SECT.

1 .

io AN HISTORICAL DISQUISITION

all the other articles which compofed the cargoesof the Jewilh fhips. This opinion which the accu-rate refearches of M. D’Anville rendered highlyprobable 1 ', feems now to be eftablifhed with theutmoft certainty by a late learned traveller; who,by his knowledge of the monfoons in the Arabian Gulf , and his attention to the ancient mode ofnavigation, both in that fea and along the Africancoaft, has not only accounted for the extraordinarylength of time which the fleets of Solomon tookingoing and returning, but has flhown , from cir-cumftances mentioned concerning the voyage, thatit was not made to any place in India TheJews , then, we may conclude, have no title tobe reckoned among the nations which carried onintercourfe with India by fea; and if, from defer-ence to the fentiments of fome refpedtable authors,their claim were to be admitted, we know withcertainty, that the commercial effort which theymade in the reign of Solomon was merely a tran-fient one, and that they quickly returned to theirformer ftate of unfocial feclufion from the reft ofmankind.

From collecting the fcanty information whichhiftory affords, concerning the moft early attemptsto open a commercial intercourfe with India, Inow proceed, with more certainty and greaterconfidence, to trace the progrefs of communicationwith that country, under the guidance of authors

” Differt. fur le Pays d’Ophir, Mem. de Literat. torn,xxx. p. 8$, &c. "Bruce’s Travels, book ii. ch. 4.