CURSORY REFLECTIONS ON THE LIMITED

NAVAL

CONCERNS OF THE ANCIENT

EGYPTIANS AND PERSIANS.

I HAVE not hitherto, in any particular manner, mentioned the maritime concerns of the ancient Egyptians, nor yet of the ancient Perfians, for, in fact, neither of those nations were greatly addicted to nautical adventures. The former were prevented from becoming fo by their abominable fuperftition, which led them to confider the ocean, probably from fome faint traditions relative to the deluge, as the enraged Typhon, the restlefs enemy of the benign Ofiris. benign Ofiris. I have, however, already obferved, that Sefoftris, 1600 years before Chrift, had endeavoured to conquer this rooted averfion of the Egyptians to naval enterprizes; that he contrived to have a fleet of four hundred fhips of war on the Arabian Gulph, and that he inftituted among his reluctant fubjects a marine class. Their deeply-rooted religious prejudices were, doubtlefs, one, but not the only, cause of their averfion to the fea and foreign trade; for, happy in their own genius, and in a moft fertile foil,

the

the ancient Egyptians, like the modern inhabitants of Japan, were internally rich in every thing neceffary to their happiness and convenience; and, except minerals and fome particular gums confumed in religious rites and in enbalming the dead, wanted not the luxuries which foreign commerce introduces. Not that they were entirely deftitute of that species of commerce, but they fuffered other nations, more addicted to nautical concerns, to be their factors and agents. Able as they were, from their fituation, to command the whole, navigation of the Red Sea, they relinquifhed the natural right of their country to the more adventurous Tyrian and Idumæan mariners; and were content to receive, through their hands, the Arabian incenfe that burned in their temples, and the Indian drugs annually. fwallowed up by the rapacious jaws of the catacombs. For these they bartered the emerals of the Thebais; the fine glafs, fabricated from the ashes of the celebrated plant kali, at the great Diofpolis, in which city the manufacture of this article rivalled, if not exceeded, the antiquity of thofe of Sidon; the natron that grows fo abundantly in that country, and even at this day fupplies the fhops of European druggifts; the paper formed from the

reed

3

reed of the Nile, from which its name is derived; the linen woven from the flax of Egypt; and, above all, the corn, which may be confidered as the ftaple of that country, grew there in fuch luxuriant abundance, as through all antiquity caused Egypt to be confidered the granary of the world.

and

In return for thefe articles the Phoenicians gave them OIL, which was ever the abundant produce of the olive-groves of Syria and Paleftine; and this, it will be remembered, was one of the articles with which king Solomon repaid the kindness of the Tyrian monarch, in furnishing him with cedar and cyprefs for building the fuperb temple of Jerusalem : the Scripture exprefsly mentioning the former's annual prefent of twenty thousand measures of wheat, and twenty measures of pure oil: the oil they exported to Spain and other countries, but the infular feite, the vaft population, and contracted territory, of Tyre, required not lefs the grain of Syria than that of Egypt for the fupport of its innumerable citizens. They alfo imported into Egypt that timber of which her own foil could not furnish even the fmall quantity used in her public and private edifices; the various fragrant productions of the Arabian and Indian gardens; and the precious

metals

metals of which the lower Egypt was wholly deftitute; the principal among which may be enumerated the gold of Sofala, the filver of Spain, and the TIN of Britain. I particularize this laft article, because, independent of the great advance of the Egyptians in metallurgy, (and tin, it has already been observed, is mentioned in the Pentateuch of Mofes, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and in the writings of Homer,) we meet, in ancient claffical writers, with very ample and repeated teftimony, that the Egyptians, in the glafs-houfes of Diofpolis, knew how to fabricate mirrors of ftupendous magnitude; and, though hence it does not abfolutely follow that these mirrors fhould be of TINNED GLASS, yet the ufe to which they applied, at leaft, two of these mirrors, affords very ftrong reafon for that fuppofition; fince, if compofed of any metalline fubftance, the fituation in which they were placed muft unavoidably have expofed them to obfcuration or corrofion. One of thefe mirrors, according to Strabo,* was elevated on the fummit of the great temple of Heliopolis, or the city of the fun, to reflect

Strabo, lib. xvii, p. 492.

into

into that temple the full splendor of its me ridian beam; while another of still more prodigious dimenfions was, in later periods, erected on the Pharos of Alexandria, and fo placed as to reflect fhips approaching Egypt at a vaft diftance, and imperceptible by the eye from its loftieft pinnacle.

Unwearied as were the exertions of Sefoftris, recapitulated above, they were only the tranfient efforts of an enlarged and liberal mind, fpurning at and trampling down vulgar prejudice; thofe veffels were, in all probability, provided with their rigging, cordage, and other furniture, and navigated, by the Phonicians. With that prince the project of extending their power by foreign conqueft expired; and all ideas of the neceffity of keeping up a powerful navy feem to have been erafed from the minds of his more politic fucceffors on the throne of Egypt. If fuch, however, had not been the cafe, there was one infuperable objection to their maintaining any confiderable navy; I mean the above-mentioned total want of timber proper for its conftruction and repair, of which the whole country wast fo entirely deftitute, that even the boats on the Nile were obliged to be fabricated either of baked earth glazed and varnished, or of rafts