4.9G The National Geographic Magazine 



wind itself in such cases roughly guides 

 a vessel without a compass, and the pe- 

 riods 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 

 vessels, I have very little doubt, have 

 remained practically the same for thou- 

 sands of years. 



The unknown Greek author of that 

 unique and most interesting document, 

 the " Periplus of the Erythraean Sea," 

 probably of the first century A. D., de- 

 scribes vessels built without nails, the 

 planks of which were bound together 

 by cords, in precisely the same way as 

 many Arab dhows now navigating the 

 Indian Ocean. His personal knowl- 

 edge of Africa evidently ceased at Cape 

 Guardafui, though he gives informa- 

 tion gained from others on the east 

 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 pene- 

 trated further, but no doubt they kept 

 their knowledge to themselves. 



EARLY NAVIGATORS HAD CHARTS 

 WHICH HAVE BEEN LOST 



These early navigators very proba- 

 bly 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 coast 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 practi- 

 cal maps of the shape of the coasts. 

 Their safety and convenience demanded 

 it, while it is a far easier task to com- 

 pile such a picture of the earth from 

 successive 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 ascer- 



tained, 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 repre- 

 sentations of the shape of the coasts, at 

 a time when the learned monks and 

 others were drawing the most fantastic 

 and absurd pictures, which they called 

 maps. 



At the same time, it must be remem- 

 bered that in all ages and down to the 

 present day pilots who, within a hun- 

 dred years were usually carried by all 

 ships, even for sea voyages, jealously 

 keep their knowledge largely in their 

 heads, and 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 

 Phoenicians for sea expeditions, while 

 we have the historical record of the Old 

 Testament for their employment by 

 David and Solomon for a like purpose 

 in the Red Sea, and probably far to the 

 south. It is therefore almost impossi- 

 ble to doubt that the Phoenicians were 

 also acquainted with the navigation of 

 the Red Sea and east coast of Africa. 

 Such a voyage as that recorded by He- 

 rodotus would in 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 enable them to find and work the 

 gold fields would be well known to the 

 Phoenicians 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. 



