VOYAGES OF THE ANCIENTS. 55 



Europe or Affricke in times past, have bin driven by foule LlB - 

 weather, and cast vpon vnknowne lands beyond the Ocean. 

 Who knoweth not that most, or the greatest part of the 

 Regions in this newe world, were discovered by this meanes, 

 the which we must rather attribute to the violence of the 

 weather then to the spirit and Industrie of those which 

 have discovered. And to the end we may know that it is 

 not in our time onely that they have vndertaken such voiages, 

 through the greatnesse of our shippes, and the valour and 

 courage of our men, we may reade in Plinie that many of 

 the Ancients have made the like voyages, he writes in this 

 manner : ( It is reported that Caius Csesar, sonne to ; 

 Augustus Ctesar, having charge vpon the Arabian Sea, did 

 there see and finde certaine pieces and remainders of 

 Spanish shippes that had perished.&quot; And after he saith : 

 &quot;Nepos reportes of the Northerne circuite, that they 

 brought to Quintus Metellus Ceeler, companion in the 

 Consulship to Caius Affranius (the same Metellus being 

 then Proconsull in Gaule) certaine Indians which had beene 

 presented by the King of Suevia; the which Indians, 

 sailing from India, for their trafficke, were cast vpon 

 Germanie by force of tempest.&quot; Doubtles, if Plinie speaketh 

 truth, the Portugales in these daies, saile no further then ; 

 they did in those two shipwrackes, the one from Spaine to 

 the Red Sea, the other from the East Indies to Germanie. 

 The same Author writes in another place that a servant of 

 Annius Plocanius, who farmed the customes of the Red Sea, 

 sailing the course of Arabia, there came so furious a 

 Northerne wind, that in fifteene daies he passed Caramania 

 and discovered Hippuros, a port in Taprobane, which at 

 this day we call Sumatra. And they report of a shippe of 

 Carthage, which was driven out of the Mediterranean Sea 

 by a Northerne wind, to the view of this new world. The 

 which is no strange thing to such as have any knowledge of 

 the sea, to know that sometimes a storme continues long 



