2«<«s.vi.135.,jult3i."58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



81 



LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY3\, 1858, 



OTH THE SUPPOSED CIKCUMNAVIGATIOK OP AFRICA 

 IN ANTIQUITY. 



(Concluded from p. 64.) 



AYhatever may be the authenticity of the Per- 

 sian expedition under the command of Scylax, it 

 is certain that the ancients had, at an early period, 

 navin;ated the Red Sea. They were acquainted 

 with the island of Socotra, which they called Dios- 

 coridis Insula ; and the Periplus of the Eryth- 

 raean sea, attributed to Arrian, which was com- 

 posed in the first century of our era, describes the 

 southern coast of that gulf as far as the north- 

 eastern promontory of Africa (Cape Guardafuy). 

 From this point the description of the eastern 

 coast of Africa is carried, according to Gossellin, 

 as far as the island of Magadasko, in lat. 2° N. ; 

 but according to Dr. Vincent (vol. ii. pp. 178- 

 180.), who is followed by C. Miiller, in his recent 

 edition, as far as the island of Zanguebar, in lat. 

 6° S. " Beyond this point (says the Periplus) 

 the ocean is unexplored ; but it is known to turn 

 to the west, and, stretching away along the south 

 towards the regions of Ethiopia, Libya, and Africa 

 on the opposite side, to unite with the western sea" 

 (§ 18. ed. C. Miiller; Vincent, ib. p. 186.). 



Such being the geographical limits which the 

 knowledge of Africa possessed by the ancients can 

 be ascertained to have reached, the question re- 

 mains whether the accounts of the entire circum- 

 navigation of this continent in the single cases 

 above adverted to are worthy of belief. 



In the first place, the story of the Magus re- 

 ported by Heraclides Ponticus may, with Posido- 

 nius, be safely rejected ; neither is any credit due 

 to the merchant who assured Caelius Antipater 

 that he had sailed round Africa. These stories 

 doubtless did not rest on any firmer basis of 

 reality than the exploit of Menelaus, whose voyage 

 of eight years, mentioned in the Odyssey, — in 

 which he visited the ^Ethiopians, the Sidonians, 

 the Erembi, and Libya, — was interpreted by one 

 of the ancients as referring to a circumnavigation 

 of Africa from the Pillars of Hercules to the In- 

 dian Ocean (Strab. i. 2. 31. Compare Od. iv. 

 84.). 



The account of Eudoxus of Cyzicus was ac- 

 cepted by Posidonius ; but it is discredited on 

 sufficient grounds by Strabo, who subjects it to a 

 detailed examination (ii. 3. 5.). The story of the 

 Gnditanc prow found on the eastern coast of 

 Africa, and identified by a ship-captain as belong- 

 ing to a particular vessel, is an evident fabrication, 

 renting on the erroneous belief that the distance 

 between the coasts of Abyssinia and Morocco is 

 inconsiderable. This seems to have been a fa- 



vourite mode of proving the circumnavigation of 

 Africa; for Pliny states that when Caius Csesar 

 (Agrippa), the son of Augustus, was in the Red 

 Sea (during his command in Asia Minor), a part 

 of a wreck was found there, which was recognised 

 as belonging to a Spanish ship (ii. 67.). It should 

 be added that, according to Cornelius Nepos, Eu- 

 doxus effected the entire circumnavigation from 

 the Red Sea to Gades ; which is not affirmed in 

 the detailed narrative of Posidonius. In like 

 manner Pliny states that Hanno sailed round 

 Africa as far as Arabia (ii. 67.) : whereas his ex- 

 tant account shows that he made no great progress 

 along the western coast. 



There remains only the account of the expedi- 

 tion in the time of Neco, given by Herodotus. 

 This account has attracted much attention, and 

 has been considered credible by many modern 

 writers (see Gossellin, ih. vol. i. p. 199.), particu- 

 larly by Major Rennell, Geogr. Syst. of Herod., 

 vol. ii. p. 348. ed. 2. ; Prof. Heeren, Ideen, i. 2. pp. 

 79-85. ; and, lastly, by Mr. Grote, Hist, of Gr., 

 vol. iii. pp. 377-385. Before we yield to the argu- 

 ments advanced by critics of such high authority, 

 we must give due weight to the circumstances 

 which detract from the credibility of the narra- 

 tive of Herodotus. JMany of these are stated by 

 Gossellin, who, in the first volume of his work 

 on ancient geography, has subjected this question 

 to a systematic investigation. The objections to 

 it are, however, set forth with the greatest force 

 and completeness by Dr. Vincent in his valuable 

 work already cited (vol. ii. pp. 186-205.). See also 

 Ukert, i. 1. p. 46.; ii. 2. p. 35.; Forbiger, vol. i. 

 p. 64. ; and the art. Libya in Dr. Smith's Diet, 

 of Anc. Geogr., vol. ii. p. 177. 



In the first place, it must be remarked that the 

 interval between the last year of the reign of 

 Neco and the birth of Herodotus was 117 years ; 

 and therefore that at least a century and a half 

 must have elapsed between the time of the sup- 

 posed voyage and the time when Herodotus col- 

 lected materials for his history. The reign of 

 Neco is contemporary with Pittacus and Perian- 

 der, and is anterior to the legislation of Solon ; 

 it is a period as to which our knowledge even of 

 Greek history is faint and imperfect ; and we are 

 not entitled to suppose that the tradition of such 

 an event in Egyptian history, resting doubtless on 

 oral repetition, could have reached Hprodotus in 

 an accurate shape. No pai'ticulars are given as to 

 the persons who commanded the expedition, or as 

 to the number or character of the ships concerned ; 

 and we are not informed how the difficulties which 

 must have surrounded such an enterprise were 

 overcome. 



The general system of navigation in antiquity, 

 whether the vessel was impelled by sails or by 

 oar.s, was to keep close to the shore, and never to 

 venture into the open sea, except in order to 



