24 DISCOVERIES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
Nor did any active and commercial power again 
obtain a footing upon this sea. Discontinued thus 
for several ages, we may easily suppose the recol- 
lection of it to have been entirely lost. 
The Greeks, whom no report of the existence 
of Tarshish and Ophir seems ever to have reached, 
were thus left entirely to their own efforts for ex- 
ploring the east of Africa. The first narrative 
of a voyage thither is indistinct, and rests even 
under strong imputations of fable. Evemerus, a 
Messenian, sent by Cassander, king of Macedo- 
nia, is said to have discovered, opposite to the 
southern coast of Arabia Felix, three islands, 
which bore the general name of Panchaea. They 
consisted of one very large, with two smaller, 
which lay to the east ; and from the farthest of 
which India was described like a cloud in the dis- 
tant sky. The territory yielded myrrh and frank- 
incense in such extraordinary abundance, that the 
whole world was thence supplied with these fra- 
grant aromatics. A profusion of the most beauti- 
ful trees and shrubs, with every thing which can 
minister to use or beauty, is said to have rendered 
this region completely a paradise. The govern- 
ment was that of a limited monarchy, where great 
power was vested in the people, and the priests 
were held in extraordinary veneration. * The ge- 
* Diodorus, V. 42. 
