Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/111

Rh, from his early years, had been passionately addicted to the study of what is generally known by the name of mathematics, that is, geometry, astronomy, and consequently arithmetic. He was of a liberal turn of mind, devoid of superstition, haughtiness, or passion; the Arab and the Jew were admitted to him with great freedom, as the only masters who were capable of instructing him in those sciences. It was in vain to attempt to rival Venice in possession of the Mediterranean trade: no other way remained but to open the commerce to India by the Atlantic Ocean, by sailing round the point of Africa to the market of spices in India. Full of this thought, he retired to a country palace, and there dedicated the whole of his time to deliberate inquiry. The ignorance and prejudices of the age were altogether against him. The only geography then known was that of the poets. It was the opinion of the Portuguese, that the regions within the tropics were totally uninhabited, scorched by eternal sun-beams, while boiling oceans washed these burning coasts; and, therefore, they concluded, that every attempt to explore them was little better than downright madness, and a braving, or tempting, of Providence.

, on the other hand, he found great materials to comfort him, and to make him persist in his resolution. For Greek history, to which he then had access, had recorded two instances, which shewed that the voyage was not only possible, but that it had been actually performed, first by the Phœnicians, under Necho king of Egypt, then by Eudoxus, during the time of Ptolemy Lathyrus, who, after doubling the southern Cape of Africa, arrived in safety at Cadiz. Hanno, too, had sailed from Carthage through the Straits, and