HERODOTUS. EARLY EXPLORERS. 
3 
which — perpetuated through all intermediate periods — 
have in our own proud age produced “ a sum of 
human misery — the most painful of any which, in the 
survey of the condition of mankind, it is possible to 
contemplate.” 
Whether the geographical knowledge of the Copts 
was confined to the scenes of their predatory warfare in 
those parts of Ethiopia in their immediate neighbour- 
hood, or was extended to the interesting field of modern 
research, there are no records left for our Information 
earlier than 484 years before Christ ; when, we learn 
from Herodotus, the “ Father of Historians,” that in 
his time there was a spirit of inquiry respecting the 
remote and almost inaccessible countries lying beyond 
the Desert. 
“ He was informed by some Cyrenians, that in a 
journey they took to the Oracle of Ammon, they had 
conferred with Etearchus, King of the Ammonians ; 
and that, among other things, discoursing with him 
concerning the head of the Nile, as of a thing 
altogether unknown, Etearchus acquainted them that 
certain Nasamones, a nation of Lybia inhabiting the 
borders of the Syrtis to the eastward, coming into 
his country, and being asked by him if they had 
learned any thing new touching the Lybian Deserts, 
answered that some petulant young men, sons to 
divers persons of great power among them, had, after 
many extravagant actions, resolved to send five of 
their number to the Deserts of Lybia, to see if they 
B 2 
