were unfavourable to maritime enterprises; yet Necho, endowed with the spirit of a great man, which raised him superior to the age in which he lived, eagerly sought the solution of the grand mystery that involved the form and termination of Africa. He was obliged to employ, not native, but Phoenician navigators, of whose proceedings Herodotus received an account from the Egyptian priests. Proceeding down the Red Sea, they entered the Indian Ocean; and in a voyage of three years made the complete circuit of the continent, passing through the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar), and up the Mediterranean to Egypt. They related, that in the course of this very long voyage they had repeatedly drawn their boats on land, sowed grain in a favourable place and season, waited till the crop grew and ripened under the influence of a tropical heat, then reaped it, and continued their progress. They added, that in passing the most southern coast of Africa, they were surprised by observing the sun on their right hand,- —a statement which the historian himself rejects as impossible. Such is all the account transmitted to us of this extraordinary voyage, which has given rise to a learned and voluminous controversy. Rennel in his Geography of Herodotus, Vincent in his Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, and Gosselin in his Geography of the Ancients, have exhausted almost every possible argument; the first in its favour, the two latter to prove that it never did or could take place. To these last it appears impossible that ancient mariners, with their slender resources, creeping in little row-galleys along the coast, steering without the aid of the compass, and unable to venture to any distance from land, could have performed so immense a circuit. All antiquity, they observe, continued to grope in doubt and darkness respecting the form of Africa, which was only fully established several thousand years afterward by the expedition of Gama. On the other side, Major Rennel urges, that, immense as this voyage was, it was entirely along a coast of which the navigators never required to lose sight even for a day; that their small barks were well equipped, and better fitted than ours for coasting naviga tion; and which, drawing very little water, could be kept quite close to the shore, and even be drawn on land, whenever an emergency made this step indispensable. The

statement, that at the extremity of Africa they saw the sun on the right, that is, to the north of them, a fact which causes Herodotus peremptorily to reject their report,affords the strongest confirmation of it to us, who know that to the south of the equator this must have really taken place, and that his unbelief arose entirely from ignorance of the real figure of the earth.

The other expedition had its origin in the country of the Nasamones, whom we have already mentioned as occupying the district southward of Cyrene. Five young men of distinction formed themselves into an African association, personally to explore what was still unknown in the vast interior of this continent. They passed first the region inhabited by man; then that which was tenanted by wild beasts; lastly, they reached the immeasurable sandy waste. Having laid in a good stock of water and provisions, they travelled many days partly in a western direction, and attained at length one of the oases or verdant islands which bespangle the desert. Here they saw trees laden with agreeable fruit, and had begun to pluck, when there suddenly appeared a band of little black men, who seized and carried them off as captives. They were led along vast lakes and marshes, to a town situated on a large river flowing from west to east, and inhabited by a nation all of the same size and colour with the strangers, and strongly addicted to the arts of necromancy. It is not said how or by what route they returned; but, since they supplied this relation, they must by some means have reached home. Herodotus concludes this great river to be the Nile flowing from the westward; while Major Rennel conceives it to be the Niger of Park, and the city to be Timbuctoo; but since the late discoveries of Denham and Clapperton, it has appeared more probable that the stream was the Yeou or river of Bornou. The distance from Cyrene thither is not so great; and nowhere but in the Tchad can we find those mighty lakes which make so prominent a figure in the narration. On the whole, it must appear truly wonderful that these efforts, made at so early an era, should have led to discoveries, respecting both the maritime outline and the interior of the continent, which Europeans could not regain for thousands of years, and one of which, at the present day, is still entirely new to us

The next expedition on record was made under less pleasing auspices. Sataspes, a Persian nobleman, had been condemned by Xerxes to crucifixion, on account of some crime of which he had been guilty; but his mother, by earnest entreaty, obtained a commutation of the sentence into one which she represented as still more severe, -that of sailing round Africa. Under this heavy necessity, Sataspes coasted along the Mediterranean, passed the western point of the continent, and began a southward course. But he who undertook to explore this vast country with no interest in the subject, buoyed up by no gay enthusiasm, and urged only by the fear of death behind, was ill prepared for achieving so mighty an enterprise. Sataspes sailed southward for a considerable space; but when he saw the Atlantic waves beating against the dreary shore of the Sahara, that scene of frequent and terrible ship wreck, it probably appeared to him that any ordinary form of death was preferable to the one which here menaced him. He returned, and presented himself before Xerxes, giving a doleful description of the hardships which he had encountered, declaring that the ship at last stood still of itself, and could by no exertion be made to proceed. proud monarch, refusing to listen to such an explanation, ordered the original sentence to be immediately executed. Such appears to have been the only African voyage undertaken by the Persians, to whom the sea was an object of aversion, and even of superstitious dread.

That

Carthage, the greatest maritime and commercial state of antiquity, and which considered Africa and the Atlantic coast as her peculiar domain, must have made several exploratory voyages before she could establish those extensive connexions upon which her trade was founded. Of all such attempts, however, the record of one only remains. It consisted of an expedition on a very large scale, sent out, about 570 years before the Christian era, for the joint purposes of colonization and discovery, under an admiral named Hanno. He carried with him, in sixty large vessels, emigrants of both sexes to the number of thirty thousand. At the distance of two days' sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the Carthaginians founded the city of Thymioterium, and afterward, on the wooded promontory of Soloeis, erected a stately temple to Neptune. They then built

successively four other cities; after which they came to the great river Lixus, flowing from Libya and the high boundary of the Atlas. Its banks were infested by_numbers of wild beasts, and inhabited only by savage Ethiopians, living in caves, and repelling every friendly overture. Proceeding three days along a desert coast, the navigators reached an island, which they named Cerne, situated in a recess of the sea, where they established their last colony. Sailing onward still for a number of days, they saw a large river full of crocodiles and hippopotami, and containing various islands. The inhabitants were timid, and fled at their approach; but the coast presented some remarkable phenomena. During the day deep silence reigned; but as soon as the sun set, fires blazed on the shore, and the shouts of men were mingled with the varied sounds of cymbals, trumpets, and other musical instruments. This scene, being new to the Carthaginians, struck them with a sort of terror; but in fact it must have arisen from the custom prevalent over native Africa, where the inhabitants rest during the oppressive heat of the day, and spend great part of the night in dancing and festivity. On another shore the navigators were astonished to see the land all on fire, and torrents of flame rushing into the sea,-an appearance doubtless owing to one of those conflagrations frequently occasioned in such countries by the practice of setting fire to the grass at the end of autumn. Next appeared an island in a bay, where they found a most singular race, bearing the human form, indeed, but covered with shaggy hair, resembling those satyrs and sylvan deities with which pagan mythology peopled the woods. These monsters,

whom they call Gorilla, and who seem evidently to have been orang-outangs, ran off on their approach, climbed rocks, and threw down stones on their pursuers; yet three females were caught, and their skins carried to Carthage. At length, the coast becoming desolate, and no longer affording either provisions or water, it was found necessary to return.

How far this voyage extended, and what proportion of the African coast it surveyed, has been the subject of long and learned controversy. The only two disputants who now appear on the field are Major Rennel and M. Gosselin; the former of whom believes that Hanno passed Sierra

Leone, and that the bay and island of the Gorillae were Sherbro' Island and Sound; while the other terminates the voyage on the frontier of Morocco, at the entrance of the river Nun. The one supposes a run of about 600 miles, the other one of nearly 3000; and yet each theory is supported by profound and able arguments. In such a case who shall decide? I really have made some attempts to do so, without being able to come to so clear a decision as would justify me in interposing between two such mighty champions. But he who will undertake the study of the original works will be gratified by finding all the resources of learning, ingenuity, and acuteness exhausted by these two great writers on this curious subject.

The individual who in that early age made the most resolute and persevering efforts to explore Africa was Eudoxus, a native of the city of Cyzicus, who lived about 130 years before Christ. Alexandria was then the centre of naval enterprise, and her Greek princes the most zealous patrons of all useful undertakings. Eudoxus, happening to visit that city, was introduced to Ptolemy Euergetes, whom he ably assisted in prosecuting those schemes of discovery on which this monarch's mind appears to have been deeply intent. Where so much was unknown on every side, it was a subject of grave deliberation in what direction he should first proceed; and an expedition to trace the upper course and fountain of the Nile was at one time contemplated. But the spirit of adventure was soon turned towards another object by the arrival of a native of India, whom one of the king's vessels had saved from shipwreck, and who offered to act as pilot in leading Eudoxus to that opulent and celebrated region. The latter performed the voy age to India prosperously, and returned laden with wealth. Though not quite satisfied with the manner in which he was treated by the king, he yet undertook another expedition to the same quarter. On emerging from the Red Sea, he was driven by a storm upon the eastern coast of Africa, where he observed the land taking such a direction as inspired the idea that it might, by no vast circuit, lead round to the Straits of Gibraltar. To be the circumnavigator of Africa became from that moment the object to which the life of Eudoxus was devoted. On his return to Alexandria, Euergetes was dead, and the succeeding sovereign gave him