are fet forth in a true light; and here many curious and useful political obfervations will entertain and inftruct the inquifitive reader. From Berlin, our Author went to Hamburg, Denmark, Hanover, Caffel, Wurtzburg, Francfort, Mentz, Cologne, Amfterdam; and his laft letter is dated from Oftend.

It was with pleasure that we followed Baron Riefbeck through this long journey and we doubt not that the entertaining variety, and the ufeful instruction, which the journey affords, will also please our intelligent readers. We recommend it rather for the matter it contains, than for the ftyle in which it is written: feveral faulty expreffions occur in the original: and the painful and tedious illness under which the worthy tranflator laboured, and which ended only with his life, will ferve, with the candid reader, as an apology for many of the inaccuracies which we have obferved; and with all its imperfections, we hesitate not to pronounce this work much fuperior (in our judgment, at leaft) to most of the voyages and travels, which have lately employed our attention.

ART. XX.

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Hiftory of the Voyages and Discoveries made in the North. Tranflated from the German of John Reinhold Forster, J. U. D. Elucidated by feveral new and original Maps. 4to. 11. 1 s. binfons. 1786.

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Boards. Ro

HIS work is not merely a compilation, or collection of the voyages which have been made toward the northern parts of Europe, Afia, and America; but an original compofition, giving an historical account of voyages and travels to those dreary and inhofpitable regions, from the earlieft ages to the prefent; the perfons who undertook them; the times when they happened; and the principal difcoveries which were made in each.

The work is divided into three books; and thefe are again fubdivided into feveral chapters, fections, &c. The first book treats of the most ancient difcoveries.' It contains three chapters. The Voyages and Difcoveries of the Phoeniciansof the Grecians and of the Romans.' The materials from which these three chapters have been compofed, are chiefly extracted from the writings of Mofes, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Plutarch, Livy, Q. Curtius, Arrian, Tacitus, Cefar, &c. Nor has our author difdained to admit, as good authorities in thefe matters, not only Homer and Virgil, but even Ovid, and Pindar, with, occafionally, a long lift of poets of yet more doubtful note. But we are conftrained, nevertheless, to allow, that if the author does not treat us with much certain information, in this part of his performance, he has, at leaft, contrived to amuse and entertain us.

Dr. Forfter fuppofes that the first perions that ventured out to fea, were a fet of banditti, who had been driven from the more civilized part of mankind on account of the brutality of their manners; and who inhabited the northern shores of the Arabian Gulf, and afterward fpread themfelves over all the land of Canaan. They are called "Horites," and "Anakims," or "children of Anak," in the Scriptures; but were known to the Greeks by the appellation of Troglodytes; and in fucceeding times were better known by the name of Phanicians. He contends that the commerce and navigation of this people extended to the British Iles fo early as the time of Mofes; and to the most northerly parts of Germany, in the days of Herodotus, and, perhaps, in thofe of Homer, becaufe lead and tin, which, he fays, are found no where but in Britain, were known to the former *; and tin and amber, the latter of which, according to him, is met with only in Pruffia and on the fhores of the Baltic and German feas, are mentioned by the latter + authors. He feems clear that the Tarfish of the Scriptures was the ancient city of Tarteffus, the remains of which are ftill vifible near Cadiz, in Spain; and hints, by a note of reference, that it took its name from Tarth fh, one of the grand fons of Japheth, the son of Noah . Another point warmly contended for by our author, is, that Africa is the Ophir of the ancients, and that it had been circumnavigated four times before Vafco de Gama effected that arduous task, in 1597 and 1598. The firft of these circumnavigations he fuppotes was made jointly by the Phoenicians and Egyptians, in the days of Amafis I. and Sefoftris, kings of Egypt: and hence it is,' he adds, that we meet with fuch admirable, and, in fact, comprehenfive accounts of the natives of Africa, fo early as the time of Mofes, in the tenth chapter of Genefis.' He places the fecond circumnavigation of Africa in the reign of Solomon, about 500 years after the firft, when his hips went to Ophir for gold; for, adds he, 'These celebrated voyages of the Phoenicians and Hebrews to Ophir were nothing else than circumnavigations of Africa.' Three hundied and eighty years after this, be fays, Pharaoh Necho gave orders for the circumnavigation of Africa to be performed; and in the reign of Ptolemy Evergetes II. one Eudoxus failed once more round Africa,-which is 450 years later than the voyage of Necho,'

About 70 years after the time of Herodotus, that is, about 350 years before the birth of Chrift, the Greeks, ftimulated by the defire of fharing with the Phoenicians in the lucrative trade for tin and amber, fent out two fhips with a defign of difco

Numbers, ch. xxxi. v. 22.

+ Herodot. lib. iii. c. 115. and lib. iv. c. 27 and 31: alio Homeri Odyff. A. v. 14. A. v. 73. 0.459. Z. v. 295. and Iliad E. v. 474. Genefi, ch. x. v. 4.'

vering

vering the countries which produced thefe two valuable articles: one, commanded by Euthymenes, who, after he had paffed the ftraits of Gibraltar, was to proceed fouthward along the coaft of Africa; and the other, which was commanded by Pytheas, a very celebrated aftronomer of that age, was to follow the coaft of Spain and Gau!, northward, until he came in fight of that of Britain, along which he is faid to have coafted to the most northerly point of it; and thence he failed northward, fix days longer, until he difcovered Thule *, where, at the fummer folftice, the fun did not fet for 24 hours. Not fatisfied with having made thefe difcoveries, Pytheas was defirous of becoming perfonally acquainted with the region whence the Phoenicians fetched amber, and was fo fortunate in his refearches, or had fuch exact accounts, either written or oral, that he penetrated quite to the fartheft part of the Baltic, and there hit exactly on the very fpot of the fouthern coaft, where it is found in the greatest abundance.' What confequence thefe difcoveries of Pytheas proved of to his native country, we are entirely ignorant; as alfo what became of Euthymenes, who is not mentioned afterward.

It does not appear from Dr. Forfter's account, that the Romans made any difcoveries worthy of notice.-What he has recorded is rather a fhort abftract of the hiftory of their wars, than an account of their navigations.

We cannot help admiring the extent of our author's reading, and the industry which he must have exerted in working on the fcanty materials that furnish the fubject-matter of these three entertaining chapters. Neither have we been lefs amufed by the ingenuity which he has fhewn in making his deductions from them. The first ages of the world furnifh a large field for fancy and conjecture; and Dr. Forfter has freely put his fickle into the crop which it produces: but how far his fancy may have mifled him; or how far his conjectures may be true, is not for us to determine ;-to attempt it, would only be like gleaning the fame field after him. So far as we are judges of the matter, he reaps little from any man's land but his own; and the heaves which he binds up, are not lets pleafing; nor, perhaps, lefs profitable, because he has generally gone on one fide of almoft every other perfon. It is, however, our duty to remark that it is rather "an hard thing" to admit, becaufe Mofes tells us the fons of Javan were Elifhah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim," that he had, therefore, heard of the city of Tarteffus in Spain. That, because he mentions tin and lead t, which are the produce of Britain only, the navigations of the Phoenicians must have extended to thefe iflands before his

Pliny, Nat. Hift. lib. ii. c. 75. & lib. iv. c. 16,

† Numbers, ch. xxxi. v. 22.

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time;

time; and to the remoteft parts of Europe before the days of Homer, becaufe Homer had feen, or heard of amber, which was found only there. Surely a man, who was not feeking for proofs to fupport a conjecture, would have feen that it was, at leaft, as probable that thefe articles had been handed, from one person to another, across the continent of Europe; as that the Phoenicians had fetched them by fea. Indeed, the scarceness of these things, which may be fairly prefumed from the value that was put on them, feems to us to confirm the former fuppofition.

In the conjecture that Africa had been circumnavigated before Vafco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope, Dr. Forfter does not ftand alone: the Abbé Pluche, and feveral others, quoted by the Doctor himself, contend warmly for it; though, we think, without fuccefs: thofe, at leaft, who are convinced by the arguments which thofe writers bring, have difpofitions more pliant than ours. But let this be as it may, the Doctor has not produced one authority *; not even the cafual mentioning of a fingle name in the Scriptures, to prove his pofition, that the celebrated voyages to Ophir, for gold, were nothing but circumnavigations of Africa; and that Africa is the land of Ophir.' Were we to try our hands at foiling the Doctor with one of his own arguments, we should remind him that "the children of Shem were Elam, and Afhur, and Arphaxad, and Lud‡, and Aram."-That " Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salab begat Eber. And unto Eber were born two fons: the name of the one was Peleg"-" and his brother's name was Joktan. And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and ferah, and Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Qbal, and Abimael, and Sheba, and OPHIR, and HAVILAH, and fobab; all these were the fons of Joktan. And their dwelling was from Mefha, as thou goeft unto Sephar, a mount of the EAST." Now as Dr. Forfter concludes that the city of Tarteffus, in Spain, took its name from Tarshish, one of the defcendants of Japheth, from no better authority than a diftant refemblance between the two names, we may with much greater certainty infer that the *Unless what follows, extracted from the note on p. 7, be admitted as a proof of it. Gold and other precious commodities being found in many parts of Africa, this newly discovered country became celebrated, and got a great name: and this, in the Egyptian language, is Ou-; and, with the addition of the word xa, which fignifies a country, Ou C, (i. e. the celebrated country) Ophiri, and Ophirikah!' + Genefis, ch. x. v. 22-30.

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We might, in Dr. Forter's manner, hence infer that the Phoenicians were not only acquainted with Britain, but with the capital of that ifland alfo, before the time of Mofes; as it is well known that London was originally called Lud's Town, from Lud, its founder.

countries

countries of Ophir and Havilah took their names from two defcendants of Shem, whofe names are written, letter for letter, as the names of these countries are: but the dwellings of both thefe perfons are exprefsly faid to lie eastward, which could not be faid of any part of the continent of Africa from the place where Mofes wrote; and much lefs could it be faid of the continent in general, which lay due fouth of him. Moreover, both the country of Ophir and the country of Havilah contained gold: it is therefore, in fome degree, probable, that they lay in the neighbourhood of one another, as we are here given to underftand that the dwellings of Ophir and Havilah did. From thefe confiderations, we think it highly probable that the land of Ophir was in Afia rather than in Africa; and if this pofition of the Doctor's fall to the ground, one, at leaft, of his circumnavigations of Africa muft fall with it.

The fecond book contains an account of the difcoveries made toward the north, in the middle ages. It is divided into three chapters, which treat of, I. The difcoveries made by the Arabians toward the north. II. Difcoveries by the Saxons, Franks, and Normans. III. Thofe made by the Italians and fome other nations. The first chapter, On the Voyages and Discoveries of the Arabians,' though it contains a great deal of learning, will not, we conceive, be found generally entertaining. The materials from which it is chiefly compofed, are extracted from the Arabian geographers Scherif al Edriffa, who wrote Geographical Recreations in 1153; Abulfeda, who publifhed a Syftem of Geography in 1321; and from the Geographical Tables of Naffir-Eddin-Ettufi and Ulugh Beigh, or, as Dr. Forster writes his name, Ulugbek, the nephew, according to the Doctor, but according to others, the grand fon of the great Tamerlane. But, notwithstanding the chapter is entitled Of the Voyages and Discoveries of the Arabians,' we must confefs that we can find in it no account of even a fingle voyage made by that people; nor any thing that can properly be termed a difcovery of their making. The difcoveries which it does contain are rather those made by the author, concerning the real knowledge of the Arabians in geography, and what places are to be understood by the names which the Arabian geographers have used. Yet, however dry and unentertaining this chapter may appear to the generality of readers, it difplays, in an eminent degree, the induftry and learning of the author, and may be of confiderable ufe in illuftrating the hiftory of the middle ages.

The fecond chapter On the Voyages and Difcoveries made in the North, by the Saxons, Franks, and Normans,' begins with relating the expedition of the Franks, who about the year