The History of Maritime and Inland Discovery

THE HISTORY

MARITIME AND INLAND

DISCOVERY.

BOOK I.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE ANCIENTS.

CHAP. I.

-THE

INTRODUCTION. WANDERING PROPENSITY OF PRIMITIVE MAN.
- SLOW GROWTH OF GEOGRAPHY. — THE HEBREWS.
MOSAIC GENESIS. SIMPLE COSMOLOGY. THE PHOENICIANS.
ANTIQUITY OF THEIR NAVIGATIONS. THEIR OBSCURITY.

THE history of the progress of geographical knowledge is calculated more than that of any other branch of learning to illustrate the progressive civilisation of mankind. It has for its object, in some measure, the diffusion of the species, but is more immediately connected with the advancement of navigation and commercial enterprise. Instead of confining the attention to the fortunes of a particular community, it carries the eye of the enquirer continually abroad, to survey all the nations of the earth, to mark the knowledge they obtained of one another, and the extent of their mutual acquaintance.

The principal charm of savage life arises from the unlimited range which it allows over the face of nature.

Those who have once tasted the pleasure of roving at large through woods and mountains, can never afterwards feel happy under the restraints of society. Curiosity and the love of action, no less than their wants, must have continually urged the earliest inhabitants of the globe to explore all the varieties of its surface. Pastoral tribes feel an interest in learning the nature of the country in the vicinity of their encampments, the extent of its pastures, and the rivers which flow through and refresh it. But the observations of a rude age are seldom accumulated beyond the wants of the present moment. The movements by which those nomades acquire the knowledge along with the possession of new regions, generally lead to a total forgetfulness of their old habitations; little correspondence is maintained by those who migrate with those who remain behind: so that in a short time the geographical knowledge of migratory nations is reduced to obscure and fading traditions.

When men in the progress of their migrations reach the sea coast, the love of gain as well as of adventure soon impels them to launch upon the waves, and direct their course to distant countries. But the complicated art of navigation requires many ages to bring it to perfection. Science alone can give certainty to the observations of the mariner; and the discoveries of the early navigators were as perishable as they were vaguely described. Besides, in proportion as the spirit of adventure prevailed among the motives of the earliest expeditions, a corresponding desire to indulge in exaggeration and romantic fiction disfigured all the relations which remain of them. Wonder and credulity, however, are the natural characteristics of an early age, and we must not regard as wholly fabulous those accounts of antiquity, in which we find a few threads of consistent fact, interwoven with much that is absolutely incredible.

Geography of the Hebrews.

The earliest geographical records which remain to us are those of the sacred scriptures. The Hebrews them

selves, an inland and pastoral nation, had probably but. little direct acquaintance with distant countries. For their knowledge of commerce, and of the nations with which it opened a correspondence, they were perhaps chiefly indebted to the Egyptians and Phoenicians: but the account which Moses gives of the first progenitors of mankind, and of the nations which-sprung from them, is unquestionably derived from peculiar sources.

All the nations of the old world distinctly known to the sacred historian, are reduced by him to the families of Shem, Ham, and Japhet. The children of these patriarchs are also enumerated by him, and each of them appears as the founder of a nation; but in those early ages it is impossible to affix with certainty to any region a name which properly belongs to a wandering horde. The Mosaic account (Genesis x.), however, is a precious record of the manner in which the knowledge of the earth was enlarged by the dispersion of the human species.

The family of Shem comprised the pastoral nations which were spread over the plains between the Euphrates and the shores of the Mediterranean, from Ararat to Arabia. The Hebrews themselves were of this stock, and the resemblance of their language with the Aramean or ancient Syriac, and with Arabic, sufficiently proves the identity in race of what are called the Semitic nations. There is no difficulty in assigning to each of the sons of Shem his proper situation. Elam founded the kingdom of Elymeis, Assur that of Assyria, and Aram the kingdom of Syria or Aramæa, a name still clearly preserved in that of Armenia. From Arphacsad were descended the Hebrews themselves, and the various tribes of Arabia; and this close affinity of origin was always manifest in the language and in the intimate correspondence of these two nations. Some of the names given by Moses to the children of Shem are still used in Arabia as local designations: thus there is still a district in that country called Havilah; and Uzal, the

name given to Sana by the sacred historian, is not yet quite obsolete.

The descendants of Ham constituted the most civilized and industrious nations of the Mosaic age. The sons of that patriarch were Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. The name of Ham is identical with that of Cham or Chamia, by which Egypt has in all ages been called by its native inhabitants, and Mizr or Mizraim is the name by which the same country, or more properly the Delta, is known to Turks and Arabians. The land of Phut appears to signify Libya in general; and the name Cush, though sometimes used vaguely, is obviously applied to the southern and eastern parts of Arabia. The names of Saba, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sheba, children of Cush, long survived in the geography of Arabia.

The posterity of Canaan rivalled the children of Mizraim in the early splendour of arts and cultivation. Though the Canaanites, properly speaking, and the Phoenicians were separated from each other by Mount Carmel, yet as the same spirit of industry animated both, they may here, in a general sense, be considered as one people. The Phoenicians possessed the knowledge of the Egyptians, free from the superstitious reluctance of the latter to venture upon the sea. Their local position naturally engaged them in commercial enterprise : →→ "and the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou goest to Gerar unto Gaza." Their chief cities, Tyre and Sidon, had reached the highest degree of commercial opulence when the first dawn of social polity was only commencing in Greece. Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world, remains as a monument of the first inhabitants. The great superiority of the people on that coast above the Hebrews in the time of Moses, is clearly shown in the language of holy writ. When Joshua and the other chiefs, who were sent by the prophet to observe and report on the land of Canaan, returned, they said, "We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and

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