EARLY ARAB NAVIGATION. 103 



be regarded with much doubt, if not to be wholly denied. 

 Even, however, if we concede the credit of this greatT 

 achievement to the Celestials, there still remains the 

 problem of how to account for the (necessarily assumed) 

 transmission of intelligence concerning the compass from 

 them to the western nations. The limited extent of their 

 voyages, due to their ignorance of geography, navigation 

 and seamanship, militates in advance against any hypoth- 

 esis of direct communication by the arrival of a Chinese 

 junk in a western port; and, in fact, that supposition is 

 seldom ventured. Perhaps the most favored theory is that 

 the Arabs, during the i2th century, brought the instrument 

 from China to the Mediterranean. 1 It is probably true that 

 Arab travelers found their way into China long before any 

 Europeans did so; and it is said that the knowledge of silk 

 was by this means brought to the western world during the 

 latter period of the Abbasides, and fully five hundred years 

 before Marco Polo's famous voyage. 2 The discovery of 

 ancient Chinese oil bottles, bearing on them quotations 

 from the Chinese poets, in Egypt and Asia Minor, is 

 considered proof of commercial connection between the 

 Arabs and Chinese, prior to the middle of the I3th century. 3 

 And the known fact that Arabian vessels did constantly 

 sail from the Persian Gulf to the Chinese coast, has been 

 deemed in itself sufficiently indicative of the presence of 

 the compass, without which so long a voyage, it is argued, 

 could not be made. 



But the greater strength appears to lie in the considera- 

 tions which support the opposite conclusion. I have already 

 pointed out the structural weakness of the Arabian ships and 

 their unsuitable construction for ocean navigation/ Con- 

 sequently, their long voyages to China were always along 



1 Klaproth, (L' Invention de la Boussole) and Humboldt, (Cosmos) both 

 so argue, and most cyclopaedias follow them. 



2 Peschel : Races of Man, 363. 



3 Williams: The Middle Kingdom, ii.. 27. 

 4 Azuni : Dissert, sur la Boussole (cit. snp ) 



