82 THE OCEAN RIVER 



not under Carthaginian rule to make journeys into the Atlan- 

 tic were two Mediterranean Greeks. Midacritus coasted along 

 the Biscayan shores to the English Channel, and Euthymenes 

 headed south from the Straits as far as Senegal in the sixth 

 century B.C. Shortly after these voyages two greater expeditions 

 under Carthaginian rule made ready from Andalusia. Himilco 

 and Hanno were governors of this province, and like their 

 Greek predecessors one went north and the other south from 

 Gibraltar. 



Himilco, according to Pliny, in 443 b.c. explored with a 

 good deal of care the Atlantic coasts of France, and touched in 

 at the Cassiterides or the Tin Isles off Cornwall. The wide 

 Atlantic even at this early date was becoming familiar to the 

 Mediterranean sailors, though they did not yet venture far 

 from land unless swept out by adverse winds. Hanno, the 

 brother, however, made the most extensive journey, and even 

 established successful colonial cities in his path. This was the 

 most notable voyage into the unknown Atlantic yet attempted. 

 He set out southward with sixty vessels, and thirty thousand 

 colonists who founded the coastal cities of Mehedia, Mogador, 

 and Acre. Hanno reached as far south as Sherbro Island off 

 Sierra Leone, three thousand miles from home, before he 

 turned back. He did as well as many of the first Portuguese 

 explorers some fifteen centuries later, who found it hard to 

 venture too far at a time for fear of the dark beyond and the 

 ''Coagulated Sea." It is written of the Canaries that Juba, King 

 of Morocco, sailed there about the time of Christ. The Etrus- 

 cans planned to settle Madeira in the time of Hanno but were 

 stopped at Gibraltar. Hereafter voyaging south had to wait 

 on the Portuguese. 



But the profitable tin trade with Britain still pulled men to 

 the north. A remarkable voyage was made in 300 b.c. by 

 Pytheus, either a Greek or a Phoenician, who set out from 

 Massilia (Marseilles) and pushed on until he had coasted the 



