EARLIEST EXPLORERS. 
7 
Hercules. That they sent trading expeditions into the 
interior we cannot doubt, and some of them may even 
have crossed the Sahara. Carthage was founded about 
850 B.c., and the Carthaginians could not have been 
hundreds of years in North Africa without trying to 
find out something about the interior. But scarcely 
any records have come down to us of their enterprises. 
There is one remarkable adventure, however, of which 
we have the most authentic information. 
Hanno, a Carthaginian admiral, about the year 
colonies from their little country on the Syrian coast, 
and one of them settled in North Africa, in the 
neighbourhood of what is now Tunis, and founded a 
state which rivalled even Rome. There were the 
Carthaginians, who were as enterprising as their kin¬ 
dred the Phoenicians. They carried on trade all along 
the Mediterranean, and even beyond the Pillars of 
HANNO SAILS FOR THE WESTERN COAST. 
