ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE OF AFRICA. 33 



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 conhrmation 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 occupy- 

 ing 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 provi- 

 sions, they travelled many days partly in a western direc- 

 tion, 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 

 iarge river flowing from west to east, and inhabited by a 

 Ration 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 smce 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 pro- 

 minent 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. 



