8 AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY. 



withstanding apparent contradictions, bring us to the same result, and fix the 

 limit of his voyage near Cape Non, or Cape Bajador. 1 



The next expedition is that of some Phoenicians, whom Pharaoh Necho, about 

 604 B. C, dispatched from a port in the Red Sea, with orders to return through 

 the Pillars of Hercules. This they are said to have accomplished in somewhat less 

 than three years. The account in Herodotus is quite circumstantial, and, although 

 much controverted, is received as correct by Humboldt, who cites Rennell, Heeren, 

 Sprengel, and a more recent writer of great repute, Etienne Quatremere, in its favor, 

 and adds that the command of Necho implies a previous knowledge of the possi- 

 bility of such a navigation. 2 It is stated, moreover, by Pliny, from Cornelius 

 Nepos, that one Eudoxus, a great sailor, in the reign of Cleopatra, " at the time he 

 fled from King Lathyrus, departed out of the Arabian Gulf, and held on his course 

 as far as Gades" (Gibraltar). Not much weight, however, is given to this story by 

 reliable authorities. 3 



It will be seen that, if it is once admitted that Phoenicians, Carthaginians, or 

 Tyrians, actually sailed around Africa, their knowledge of the islands opposite to 

 its western shores may be presumed, as they would almost of necessity be driven 

 near them by the well-known courses of the winds. By the same means, in case 

 of a tempest, they might be carried still further to the westward, and to the Amer- 

 ican coast. It was thus that Brazil was discovered in A. D. 1500, by Pedro 

 Cabral, while on his way from Portugal to the East Indies. A fact, which, like 

 the wreck of a Japanese junk at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1833, sub- 

 stantiates the possibility of such occurrences in more ancient times. 4 It was on the 

 coast of Brazil that the Pilot, who is alleged to have preceded Columbus in the 

 passage of the Atlantic, was by some reported to have been cast. 



And this brings us to the last class of narratives, viz : those which are adduced 

 to show that Columbus was not entitled to the credit of original discovery, but may 

 have been indebted to other navigators who preceded him for a knowledge of the 

 existence of western lands far beyond the limits of ordinary communication. 



Many persons find it difficult to realize that things so simple, as great truths uni- 



1 Irving's Colunib. III., Appendix No. 14. a Cosmos, II. 127, note. 



8 Reinholdt Foster says : " The Phoenicians sent out for the purpose, by the Egyptian king and con- 

 queror, Sesostris, and his father, Amasis I., gradually discovered the coasts of all Africa. 



The third epocha of the circumnavigation of Africa fell in the time of Solomon, nearly five hundred 

 years later. Three hundred and eighty years after this Necho gave orders for the circumnavigation of 

 Africa to be performed; and, in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes II., one Eudoxus sailed once more 

 round Africa, which is four hundred and fifty years later than the voyage of Necho ; and yet, in Strabo's 

 time, many people doubted of the possibility of making the tour of Africa by sea." — Voyages and Dis- 

 coveries in the North, p. 7, n. 



See also Jeremy Belknap's Dissertation on the Circumnavigation of Africa by the Ancients, attached 

 in his Discourse in Commemoration of the Discovery of America by Columbus, before the Massachu- 

 setts Historical Society, Oct. 23, 1792. 



* Gumilla, in his History of Orinoco, states that, in December, 1731, a batteau, from Teneriffe, bound 

 lor the Canaries, was driven upon the South American coast, near the month of the Orinoco. Tome 

 II. p. 208 



