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.
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.
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