It Is Not Long Since Several Of The Islands Of
Banda In The East Were Drowned By The Sea Overflowing Them; And In China,
About 180 Miles Of Firm Land Are Said To Have Become A Lake.
All these
things are to be considered as coming within the limits of probability,
especially when we take into account what has been related of similar
events by Ptolemy and others, but which I here omit to return to my
subject.
About 800 years after the deluge, the city of Troy was built by the
Dardanians; and even before that time, spices, drugs, and many other
kinds of merchandize, which were then more abundant than now, were
brought from India to Europe, by the Red Sea. Hence, if credit can be
given to these accounts, we may conclude, that the sea of old was much
frequented, those of the east bringing their commodities to the haven of
Arsinoe in the Arabian Gulf, now called Suez[14], in lat. 30 deg. N. and at
the northern extremity of the Arabian Gulf; from whence the goods were
carried by caravans, upon camels, asses, and mules, to Cassou, a city on
the coast of the Levant sea, in lat. 32 deg. N. Allowing seventeen leagues
and a half to every degree of latitude, these two cities are said to have
been 35 leagues, or 105[15] miles distant from each other. On account of
the heat, these caravans, or great companies of carriers, travelled only
in the night, directing themselves by the stars, and by land-marks fixed
in the ground for that purpose. But finding this journey attended with
many inconveniencies, the course was twice altered in search of a more
commodious route[16]. About nine hundred years after the flood, and
previous to the destruction of Troy, Egypt was ruled by a king named
Sesostris, who caused a canal to be cut from the Red Sea to that arm of
the Nile which flows past the city of Heroum, that ships might pass and
repass between India and Europe, to avoid the expence and trouble of
carrying merchandize by land across the isthmus of Suez; and Sesostris
had large caraks or ships built for this purpose[17]. This enterprize,
however, did not completely succeed; for, if it had, Africa would have
been converted into an island, as there are even now only twenty leagues
or sixty miles of land between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
About this time the Grecians gathered a fleet and army, called the
Argonautic expedition, under the command of Jason and Alceus[18]. Some
say they sailed from Crete, and others from Greece; but they passed
through the Propontis and the _sleeve_ of St George into the Euxine,
where some of the vessels perished, and Jason returned back to Greece.
Alceus reported that he was driven by a tempest to the Palus Maeotis,
where he was deserted by all his company; and those who escaped had to
travel by land to the German ocean, where they procured shipping; and
sailing past the coasts of Saxony, Friesland, Holland, Flanders, France,
Spain, and Italy, returned to the Peloponnesus and Greece, after
discovering a great portion of the coast of Europe.
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