Many doubts, however, have arisen about a port called Ophir, whence the immense quantities of gold and silver came, which were necessary at this time, when provision was making for building the Temple of Jerusalem. In what part of the world this Ophir was has not been yet agreed. Connected with this voyage, too, was one to Tarshish, which suffers the same difficulties; one and the same fleet performed them both in the same season.
In order to come to a certainty where this Ophir was, it will be necessary to examine what scripture says of it, and to keep precisely to every thing like description which we can find there, without indulging our fancy farther. First, then, the trade to Ophir was carried on from the Elanitic Gulf through the Indian Ocean. Secondly, The returns were gold, silver, and ivory, but especially silver[276]. Thirdly, The time of the going and coming of the fleet was precisely three years[277], at no period more nor less.
Now, if Solomon’s fleet sailed from the Elanitic Gulf to the Indian Ocean, this voyage of necessity must have been made by monsoons, for no other winds reign in that ocean. And, what certainly shews this was the case, is the precise term of three years, in which the fleet went and came between Ophir and Ezion-gaber. For it is plain, so as to supersede the necessity of proof or argument, that, had this voyage been made with variable winds, no limited term of years ever could have been observed in its going and returning. The fleet might have returned from Ophir in two years, in three, four, or five years; but, with variable winds, the return precisely in three years was not possible, whatever part of the globe Ophir might be situated in.
Neither Spain nor Peru could be Ophir; part of these voyages must have been made by variable winds, and the return consequently uncertain. The island of Ceylon, in the East Indies, could not be Ophir; the voyage thither is indeed made by monsoons, but we have shewed that a year is all that can be spent in a voyage to the East Indies; besides, Ceylon has neither gold nor silver, though it has ivory. St. Domingo has neither gold, nor silver, nor ivory. When the Tyrians discovered Spain, they found a profusion of silver in huge masses, but this they brought to Tyre by the Mediterranean, and then sent it to the Red Sea over land to answer the returns from India. Tarshish, too, is not found to be a port in any of these voyages, so that part of the description fails, nor were there ever elephants bred in Spain.
These mines of Ophir were probably what furnished the East with gold in the earliest times; great traces of excavation must, therefore, have appeared; yet in none of the places just mentioned are there great remains of any mines that have been wrought. The ancient traces of silver-mines in Spain are not to be found, and there never were any of gold. John Dos Santos[278], a Dominican friar, says, that on the coast of Africa, in the kingdom of Sofala, the main-land opposite to Madagascar, there are mines of gold and silver, than which none can be more abundant, especially in silver. They bear the traces of having been wrought from the earliest ages. They were actually open and working when the Portuguese conquered that part of the peninsula, and were probably given up since the discovery of the new world, rather from political than any other reasons.
John Dos Santos says, that he landed at Sofala in the year 1586; that he sailed up the great river Cuama as far as Tetè, where, always desirous to be in the neighbourhood of gold, his Order had placed their convent. Thence he penetrated for above two hundred leagues into the country, and saw the gold mines then working, at a mountain called Afura[279]. At a considerable distance from these are the silver mines of Chicoua; at both places there is great appearance of ancient excavations; and at both places the houses of the kings are built with mud and straw, whilst there are large remains of massy buildings of stone and lime.
It is a tradition which generally obtains in that country, that these works belonged to the Queen of Saba, and were built at the time, and for the purpose of the trade on the Red Sea: this tradition is common to all the Cafrs in that country. Eupolemus, an ancient author quoted by Eusebius[280], speaking of David, says, that he built ships at calls them, metal-men, to Orphi, or Ophir, an island in the Red Sea. Now, by the Red Sea, he understands the Indian Ocean[281]; and by Orphi, he probably meant the island of Madagascar; or Orphi (or Ophir) might have been the name of the Continent, instead of Sofala, that is, Sofala where the mines are might have been the main-land of Orphi.
The kings of the isles are often mentioned in this voyage; Socotra, Madagascar, the Commorras, and many other small islands thereabout, are probably those the scripture calls the Isles. All, then, at last reduces itself to the finding a place, either Sofala, or any other place adjoining to it, which avowedly can furnish gold, silver, and ivory in quantity, has large tokens of ancient excavations, and is at the same time under such restrictions from monsoons, that three years are absolutely necessary to perform the voyage, that it needs no more, and cannot be done in less, and this is Ophir.
Let us now try these mines of Dos Santos by the laws of the monsoons, which we have already laid down in describing the voyage to India. The fleet, or ship, for Sofala, parting in June from Ezion-gaber, would run down before the northern monsoon to Mocha. Here, not the monsoon, but the direction of the Gulf changes, and the violence of the south-westers, which then reign in the Indian Ocean, make themselves at times felt even in Mocha Roads. The vessel therefore comes to an anchor in the harbour of Mocha, and here she waits for moderate weather and a fair wind, which carries her out of the Straits of Babelmandeb, through the few leagues where the wind is variable. If her course was now to the East Indies, that is east-north-east, or north-east and by north, she would find a strong south-west wind that would carry her to any part of India, as soon as she cleared Cape Gardefan, to which she was bound.
But matters are widely different if she is bound for Sofala; her course is nearly south-west, and she meets at Cape Gardefan a strong south-wester that blows directly in her teeth. Being obliged to return into the gulf, she mistakes this for a trade-wind, because she is not able to make her voyage to Mocha but by the summer monsoon, which carries her no farther than the Straits of Babelmandeb, and then leaves her in the face of a contrary wind, a strong current to the northward, and violent swell.