FOOTNOTES:
[126] “Numberless passages of Greek and Latin authors prove that the ancients, when they lost sight of land, had no other guide than the stars.”—Pugens, Trésor des Origines, p. 190.
[127] “Had the Saracens known the compass, it was for them to have discovered America.”—Voltaire, Ep. sur les Mœurs, c. cxlix.
[128] The Phœnician name for the compass was interpreted by the Greeks “unknown gods.”
[129] This was written before the appearance of Mr. Smith’s interesting work on the “Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul.” He has vindicated ancient seamanship as to dimensions of vessels, length of voyage, working, &c. One deficiency in that work has been supplied by Humboldt in “Cosmos,” in reference to calculation of distances, or the “Log.”
[130] The original names of Greece and the Islands, of Asia Minor, the Black Sea, Spain, France, Italy, and England, are indelible monuments of the presence and wisdom of the Phœnicians. Plato refers reverentially to the men who gave the first names. Bochart, in the preface to “Pheleg,” enumerates about 400 names; for instance, Parnassus, Ithaca, Malaga, Samos, Marathon, which are without meaning in Greek. It is descriptive in Hebrew and Arabic,—that is, in Phœnician.
Τὸ πόρσω
Δ’ ἔσι σοφοῖς ἄβατον
κᾀσόφοις, οὺ μὴν διὠξω κενὸς εἴην.
Pind. Olymp. 3.
He is speaking of the region beyond the Pillars.
[132] In the twelfth century, B.C., Thschen-li records a measurement of the solstitial shadow, which La Place found accordant with the theory of the alteration of the obliquity of the Ecliptic. Cosmos.
The Babylonian astronomical observations sent by Callisthenes to Greece, have been calculated by Simplicius to extend back 1903 years before Alexander the Great.
Mr. Colebrooke has settled the date of one of the Vedas to be the fourteenth century B.C., by the place given to the solstitial points in a calendar appended to it.
“That the planets and their courses, the comets and theirs, that gravitation and repulsion were perfectly familiar to the priests of Memphis, though unknown to, or rather repudiated by, the most learned and philosophical of the Greeks, cannot to-day be questioned. They know the milky way to be composed of fixed stars, and the sun to be a fixed star.”—Drummond’s Origines, b. iv. c. 6; b. vii. c. 8.
“Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the French astronomers found with surprise that there existed in Siam a mode of calculating eclipses by successive operations worked with numbers apparently arbitrary. The key of this method has been long lost.”—Occult Sciences, vol. i. p. 191.
[133] Unless the words of Rabelais are to stand for the precocious discrimination of his age:—“Qu’est devenu l’art d’evoquer des cieux la foudre et le feu céleste, jadis enseigné par le sage Prométhée?”
[134] “Guided by Numa’s books, Tullius used the same ceremonies, but through inaccuracy (parum ritè) he perished, struck by the lightning.”—Lucius Piso apud Pliny, Hist. Nat. 1. xxviii. cap. 11. Livy uses the expression pravâ religione.
[135] “Fulmineo periit imitator fulminis ictu.”—Ovid. Metam. 1. xiv. v. 617.
[136] Suidas, verbo “Zoroaster.” See also Müller.
[137] This word is found in the pharanks or dictionaries of the Persians, and is described as the iron-attracting stone. It is mentioned in the Talmud. It was known to the Hindoos, as it was to the Greeks and Romans.
[138] Those assumed are “Buxus, Buxolus, Buxola, Bussola, Boussole.”—Menage. “Buso, Ital. eye of a needle.”—Covarruvias. “Boxel, English.”—Pouqens. “Bruxa, Spanish, sorcerer.” “Boursole, French, little purse.”—P. Labbe.
[139] This figure being now a Fleur de Lis, the French claim the invention. The profound Germans surrender it to them as a national property. Voltaire, however, remarks that the Fleur de Lis was the cognizance of Naples at the time of Flavio de Gioja.
[140] The term “Mouassola” is preserved to this day among the Mussulmans in connection with their religious edifices. It signifies the square open space corresponding with the Fane of the Etruscans, in which the two festivals of the Bairam are held, and where consequently the Mussulman sacrifice is performed. The connection is evident, but how it is to be established I am not at present prepared to say. Cf. Hariri. Chresth. Arabe, i. 191; iii. 167.
[141] I picked up this little work at a book-stall of Cadiz. A Spanish translation is printed, page for page with the Arabic, and thus it was that I fell upon the word. It so happened that I chanced on it midway between the two seas. Consult Khabil Dhaheri. Apud Ch. Arabe, ii. 13 et seq.
[142] Tiraboschi, iv. 1. xi. § 35; Andrea, Orig. D’Ogni Letter.; Gueguenné, Hist. de la lit. Italienne, iv.
[143] Consult El Edrisi on the “Straits of Babel-Mandel,” the “Arabian Book of Stones,” as quoted by Bailak Kibdjak, the “Treasury of Wonders,” as quoted by El Edrisi; Ptolom. i. vi. 2; Palladius, de Gentibus Indiæ; S. Ambrosius, de Moribus Brachmanorum; Anonymus, de Bragmanibus: ed. Bissæus, Lond. 1665.
[144] P. Martini (Hist. p. 106), P. Amiot (Abrégé chronologique de l’histoire de la Chine, contained in the collection of the Mémoires sur les Chinois, tom. xiii.), Mailla (Hist. Gener. de la Chine, Paris, 1777, tom. i. p. 317), P. Gaubil (Astronomie Chinoise), Sir G. Staunton (Embassy to China), M. Roding (Dict. Polyglotte de Marine), W. Josh. Hager (Dissert. sur la Boussole), contend that from time immemorial the Chinese were in possession of the magnet. That the compass came from the Chinese to the Europeans, through the Arabs, is maintained by Bergeron (Hist. des Sarrazins, p. 119). Riccioli (Geogr. et Hydrogr. Ven. 1672.) Mention is made of the compass afloat in the third and in the fifth centuries of our era. “There were then (Tsin dynasty) ships directed to the south by the needle.”—Poi-wen-jeu-fou, or Great Encyclopedia.
[145] Arago, in the Annales de Chimie, t. xxxii. p. 214; Brewster, Treatise on Magnetism, 1837, p. 111; Baumgarten, in the Zeitschrift für Phys. und Mathem. bd. ii. s. 419.
[146] Humboldt, Examen critique de l’Histoire de la Géographie, t. iii. p. 36.
[147] Cosmos, vol. i. p. 169.
[148] Klaproth speaks of the “cardinal” points, not apprehending the value of the term. In Meredith the “four points” are given in Chinese, so also Cut-Leet (Cutlet).
[149] “Those who have not been in India cannot know how all-important the division of everything into sixteen parts is, or some multiple or sub-multiple of that number: not only is the money of the country so divided, and all the weights and measures, but all property is divided into annas (sixteenths): in conversation it is the usual expletive of quantity.”—Ferguson’s Hindostan, Intro., p. 12.
[150] The passage of Brunetto Latini (Lib. du Tresor, MSS. du Roi, No. 7609), is too well known to quote; but I subjoin a curious fragment of a letter, attributed to him, which was published in the “Monthly Review” of June, 1802. It appears to me to be of indubitable authenticity. He is describing the wonders shown him by Roger Bacon, who was a disciple of the Arabs, and had studied at Cordova, like Gerbert, Abelard, and all the distinguished men of the period:—“La magnete pierre laide et noire, ob el fer volontiers se joint, lon touche ob une aiguillet et en festue lon fischie (fix it on a piece of reed); puis lon mette en laigue (float it on the water) et se tient dessus, et la pointe se torne contre l’estoille: quand la nuit fut tenebrous, et lon ne voie estoille ni lune, poet li mariner tenir droite voie.”
“Acus ferrea, postquam adamantem contigerit, ad stellam septentrionalem, quæ, velut axis firmamenti, aliis vergentibus, non movetur, semper convertitur, unde valde necessarius est navigantibus in mari.”—Jac. de Vit. Histor. Hyerosolymit. c. 89, A.D. 1215.
[151] Univ. Hist. vol. xviii. p. 213. Müller’s Etrüsker, “On the Temple,” vol. iii. Niebuhr’s Rome, app. to vol. ii. p. 624.
[152] The name Cardaces among the Persians is said to be derived from “courage,” “virtue.” Such words are generally derived from the names of tribes whose qualities are thus conveyed.
[153] Thus, on the north coast of Africa, the south wind is called Giblu, the north wind Baharu, because the one blows from the mountains, the other from the sea.
[154] The Tasguments, Jonathan and Onkelos, say that the ark rested, the former on Kardon, the latter on Kardu.—Drummond’s Origines, vol. i. p. 69.
[155] Four thousand years ago the polar star was apud Draconis. See Herschell on the Entrance to the Pyramid of Gizeh, apud Vyse.
[156] P’hn does occur in the hieroglyphics as the name of a people, but who they are is not known. Sharu is the general name given to the Phœnicians or “Celequins,” as the Turks say to-day Shaerli, otherwise the name of the town is used. As Homer has it: “Speak of the fortress in the waters, Taru of the Sea is its name. Water is carried to it in boats. It has fishes for bread.” British Museum Papyrus, Pl. Lv.
[157] From תוזרפ perazoth, dwellers in unwalled villages.
[158] Our best vessels are on the lines of the old French, which in the time of Louis XIV. were copied from the Turks, who had them from the Byzantine Greeks, who originally derived them from the Phœnicians.
[159] Herodotus, l. ii. c. 44. President Goguet, Origines des Lois, vol. ii. p. 114. Drummond’s Origines, vol. iii. p. 94.
[160] The word P’hen occurs, though I believe only once, in our Egyptian monuments as the name of a people: who the people were is uncertain.
[161] These statements rest on the authority of Sir Alexander Johnson.
An account of these people is given in Pridhane’s Ceylon, p. 470-480. The Cingalese call them Marakkalaya, which means boatmen; they are Sheas, while the Mussulmans of the continent are Souni.
[162] Towards the end of his reign an insurrection took place, of which the field lay principally at Bussorah; but in this case we know that the defeated insurgents retreated northward to seek the protection of the Turks.—See Ockley, vol. ii. p. 372.
[163] At the beginning of the eleventh century the western Arabs were not in possession of the compass, for the astronomer Ebu Youni constructed a table by which to find the Kibleh.
[164] Columbus, on reaching dry land westward, wrote, “The world is not so large as is supposed.”
[165] Glass, for instance, not as a native product, but as an exotic.
[166] Such as “the Seal of Solomon.”
[167] “Homer, in the Odyssey, says that the Greeks used the needle in the time of the siege of Troy: thus it is certain that the polarity of the magnet and the mariner’s compass were discoveries which date back 3000 years.”—Buffon, t. xii. p. 386. This passage is often quoted to throw ridicule on the supposition. The only mistake of Buffon was in reading as general the description which in Homer was particular and restricted.
Οὔ γὰρ φαιήκεσσι κυβερνητῆρες ἔασιν,
Οὐδέ τι πεδαλι’ ὲστὶ, τά τ’ ἄλλαι νῆες ἔχουσιν,
Ἀλλ’ αὐταὶ ἴσασι νοήματα καὶ φρένας ἀνδρῶν.
Od. θ. 557.
Οὔ γὰρ φαιήκεσσι μέλει βιός, οὐδὲ φαρέτρην.
Ἀλλ’ ἴστοι καὶ ὲρετμὰ νεῶν, καὶ νηἔς ἐἴσαι,
Ηἴσιν ὰγενόμενοι, πολιτὴν περόωσι θαλάσσην.
Od. γ’. 370.
[170] ךיאפ φαἴακ
[171] “Carcar, inde רקרק carcar, quiescere et in tuto esse significat. An inde dicta est Corcyra, in qua Phæaces per multa sæcula tuto et pacate vixisse constat.”—Chonaan l. i. cxxiii. Whence also Carcer. The name is preserved in Barhary and Spain in Carcer.
[172] The name of the Slaavs and that of the Shelloks (Ama-zirgeh) are derived in the same manner, also the Etruscan states Ardea (noble); for from it was taken by Rome the institution which made Rome noble and great—the fecial vows and college, i.e. heraldry, or the laws of war.—See Servius on Æn. vii. v. 412.
[173] ארחס, Shara. Isaiah (xxiii. 3) applies the same epithet to Sidon, Shar-goim, “mart of nations.” This is the Sharu of the hieroglyphics.
[174] “We can discern why their good fortune ceased after this separation, under the reign of Alcinous, if the Phocians (Phæacians) renounced navigation. Was it not that the instruments (mariner’s compass), obtained from their masters were lost, and they knew not how to construct others?”—Salverte, Occult Sciences, f. ii. p. 251. See also Cook’s “Inquiry into the Patriarchal and Druidical Religion,” p. 22.
[175] See Jamblicus, Vit. Pythagor. c. xxviii.; Diod. Sic. l. iii. c. xi.; Herodot. l. iv. c. 36; Suidas Verbo Abaris.
[176] One of the recent flippant writers on ancient things says, “The most famous bowl of antiquity was that of Hercules, which served its illustrious owner in the double capacity of drinking-cup and canoe; for, when he had quenched his thirst, he could set it afloat, and, leaping into it, steer to any part of the world he pleased. Some, indeed, speak of it as a borrowed article, belonging originally to the sun, and in which the god used nightly to traverse the ocean from west to east.”—St. John’s Ancient Greece, vol. ii. p. 114.
[177] The statue of Hercules at Tarentum, enumerated by Pliny in his list of Colossi, had a key in one hand and a cup in the other. On the coins of Crotona Hercules bore a cup in his hand.
[178] Ἡράκλεια δὲ ἤ διὰ τὸν ἴσχυρὸν καὶ κρατερὸν τῆς ὁλκης, ἤ μᾶλλον δίοτι περὶ Ἡράκλειαν τὸν πρῶτον ἐφάνη.—Hesychius.
[179] Incidental suppositions are scattered through various works. See Lavinius Lemnius, De Occult. Nat. Mir., 1. i. c. iii.; Buffon; J. de Pineda, De Rege Salomone; Fortuesto, William Cook, Stukely, &c. I do not include Sir William Bethune; the grounds of his supposition are so preposterous. It is from the supposed resemblance of a vessel to the compass actually in use that Sir W. Bethune starts. See the practical exposure as given in Dennis’s Etruria, vol. ii. p. 105.
[180] Miscell. Sacra, 1. iv. c. 19.
[181] Canaan, 1. i. c. 98. See also H. Kepping, Antiq. Rom. 1. iii. c. 6.
[182] Εἴδον τὸν Βαίτυλον διὰ τοῦ δέρος κινούμενον.—Damascius. Εἴναι τίνα Δαίμονα τὸν κινοῦντα αὐτόν.—Isidorus.
Τὸν μὲν Ζεὺς στήριξε κατὰ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης
Πυθοὶ ἐν ὴγαθέη, γυάλοις ὑπο Παρνήσοιο,
Σἤμ’ ἔμεν ἐξοπίσω, θαῦμα θνητοἴσι βροτοἴσι.
Hesiod. Theo. 498.
[184] Drummond, after laughing at Bochart, says, “But, after all that has been said, the etymology of the word appears to me to be very plain;” and then proceeds to show that “Baitulos” was no more than Jacob’s “Beth-el,” forgetting that the word was Greek, not Hebrew, or, if not forgetting, disposing of the objection as follows: “Those who would rather derive it from the Greek may consult,” &c.—Origines, vol. iii. p. 215-435.
[185] The ancients have described rocking-stones, but never called them “Baitula.”—See Apoll. Rhod. Argon. l. i.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. vol. ii. c. 28. For some amusing learning on the subject, see Moore’s Hist. of Ireland, vol. i. p. 39-59. See also Dissert. sur les Bætyles, Mém. de l’Académie, vol. vi.; Rem. de l’Abbé Bautier, vol. vii. p. 241.
[186] During the Catalonian insurrection of 1834, the name Patulea was given to the insurgents. Whence it has been derived, I have been unable to discover. In Portugal it has recently been adopted. The insurgents were called Patulea, the chiefs Conocedos, or “the known.” This return to the “Unknown gods,” of the Greeks, if a mere coincidence, is a curious one.
[187] In the course of them I came upon a singular instance of popular memory. I was sitting with a Braber baker of Tangier, on the promontory looking towards Spain, and asking him the names of places, to see if I could identify in their recollections some of the old Iberian names: he directed my attention to a white streak on the coast opposite, and then said, “There is Belon.” The place has disappeared for 1500 years, and no Spaniard knows the name.
[188] “Le lendemain matin on fit la cérémonie ordinaire quand on passe le Detroit. Un homme de l’équipage tenant un livre à la main, la commença par faire un serment sur ce livre pour tous ceux du vaisseau. Par ce serment il voulut distinguer ceux qui avoient déjà passé le Detroit d’avec ceux qui ne l’avoient pas encore passé, et en même temps il faisoit promettre a tous ceux de l’équipage de faire la même cérémonie toutes les fois qu’ils le passeroient. Après il parut sur le pont une compagnie de jeunes matelots avec un tambour, chacun ayant une moustache. Cette compagnie avoit pour armes tous les instrumens de la cuisine. Ceux qui n’avoient pas encore passe le Detroit, payerent pour n’etre point baptisé une seconde fois. Personne n’est exempt—capitaine, officiers, matelots, passageurs, et la vaisseau même doivent si c’est la première fois qu’on a passé le Detroit; un matelot, n’ayant jamais, voulut rien donner, fut mis le cul dans un baquet, et on l’injetta sur le corps une quinzaine de séaux d’eau de mer. Assurément il a du se souvenir de ce second baptême (permettez moi cette comparaison) plus que du premier. Pour mieux prouver qu’on a déjà passé le Detroit, il faut dire, le mois et l’année qu’on l’a passé, le nom du capitaine et du vaisseau sur lequel on étoit.”—Trois Voyages au Maroc, p. 179.
This is not the only nautical ceremony with a classical origin. A former traveller in Greece thus describes a launch,—“A crown of flowers is placed on the bow, then καραβοκήρι, or master, raises a jar of wine to his lips, and then pours it on the deck. Nothing can be more beautifully classical. It were to be wished that we could trace the ceremony which takes place amongst us to this source, and not consider it an imitation of one of the most sacred rites of our religion.”—Douglas, p. 65.
[189] No ancient or modern European language affords an etymology for the nautical designation of a fire-place—Cabouse. It is Arabic, and means “a thing consecrated to a mosque.” In Pagan times it would be the temple or the sacrifice. The Phœnician vessels had their altars and their gods, Patacoi. Nautical terms, of which the etymology is unknown, are generally traceable to the Phœnicians—for instance, Davit in Arabic, a bent piece of wood. Cabouse and Davit have disappeared from the Mediterranean, and must have been left amongst us by the Phœnicians.
[190] See the chapter on the land trade of the Carthaginians in Heeren’s Researches, the most valuable portion of his comprehensive work.
[191] Strabo makes the Caspian Sea, a gulf of the Northern Ocean.
[192] “Geographical knowledge had existed and ceased before the classic age of Greece arose.”—Grover’s Voice from Stonehenge.
[193] “That Africa is clearly surrounded by the sea, except where it borders on Asia, Necho, King of the Egyptians, was the first, we know, to demonstrate. That prince, having finished his excavations for the canal leading out of the Nile into the Arabian gulf, despatched certain natives of Phœnicia on ship-board, with orders to sail back through the Pillars of Hercules into the north, (Mediterranean) Sea, and so to return into Egypt. The Phœnicians consequently, having departed out of the Erythræan sea, proceeded on their voyage in the Southern Sea: when it was autumn, they would push ashore, and, sowing the land, whatever might be the part of Lybia they had reached, await there till the harvest time: having reaped their corn they continued their voyage. Thus, after the lapse of two years, and passing through the Pillars of Hercules in the third, they came back into Egypt, and stated what is not credible to me, but may be so, perhaps, to others,—namely, that in their circumnavigation of Libya, they had the sun upon the right hand.”—Heeren, ii. c. 44.
[194] The following passage from Heeren well illustrates, in the incoherence of each sentence, the consciousness that the people he described was too large for his grasp. “But, leaving these distinct voyages of discovery out of the question, the extent to which this enterprising people carried their regular navigation is truly wonderful. Though voyages across the open seas have been the consequence of our acquaintance with the new world beyond the Atlantic; yet their hardy and adventurous spirit led them to find a substitute for it, in stretching from coast to coast into the most distant regions. The long series of centuries during which they were exclusively the masters of the seas, gave them sufficient time to make this gradual progress, which perhaps was the more regular and certain in proportion to the time it occupied. The Phœnicians carried the nautical art to the highest point of perfection at that time required, or of which it was then capable.”
[195] A vessel proceeding from the Bight of Benin to any point of the coast, northwards, has first to make and pass the equator, steering south and west till she has done so. She then hauls up to the west and north, and runs eastward only after she is to the northward of her port.
[196] In the north the coast is sufficiently dangerous. In my cruise along it in 1845, I had in company, or saw only four vessels: two of these went ashore, the other two were wrecked, the one an English brigantine, the other a French steamer of war. Eighty souls perished.
[197] The supposed anterior discovery of the Canaries by a Norman rover would be no argument, for these islands may be reached without encountering the principal difficulties of the enterprise. And further at the time of the alleged discovery, the compass may have been in use in the north of Europe. The coins of the Baltic show the intimacy there of the Saracens from the first century of the Hejira, and African settlers in England are entered in Doomsday Book. The use of it in the north, long before its employment by the Portuguese, has been asserted by various writers, not only as derived from the Arabs, but also as original, or derived from the Chinese.
“Il’ est certain que les marins des côtes de Normandie et de Bretagne employaient dès le xiii siècle l’aiguille aimanée sous le nom de marinette.”—Esmenard.
“Raymondus Lullus in 1272 describes a compass used by the Basques and Catalonians.”—Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 474.
“The Fins have a compass which possesses the peculiarity of indicating the rising and setting of the sun—which must be in the figures round it, as in the Chinese compass—in summer and winter, in a manner that can only agree with the latitude 49° 20´.”—Salverte, Occult Sciences, tom. ii. p. 252.