Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/590

466 my. The necessity, however, of this voyage appeared still great enough to make Cleopatra his widow project a second to the same place, and greater preparations were made than for the former one.

Eudoxus, trying experiments probably about the courses of the trade-winds, loft his passage, and was thrown upon the coast of Ethiopia ; where, having landed, and made himself agreeable to the natives, he brought home to Egypt a particular description of that country and its produce, which furnished all the discovery necessary to instruct the Ptolemies in every thing that related to the ancient trade of Arabia. In the course of the voyage, Eudoxus discovered the part of the prow of a vessel which had been broken off by a storm. The figure of a horse made it an object of inquiry; and some of the sailors on board, who had been employed in European voyages, immediately knew this wreck to be part of one of those vessels used to trade on the western ocean. Eudoxus * instantly perceived all the importance of the discovery, which amounted to nothing less, than that there was a passage round Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean. Full of this thought, he returned to Egypt, and,, having shewn the prow of his vessel to European ship-masters, they all declared that this had been part of a vessel which had belonged to Cadiz, in Spain.

discovery, great as it was, was to none of more importance than to Eudoxus; for, some time after, falling under the displeasure of Ptolemy Lathyrus, VIIIth of that

name,


 * Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 2. cap. 67.