114 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. i. 



So far, we have clear historical evidence to guide us in our 

 researches. Not less clear and certain (though less numerous) 

 are the accounts of the Phenician navigation, down the Ara- 

 bian gulph, or Red sea, to distant parts of Asia and Africa, 

 in ages still more remote than those that have been mentioned. 

 In the voyages undertaken by king Solomon, he employed the 

 ships and mariners of that adventurous and commercial people. 

 Wjth their assistance he fitted out fleets from Ezion-gcber, a 

 port of the Red sea, supposed to be the Berenice of the Greeks. 

 Of those ships, some were bound for the western coast of the 

 great Indian continent ; others, there is reason to believe, 

 turning towards Africa, passed the southern promontory, and 

 returned home by the iMediterranean to the port of Joppa. 



In support of this account of the flourishing state of ancient 

 navigation in the Arabian gulph, we have, first of all, the 

 highest authority to refer to; that of the Scriptures. Next to 

 which we may rank the testimony of Herodotus, the father of 

 profane history : the truth of whose well-known relation of a 

 Phenician fleet doubling the cape of Good Hope six hundred 

 years before the birth of Christ, was never disputed, I believe, 

 until our learned countryman, the author of the late American 

 History, delivered it as his opinion, that " all the information 

 " we have received from the Greek and Roman authors, of 

 " the Phenician and Carthaginian voyages, excepting only the 

 " short narrative of Hanno's expedition before mentioned, is 

 " of suspicious authority. "[[ 



I shall quote from Herodotus the passage alluded to, that 

 the reader may judge for himself of the veracity of the venera- 

 ble old Grecian. It is as follows. " Libya is every where en- 

 " circled by the sea, except on that side where it adjoins to 



fj Robertson's History of America, vol. i. p. 9. 



