Of The Knowledge Of The Ancients Respecting The New World.
With the generality of mankind, so far from imagining that there could be
any such country as the new
World or West Indies, the very notion of any
such thing being supposed to exist was considered as extravagant and
absurd, for every one believed that all to the westwards of the Canary
islands was an immense and unnavigable ocean. Yet some of the ancients
have left hints that such western lands existed. In the close of the
second act of his tragedy of Medea, Seneca says, "The time will come, when
the ocean shall become navigable, and a vast land or New World shall be
discovered." St Gregory, in his exposition of the Epistle of St Clement,
says, "There is a new world, or even worlds, beyond the ocean." We are
informed by other authors, that a Carthaginian merchant ship accidentally
discovered in the ocean, many days sail from our ancient continent, an
incredibly fruitful island, full of navigable rivers, having plenty of
wild beasts, but uninhabited by men, and that the discoverers were
desirous of settling there; but, having given an account of this discovery
to the senate of Carthage, they not only absolutely prohibited any one to
sail thither, but put all who had been there to death, the more
effectually to prevent any others from making the attempt. Yet all this is
nothing to the purpose, as there is no authentic memorial of this supposed
voyage, and those who have spoken of it incidentally have given no
cosmographical indications of its situation, by means of which the admiral
Christopher Columbus, who made the first discovery of the West Indies,
could have acquired any information to guide him in that great discovery.
Besides, that there were no wild beasts, either in the windward or leeward
islands which he discovered, those men who would rob Columbus, in part at
least, of the honour of his great discovery, misapply the following
quotation from the Timaeus of Plato: "There is no sailing upon the ocean,
because its entrance is shut up by the Pillars of Hercules. Yet there had
formerly been an island in that ocean, larger than all Europe, Asia, and
Africa in one; and from thence a passage to other islands, for such as
went in search of them, and from these other inlands people might go to
all the opposite continent, near the true ocean." These detractors from
the honour of Columbus, in explaining the words of Plato after their own
manner, evince more wit than truth, when they insist that the shut up
passage is the strait of Gibraltar, the gulf the great ocean, the great
island Atlantis, the other islands beyond that the leeward and windward
islands, the continent opposite them the land of Peru, and the true ocean
the great South Sea, so called from its vast extent. It is certain that no
one had any clear knowledge of these matters: and what they now allege
consists merely of notions and guesses, patched together since the actual
discovery; for the ancients concluded there was no possibility of sailing
across the ocean on account of its vast extent. These men, however, labour
to confirm their opinions, by alleging that the ancients possessed much
knowledge of the torrid zone; as they insit that Hano the Carthaginian
coasted round Africa, from the straits of Gibraltar to the Red Sea, and
that Eudoxias navigated in the contrary direction from the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean. They allege farther, that both Ovid and Pliny make mention
of the island of Trapobano, now Zumatra[2] which is under the line.
All this however is nothing to the purpose. The expression of Seneca is
not applicable; for his proposed discovery is towards the north, whereas
ours is to the westwards. The coasting of Africa, as said to have been
performed by the ancients, is widely different from traversing the vast
ocean, as was accomplished by Columbus, and by the Spaniards after his
example. If any notice is due to ancient hints, that only is worthy of
observation which we find in the twenty-eighth chapter of the book of Job,
in which it seems predicted that God would keep this new world concealed
from the knowledge of men, until it should please his inscrutable
providence to bestow its dominion to the Spaniards. No attention is due to
the opinions of those who would endeavour to establish the Ophir of the
Scriptures in Peru, and who even allege that it was called Peru at the
time when the holy text was penned. For, neither is that name of Peru so
ancient, nor does it properly belong to that great country as its
universal appellation. It has been a general practice among discoverers to
apply names to new found ports and lands, just as occasion offered, or
accident or caprice directed; and accordingly, the Spaniards who made the
first discovery of that kingdom, applied to it the name of the river they
first landed at, or that of the cacique who governed the district. Besides,
the similarity of words is too trivial a circumstance on which to
establish a foundation for a superstructure of such importance. The best
informed and most judicious historians affirm, that Ophir was in the East
Indies: For, if it had been in Peru, Solomons fleet must necessarily have
run past the whole of the East Indies and China, and across the immense
Pacific ocean, before it could reach the western shore of the new world;
which is quite impossible. Nothing can be more certain than that the fleet
of Solomon went down the Red Sea; and as the ancients were not acquainted
with those arts of navigation which are now used, they could not launch
out into the ocean to navigate so far from land; neither could those
distant regions be attained to by a land journey. Besides, we are told
that they carried from Ophir peacocks and ivory, articles that are not to
be found in the new world.
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