ON THE POSITION OF THE: MERIDIONAL LINE, &€C
seas and lands, the winds and: seasons, the plants and animals, would be compared with the genuine and unalterable face of nature. But a southern communication between the Indian and Atlantic ocean might be affirmed or denied: the chanee was equal; and a lucky guess may have usurped the honours of actual discovery. - My surprise and .suspicion are excited by the successful agriculture of the strangers in un: known climates and new soils; by the seeds of-the temperate zone which yield their increase between the tropics: nor can ‘I persuade myself that these infant navigators sailed round Africa in three summets to amusé the curiosity of a king of Egypt. The compass was in the hands of the Portuguese ; they were stimulated by the spirit of chivalry, fanaticism, and avarice; yet, after seventy years of labour and danger, their fruitless efforts were still Tepelled by THE: Care OF TEMPESTS.
By the command of the Senate of Carthage, two admirals, Himileo and Hanno, were sent at the same time to navigate the northern and southern parts of the Atlantic ocean. Hawwno sailed ‘from Carthage with a fleet of ‘sixty large ships, carrying a multitude of men, women, and children, which has been magnified tothe incredible number of thirty thousand persons. In twelve days from the Straits of Gibraltar he reached the small island of Cerne or Arguin: planted seven cities or colonies for the benefit of trade, and fixed his last station at Cerne itself, which has since been occupied, disputed, and abandoned by the modern powers. As he advanced, he discovered a large river, most probably the Senegal, well-peopled with hippopotami and crocodiles ; and his course was directed first to the south and afterwards to the east along the coast of Guinea. A chain of mountains, the Sierra-Leone, overlooked the ocean; and burning volcanoés poured into its waves their torrents of ‘liquid fire. In the heat of day all was silent; but the forests blazed with nocturnal lights, and re-echoed with the joyous sound of flutes, cimbals, and drums. In some slight encounters, the arms of the Carthaginians must prevail over the wandering natives, who spoke a language unknown to the Moorish interpreters. By their speed of foot the savages escaped; but the hairy skins of three female captives were exhibited as trophies at Carthage; and though Hanno mistoek for women these mute and perverse animals, it is more probable that they
3R@ were
499 ON THE POSITION OF TRE MERIDIONAL LINE, Sc
were -Pongos, the large monkey of human shape. The cape of Tres Puntas in Guinea, five degrees north of the equator, appears to have been the term of this whole Atlantic navigation of thirty-eight days: the scarcity of provisions compelled Hanno to return; nor does he seem to have detached any light vessels to prosecute the line of southern discovery. The date of his voyage rests, or rather floats on a period of four centuries (700 to 300 years before Christ;) but, for various reasons, I am inclined to sink it as low as the prosperity of the republic of Carthage will permit.
The journal or Periplus of Hanno * is still extant in a Greek version, nor can I agree with the idle suspicions of Dodwell that it has been changed or corrupted since its first appearance soon after the age of Aristotle.t This concise narrative was translated or abètracted front a Punic inscription on a plate of brass or marble in the temple of Saturn at Carthage: the practice-of these ancient records is acknowledged ; and most of the proper names may be reasonably derived from the Hebrew or Phoenician idiom.{ The Ltbyc books, the wanderings of Hanno, were indeed exposed on the Athenian stage as notorious fabless but the Greeks were at once credulous and sceptical; and even the -ridicüle attests the existence of the books and the fame of the voyage.§ The trade and colonies of Carthage along the shores of the Atlantic - and the Libyan deserts are firmly established: yet it must be allowed that one of our best witnesses, the geographer Scylax, denies the
possibility of navigating beyond Cerne m a shallow and muddy ocean, || |
* See the Periplus of Hanno in the first volame of Hudson’s Geographi Miriores, with Dodwell’s Dissertation. Mariana. Hist. Hispan. tom. i.].i. c. 22. p. 32,33. Pomponius Mela, 1. ni. c. 9. p. 401. cum Observat, Isaac Vossii. Bougainville sur le Voyage d’Hanson-in Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxvi. p. 10—46, tom. xxviii. p. 200-318.
… + Aristot. wep: bavpaciwy axacparwy. c. xxxv. p.77. Edit. Beckman. Getting. 1786. This collection of wonderful stories is drawn from the writings ef Aristetle, and may be ascribed to one of his first disciples. .
+ Bochart, Canaan. 1. i, c. 37. in Opp. tom. i. p. 639—644. § Athen. Deipsesophist. 1. il, €. 7. p. 83. ” Aristides in Oratione Ægyptiace, in Opptem. li. p. 356. Edit. Jebb.
.ÿ Scylacis Caryandensis Periplua, p. 53. in Geograph. Min. tom. i.
A much
ON THE POSITION. OF THE. MERIDIONAL LINE, &c: 493.
‘À much longer voyage of Hanno, the entire .circamnavigation of Africa from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Red Sea, will not be supported by the single and hasty assertion of the elder Pliny. In the course of a work as extensive and various as Nature itself, his critical attention is often bewildered; and while he believes the most singular, he rejects the most simple circumstances at the > Pesiplus of Hanno.*
While the liberality of Gelo and his brother .-Miero attracted every stranger who-could amuse or instract the court of Syracuse, à Persian Mage related to the former of these princes that he himself had circumnavigated the whole continent of Afriea.t An evént of such magnitude cannot be lightly received on the single credit of a wandering priest, whose religion and country afford the fairest grounds of sus: picion.. The Magi abhorred the art of navigation, which tended to: sully the purity of one of the sacred elements ;{ the Persians never aspired to the fame of a maritime people, and.a voyage of distant discovery, though not incredible, must be deemed im their character a very singular adventure, ‘It is certain however that'im the time of © Gelo and Xerxes,§ they once attempted the circumnavigation of Africa, and the exaggerated tale of the Mage of Syracuse must be tried aud reduced by the authentic relation of Herodotus, who derived his intel. figence from the report of the Carthaginrans. ||.
Under the reign,.and in the-court of Xerxes, his kinsman Sataspes was eondemned to be impaled for the crime of ravishing a noble virgin. But a mother, the sister of Darius, interceded for the guilty youth, on.
* Plin. Hiet. Natur, it, 67. v. Fe vi. 36
+ This Mage had been introduced in ope of the Dialogues of Heraclides Ponticis, 9. disciple of Plato and ‘Aristotle, (Vossius de Historicis Græcis, 1. 1, c. 8,9.) But his vor laminous writings are now lost, as well as those of Posidonius, by whom this passage bad: been quoted, and we are now reduced to the testimony of Strabo. (Geograph. 1. i. p- 155, 188.) |
+ Plin. Hist. Natur. xxx. 7.
§ This synchronism lasted seven years, 485—478, before Christ: but the Egyptian rebellion will not permit us to place the voyage of Sutaspes before the third year (482) of the reign of Xerxes. (Herodot. 1. vii. Diodor. Sicul. |. xi.)
\| See Herodot. 1. iv. c. 48. p. 398, 299. Edit. Wesseliag, and the excellent French ver-
sion of M. Larcher, with his learned notes, tom. ili. p. 156, 408; whom
494 ON. THE POSITION OF THE MERIDIONAL LINE, &c.
whom she promised to inflict a punishment not less terrible than death itself; and he accepted as the condition of his pardon the task of sail. ing round Libya, and returning ‘home by the Red Sea. After pre. paring his ship and mariners in Egypt, Sataspes sailed beyond the columns of Hercules, and coastéd along the African shore to the promon. tory of Soloe, (Cape Boyador,) from whence he steered his southern course in the Atlantic ocean. The natives whom he saw weré of a dimiautive stature: their garments were composed of the ledves of the palm tree: they were affrighted by the aspect of a naval monster, and wheresoever he landed, they fled into the country, abandoning their villages and-cattle to the rapacieus strangers. But Sataspes, who was not endowed with the spirit of discovery, beheld with anxtous despair the prospect of an endless sea, and his complaint that his ship was:stopped, that it would advance no farther, may be imputed to the dead calms that prevail in the neighbourhood of the line. The dangers and fatigues of his expedition and return might have expiated the crime of love: but the justice or revenge of Xerxes was inexorable: Sataspes was impaled according to the rigour of his first sentence; and his misfortunes, though not his character, may afford a faint simiktude of our countryman Sir Walter Raleigh. After the déath of Sataspes, one of his eunuchs escaped to the isle of Samos with a large sum of money, of which he was defrauded by the perfidy of a Samian, whose name is -forgotten by the tenderness of the father of history. The Asiatic Greeks maintained a free and frequent intercourse with-Sicily: and a Mage, who had served.as chaplain in the Libyan voyage, might accompany the eunuch’s flight, and abuse the privilege of a traveller.
Before the arrival of the Portuguese, before the age of Mahomet, under the reign of Adrian,* the commerce and even the dominion of the Arabs was spread along the eastern shores of Africa on either side of the Equinoctial line. After a long and lucrative traffic, the Mahometans of Arabia were tempted by the nakedness of the people and the richness of the Jand; but in the ninth century, Zanguebar, the ‘coast of the Zenghis, was still savage and idolatrous. The northern position
* Arrian, in his Periplus of the-Red Sea, is illastrated by D’Anville.’ Mémoires de l'Académie, tom. xxx. p. 88, &c.
of
ON THE POSITION OF THE. MERIDIONAL LINE, &c. 495
of Magadoxo and Brava points them out as the most ancient settlements (A. H. 320, A. D. 932); the kingdom -of Quiloa was founded (A. H. 400, A. D. 1009) by a Persian. prince of the race of the Sultans of Shiraz ;-.Melinda, Monbaza, and Sofala flourished in the twelfth century ;. these maritime colonies were increased by vagrant Bedoweens and Negro proselytes, and the reign of Islam extended to the isle of Madagascar and the tropic of Capricorn.*
The contrast of the savage Africans may have embellished the portrait of the Arabians of Zanguebar, but the features of a rich and civilized people are not easily mistaken. According to the heat of the climate, and the fashion of the east, they were clothed in loose garments of silk or cotton; their turbans were of fine linen; nor did they neglect the elegant luxury of gold and gems. ‘These ornaments might be. brought from a distance, but the state of the colonies marked an high degree of wealth and. improvement. The cities were populous and regular,.the public and private buildings were of hewn stone or painted. wood, the gardens were filled with the plants of India, the adjacent lands were cultivated. with skill and care, and the inhabitants possessed great numbers of cattle and domestic animals. The ironworks of Melinda, the gold mines of Sofala were at once the monuments of their art, and the sources of their opulence. In war they employed the arms of antiquity, bows and arrows, scimetars and lances; the horsemen of Monbaza, and the archers of Melinda were renowned: but they were ignorant of the invention of gunpowder and the use of cannon. . These maritime colonies could not forget the art of navigation : they traded with Aden and Ormuz, with Cambaye and Calicut, but their course was. directed by the monsoons, and they never ventured beyond the Cape of Currents in the twenty-fourth degree of southern latitude. The government of their petty states was loosely balanced by the Royal and Aristocratical powers: the Koran.was. the bond of union, but the rival sects of Omar and Ali excommunicated each other on this lonesome coast. The Arabians had introduced their language,
* See the Arabians (Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 27, 28, Abulfeda, Geograph. Fab. xxvii. p- 355, 356, and Yakouti in the Notices des MSS. de la Bibliothèque du Roi, tom. ii, p. 395.) whose knowledge seems to have decayed. with time. The Abbé Rehaudot (An-
ciennes Relations des Indes, p. 303-308.) is most instructive. . | a oa an
496 ON THE POSITION OF THE MERIDIONAL LINE, &c.
and the rudiments of letters; but they were ill-provided with books, and it is only in the Lusiad, that a King of Melinda could be fami liarized to the names of Homer and Ulysses.*
From the Senegal to the Cape of Currents, Vasco de Gama had seen no vessels on the ocean except his own. After passing that cape, the canoes of the negroes, their artificial trinkets, and their vague reports denounced his approach to a civilized, perhaps to an Indian world. The first interview of the two nations was in the isle of Mozambique; the thundering arms of the Portuguese astonished the Arabians, and , applauded the hero who had emerged from the storms and darkness of the south. But Gama could not long dissemble that he was a Chris. tian, the enemy of their faith, and the invader of their commerce: be abhorred the Moors, and the belief that all Mahometans were Moors has propagated the African name to the extremities of Asia. ‘The open or secret enmity which laboured to destroy his ships, and intercept his return, is more easily explained than the hospitable welcome, and important aid which he received from the Princes of Melinda. In ‘twenty-three days he traversed, without care or danger, an ocean of -seven. hundred leagues, from Melinda to Calicut. His trusty pilot, an Indian of Guzarat, steered the well-known course by 4 compass, a qus- . drant, and a marine chart; and his experience or prejudice despised the astronomical instruments of Europe. .
According to the most liberal computation, Vasco de Gama discovered no more than twenty degrees of southern latitude from the Cape of Good Hope to Mozambique. But a thin veil separated Lisbon and. India, and the last adventurer, by whom it was. removed, has usurped the sole honours of the circumnavigation of Africa. Yet Gama might boast that by him alone the equinoctial line had been crossed four times, and that he had achieved in two years the longest voyage which had been performed by the sons of men.t
The African trade of the Portuguese, as it is described by Mosto, may afford some glimpses into the inland geography of that vast conti-
*. The English transiator of Camoens justifies this impropriety by an old Syriac version of Homer; but the fact is doubtfal, and the inference ridiculous. (Mickle's Introduction.) - . + Osovius de Rebus Lusitanicis, J.i. Mariana, Hist, Hispao. |. xxvi. ©. 17-20, tom. ill. ip. 217—228, Hist. Générale des Voyages, tom. 1, . . | nents
ON THE, POSITION OF THE MERIDIONAL LINE, &c. 497
nent, an obscure scene which has been less invisible to the Arabian Moors* than to any other nation of the ancient or modern world. .: By the care of Prince Henry the little island of Arguin, near Cape Blanco, was settled and fortified: but he gave a monopoly of ten years to his own exclusive company. After some hostilities against the Azenaghis, the last shade between the whites and blacks, their alliance was found to be more conducive to the interest of trade, and even of religion. They pitched their tents from Mount Atlas to the Senegal : their hard and wandering life qualified them to be the carriers of ‘the desert ; and Hoden, a station in their country, was in the road of the Moorish caravans. Six days journey from Hoden, Teggazza possessed a mine of rock-salt, which was greedily purchased and used by the natives of the torrid zone to preserve, as they believed, their blood from putrefaction. The camels laden with salt travelled in forty days from Teggazza to Tombuto, in thirty more from Tombuto to Melli, a city and kingdom whose place our ignorance cannot ascertain:t but such were the difficulties of the way, that of an hundred camels not more than twenty-five were expected to return. Melli was frequented by — the Mahometans of Egypt and Barbary; and the silk of Grenada was often exchanged for the gold and slaves of the most inward Africa. This valuable cargo was distributed in three different channels. The Eastern caravan, the merchants of Grand Cairo, repassed an unknown desert from the Niger to the Nile. The western caravan, after moving in a body from Melli to Tombuto, was separated in the two streams of Tunis and Morocco. The latter approached the sea coast of Arguin: the manufactures of Europe intercepted some portion of the gold dust, and seven or eight hundred blacks were annually exported for the use ef the Portuguese. Ramusio, whose views of commerce are just and
* # J have before me the Latin version of the Sherif al Edrisi, so foolishly styled the Geo= graphia Nubiensis, by the Maronites (Paris, 1619, in 4to.), and the Italian original of Leo Africanus, first published by Ramusio (tom. 1. fol. 1—104). The. English translations from these writers, in Moore’s Travels into Africa (Appendix, p. 1—79), are éxecated by po vulgar hand. . | So
+ D’Anville’s Great Map of Africa affords not any traces of Melli, which 1s however described by Leo (P. vii. fol. &4.), and which seems to be the Malel of Ednisi. (Geograph. Nubiens. Clim. i, P.ii. p. 10.)... | | a oy VOL, III. 8s | enlarged,
498 ON THE POSITION OF THE MERIDIONAL LINE, &c.
enlarged, exhorts the nations to invade the monopoly of salt ; to lade their ships at the islands of Cape Verd, and to penetrate by the Senegal, and the Gambia, into the golden regions of Africa. But the negli. gence of the Europeans, or the invincible obstacles of nature, have hitherto prevented the execution of this splendid design.
But the exchange, with an invisible people, of salt for gold is de. scribed by Cadamosta on the faith of the itinerant Arabs. Frem Melli the salt was transported on men’s shoulders to a great lake er river of fresh water where it was left without a guard on the shore. -The merchants of Melli, and some unknown ‘strangers wlio arrived in large Boats, had their respective hours for visiting this solitary market: the heaps of gold dust which the purchasers deposited were proportioned to the value of the salt ; and as soon as the scales were equal, the price was accepted, the merchandize was removed, and the whole transaction was concluded without seeing each other’s faces, but without a sus- -picion of fraud or violence. It is added that a King of Melli indulged. his curiosity to know these mysterious traders: but that a captive who had -been surprised in an ambuscade, obstinately rejected all food, and died on the fourth day without having shewn.the power or inclination to speak. The singularity of the transaction, some circumstances of gross fable, and the silence of Leo Africanus * may provoke a legitimate doubt: but this mode of invisible traffic is reported by Herodotus,t whom the Venetian had never read, and by the Moors of Barbary who had never heard of the Venetian.t
À question naturally arises whether Prince Henry explored the Atlentic, the sea of darkness as it was styled by the Arabs, in search of a southern passage to the spicy regions of India. The views of Cadamosta do not seem to reach beyond the fame and profit of his immediate discoveries: but the views of a soldier are not those of his general, and the largest designs are most worthy of a.hero who was deeply skilled in
# ‘Yet we may. prove from Leo er Edrisi:the searcity of salt, the plenty of gold, and the fresh-water lakes in the midst of Africa.
+ Herodot. |. iv. c. 196. He gives, indeed, this trade to the Cartheginians, and places the invisibles on the sea-coast. |
: Shaw's Travels, p. 239. This learned traveller appears himself unacquainted with the original passage of Herodotus, or the narrative of Cadamosta, —
the
ON THE POSITION OF THE MERIDIONAL LINE, &c. 499
the coamography of the age. I can admit that he clierished a seeret and distant hope of circumnavigating Africa: nor shall I arraign the gratitude of pusterity, which. has placed on his head thie naval crowns ef his successful disciples. Their ardour was chilled, about twenty years, under the reign of his nephew Alplionso V. a reign of foreign and domestic war; but the African voyage was. proseeuted by the'industry of John II. and finally achieved by the fortune of Emanuel. Their royal efforts. directly. pointed to India and the spicy trade; the spirit ef the court encouraged the Portuguese to press forwards on the ecean, with a brave disdain of prejudice at home and danger abroad. The genius of Columbus tormented Europe, and awakened Spain: but Vasco de Gama was a chosen. servant who executed: with prudence and. resolution the commands of his sovereign.
Fhe thirty-seven years (1460—1497) between the decease of Heriry, and the voyage of Gama, had opened a more extensive sphere of theory and practice. The study of the ancients bad been revived: the copies of their writings were. multiplied; and before the aecession of Join II. €1481), the original text of Pliny, and the Latin versions of Herodotus — and Strabo had been repeatedly printed at Rome and Venice.* ‘Fhe ‘eireumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenicians and. Persians, by Hanno and Eudoxus, became the favourite theme of discourse; and the fabulaus or. doubtful tales of antiquity rekindfed: the courage aid pro: moted the discoveries. of the modern Argonauts. A: planisphere, of map of the world, t was delineated.in the Convent of Murano at Ventee: the kings.of Portugal employed: and rewarded the ingenious mouk; and the most perfeet edition of his work was long exhibited in a Benedictine Abbey in the neighbourhood of Lisbon. Marine charts, such as may. be still extant in-our libraries, were drawn by Italian artists and distributed to. Portuguese eemmanders ; and: the eutline of old know: ledge, and recent conquest, announced the subject or, at least, the field
* See the Greek and Latin Bidliothece of Fabricius and the Annales Typographic of Mattaire,
+ Tiraboschi, Isteria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. vi. P. is 316, Modena, 1790: For the plamephere of Murenc he quetes the: Annales Camet. (of the Canaldoli) tom: vii: p. 432. Mr. Senebier, ps. 211, desaribes some maps: of the potter century itt the Hbrery of Geneva.
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