Robert Kerrs General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 | Page 6

either
seen himself, or heard from others, that the sun in Ethiopia sometimes
appeared to the north of the zenith, he would have stated in such
decided terms, when narrating the circumnavigation of the Phoenicians,
that such a phenomenon appeared to him altogether incredible.

Before we return to the immediate subject of this part of our work, we
may be allowed to deviate from strict chronological order, for the
purpose of mentioning two striking and important facts, which
naturally led to the belief of the practicability of circumnavigating
Africa, long before that enterprise was actually accomplished by the
Portuguese.
We are informed by Strabo, on the authority of Posidonius, that
Eudoxus of Cyzicus, who lived about one hundred and fifty years
before Christ, was induced to conceive the practicability of
circumnavigating Africa, from the following circumstance. As Eudoxus
was returning from India to the Red Sea, he was driven by adverse
winds on the coast of Ethiopia: there he saw the figure of a horse
sculptured on a piece of wood, which he knew to be a part of the prow
of a ship. The natives informed him that it had belonged to a vessel,
which had arrived among them from the west. Eudoxus brought it with
him to Egypt, and subjected it to the inspection of several pilots: they
pronounced it to be the prow of a small kind of vessel used by the
inhabitants of Gadez, to fish on the coast of Mauritania, as far as the
river Lixius: some of the pilots recognised it as belonging to a
particular vessel, which, with several others, had attempted to advance
beyond the Lixius, but had never afterwards been heard of. We are
further informed on the same authority, that Eudoxus, hence conceiving
it practicable to sail round Africa, made the attempt, and actually sailed
from Gadez to a part of Ethiopia, the inhabitants of which spoke the
same language as those among whom he had formerly been. From
some cause not assigned, he proceeded no farther: subsequently,
however, he made a second attempt, but how far he advanced, and what
was the result, we are not informed.
The second fact to which we allude is related in the Commentary of
Abu Sird, on the Travels of a Mahommedan in India and China, in the
ninth century of the Christian era. The travels and commentary are
already given in the first volume of this work; but the importance of the
fact will, we trust, plead our excuse for repeating the passage which
contains it.
"In our times, discovery has been made of a thing quite new: nobody
imagined that the sea which extends from the Indies to China, had any
communication with the sea of Syria, nor could any one take it into his

head. Now behold what has come to pass in our days, according to
what we have heard. In the Sea of Rum, or the Mediterranean, they
found the wreck of an Arabian ship which had been shattered by
tempest; for all her men perishing, and she being dashed to pieces by
the waves, the remains of her were driven by wind and weather into the
Sea of Chozars, and from thence to the canal of the Mediterranean sea,
and at last were thrown on the Sea of Syria. This evinces that the sea
surrounds all the country of China, and of Sila,--the uttermost parts of
Turkestan, and the country of the Chozars, and then it enters at the
strait, till it washes the shore of Syria. The proof of this is deduced
from the built of the ship we are speaking of; for none but the ships of
Sarif are so put together, that the planks are not nailed, or bolted, but
joined together in an extraordinary manner, as if they were sewn;
whereas the planking of all the ships of the Mediterranean Sea, and of
the coast of Syria, is nailed and not joined together in the same way."
When we entered on this digression, we had brought the historical
sketch of the discoveries and commerce of the Phoenicians down to the
period of the destruction of Old Tyre, or about six hundred years before
Christ. We shall now resume it, and add such particulars on these
subjects as relate to the period that intervened between that event and
the capture of New Tyre by Alexander the Great. These are few in
number; for though New Tyre exceeded, according to all accounts, the
old city in splendour, riches, and commercial prosperity, yet antient
authors have not left us any precise accounts of their discoveries, such
as can justly be fixed within the period to which we have alluded. They
seem to have advanced farther than they had previously done along the
west coast of Africa, and further