Strabo further states that this Indian, when, after a certain time, he had acquired a sufficient knowledge of the Greek language, related how, after leaving the coast of India, he had lost his course, and reached Egypt alone, all his companions having perished of hunger, adding that he would point out to any persons sent with him by the king the best and quickest route by sea to that part of India whence he had started. Eudoxus, who had previously prevailed on the king to attempt the exploration of the Nile, was able to carry out the wishes of the Indian, by sailing to India in a vessel under his own charge and with the Indian as his pilot. It appears, further, that the voyage was successful, and that Eudoxus brought back in due time to Egypt, in exchange for the presents he had taken with him, aromatics and precious stones, some of which, he said, were collected among the pebbles of the rivers, while others were dug out of the earth.
On the king’s widow, Cleopatra, succeeding him on the throne, Eudoxus was despatched on a second voyage, with a still richer cargo, for purposes of exchange; but his previous good fortune did not, on this occasion, attend him; for, on his return, he was driven by adverse winds on the south coast of Æthiopia, where he is said to have conciliated the inhabitants by presents of grain, wine, and cakes of pressed figs, articles the natives did not possess, receiving in exchange a supply of water and pilots for his voyage. Before, however, taking his departure, he had made himself acquainted with a few words of their language, and having ascertained that the portion of a prow he had seen on the beach, representing the head of a horse, belonged to a vessel which the natives said had come from the west, he took it with him to Egypt, where he exhibited it in the market-place. Some of the Egyptian pilots, it is further stated, on examining this figure head, recognized it as that of a vessel which had sailed from Gades (Cadiz), beyond the river Lixus,[198] and had not returned. She was one, they said, of a class of vessels styled “horses” (from the figure of that animal borne upon the prow), which were employed in fishing around Maurusia as far south as Lixus.[199]
Eudoxus, from the account of the pilots, inferred the possibility of circumnavigating Africa, and resolved to attempt it, first visiting various parts of Europe to procure the necessary funds. Having succeeded in doing so, he equipped one large ship, and two swift boats of considerable size, embarking merchandise of various kinds, as also physicians and singing boys, no doubt to cure and delight the natives of the places he proposed visiting. No particulars are given of this voyage except that he unfortunately lost his ship, and returned to Egypt. It must be added, that Strabo doubts the story of Eudoxus, and sneers at the discovery of the head of the Spanish ship, thus casting ridicule on a statement which has at least the merit of being circumstantial, and which tends to confirm the general correctness of the narrative as well as the authenticity of the voyage round the Cape in the days of Pharaoh Necho, related by Herodotus.
But Strabo, to whom posterity is indebted for a vast amount of ancient geographical knowledge, was in this case merely the exponent of the ignorant prejudices of his age. Of the fact there is little doubt. Few persons who have studied the observations of Rennell, Humboldt, and Heeren, on this subject, without reference to the questionable extent of the voyages of the Carthaginians under Hanno, will doubt the accounts preserved by Herodotus and Strabo; though both these distinguished authors treat as romance the circumstances they have recorded.
Opinion of Dr. Vincent on the circumnavigation of Africa.
These voyages have, however, been seriously questioned by a modern writer of no mean authority, Dr. Vincent,[200] who denies altogether any circumnavigation of Africa previously to the expedition of the Portuguese. “Nothing is more easy,” he says, “than to affirm the accomplishment of these great attempts, where an author clogs himself with neither circumstances nor particulars; but whenever we obtain these, as we do in the journal of Nearchus, or the Periplus, we find, indeed, that the ancients performed great things with slender means; but we see also plainly what they could not do. We see with such vessels as they had, they could neither have got round the Cape of Good Hope, by adhering to the coast, where the violence of the ocean must have been insupportable, nor could they have avoided this by standing out to sea, as they had neither the means nor the knowledge to regain the shore, if they had lost sight of it for a single week.” He further asserts, that no voyages were accomplished except by coasting; and that no vessels were accustomed to cross the stormy waves of the ocean except, perhaps, the ships of the Veneti, in Brittany, noticed by Cæsar.
And yet there is abundant ground for believing that the Phœnicians as well as the Carthaginians carried on a regular trade with Cadiz, and could hardly have failed to visit the British Isles; moreover, they must have often done so at seasons when they would have been liable to encounter heavy gales in the Bay of Biscay. Again, near the commencement of the Christian era, the vessels of Crete engaged in the commerce between Rome and Alexandria were evidently ships of considerable dimensions; and though, from their style of build and rig, they may not have been well adapted for long over-sea voyages, there seems no valid reason why they should not have made a coasting voyage round Africa. Besides, as the southern portions of that vast continent were doubtless as thickly peopled as the north, why should the traders on the east coast have limited their voyages and explorations to Sofala, and those on the west coast to Cape Corrientes? Even if so distant a trade did not prove sufficiently remunerative to encourage constant voyages, this is no reason why such a voyage should never have been made, or why the stories in Herodotus and Strabo should be deemed to have no foundation in fact. The admitted coasting character of all the early voyages in antiquity, is really one of the best arguments in favour of the longest of these expeditions; so that what Dr. Vincent states in support of his views, tells against the objection he raises, and tends to confirm the probability of the stories as we have them.
Remarks upon his opinion.
He further admits that the very “inferior vessels” of ancient times did cross the Indian Ocean from Africa, and from Arabia to India, when the nature of the monsoon winds was first fully understood, fifteen hundred years before Vasco de Gama made his celebrated voyage; and that long before even that early period Solomon’s ships found their way to Sofala.
Nor does he doubt that the Carthaginians under Hanno had explored the western shores of Africa, at least as far as the Equator. Now, if so much be admitted, it is not easy to understand why the rest should not be conceded also. It is true that no account has been preserved of the size of the ships built at Ezion-geber; but, considering the length of the voyages it is agreed they accomplished, there is no reason why they should not, on an occasional voyage, have safely doubled even the stormy promontory of the Cape, and also, perhaps as occasionally, have found their way to the East Indies.