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Bruce says no such shoals exist; but, as is justly observed by Dr. Vincent; the correctness of the ancients respecting them, especially Eratosthenes, Agatharcides and Artemidorus, is fully borne out by the danger and loss to which many English ships have been exposed by reason of these very shoals.
As one of our principal objects is to do justice to the accuracy of the ancient geographers, by pointing out instances of the extreme care which many of them took to obtain correct information we shall adduce one other proof of this accuracy and care in Agatharcides.
Strabo, who, as we have already stated, borrows freely and frequently from Agatharcides, describes this bay as full of shoals and breakers, and exposed to violent winds; and he adds, that Berenice lies at the bottom of it.
As, however, we have not the original, and perhaps not the entire work of Agatharcides, we cannot infer any thing, either respecting his ignorance or inattention, from this omission. Agatharcides, having thus described this coast, returns from Ptolemais to Myos Hormos, and passing the Bay of Arsinoe, crosses to Phoenicum, in the Elanitic Gulf, and describes the coast of Arabia as far as Sabea.
It appears that in the age of Agatharcides, the monopoly of the trade between India and Europe by this route was wholly possessed by the Sabeans; that, in order to evade the effects of this monopoly, the Greeks of Egypt found their way to Aden and Hadraumaut, in Arabia, and to Mosullon on the coast of Africa.
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