A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 | Page 8

a vessel round, or nearly so, could not possibly be navigated.
It is most probable that this description refers entirely to the shape of
the bottom or hold of the vessel; and that merchant ships were built in
this manner, in order that they might carry more goods; whereas the
ships for warfare were sharp in the bottom. Of other particulars
respecting the construction and equipment of the ships of the
Phoenicians, we are ignorant: they probably resembled in most things
those of Greece and Rome; and these, of which antient historians speak
more fully, will be described afterwards.
The Phoenicians naturally paid attention to astronomy, so far at least as
might be serviceable to them in their navigation; and while other
nations were applying it merely to the purposes of agriculture and
chronology, by means of it they were guided through the "trackless
ocean," in their maritime enterprises. The Great Bear seems to have
been known and used as a guide by navigators, even before the
Phoenicians were celebrated as a sea-faring people; but this
constellation affords a very imperfect and uncertain rule for the
direction of a ship's course: the extreme stars that compose it are more
than forty degrees distant from the pole, and even its centre star is not
sufficiently near it. The Phoenicians, experiencing the imperfection of
this guide, seem first to have discovered, or at least to have applied to
maritime purposes, the constellation of the Lesser Bear. But it is
probable, that at the period when they first applied this constellation,
which is supposed to be about 1250 years before Christ, they did not fix
on the star at the extremity of the tail of Ursa Minor, which is what we
call the Pole Star; for by a Memoir of the Academy of Sciences (1733.
p. 440.) it is shewn, that it would at that period be too distant to serve

the purpose of guiding their track.[3]
II. The gleanings in antient history respecting the maritime and
commercial enterprises, and the discoveries and settlements of the
Egyptians, during the very early ages, to which we are at present
confining ourselves, are few and unimportant compared with those of
the Phoenicians, and consequently will not detain us long.
We have already noticed the advantageous situation of Egypt for
navigation and commerce: in some respects it was preferable to that of
Phoenicia; for besides the immediate vicinity of the Mediterranean, a
sea, the shores of which were so near to each other that they almost
prevented the possibility of the ancients, rude and ignorant as they were
of all that related to navigation and the management of ships, deviating
long or far from their route; besides the advantages of a climate equally
free from the clouded skies, long nights and tempestuous weather of
more northern regions, and from the irresistible hurricanes of those
within the tropics--besides these favourable circumstances, which, the
Egyptians enjoyed in common with the Phoenicians, they had, running
far into their territory, a river easily navigable, and at no great distance
from this river, and bounding their country, a sea almost equally
favourable for navigation and commerce as the Mediterranean. Their
advantages for land journies were also numerous and great; though the
vicinity of the deserts seemed at first sight to have raised an effectual
bar to those countries which they divided from Egypt, yet Providence
had wisely and benevolently removed the difficulty arising from this
source, and had even rendered intercommunication, where deserts
intervened, more expeditious, and not more difficult, than in those
regions where they did not occur, by the creation of the camel, a most
benevolent compensation to the Egyptians for their vicinity to the
extensive deserts of Africa.
Notwithstanding the advantageous situation of the Egyptians for
navigation, they were extremely averse, as we nave already remarked,
during the earliest periods of their history, to engage in sea affairs,
either for the purposes of war or commerce; nor did they indeed, at any
time, enter with spirit, or on a large scale, into maritime enterprises.

The superstitious and fabulous reasons assigned for this antipathy of
the Egyptians to the sea [has->have] been noticed before; perhaps some
other causes contributed to it, as well as the one alluded to. Egypt is
nearly destitute of timber proper for ship-building: its sea-coasts are
unhealthy, and do not appear to have been inhabited [near->nearly] so
early as the higher country: its harbours are few, of intricate navigation,
and frequently changing their depth and direction; and lastly, the
advantages which the Nile presents for intercourse and traffic precluded
the necessity of applying to sea navigation and commerce.
Some authors are of opinion that the ancient Egyptians did not engage
in navigation and commerce till the era of the Ptolemies; but this is
undoubtedly a mistake, since