Indeed, the writings of Herodotus indicate that, over two thousand years before Dias and Vasco da Gama, Africa was circumnavigated by a fleet of Phœnician ships sent by Pharaoh Necho down the Red Sea with orders to return to Egypt by way of the Pillars of Hercules. A Persian, Sataspes, endeavored to accomplish the voyage from the other direction, but failed. Plato's island of Atlantis, founded by the god Neptune, was of great size, "larger than Asia and Libya together, and was situated over against the straits now called the Pillars of Hercules." The climate and soil were so good that fruits ripened twice every year. There were metals, with elephants and other animals in abundance. Upon a mountain was a beautiful city with gold and ivory palaces, having gardens and statues. Unfortunately in time the sea swallowed up this island, so that it could scarcely have been America. [Sidenote: THE PROPHECY OF QUETZALCOATL.] So far as these voyages and strange tales concern the possible knowledge of America by the ancients, I have already discussed them in my _Native Races of the Pacific States_. Therein is mentioned a theory which has found many advocates, and to which I will again briefly allude in this place. It is that at the beginning of the Christian era America was visited by the Apostle St Thomas. He was accompanied by a number of fellow-laborers in the ministry, who preached the gospel and planted the Christian religion in America. The theory is ably advocated in the excellent work of Rev. W. Gleeson, _The History of the Catholic Church in California_. The principal arguments advanced may be briefly stated as follows: First, that the whole tenor of Scripture teaching is in favor of the supposition that the gospel was preached to all the world from the beginning, rather than after the lapse of several centuries. Second, that at a date fixed by Mexican hieroglyphics as a little before the middle of the first century after Christ, a celebrated personage, certainly the most remarkable in Mexican mythology, came from the north. He is represented as a white man, with flowing beard, clad in a long white robe, adorned with red crosses, head uncovered, and a staff in his hand. This was the Quetzalcoatl, whom the Mexicans afterward worshipped, and whose return was so anxiously looked for by them. See _Torquemada_, _Monarq. Ind._ Third, that to him popular tradition ascribes the worship paid to the cross, the practice of confession, and in a word all the customs found on the arrival of the Spaniards to be nearly identical with those of the Christian religion. _Veytia_, _Hist. Ant. de Mexico_. Fourth, that the name Quetzalcoatl is synonymous with that of St Thomas. See _Native Races_, v. 26. Fifth, that Quetzalcoatl promised on his departure to return at some future day with his posterity and resume the possession of the empire, and that day was looked forward to with general confidence, _Prescott's Conq. Mex._, and that a general feeling