THE INDIAN OCEAN HISTORICAL NOTES Unlike the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, of which the nations of antiquity knew but little, the Indian Ocean seems to have been approached from South-eastern Europe overland by Persia and India, and by the Red Sea, at a very early period. If the Ophir of Scripture was the present Sofala, then Hiram's vessels must have passed down the Red Sea and the east coast of Africa, and through the Channel of Mozambique. Others assert that Ophir was the Malabar coast of India. Whichever view is the correct one, it is certain that the Phcenicians navigated the Indian Ocean even at that early period.
In the year 327, Alexander the Great invaded India through Afghanistan, and followed the Indus to its mouth, whence one of his generals, Nearchus, sailed in the following year, with 30 galleys, to the Persian Gulf. We also know that, under the Ptolemies, Egyptian fleets frequently sailed from the Red Sea ports to India and the east coast of Africa. The Indian Ocean was also known to Herodotus, Ptolemy, and other ancient writers, as the Eryarceum Sea—a name first given to the Red Sea, but subsequently extended to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Suleiman, an Arab merchant and traveller in the ninth century, visited India and China by sea. Marco Polo, a Venetian, in 1265, with his father and uncle, travelled over land to China, and remained for 17 years in the service of the Emperor, Kublai Khan. On his return to Europe he wrote an account of his travels, which is by far the most import ant geographical production of the time, although disfigured with numerous improbable and incredible stories. Passing by the minor voyages and travels of several missionary monks to India and China about 1320, we come to the famous Arab traveller, Ibn Batuta, who commenced his travels in 1325. After a few land journeys in North Africa and South western Asia, he sailed down the Red Sea to Aden, and thence visited the East African porta of Mombas and Quiloa, whence he traversed the Indian Ocean to Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf In 1342 he passed down the west coast of India, and after visiting Ceylon and the Maldives, proceeded to China through the Straits of Malaya, But it was not until the establishment of a school of navigation at Sagres by Prince Henry of Portugal, that maritime discovery was fairly started. We have already, in
our short notice of the Atlantic, followed the various voyages of discovery in that ocean to the year 1486, when Bartho lomew Diaz first sighted the famous headland, which he named Cabo Tormentoso, or Cape of Tempests, afterwards changed by King John of Portugal to Cabo de Bona Espe ranza, Cape of Good Hope. Eleven years later this long sought Cape was doubled by Vasco de Game, and the passage by sea to India opened to European enterprise and ambition. De Gama left Lisbon on the 8th of July, 1497, with four vessels, and doubled the Cape on the 22nd of November. On Christmas Day the coast of Natal was sighted, and in April he arrived at Mombas, whence he sailed to Calieut. On his return, the Portuguese king decided to found settlements along the south coast of Asia, and on the 9th March, 1500, Pedro Cabral left Lisbon with 13 vessels, but, bearing too much to the west on his way to the Cape, the vessels were driven towards the coast of Brazil. Naming the newly-dis covered land Terra da Santa Cruz, the " Land of the Holy Cross," Cabral sailed from the port, now called Porto Seguro, to the Cape, and thence across the Indian Ocean to Calicut. Game, Saldanha, and Almeida successively visited India, and in 1506, the great Albuquerque, being appointed Viceroy of the Indies, conquered Goa, which thenceforth formed the chief settlement of the Portuguese, whence they extended their conquests north to Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, and east to the Malay Archipelago. The Spaniards being desirous of discovering a westerly route to the East Indies, Magellan was sent out with five ships in 1519. After a most successful voyage by way of Magellan Straits, he reached the Philippines, where he was unfortunately killed by the native& Only one of his vessels, the Vittoria, left the Moluccas, and, sailing across the Indian Ocean to the Cape, eventually reached Por tugal (1522), being thus the first vessel to circumnavigate the globe.