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

William Stevenson
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 traces of their commercial intercommunication with other nations may be found at a very early period of history. It is probable, however, that for a long time they themselves did not engage in commerce, but were merely visited by traders from foreign countries; for at this era it was a maxim with them, never to leave their own country. The low opinion they entertained of commerce may be gathered from Herodotus, who mentions, that the men disdained to meddle with it, but left it entirely
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