Liberia <^ 



foundation of all translations and commentaries since the six- 

 teenth century, goes back to the Periplus of Arrian, published 

 in Greek at Bale in 1533 from a Greek MS. then in the 

 Heidelberg Library. The authenticity of this interesting frag- 

 ment has been once or twice disputed, but is apparently 

 established beyond reasonable doubt, at any rate in its main 

 features, though one or two geographical names differ in the 

 Greek and Latin versions. But it was a voyage which, although 

 overlooked by Herodotus (who wrote at a subsequent period), 

 made a deep impression on the Mediterranean world in the 

 centuries which immediately preceded and followed the Christian 

 era, and considerable tradition of this exploring trip along the 

 West Coast of Africa seems to have survived even the ignorance 

 of the dark ages (perhaps kept alive and handed on by the 

 Byzantines and the Spanish Arabs), and to have been currently 

 discussed by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, a hundred 

 years before the publication of the Bale version. 



Apparently in the original Greek version of the narrative 

 the River Senegal is styled the Chretes or the Chremetes.^ 

 In Pliny's garbled version of Hanno's journey the river 

 equivalent to the Senegal is called the Bambotus, a word which 

 has a very African sound and may even be connected with 

 the name of the existing Bambuk country on the Upper 

 Senegal. The Island of Kerne so repeatedly mentioned in 

 Hanno's journey is undoubtedly the little Island of Heme 

 which is situated at the head of the bay or gulf known as 

 the Rio de Oro, in the present Spanish Protectorate of that 

 name on the Atlantic coast of the Sahara (see p. 17). There is 

 much that might lead us to suppose that Hanno was not the 

 first Caucasian adventurer who emerged from the Mediterranean 



' The Chremetes is mentioned by Aristotle as a large river on the West Coast 

 of Africa. 



20 V 



