452 REPORT—1905. 
look upon good charts as contrivances to destroy their profession, and that such 
charts or notes as they had they would keep religiously to their fraternity. 
The Egyptians were no sailors, but we know that they habitually employed 
Pheenicians for sea expeditions, while we have the historical record of the Old 
Testament for their employment hy David and Solomon for a like purpose in the 
Red Sea, and probably far to the south. It is, therefore, almost impossible to 
doubt that the Phcenicians were also acquainted with the navigation of the Red 
Sea and east coast of Africa. Such a voyage as that recorded by Herodotus 
would under these circumstances be far from improbable. 
The varying monsoons which had led the Arabians centuries before to get so 
intimate a knowledge of the east coast as to eriable them to find and work the gold- 
fields would be well known to the Phcenicians, and the hardy seamen who braved 
the tempestuous regions lying between Cadiz and Great Britain would make little 
of the difficulties of the African seas. 
The limit of easy navigation from and to the Red Sea is Sofala. I do not 
think that it is too great a use of imagination to suppose that it would be from 
information received in what is now North Rhodesia that it was learnt that to 
the westward lay the sea again, and that this led to the attempt to reach it by 
the south. 
Once started from the neighbourhood of Sofala, they would find themselves in 
that great oceanic stream, the Agulhas Current, which would carry them rapidly 
to the southern extremity of Africa. 
I, as a sailor, can also even conceive that finding themselves in that strong 
current they would be alarmed and attempt to turn back, and that after struggling 
in vain against it they would have accepted the inevitable and gone with it, and 
that without the Agulhas Current no such complete voyage of circumnavigation 
would have been made. 
As Major Rennell in the Jast century pointed out, once past the Cape of Good 
Hope, the periodic winds, and over a great part of their journey the currents, 
would help them up the West African coast; and the general conditions of naviga- 
tion are favourable the whole way to the Straits of Gibraltar, the ships keeping, 
as they would do, near the land; but we can well understand that, as recorded, 
the voyage occupied nearly three years, and that they halted from time to time to 
sow and reap crops. I should say that it is highly probable that either Simon's 
Bay or Table Bay was selected as one of these stopping-places, 
No reference to this voyage has been found amongst the hieroglyphic records, 
and, indeed, so far few such records of Necho, whose reign was not for long, are 
known; but that it was regarded at the time as historical is evident, for Xerxes, a 
hundred years later, sent an expedition to repeat it in the contrary direction. 
This, however, failed, and the unfortunate leader, Sataspes, was impaled on his 
unsuccessful return. 
This attempt shows that the greater difficulty of the circumnavigation from 
west to east, as compared with that from east to west, was not realised, and 
points to the concealment of any details of the successful voyage. 
Of Hanno’s voyage from the Straits of Gibraltar to about Sierra Leone, the 
date of which is uncertain, but from 500 to 600 B.c., we should know little had 
not good fortune preserved the record deposited in a Carthaginian temple. 
But the well-known secrecy of the Phoenicians in all matters connected with 
their foreign trade and voyages would explain why so little was known of Necho’s 
voyage, and our present knowledge of the extensive ancient gold workings of 
Rhodesia shows how much went on in those times of which we are wholly 
ignorant. 
I have dwelt perhaps too long on this subject, but it has to mea great interest ; 
and as it has not, so far as I know, been dealt with by a seaman who is personally 
well acquainted with the ways of seamen in sailing ships and with the navigation 
of the coasts in question, I hope I may be excused for putting my views on record. 
There are several references in Greek and Latin historians to other cireum- 
navigations, but none of them can be trusted, and apart from Necho’s voyage we 
hear nothing of the east and south coasts of Africa until the arrival of the Portu- 
