n6 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. i. 



with which the venerable historian expresses himself, is re- 

 markable : and the circumstance, that the voyagers observed 

 the meridian sun on the north, in sailing round Libya, which 

 seemed an impossibility at a time when all between the tropics 

 was deemed uninhabitable, is of itself decisive of the main 

 fact.]; 



Dr. Robertson has shewn, it is true, that many historians 

 and geographers of antiquity, who lived long after the days of 

 Herodotus, knew nothing concerning the form and state of 

 the southern parts of Africa. He observes particularly that 

 Ptolemy, the astronomer, supposed that this great continent 

 stretched without interruption to the South Pole. All this 

 however only demonstrates, that navigation, like many other 

 branches of science, flourished in one age, and declined in 

 another. Herodotus lived four hundred years before the birth 

 of our Saviour, and Ptolemy one hundred and forty years after. 

 Ancient history abundantly proves, that the Phenicians, and 

 their successors the Carthaginians, possessed far greater skill 

 in naval affairs than the Greeks, Romans, or any other na-r 

 tion that came after them, until the spirit of naval discovery 

 revived, and shone \vith greater lustre than ever, in the fif- 

 teenth century. 



From this recapitulation, which I have thought necessary to 

 make, .though the substance of it may be found in a thou- 

 sand different authors, (commonly blended indeed with much 

 learned absurdity and frivolous conjecture], the reader will 

 clearly perceive, that the navigation of the Atlantic ocean, along 

 the coast of Africa, both from the north and the south, and 

 even at a considerable distance from the land, was well under- 

 stood and prevailed in very remote ages. Now, if we enquire 



', 



% This voyage was performed about two thousand one hundred years 

 Before that of Vasquez de Gama in 14.97. 



