NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

OPHIR, THE LAND OF GOLD.

THERE are few things more amusing to the genuine geographer than the statement which is so oft repeated in certain critical papers, that little or nothing remains to be discovered on the face of the earth. We have before us at the present moment the probable solution of an inquiry which has puzzled Biblical geographers more probably than any other record of the same character in the whole scriptural narrative, and which may not impossibly revolutionise a large portion of a continent. Ophir was the region which supplied the Holy Land with gold of the most precious quality (Job xxviii. 16, Isa. xiii. 16), and if, as it seems likely, it should turn out that Ophir was a region on the south-eastern coast of Africa, at the foot of whose long littoral chain of mountains gold has for some time past been known to exist—a point to which we have not failed frequently to call attention in connexion with recent important explorations, and the extensive deposits of coal and iron found up its rivers, especially the Zambesi-there will be the same attraction to the spirit of adventure and enterprise which has colonised whole regions of Australia, California, British Columbia, and New Zealand, and a new future will be opened to a long-neglected and most promising region of rivers, lakes, and mountains.

Many countries in the East were named after their first Biblical founders, descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, as Cush, Sheba, Asshur, Lud, Aram, and others, and it has been supposed that Ophir derived its name from the son of Joktan, and great-grandson of Shem (Gen. x. 29), although some read the word as simply expressive of "dust." Hence it was that the Rev. Ch. Forster, in his "Historical Geography of Arabia,” vol. i. p. 167, taking into consideration that it was the celebrated voyage to Ophir which first brought the glory of Solomon to the knowledge of the Queen of Sheba, and that the descendants of Joktan settled for the most part in Arabia, identified Ophir with a site called Ofor or Ofir, in the mountains of Oman, near the sources of the Oman River, and on the eastern side of the Arabian peninsula. But as Solomon's fleet had to navigate the Red Sea, whether, on arriving at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandel, it turned eastward, to Oman or to India, or westward, to Africa, there is nothing surprising in the fact that it came under the notice of chiefs at that time residing on the coasts of the Erythrean, whether to the east or to the west, and that such cognisance had little or nothing to do with the further destination of the fleet, or can be made to constitute of themselves sufficient grounds for establishing deductions as to that future destination.

Sept.-VOL. CXXXVIII. NO. DXLIX.

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It being recorded, in reference to the voyage to Ophir, that “Solomon had at sea a navy of Tarshish" (1 Kings x. 22), and that "Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold" (1 Kings xxii. 48), it has been supposed that, although the fleet was historically known to have been assembled in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, and in the land of Edom, and that his Phoenician neighbour and ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, sent in this navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon, that the said fleet doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Tartessus in Spain or Tarsus in Cilicia, two places which would have been so much more easily reached by the Mediterranean, and one of which is, indeed, within a brief sail from Tyre. The whole difficulty appears to have arisen from it being probably intended to be conveyed that the ships were built on the Red Sea, of timber from Tarshish or Tarsus, just as the ships of Egypt are in part to the present day, for there is little or no timber on the Red Sea or in Edom.

Michaelis, for example, is one of those who argue ("Spic. Geog. Hebr. Exteræ," p. 98) that Solomon's fleet, coming down the Red Sea from Ezion-geber, coasted along the shore of Africa, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and came to Tarshish, which he, with many others, supposes to have been Tartessus in Spain, and thence back again the same way, and that this conjecture accounts for their three years' voyage out and home, and that Spain and the coasts of Africa furnished all the commodities which they brought back.

Others have not hesitated to carry Solomon's fleet round from Spain to Tarsus, and even to Joppa, the chief grounds for this supposition being the very remarkable statement of Herodotus, that Necho II., King of Egypt, the Pharaoh-Necho of Scripture, whose enterprising disposition appears from his project to unite the Nile and the Red Sea by a canal, despatched some vessels, under the conduct of Phoenicians, with directions to pass by the Columns of Hercules, now called the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after penetrating the Northern Ocean, to return to Egypt; that these Phoenicians, taking their course from the Red Sea, entered into the Southern Ocean, and on the approach of autumn landed in Libya, and planted some corn in the place where they happened to find themselves; that when this was ripe they cut it down and departed. Having thus consumed two years, they in the third year doubled the Columns of Hercules, and returned to Egypt. He adds, this relation may obtain attention from others, but to me it seems incredible, for they affirmed that, having sailed round Libya, they had the sun on their right hand.

It seems certain, however, that this voyage was accomplished from this very statement, for the mariners would have the sun on their right hand after passing the line, a fact which never could have been imagined in that age, when astronomy was in its infancy; and hence it has been supposed that this was the voyage made " once in three years" by Solomon's fleet, under the conduct also of Phoenician mariners. If they only reached Sofala, however, in lat. 20 deg. south, they would be placed in the same position with regard to the sun whether they doubled the Cape or not. Assuming this latter fact to be the case, it seems strange that the knowledge and the record of it should have been so completely lost in the time of Pharaoh-Necho, only two centuries after Solomon, as that

Herodotus, whose information and accuracy appear from this very account, should say that Libya, evidently meaning the circuit of it by the sea, was thus for the first time known. Heeren explains the loss of the said records in the desolating ravages of the Babylonian conquerors and the protracted siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, which followed shortly after the time of Solomon. It seems likely, indeed, that Necho had heard of such a passage, and believed that the Phoenicians knew how to find it, and Mr. Sharpe, in his "History of Egypt," p. 59, explains that when Necho, being warned by the priests, abandoned the idea of an interoceanic ship canal, he ordered his pilots to see whether the fleets might not be moved from sea to sea by some other channel; and for this purpose his mariners set sail on a voyage of discovery from the Red Sea, coasting Egypt and Ethiopia, with a view to circumnavigate Africa. They spent nearly three years on the voyage. They twice landed and laid up their ships, sowed the fields and reaped the harvest, and then set sail again. In this way they came round to the well-known Pillars of Hercules, the Straits of Gibraltar, and thus brought the ships safely into the mouth of the Nile, declaring to their disbelieving hearers, what to us is a proof of the truth of the whole story, that as they were sailing westward the sun was on their right hand. The voyage was too long to be repeated, but it was a noble undertaking on the part of Necho for the increase of commerce and geographical knowledge. That it was not much frequented during many subsequent ages, appears, indeed, from the notice taken by Pliny ("Hist. Nat.," ii. 67) of the few who had accomplished it, and it was, we know, after his time unused and forgotten till recovered by the Spaniards, A.D. 1497.

The knowledge of the site of Ophir appears to have passed away with the loss of the records of these voyages along the southern coasts of Africa, and it has remained ever since a puzzle for geographers. Some writers, reasoning from the etymology of the word, which is supposed to mean "dust," have inferred almost every place where "gold dust" is procured in abundance. Others have rested their conclusions upon the similarity of the name in Hebrew to that of other countries, as, for instance, Aphar, a port of Arabia, mentioned by Arrian in his "Periplus of the Erythrean Sea," and, as we have seen, in that of Ofir in Oman. Others, again, have, by a transposition of the letters of the Hebrew word, even made out Peru!

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It was one of the beliefs of Columbus, adopted, probably, to influence those to whom he appealed for aid in his projected voyage of discovery, that Ophir lay in the New World. The remarks of Columbus on Ophir and El Monte Sopora, "which Solomon's fleet could not reach within a term of three years," are to be found in Navarrete, Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron los Españoles," t. i. p. 103. In another work the great discoverer says, still in the hopes of reaching Ophir: "The excellence and power of the gold of Ophir cannot be described; he who possesses it does what he will in this world; nay, it even enables him to draw souls from purgatory to paradise." That is, we suppose, by paying for masses ("Curta del Amirante, escrita en la Jamaica, 1503;" Navarrete, t. i. p. 309, quoted by De Humboldt, "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 501).

By such or similar methods of investigation the following countries,

among others, have been proposed: Melindah on the coast of Africa, Angola, Carthage, St. Domingo, Mexico, New Guinea, Urphe, an island in the Red Sea, and Ormuz in the Persian Gulf. Bochart ("Geo. Sac.," ii. 27) thinks that the Ophir from which David obtained gold (1 Chron. xxix. 4) was the Cassanitis of Ptolemy and Stephanus, on the coast of Arabia; while that visited by the fleet of Solomon was Taprobane, now called Ceylon. Pegu is the place selected by Maffai ("Hist. Ind.," lib. i.). Others decide in favour of the peninsula of Malacca, which abounds in precious ores, apes, and peacocks; others prefer Sumatra, for the same reason. Lipenius, relying on the authority of Josephus, Theodoret, and Procopius, who call Ophir "the golden land,” "the golden Chersonese," says that the children of Joktan peopled all the countries bounded by the eastern seas, and that Ophir includes not only_Sumatra and Malacca, but every coast and island from Ceylon to the Indian archipelago.

It appears certain that Solomon sent direct to Ophir, wherever it might be, for gold, and that, whereas it had been hitherto procured from thence by David and others through foreign merchants, Solomon fitted out a fleet to obtain it at first hand-the fleet which assembled in Ezion-geber, or Berenice, which is beside Elath, on the shore of the Red Sea; the former being supposed to be represented by the modern Akaba, the latter, also known as Ailah and Elana, by extensive mounds of rubbish, a little to the north of Akaba; that it was navigated by Israelites aided by Phoenician mariners; that they went to Ophir and fetched from thence gold and brought it to Solomon (1 Kings ix. 26-29); that they brought in the same voyage algum, or almug-trees, and precious stones (1 Kings x. 11), silver, ivory, apes, or rather monkeys, and peacocks, or, according to some, pheasants, and to others, parrots, or guinea-fowl; and that gold in great abundance and of the purest quality was procured from the same place (1 Chron. xxix. 4, Job xxviii. 16, Ps. xlv. 9, Isa. xiii. 12, Ecclus. vii. 18).

The chief reason why India, or islands in the Eastern Ocean, have been identified with Ophir, lies in the fact that all the productions said to have been brought from that region were procurable from those countries, and peacocks only from the said countries, and not from Arabia or Africa. Bochart, unable to discover a Hebrew root in the word thūkyīm, which occurs in 1 Kings x. 22, and with a slight variation in 2 Chron. ix. 21, and which has been translated "peacock,' rather arbitrarily proposed a transposition of letters, by which he converts the word into Cuthyim, denoting, as he supposes, the country of the Cuthei, which, in an extended sense, is applied, in conformity with various writers of antiquity, to Media and Persia, and Greek authorities are cited to show that peacocks were carried west from India to those countries, and even to Babylonia. But even if peacocks had been numerous in Media and Persia at the time in question, how were they to be furnished to a fleet which was navigating the Red Sea and Southern Ocean? and as for the land of the Cuthei or of Cush, writers remove it to Africa along with the migrations of the Cushites.

Others, again, have sought in thūkyīm an exotic word, signifying "tufted" or 66 crested," and have, therefore, supposed that "crested" parrot or pheasant was meant. Parrots, though many species are in

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digenous to Africa, it has been remarked upon this subject, do not appear on the monuments of Egypt; they were unknown to the West till the time of Alexander, and then both Greeks and Romans were acquainted only with species from Ceylon, destitute of crests, such as Psittacus Alexandri; and the Romans for a long time received these only by way of Alexandria, though in the time of Pliny others became known, but this does not apply to either the Israelites or Phoenicians. Again, as to pheasants, the pheasant of the South, or Francolin, and the true pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), are likewise without prominent crests. The strongest grounds for doubting the correctness of the translation of thūkyīm or tūkiyyīm lies, however, in the fact that the allusion made in Job xxxix. 13, "Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks?" is to the wings not to the tail-coverts, which would unquestionably have been alluded to had peacocks been meant.

The feathered tribe, Burton remarks ("Lake Regions of Central Africa," vol. i. p. 270), are not common in Eastern Africa, and birds are characterised by sombreness of plumage, which, however, Livingstone describes as undergoing a change in summer. An exception, however, occurs in what the same writer designates as the "polygamous bird," or ostrich, in small green parrots with yellow shoulders, in hoopoes, larks with jet-black heads and yellow bodies, sun-birds, green pigeons, hornbills, small bustards, doves, and a variety of other birds. Among all of which the parrot, whether "crested" or not, would unquestionably have been the most likely to have been selected for exportation, and would be more suitable to Job's description than even a crested guinea-fowl.

Monkeys abound in Eastern Africa. "Near the settlements," Burton says, "the white-necked raven and the common chil of India (Falco cheela) attest the presence of man, as the monkey does the proximity of water. The nyani, or cynocephalus, the same traveller states to attain the size of a greyhound, and, according to the people, there are three varieties of colour-red, black, and yellow. They are the terror of some districts, and even set the lion and the leopard at defiance. The Colobus guereza, or tippet monkey, the "polume" of Livingstone, is a very pretty species, and is much admired on account of its polished black skin and snowy white mane. It is a cleanly animal, ever occupied in polishing its beautiful garb, and may well have been selected for exportation as a pet. The algum, or almug-tree, has been the subject of as much discussion as the "thūkyīm." If we are to understand from Solomon's request to Hiram (2 Chron. ii. 8), "Send me also cedar-trees, fir-trees, and algumtrees out of Lebanon," that it was a growth of Syria as well as Africa, the representative of the Al muggin of 1 Kings x. 11, 12, and Al gummin of 2 Chron. ix. 10, 11, must be sought for in some tree analogous to the fir and cedar, as the celebrated thyine wood (Thuya articulata, or Callitris quadrivalvis), a close-grained wood, admirably adapted, as described in Holy Writ, for works of ornament, or for the construction of musical instruments (1 Kings x. 12). It has, however, been more generally identified with sandal wood, which grows along the whole coast of East Africa, from Delagoa Bay to Mozambique, and is also to be found in great abundance on the opposite side of the Mozambique Channel, on the north-west end of the island of Madagascar, whence it is exported to China. Mr. Lyons M'Leod says: "Besides the common sandal wood,