But Finding This Journey Attended With
Many Inconveniencies, The Course Was Twice Altered In Search Of A More
Commodious Route[16].
About nine hundred years after the flood, and
previous to the destruction of Troy, Egypt was ruled by a king
Named
Sesostris, who caused a canal to be cut from the Red Sea to that arm of
the Nile which flows past the city of Heroum, that ships might pass and
repass between India and Europe, to avoid the expence and trouble of
carrying merchandize by land across the isthmus of Suez; and Sesostris
had large caraks or ships built for this purpose[17]. This enterprize,
however, did not completely succeed; for, if it had, Africa would have
been converted into an island, as there are even now only twenty leagues
or sixty miles of land between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
About this time the Grecians gathered a fleet and army, called the
Argonautic expedition, under the command of Jason and Alceus[18]. Some
say they sailed from Crete, and others from Greece; but they passed
through the Propontis and the _sleeve_ of St George into the Euxine,
where some of the vessels perished, and Jason returned back to Greece.
Alceus reported that he was driven by a tempest to the Palus Maeotis,
where he was deserted by all his company; and those who escaped had to
travel by land to the German ocean, where they procured shipping; and
sailing past the coasts of Saxony, Friesland, Holland, Flanders, France,
Spain, and Italy, returned to the Peloponnesus and Greece, after
discovering a great portion of the coast of Europe.
Strabo, on the authority of Aristonicus the grammarian, says, that king
Menelaus, after the destruction of Troy, sailed from the Grecian sea to
the Atlantic, coasted along Africa and Guinea, doubled the Cape Bona
Speranca, and arrived in India[19]; concerning which voyage many other
particulars might be collected from the writings of the ancients. This
Mediterranean Sea was sometimes called the Adriatic, the Aegean, and the
Herculean Sea; and had other names, according to the lands, coasts, and
islands, which it skirted, till, running through the Straits of Hercules,
between Spain and Africa, it communicated with the great Atlantic Ocean.
Thirteen hundred years after the flood, Solomon caused a navy to be
constructed at Ezion-geber on the Red Sea, which sailed to Tharsis and
Ophir, which some believe to have been islands in the East Indies. This
fleet was three years on its voyage, and on its return brought gold,
silver, cypress-wood, and other commodities[20]. The islands to which the
navy of Solomon traded were probably those we now call the Lucones, the
Lequeos, and China; for we know of few other places whence some of the
things mentioned as forming their cargoes can be had, or where navigation
has been so long practised.
Necho, one of the kings of Egypt, was desirous to have joined the Red Sea
with the Mediterranean, and is said in history to have commanded some
Phenicians to sail from the Red Sea by the Straits of Mecca, and to
endeavour to return to Egypt by the Mediterranean[21]. This they
accomplished, and sailed along the coast of Melinda, Quiloa, and Sofala,
till they reached the Cape of Good Hope, which they doubled; and,
continuing their course to the north, they sailed along the coast of
Guinea all the way to the Mediterranean, and returned to Egypt after two
years absence, being the first who had circumnavigated Africa.
In the year 590 before the Incarnation, a fleet belonging to Carthaginian
merchants sailed from Cadiz through the ocean, to the west, in search of
land[22]. They proceeded so far that they came to the islands now called
the Antilles, and to New Spain[23]. This is given on the authority of
Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, in his General History, who says that these
countries were then discovered; and that Christopher Columbus, by his
voyages in after times, only acquired more exact knowledge of them, and
hath left us a more precise notice of their situation, and of the way to
them. But all those historians who formerly wrote concerning the Antilles,
as of doubtful and uncertain existence, now plainly allow them to be the
same with New Spain and the West Indies. In the year 520 before Christ,
Cambyses, king of Persia, conquered Egypt, and was succeeded by Darius,
the son of Hystaspes. This latter prince determined upon completing the
projects of Sesostris and Necho, by digging a canal between the Red Sea
and the Nile: But, being assured that the Red Sea was higher than the
Nile, and that its salt water would overflow and ruin the whole land of
Egypt, he abandoned his purpose, lest that fine province should be
destroyed by famine and the want of fresh water[24]; for the fresh water
of the Nile overflows the whole country, and the inhabitants have no
other water to drink.
It may not be too great a digression from the subject, to say a few words
concerning Egypt. The natives allege that they have in their country
certain animals, of which one half of their bodies seem earth, and the
other like rats, one species of which keeps continually in the water,
while another species lives on the land. In my opinion, it is these
animals which break the serpents eggs, of which there are many in the
Nile, but which serpents are also called crocodiles. It is said, that in
ancient times these animals were inchanted, so that they could not do
harm to any one: But since they have been freed from the power of
inchantment, by the arts and learning of the Egyptians decaying, they
have done much hurt, by killing people, wild beasts, and cattle, more
especially those which live in the water and come often on land. Those
that live continually on the land become strongly venomous[25]. The
people beyond the city of Cairo used to catch these animals, and even to
eat them, setting up their heads on the walls of the city.
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