500 COSMOS. 



constructed at the Red Sea, and Hiram supplied him 

 with experienced Phoenician seamen, and Tyrian vessels, 

 "ships of Tarshish."* 4 The articles of commerce which 

 were brought from Ophir, were gold, silver, sandal -wood (al- 

 gummin), precious stones, ivory, apes (kophim), and peacocks 

 (thukkiim). These are not Hebrew but Indian names.f 



* On the question whether ships of Tarshish mean ocean ships, or 

 whether, as Michaelis contends, they have their name from the Phoeni- 

 cian Tarsus, in Cilicia? see Keil, op. cit., s. 7, 15-22, and 71-84. 



f Gesenius, Thesaurus Linguae Hebr., t. i. p. 141; and the same in 

 the Encycl. of Ersch and Gruber, sect. iii. th. iv. s. 401 ; Lassen, Ind. Al- 

 tertJmmskunde, bd. i. s. 538 ; Keinaud, Relation des Voyages fails par 

 les Arabes dans I'Inde et en Chine, t. i. 1845, p. xxviii. The learned 

 Quatremere, who, in a very recently published treatise (Mem. de I'Acad. 

 des Inscriptions, t. xvi. pt. 2, 1845, pp. 349--402), still maintains with 

 Heeren, that Ophir is the east coast of Africa, has explained the woixl 

 thukkiim (thukkiyyim) as parrots, or Guinea-fowls, and not peacocks (p. 

 375). Regarding Sokotora, compare Bohlen, Das alte Indien, th. ii. s. 

 139, with Benfey, Indien, s. 30-32. Sofala is described by Edrisi (in 

 Ame"dee Jaubert's translation, t. i. p. 67), and subsequently by the 

 Portuguese, after Gama's voyage of discovery (Barros, Dec. 1 liv. 

 x. cap. i.; pt. ii. p. 375; Kiilb, Geschichte der Entdeckungsreisen, 

 th. i. 1841, s. 236), as a country rich in gold. I have elsewhere 

 drawn attention to the fact that Edrisi, in the middle of the twelfth 

 century, speaks of the application of quicksilver in the gold-washings 

 of -the negroes of this district, as a long known process of amalga- 

 mation. When we bear in mind the great frequency of the interchange of 

 r and I, we find that the name of the East African Sofala is perfectly re- 

 presented by that of Sophara, which is used with several other forms, in the 

 version of the Septuagint, for the Ophir of Solomon and Hiram. Ptolemy 

 also, as has been already noticed, was acquainted with a Sapphara, in 

 Arabia (Ritter, Asien, bd. viii. 1, 1846, s. 252), and a Supara in India. 

 The significant (Sanscrit) names of the mother country had been con- 

 ferred on neighbouring or opposite coasts, as we find, under similar 

 relations in the present day, in the Spanish and English parts of Ame- 

 rica. The trade to Ophir might thus, according to my view, be extended 

 in the same manner as a Phoenician expedition to Tartessus might touch 

 at Gyrene and Carthage, Gadeira and Cerne; and as one to the Cassi- 

 terides might touch at the Artabrian, British, and East Cimbrian coasts. 

 It is, nevertheless, remarkable, that incense, spices, silk, and cotton 

 cloth are not named among the wares from Ophir, together with ivory, 

 apes, and peacocks. The latter are exclusively Indian, although, on ac- 

 count of their gradual extension to the west, they were frequently 

 termed by the Greeks " Median and Persian birds :" the Samians even 

 supposed them to have belonged originally to Samos, on account of their 

 being reared by the priests in the sanctuary of Hera. From a pat- 



