WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 1 3 



ancient and modern writers, whom for brevity's sake I do not enu- 

 merate. The famous Andalusian Spaniard Seneca, a native of Cor- 

 dova, recounts many shipwrecks in his tragedy "Medea" ; so do 

 Plato and others, as may be seen from their writings. 



31. Or else the first voyages were dehberate, with a fleet or armada, 

 to explore and settle that New World. How ancient long voyages 

 were, with flotillas across the ocean, is evident from I Kings, chap- 

 ter X, and II Chronicles, chapter IX, when Solomon sent his fleet 

 with skilled pilots and seamen, vassals of King Hiram, for gold and 

 other valuables which they brought from Ophir, or Tarshish ; in such 

 long voyages they took 3 years to go, stay, and return, sailing from 

 the port Ezion-geber of Idumaea in the Red Sea, in the strait which 

 it forms to empty into the ocean, which the pilots and seamen used 

 to navigate the same way as our fleets do. And it is certain that Solo- 

 mon, whom God enriched with the gift of wisdom and science com- 

 bined, by which he came to know the virtues and properties of all 

 herbs, stones, and other things, so that the virtues and properties of 

 the lodestone could not be hidden from him, in order to send the 

 fleets for the valuables of which Holy Scripture speaks, would teach 

 those pilots and seamen the route and how they should follow it, for 

 them to know how to make so long a voyage. This truth is confirmed 

 by the Book of Wisdom, chapter XIV : "For Thou gavest a way in 

 the sea and a most secure path between the waves" ; and in the sea 

 there can be neither path nor road, for one sees only sky and water 

 there, without acquaintance with the particular virtue and property 

 possessed by the lodestone, of looking to the N. 



32. There are many other passages in Holy Writ which confirm 

 this truth. The Chinese for their voyages used and took advantage 

 of the lodestone from time immemorial, without having learned its 

 use from Europeans, but learning from Solomon or his pilots. Later, 

 the Hebrews must have forgotten its use and their acquaintance with 

 it, what with their continual wars, trials, and captivities, and the fact 

 that they made no voyages ; that is not surprising, for many things 

 are known and later people fail to use them and they then become 

 forgotten and no longer known. So it is no cause for astonishment 

 that in European countries people were unacquainted with this special 

 virtue and property of the admirable lodestone, until Flavio, a native 

 of Amalfi, a city in the Kingdom of Naples, devised the marine com- 

 pass needle, some 300 years ago, as stated by Blondus and Mafifeo 

 Girardo ; and the fact that up to the period just mentioned, such 

 virtue was not recognized in the lodestone, does not invalidate its 

 having been known and utilized in Solomon's day. 



