LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
AFRICA OF THE ANCIENTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Stu,—In my last letter I endeavoured to make it clear to your correspondent "S. D. C." that the Phcenicians circumnavigated Africa by sailing direct from Zanguebar to Marocco, a voyage seven-eighths of which would be in the torrid zone, in a direction which would make it possible for the sun to be on the right hand. Herodotus was therefore wrong in supposing that the voyage was not to a great extent in a westerly direction.
I now come to the expedition of the Carthaginian Hauno, about 500 B.C. Having sailed two days beyond the Pillars, he founded a city ; thence he sailed west to Soloeis, a promontory of Libya, from which he took an easterly course for half a day. Having founded several cities along the coast, he reached tue mouth of the Lixus; and on the third day after leaving the Lixus, sailing south and east (twelve days after sailing through the Pillars), he reached the island of Cerne. It was probably called Cerne because here the land ended towards the south ; it was, in fact, a Finisterre or Land's End, for the word "Cerne is believed to be the same as the Phcenician " Chernaa," end. Supporting this explanation is the fact that on the south-eastern coast of Africa, just about where the ancient world terminated in that quarter, there was situated another Cerne.
By way of parenthesis, I may here remark that this giving the same name to places in the extreme east and west was of frequent occurrence, and may prove of great service—coupled with the fact that slischylus was a Pythagorean—in unravelling that so-called inextricable tangle, his geography. The Plicenicians must neces- sarily have been the authors of it, for their ships were constantly hovering about the outskirts of the then known world ; and I am, I hope, not drawing on my imagination in saying that the very men to whom, according to Mr. Gladstone, Europe owes an eternal debt of gratitude—the very men who discovered and named Malaca (? Kingsland), the modern Malaga, with Tin Islands not far distant—certainly not the Scilly Islands—afterwards dis- covered and named the Cassiterides of the far East and the neigh- bouring country, and on their return to Tyre, communicated the fact to their wondering fellow-citizens in the form of some " thun- dering news from the Straits of Malacca."
On reaching Cerne,.Hanno calculated his distance and course, and found that he was opposite Carthage. His words, which I think are to any unprejudiced mind decisive on the point that he must have been sailing at the time over the Sahara, are,—Kass' tislu XE2-Tal Kap27,6ovoc,—" It [i.e., Cerne,] lies straight towards Carthage ;" and to put the matter beyond all doubt, he further says that the distance from Carthage to the Pillars is equal to that from the Pillars to Cerne. Continuing his voyage from Cerne for twelve days, he came to high mountains, and seventeen days after leaving Cerne arrived at a bay called the West Horn. For several days he coasted along a fiery region, and passed a very high vol- cano, three days' journey from which brought him to another bay, called the Southern Horn, where his voyage terminated.
As to the extent of this voyage, Gosselin supposes it terminated a little beyond the frontier of Marocco, which would represent a voyage of 700 miles in about thirty-eight days ; Rennel carries it to Sierra Leone, Bougainville to the Bight of Benin, thus making the ships sail seventy miles a day. All these views are based on the supposition that the coast existed then as now, whereas—not to take account of the convulsed state of the tern- I tory beyond Cerne—it was the opinion of all the ancient geographers and the Arabians that the coast from the termination
of Mount Atlas trended to the east of south ; certainly none knew that it swelled out twelve degrees west of the Pillars, as at the present day. Besides, of the many towns founded by Hanno not a trace remains, which appears almost incredible. Carthage and Cerne were situated 1,000 miles from the Pillars, one on each side. Hanno must, therefore, have sailed at the rate of eighty miles a day of 24 hours for 12 days, to reach Cerne. This was certainly rapid sailing, but it was along a comparatively well-known coast, and with the best ships and sailors of the age ; it agrees, too, with the rapid sailing of the time, as we know (" Hdt.," lib. 4, 86,) that the Black Sea could be sailed across in eight and a half days, at the rate of 700 stadia, or SO English miles a day, Bailing day and night. Or averaging the swift sailing of Greek, Egyptian, Pheenician, and Carthaginian ships, the rate is 40 miles, the nights not being reckoned.
I come now to Eudoxus, who flourished probably 150 years B.C. Ile made two voyages into the Indian Ocean. in the
second he was driven by unfavourable winds to the coast of Ethiopia, from which he brought back with him to Alexandria the prow of a vessel, said to have come from the west, as a portion
of a wreck, on which was carved the figure of a horse. At Alex- andria some mariners from Gades declared it to be the very form peculiar to a species of vessel called " horses," from the figure- carved on the prow, employed in the fisheries along the coasts of Mauritania, and that this was probably a portion of the one which
they remembered had ventured beyond the river Lixus, and was never afterwards heard of. Eudoxus was so impressed with the' belief that the ocean extended from Marocco to the Red Sea, that he sailed from Cadiz to make the voyage. He did not, however,. fully accomplish the task, but he sailed along the coast till he reached a people who appeared to him to speak the same language- with those whom he had met on the opposite shore of Libya.
It is to me incredible that the ancients, who no doubt were as anxious as we are to be accounted worthy of confidence—indeed, if Herodotus may be taken as a specimen, much more so—would so outrage all sense of respect for themselves, and shut themselves out from any title whatever to belief, by such gross departures from the truth, in stating that they or others had sailed hundreds, in some cases thousands of miles, over what at any time overwhelm- ing evidence might show was land, if it were not so. I cannot believe that Necho's Phoenicians, Hanno, the supporters of Patro- clus, Eudoxus, sEsclaylus, or that man of science Pytheas, could be such knaves or fools.
In conclusion, I may say that the ancient geographer Mela, in his map of the world, places his " antipodes" in a large island or continent, which occupied almost identically in position and shape the modern Central and South Africa, with Madagascar. Apolo- gising, Sir, for trespassing to such an extent upon your valuable.
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