understood; and this was the reason why, in the earliest ages, the India trade was carried on without difficulty.
Many doubts, however, have arisen about a port called Ophir, whence the immense quantities of gold and silver came, which were necessary at this time, when provision was making for building the Temple of Jerusalem. In what part of the world this Ophir was has not been yet agreed. Connected with this voyage, too, was one to Tarshish, which suffers the same difficulties; one and the same fleet performed them both in the same season.
In order to come to a certainty where this Ophir was, it will be necessary to examine what scripture says of it, and to keep precisely to every thing like description which we can find there, without indulging our fancy farther. First, then, the trade to Ophir was carried on from the Elanitic Gulf through the Indian Ocean. Secondly, The returns were gold, silver, and ivory, but especially silver *[1]. Thirdly, the time of the going and coming of the fleet was precisely three years †[2], at no period more nor less.
Now, if Solomon's fleet sailed from the Elanitic Gulf to the Indian Ocean, this voyage of necessity must have been made by monsoons, for no other winds reign in that ocean. And, what certainly shews this was the case, is the precise term of three years, in which the fleet went and came between Ophir and Ezion-gaber. For it is plain, so as to supersede the necessity of proof or argument, that, had this
- 1 Kings, chap. x. ver. 22. † 1 Kings, chap. x. ver. 22. 2 Chron. chap. ix. ver. 21.
