The River of Ocean — Primitive : 8i 



in 1869 A.D. With the passage of years this canal filled with sand. In 

 Necho's time the attempt at a new canal is said to have cost the lives 

 of over 120,000 slaves involving Egyptians as well as foreign captives. 

 Necho's canal was not actually finished until the time of Darius Hys- 

 taspis (521 to 486 B.C.). No doubt Necho was trying to strengthen his 

 hand and divert attention from the slow progress of his project when 

 he ordered the Phoenicians to sail around Africa. 



It will be noted that Herodotus rejects the story because the voy- 

 agers said that when they were sailing around Libya (that is, Africa) 

 from east to west they had their sun on their right hand — that is, to 

 the north of them. From our point of view this, however, is one of 

 the details that makes the story credible, for this is exactly what 

 would be notable to Mediterranean voyagers who for the first time 

 found themselves in the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. It is 

 not likely to have been invented in view of the state of geographic 

 knowledge in Egypt and Greece at that time. 



Also enhancing the credibility of the story is the fact that the pas- 

 sage was made from east to west and not in the reverse direction. An 

 examination of the pilot charts will show that a coasting voyage of 

 this kind enjoys favorable winds and currents most of the way. An 

 attempt to sail around Africa from west to east was made by Sataspes 

 in 485 B.C. and two attempts were made by Eudoxus in 146 b.c. and all 

 these attempts were met by failure. On the other hand there is the 

 historic record of a young Portuguese named Botelho who made the 

 passage from India around Africa to Portugal in a seventeen-foot 

 boat. The German scholar Miiller and the English geographer Ken- 

 nels have both made detailed examinations of the probable route of 

 Necho's sailors. They both believe that Necho's ship, traveling from 

 east to west, was the first vessel to round Africa and sail through the 

 South Atlantic. 



The more direct approaches to the Atlantic were also developed by 

 the Phoenicians. Before the year iioo b.c. they had probably a fair 

 knowledge of the western Mediterranean for in that year they estab- 

 lished the colony of Utica on the African shore. Near this site 300 

 years later they established the larger and more important colony of 

 Carthage. 



From Carthage about the year 500 b.c. the Phoenicians engaged in 

 mammoth undertakings to establish colonies on the shores of the 

 Atlantic both to the north and to the south of the Straits of Gibraltar. 

 Hannu was the leader entrusted with the expedition to explore and 

 establish colonies southward along the African shore. A Greek trans- 



