filling o f fourteen ihips, each carrying fo u r mafts, and having
their holds partitioned into feparate chambers, fome containing
thirteen diftinit compartments. This is the exa£t number of
divifions into which aU the holds o f thofe fea-faring veiTels
were partitioned that tramfported the prefents and baggage from
our own Ihips in the gulph o f Pe-tche-lee into the river P ei-ho;
and we obferved many hundreds o f a ftill larger defcription, that
are employed inforeign voyages, all carryingfo u r mails; fuch vef-
fels, our failors who are remarkable for metamorphofing foreign
names, ufually ca\\ fu n k s, from Tchuan which fignifies a flfip ; the
Tfong-too or viceroy o f a province is called by them 'John Tuck,
Not only the form o f the ihips, but the eircumftances o f the
voyage taken notice o f by this ancient navigator ftamp his relation
with authenticity.- The ftrong current between Madagaf-
carand Zanzebar rendering it n e x t to, impoffible far ihips to get
back to the northward; the black natives on that coaft, the
products o f the country which he enumerates ; the true defcrip-
tion o f theGeraffe or Camelopardalis, at that time confidered in
Europe as a fabulous animal,are fo many and fuch ftrong evidences
in favour o f his narrative, as to leave little doubt that he'either
was himfelf upon the eaft coaft o f Africa, or that he had received
very correct information from his Chinefe ihipmates- concerning
it. Yet D o d o r Vincent has aflerted, in.his Periplus o f the Ery-
threan Sea * , that in the time o f this Venetian traveller none but
Arab of Malay veflels navigated the Indian'Ocean. With all due
deferenoe to fuch high authority I cannot forbear obferving-that the
* In the very next page (202) he however ro f r e a s ’hrimfdl, by obferving that either
the Chinefe or Malays navigated as far as Madagafcar.
fimple relation o f Marco Polo bears internal and irrefiftible evidence
that the fleet o f ihips in which he failed were Chinefe, o f
the fame kind to all intents and purpofes as they now are.
Nor have we any reafon for doubting the authority o f the two
Mahomedans who vifited China in the ninth century, when
they tell us that Chinefe ihips traded to the Perfian gulph at
that time. In a chart made under the direction o f the Venetian
traveller and ftill preferved in the church o f St. Michael de
Murano at Venice, the fouthern part o f the continent o f Africa is
faid to be diftindtly marked down, though this indeed might
have been inferred after the Cape o f Good Hope had been
doubled by the Portugueze.
Whether the Prince o f Portugal had feen or heard o f this
chart, or confulted the Arabian Geographers, or had read o f the
circumnavigation o f Africa in the firft tranilation o f Herodotus
that made its appearance but a few years before the difcovery
o f the fouthern promontory o f this continent b y Bartholomew
D ia z ; or whether the voyages were undertaken at that time
on a general plan o f difcovery, authors feem not to have
agreed, but the opinion, I underftand, among the Portugueze is
that Henry had good grounds for fuppofing that the circumnavigation
o f Africa was practicable.
And whether the Phoenicians did or did not, in the earlieft
periods o f hiftory, double the Cape o f Good o f Hope there
is abundant reafon for fuppofing they were well acquainted with
the eaft coaft o f Africa as far as the Cape o f Currents. Nor is it
probable that the extent and flouriihing condition o f the trade
and