TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 451 
Arabia, whether we call them Sabzeans or Himyarites, can doubt that the former 
were mainly the work of men coming from Arabia at a very early date, while the 
period of time necessary to carry out ‘gold- -mining operations over the large areas 
now found to have been exploited must have been very great. 
It. seems strange that no record of the constant voyages to this El Dorado 
should remain, but the very natural desire to keep lucrative imformation to them- 
selves is not an unknown thing amongst traders of the present day, while the 
conditions of society and the absence of written records of South Arabia would 
make concealment easy. 
The Phcenicians, an allied race, and the great seafaring trading nation of the 
Mediterranean, succeeded in keeping the majority of their marts secret, and we 
have incidents recorded showing their determination not to allow others to follow 
their steps, while to this day we are very doubtful of the limits of their voyages. 
It may be considered certain that while we naturally quote Greek historians 
and geographers as the early authorities for the growth of geographical knowledge, 
and that the scientific basis for proper maps of large areas was really provided by 
them, the seafaring nations, Arabians, Phoenicians, and Chinese, knew a very 
great deal practically of the coasts of various parts of the Old World that were 
absolutely unknown to the Greeks. 
The favourable conditions afforded by those remarkable periodic winds, the 
monsoons, would in the China Sea, Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea naturally 
facilitate any attempts at extensive sea voyages, and would lead to such 
attempts under conditions that in the regions of variable winds would be considered 
too dangerous and uncertain, The fact that the monsoons in nearly every case 
blow practically parallel to the coasts in opposite directions is a most important 
factor in considering early navigation. The direction of the wind itself in such 
cases roughly guides a vessel without a compass, and the periods of cyclones and 
unsettled weather between the monsoons would soon be noted and avoided, as 
they are to this day by the Arabs and Chinese, whose vesse]s, I have very little 
doubt, have remained practically the same for thousands of years. 
The unknown Greek author of that unique and most interesting document, the 
*Periplus of the Erythrzean Sea,’ probably of the first century s.D., describes 
vessels built without nails, whose planks were bound together by cords, in pre- 
cisely the same way as many Arab dhows now navigating the Indian Ocean. 
His personal knowledge of Africa evidently ceased at Cape Guardafui, though he 
gives information gained from others on the Hast Coast as far as Zanzibar, which 
—or, rather, a part on the mainland near—he describes as the limit of trade to the 
south. We know that Arabs had penetrated further, but no doubt they kept 
their knowledge to themselves. 
These early navigators very probably had charts. When Vasco da Gama first 
passed along the eastern coast of Africa he found that the Arab dhows had charts. 
Unfortunately none of them has come down to us, or it would have been 
interesting to compare them with those of the West Cuast used by the Portuguese 
at the time, and which were of the crudest description. 
I claim for sailors of all ages that they would be the first to make practical 
maps of the shape of the coasts. Their safety and convenience demanded it, 
while it is a far easier task to compile such a picture of the earth from succes- 
sive voyages along coasts over the sea, where average distances from known rates 
of sailing and courses from the sun and stars can be more accurately ascertained 
than from long and generally tortuous land journeys in directions governed by 
natural features, towns, and so forth. A navigator must be a bit of an astronomer. 
A landsman to this day seldom knows one star from another. 
It was the sea-charts, or portolani, of the Middle Ages that on the revival of 
learning first gave respectable representations of the shape of the coasts, at a time 
when the learned monks and others were drawing the most fantastic und absurd 
pictures which they called maps. 
At the same time it must be remembered that in all ages and down to the 
present day pilots, who within a hundred years were usually carried by all ships, 
even for sea voyages, jealously keep their knowledge largely in their heads, and 
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