Africa, in the southern hemisphere, as the learned Bruce, in his late book of travels, has satisfactorily proved.

The prophet Ezekiel, who was contemporary with Necho, king of Egypt, in the account which he gives of the merchandise of Tyre, enumerates several commodities which it is well known belong to Africa, "horns of ivory and ebony, and the persons of men."+ We may form some idea of the strength and materials of the ships of the Tyrians, and of their skill in navigation, from the following passages in his apostrophe to Tyrus. "They have made all thy ship-boards of fir-trees of Senir; they have taken cedars of Lebanon to make masts for thee; of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars. Thy wise men,

* 2 Chron., viii., 18; ix., 21.

+ Ezekiel, chap. xxvii., ver. 13, 15.

O Tyrus, were thy pilots. The ancients of Gebal, the wise men thereof, were thy calkers. The ships of Tharshish did sing of thee; thou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas; thy rowers have brought thee into great waters." Though we have no particular description of the size or model of their ships, yet they certainly had masts, sails, and oars; their pilots and calkers were wise men, and they were not afraid to sail in great waters, by which is probably meant the Ocean, in distinction from the Mediterranean.

Of the form and structure of the Grecian vessels we have a more particular knowledge. "They were of inconsiderable burden, and mostly without decks. They had only one mast, and were strangers to the use of anchors."* But then it must be remembered that "the Phoenicians, who instructed the Greeks in other useful arts, did not communicate to them that extensive knowledge of navigation which they themselves possessed."+ We may hence conclude that the ships of the Phoenicians were superior to the Grecian vessels; and we have no evidence, from the structure of their vessels or their mode of sailing, to warrant a doubt of the * Robertson's America, vol. i., p. 15. + Ibid., p. 14. VOL. I.-D

ability of their ships or seamen to perform a voyage round the Continent of Africa in three years.

To a European theorist such a voyage may seem less practicable than to an American. The Europeans have usually employed none but ships of great burden in their trade to India and China; but, since the Americans have visited those countries, sloops of fifty or sixty tons have sailed round the Cape of Good Hope to China, and round Cape Horn to the northwest coast of America, and across the North Pacific Ocean. If any doubt can yet remain, it may be entirely removed by the recollection of a voyage performed in the year 1789 by Lieutenant Bligh, of the British navy; who, being turned adrift by his mutinous crew, traversed the South Pacific Ocean, above twelve hundred leagues, in a boat of twenty-three feet long, without a deck, in much stormy weather, with scanty provisions; and, having passed many dangerous rocks and shoals, among unknown islands, arrived in forty-one days at a Dutch settlement in Timor, one of the Moluccas.* The objections, then, against the reality of Necho's voyage, from the size and structure See the printed narrative by Lieut. Bligh.