Note 17 — Chapter III · Ancient Mariners and Explorers

The Far Eastern craft went long distances in ancient days. Ellis tells of regular voyages made by Polynesian chiefs which extended to 300 and even 600 miles. A chief from Rurutu once visited the Society Islands in a native boat built “somewhat in the shape of a crescent, the stem and stern high and pointed and the sides deep”.17 Sometimes exceptionally long voyages were forced by the weather conditions of Oceania. “In 1696”, Ellis writes, “two canoes were driven from Ancarso to one of the Philippine Islands, a distance of 800 miles.” He gives other instances of voyages of like character. A Christian missionary, travelling in a native boat, was carried “nearly 800 miles in a south-westerly direction”.18 Reference has already been made to the long and daring voyage made by the Phœnicians who circumnavigated Africa. Another extraordinary enterprise is referred to by Pliny the elder,19 who quotes from the lost work of Cornelius Nepos. This was a voyage performed by Indians who had, before 60 B.C., embarked on a commercial voyage and reached the coast of Germany. It is uncertain whether they sailed round the Cape of Good Hope and up the Atlantic Ocean, or went northward past Japan and discovered the north-east passage, skirting the coast of Siberia, and sailing round Lapland and Norway to the Baltic. They were made prisoners by the Suevians and handed over to Quintus Metellus Celer, pro-consular governor of Gaul.