6 
Pheenician seamen, and the circumstances which Herodotus 
records of the voyage leaves no doubt of its having actually been 
performed. The Carthaginians visited the Canary Islands,* which 
were the Insulz Beata of the Romans; and here Ptolemy, the Geo- 
grapher, placed his first meridian, as the most westerly land that 
was known. The Periplus of Hanno is an authentic record of 
the naval skill of this great commercial nation, and shews. us, in 
connexion with other documents in existence, that the state of na- 
vigation among the ancients was not such as to render a voyage 
across the Atlantic utterly impracticable; nor so imperfect as to 
make it impossible for any who were accidentally driven on the 
American coast ever to have returned to Europe. 
I shall next adduce the testimonies. of ancient authors, as to the 
existence of a remote people westward of all the nations with whom 
they had ordinary intercourse, and of, land far beyond the straits of 
Gibraltar. Homer mentions two nations or tribes of Ethiopians, one 
as far under the setting as the other was under the rising sun; Strabo, 
who gives the opinions of several writers on this passage, thinks 
that this divsion was occasioned by the Red Sea, and that the 
nations alluded to dwelt on its eastern and western shores; Herodotus 
also mentions, among the armies of Xerxes, tribes of Eastern and 
Western Ethiopians.+ Yet, after all, it may be doubted whether a 
writer, who showed the accurate knowlege of geography which 
Homer did, would have thus described the residence of the border- 
ers on the Red Sea in their geographical position with respect to 
Greece :— < 
Aibioraus, rot diybe dedaieercs eryaros cvdcwy, 
% x Is 
O} wer ducomeve umegiovos, of 0 cuovros—ODYSS. A. 
3 
. 
* Plin. Hist. Natur. Lib. vi.—32. + Lid. vil. 
