Geography 



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 infor- 

 mation 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 neighborhood 

 of Sofala, they would find themselves in 

 that great oceanic stream, the Agulhas 

 Current, which would carry them rap- 

 idly 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 at- 

 tempt 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 cir- 

 cumnavigation would have been made. 



As Major Rennell in the last 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 

 navigation are favorable 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. 



THE WELL-KNOWN SECRECY OF THE 

 PHOENICIAN VOYAGERS 



No reference to this voyage has been 

 found among 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 unfor- 

 tunate 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 realized, 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 knowl- 

 edge of the extensive ancient gold work- 

 ings 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 me a great inter- 

 est, and as it has not, so far as I know, 

 been dealt with by a seaman who is per- 

 sonally 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 circum- 

 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 

 Portuguese at the end of the fifteenth 

 century. But they found a thriving 

 civilization along the coast from Sofala 

 northward — Shirazi, Arab, and Indian. 



Ruins exist in many places which 

 have not yet been properly investigated, 

 and we are quite unable to say from 

 what date we are to place the earliest 

 foreign settlements, nor how many 



