f 2 Before Chrift 524. 



With refpect to the commerce of the Mediterranean, which the other 

 Phoenician communities, the Greeks and their colonies, the Tyrrhen- 

 ians, and the reft of the inferior trading nations, fliared with them, we 

 know few or no particulars, further than that after the decline of Tyre 

 the greateft part of it was in the hands of the Carthaginians. The 

 fliores and iflands of the weftern half of that fea had been in a great 

 meafure fettled by their own colonies, or thofe of their Tyrian ancef- 

 rors, before the Greeks began to extend their navigation and colonies to 

 Sicily and the fouth part of Italy. 



We learn from Strabo, [X. iii, p, 265] that the Phcenicians of Gadir 

 were the firft who traded to the Cafiiterides, and that they carefully 

 concealed the route to them from all other navigators. It follows of 

 courfe, that thofe iilands were unknown to the Carthaginians for at 

 leaft fome time. The Carthaginians, vexed to fee themfelves outdone 

 in any point of commercial knowlege or enterprife, defirous of (baring 

 in the advantageous trade of the Cafliterides, and eager to difcover the 

 whole extent of the world, ordered two voyages of difcovery to be un- 

 dertaken at the fame time. They feem to have known nothing of the 

 fituation of the country they wiflied to find, except that it was beyond 

 the Straits in the Ocean ; but as all iflands, acceflible to the antient na- 

 vigators, muft have been in fight of other lands, they concluded, that by 

 exploring the coaft of the Ocean both northward and fouthward, it muft 

 certainly be difcovered. Therefor they ordered Himilco to direct his 

 courfe northward from the Straits, and Hanno to purfue the oppofite 

 courfe along the weftern ftiore of Africa. Both commanders executed 

 their orders ; and both publifiied accounts of their difcoveries. That of 

 Himilco was extant in the fifth century, when fome extradls of it were 

 inferted in a geographical poem by Rufus Feftus Avienus, from which 

 we learn that he arrived in rather lefs than four months at the iflands 

 of the Oeftrymnides (which were two days fail from the large facred 

 ifland inhabited by the Hibernians^ near to which was the ifland of the 



them as mercenai-)' foldicrs ; and they had them in nor vvhcrefor, to explore the defert, is quite im- 



ihat capacity in their army in Sicily about 480 probable ; whereas, if we compare it with the 



years before Chrill. \^Fronlir.i Htral. L. i, c. 11.] knowlege, which, it appears from Herodotus and 



Herodotus [_L. ii, c. 32] deferibcs a great river other antient authors, the Carthaginians had of the 



on the fouth (ide of the African defert, running continent of Africa, we need not htfitate to afcribe 



from "wcjl to cojl, and a city on its banks inhabited tlie difcovery of the River Niger to their trading 



by Negroes. This river we now know to be the caravans It mutt be obfcrvcd, that this great ri- 



Nigcr. But its courfe was rcvtrfed by fncceeding ver is ca'led Nil-ilabeed, and that the Mauritanian 



writers, who affirmed that it ran ivejl to the At- prince Juba, as quoted by Ammianus Maicellinns, 



lantic ocean ; and it remained a fubjcrt of doubt fixes the head of the Ni e on the authority of Phac- 



and ditputc, till the late laborious and dangerons nuian informatwn, in the wclk part of Africa, as 



journey of Mr. Park added a new proof of the fu- Ptol i-.iy aifo does tho(e of two rivers, which he 



perit>rity of the information conveyed to us by the calls GIr and Nigir. The Gir, lie obferves, is faid 



venerable tather of hillory, which, tiicrc can be to he abforbed at the caflcrn extremity of its 



little doubt, canie to iiim from the Carthaginians: couil- ; but he fays nothing of the termination of 



for the (lory, received by him through a long fe- the Nigii. His two riveis ruiining t(j the eaft aie 



ties of rrlatora of various nations and languages, of apparently taken from diffirvnt accounts of the 



five rcUlefs young iqin having fet out from the one grefit inland river of Africa. 



country of the Nafamoiict, they knew not whither 4 



