ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE OF AFRICA. 89 



view of the commercial voyage regularly made thither 

 from Alexandria. After passing Abyssinia, the navigators 

 sailed along a coast (that of the modern Berbera) which 

 abounded in a remarkable degree with myrrh, frankincense, 

 and other odoriferous plants. They then reached Cape 

 Aromata (Guardafui), which forms the termination of the 

 Red Sea and the entrance into the Indian Ocean. The 

 coast of Africa, in this latitude, afforded ivory in abun- 

 dance, rhinoceros' horns, and tortoise-shell, the latter of 

 which was extremely fine ; and in return for these, arms, 

 wine, and com were the most acceptable commodities. 

 The voyage terminated at a promontory and port called 

 Uhapta, a fact which of itself would show the extent c f an- 

 cient navigation in this direction, could the learned agree 

 where that town was situated; but all the names being 

 changed, and no observations of latitude having been made, 

 it is impossible to fix with certainty any one position. 

 Rhapta, according to Gosselin, was Magadoxo ; according 

 to Vossius and Vincent it was at or near Quiloa, a position 

 more than double the distance of the first from Cape Guar- 

 dafui. On this point Dr. Vincent seems clearly in the 

 right. The names are all changed, but the natural features 

 necessarily remain the same. Now the navigator is in one 

 place represented as passing successively the seven mouths 

 of a large river at short distances from each other; and 

 these cannot possibly be found any where but in the series 

 of estuaries on which Patta and Melinda are built, the prin- 

 cipal of which is that of the Quillimane, — a conclusion 

 which necessarily carries the situation of Rhapta southward 

 to Quiloa. Ptolemy, who wrote probably a century later, 

 gives the more remote position of Prasum as a promontory, 

 port, and city, to which in his time navigators were accus- 

 tomed to sail. We have no fact to guide us to the locality 

 of that town, except that it was two or three hundred miles 

 south-east from Rhapta. Gosselin makes it Brava; but 

 this is still short of the mouths of the seven rivers which 

 afford the test of this chain of positions. Dr. Vincent, 

 again, would have Prasum to be Mozambique ; but though 

 the coast runs south-east from Quiloa to Cape Delegado, 

 from this last point to Mozambique the direction is south, 

 and even a little south-west. At or near Cape Delegado, 

 therefore, must, it appears, be fixed the boundary of ancient 

 ftavigation along the eastern co st of Airica. 



