exchange a supply of water and pilots for his voyage. Before, however, taking his departure, he had made himself acquainted with a few words of their language, and having ascertained that the portion of a prow he had seen on the beach, representing the head of a horse, belonged to a vessel which the natives said had come from the west, he took it with him to Egypt, where he exhibited it in the market-place. Some of the Egyptian pilots, it is further stated, on examining this figure head, recognized it as that of a vessel which had sailed from Gades (Cadiz), beyond the river Lixus,[1] and had not returned. She was one, they said, of a class of vessels styled "horses" (from the figure of that animal borne upon the prow), which were employed in fishing around Maurusia as far south as Lixus.[2]
Eudoxus, from the account of the pilots, inferred the possibility of circumnavigating Africa, and resolved to attempt it, first visiting various parts of Europe to procure the necessary funds. Having succeeded in doing so, he equipped one large ship, and two swift boats of considerable size, embarking merchandise of various kinds, as also physicians and singing boys, no doubt to cure and delight the natives of the places he proposed visiting. No particulars are given of this voyage except that he unfortunately lost his ship, and returned to Egypt. It must be added, that Strabo doubts the story of Eudoxus, and sneers at the
- ↑ Larachi or Al Arish, on the coast of Marocco.
- ↑ Humboldt, in confirmation of this statement, quotes the case of a counterpart for the horse's head belonging to the Gades-ship, referred to by Eudoxus, as having occurred in the remains of a ship of the Red Sea, which was brought to Crete by westerly currents, according to the account of the trustworthy Arabian historian Masudi.—Humboldt's "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 389.
