Indeed, the writings of Herodotus indicate that, over two thousand years before Dias and Vasco da Gama, Africa was circumnavigated by a fleet of Phœnician ships sent by Pharaoh Necho down the Red Sea with orders to return to Egypt by way of the Pillars of Hercules. A Persian, Sataspes, endeavored to accomplish the voyage from the other direction, but failed. Plato's island of Atlantis, founded by the god Neptune, was of great size, "larger than Asia and Libya together, and was situated over against the straits now called the Pillars of Hercules." The climate and soil were so good that fruits ripened twice every year. There were metals, with elephants and other animals in abundance. Upon a mountain was a beautiful city with gold and ivory palaces, having gardens and statues. Unfortunately in time the sea swallowed up this island, so that it could scarcely have been America.
THE PROPHECY OF QUETZALCOATL.
So far as these voyages and strange tales concern the possible knowledge of America by the ancients, I have already discussed them in my [Native Races of the Pacific States]. Therein is mentioned a theory which has found many advocates, and to which I will again briefly allude in this place. It is that at the beginning of the Christian era America was visited by the Apostle St Thomas. He was accompanied by a number of fellow-laborers in the ministry, who preached the gospel and planted the Christian religion in America. The theory is ably advocated in the excellent work of Rev. W. Gleeson, The History of the Catholic Church in California. The principal arguments advanced may be briefly stated as follows: First, that the whole tenor of Scripture teaching is in favor of the supposition that the gospel was preached to all the world from the beginning, rather than after the lapse of several centuries. Second, that at a date fixed by Mexican hieroglyphics as a little before the middle of the first century after Christ, a celebrated personage, certainly the most remarkable in Mexican mythology, came from the north. He is represented as a white man, with flowing beard, clad in a long white robe, adorned with red crosses, head uncovered, and a staff in his hand. This was the Quetzalcoatl, whom the Mexicans afterward worshipped, and whose return was so anxiously looked for by them. See Torquemada, Monarq. Ind. Third, that to him popular tradition ascribes the worship paid to the cross, the practice of confession, and in a word all the customs found on the arrival of the Spaniards to be nearly identical with those of the Christian religion. Veytia, Hist. Ant. de Mexico. Fourth, that the name Quetzalcoatl is synonymous with that of St Thomas. See [Native Races, v. 26]. Fifth, that Quetzalcoatl promised on his departure to return at some future day with his posterity and resume the possession of the empire, and that day was looked forward to with general confidence, Prescott's Conq. Mex., and that a general feeling prevailed at the time of Montezuma that the period of his return had arrived. Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mex. Sixth, that there were at the convent of Nijapa, in the province of Oajaca, hieroglyphs containing all the principal doctrines of the Christian religion, and the coming of the Apostle to the country. Id.
Sahagun, who wrote at the time of the conquest, speaks of the general belief in this prophecy, and assures us that on the arrival of the Spaniards they repeatedly offered them divine honors, believing that their god Quetzalcoatl had returned. Conq. Mex., i. chap. iii.
"It is then undeniably true," says Gleeson, Catholic Church in Cal., 185, "that a popular tradition existed in the country respecting a prophecy made by Quetzalcohuatl, in which was foretold the future arrival of whites on the coast; and this, while it proves the reality of the man, and his character as a teacher of religion, also proves the still more important and appreciable fact of his being a Christian, and of western origin; for, it was clearly set forth in the prophecy, that the persons who should come would be whites, and of the same religion as he. The time also seems to have been specified by the Apostle, if we are to judge by the expression that they were expecting him every day. And, indeed, Boturini assures us that the time mentioned in the Mexican hieroglyphics was that in which the Christians arrived. The year ce acatl was that foretold by Quetzalcohuatl, and in that year the Spaniards landed in the Country." On ancient voyages and cosmography see also Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 125-206.
It is the results of ancient voyages, the point of geographical knowledge attained by ancient civilization in its most advanced stage and by it bequeathed to the Dark Age, and not the voyages themselves, with which we have to do at present. This knowledge is found for the most part embodied in the system of Ptolemy, the Alexandrian geographer of the second century, whose works became the standard text-books, and holding their prominence for fourteen hundred years were not superseded as late as the sixteenth century, but were republished from time to time, with additions, setting forth the results of new discoveries. In this manner twenty-one editions appeared during the first half of that century. Nor was even Ptolemy the originator of this prolonged system. One hundred and fifty years before him was the Greek geographer Strabo, who gave descriptions of countries and peoples, fixing his localities usually by itinerary distances; and to this work of Strabo's, Ptolemy added a century and a half of progress, and determined his localities by astronomical observation. The work of Pomponius Mela, the Roman geographer who wrote probably somewhat later than Strabo, is regarded as no improvement on that of his predecessor.
Ptolemy's World was nearly all in the north temperate zone, embracing about fifty degrees of latitude and one hundred and twenty of longitude. The Fortunate Isles, now called the Canaries, were known to Ptolemy, and by him used as a western limit or first meridian. This, and as a nucleus of poetic myths, seem to have been their only use; as Muñoz says, Hist. del Nuevo Mundo, p. 30: "Fuera de este uso apenas aprovecharon sino para entretenir ociosas imaginaciones con fábulas de poetas." The eastern limit was vaguely located in the region beyond the Ganges; actually in about 100° east longitude. On the south were included the African coasts of the Mediterranean and Red Sea, with the southern coasts of Arabia and India proper—the term India being then applied indefinitely to all eastern lands, including even parts of Africa—thus fixing the southern bound at about 30° north latitude in the west, and 10° in the east. Northward the limit may be placed a little above 60°, within which falls the southern part of the Scandinavian peninsula, then supposed to be an island, and also the island of Thule, the location of which is disputed, some claiming it to have been Iceland, others the Faroe Islands, and others the Shetland Islands. But Ptolemy's latitudes were all some ten degrees too far north, while in his longitudes he went still further astray; since, reckoning from the Canaries as his first meridian, he made his last meridian 180°, when it should have been 120°, and thus by narrowing half the circumference of the globe some sixty degrees he made the world nearly one third less than it really is. Authorities differ, however, as to what were Ptolemy's ideas. But more of this hereafter. On the opposite page is a map in which the world as known in these times is left white, the shaded portions being the result of subsequent discoveries down to the last half of the fifteenth century. A map of Ptolemy's World, reduced to its true proportions, may be seen in Goselin, Recherches sur la géographie systématique et positive des anciens, tom. iv., Paris, 1813.
The World; the white part as known at the end of the Fourth Century, the lightly shaded portions as known at the end of the Fifteenth.