It May Be Incidentally Remarked That The Incredulity Of Herodotus With
Regard To The Appearance Of The Sun To The North Of The Zenith, Is Not
Easily Reconcileable With What We Shall Afterwards Shew Was The Extent Of
His Knowledge Of The Interior Of Egypt.
He certainly had visited, or had
received communications from those who had visited Ethiopia as far south as
eleven degrees north latitude.
Under this parallel the sun appears for a
considerable part of the year to the north. How, then, it may be asked,
could Herodotus be incredulous of this phenomenon having been observed by
the Phoenician circumnavigators. This difficulty can be solved by supposing
either that if he himself had visited this part of Africa, it was at a
season of the year when the sun was in that quarter of the heavens in which
he was accustomed to see it; or, if he received his information from the
inhabitants of this district, that they, not regarding the periodical
appearance of the sun to the north of the zenith as extraordinary, did not
think it necessary to mention it. It certainly cannot be supposed that if
Herodotus had 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.
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