STUDY XT. 349 



Thus it was that the early mariners performed 

 their voyages, and that the Phenicians, employed 

 by Nechoy King of Egypt, made the circuit of 

 Africa in three years, departing by way of the 

 Red-Sea, and returning by the Mediterranean, 

 according to the account given of it by Herodotus** 



The firft Navigators, when they no longer favv 

 iflands in the Horizon, paid attention to the feeds 

 which the Sea caft upon the fhore of thofe where 

 they were, and to the flight of the birds which 

 were withdrawing from it. On the faith of thefe 

 indications, they directed their courfe toward lands 

 they had never yet feen. Thus were difcovered the 

 immenfe Archipelago of the Moluccas, the Iflands 

 of Guam, of Quiros, of the Society, and, un- 

 doubtedly, many others which are dill unknown 

 to us. There was not one but what invited them 

 to land, by prefenting fome attractive accommo- 

 dation. Some ftretched out along the waves like 

 Nereids, poured from their urns, rills of freih 

 water into the Sea : it was thus that the Ifland of 

 Juan Fernandez, with it's rocks and cafcades, pre- 

 fented itfelf to Admiral An/on, in the midft of the 

 South -Sea. Others, on the contrary, in the fame 

 Ocean, having their centres funk, and their extre- 

 mities elevated, and crowned with cocoa-trees, of- 



* Herodotus, book iv. 



fer 



