CHAP. VI.] EXPEDITION SENT BY NECHO. 99

authenticated expeditions — especially as the others were made by
sea, and were undertaken in the first instance with a view to
investigation — were it not that the circumstances of the case
rendered it a notable example of adventurous exploration, which
contributed largely to the extension of geographical knowledge.
The claims to our acceptance which are put forward by the
remainder will call for a careful examination, for the truth of each
in turn has at different times been questioned, and several of
them still continue to be subjects of debate,

The first of these in order of date is the circumnavigation of
Africa, said to have been executed by Phoenician
sailors at the command of Necho, king of Egypt,
about 600 B.C. Our knowledge of this is derived from
Herodotus, who gives the following account of it : —

" As for Libya, we know it to be washed on all sides by the
sea, except where it is attached to Asia. This discovery was
first made by Necho, the Egyptian king, who on desisting from
the canal which he had begun between the Nile and the Arabian
Gulf, sent to sea a number of ships manned by Phoenicians, with
orders to make for the Pillars of Hercules, and return to Egypt
through them, and by the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians took
their departure from Egypt by way of the Erythraean sea, and so
sailed into the southern ocean. When autumn carne, they went
ashore, wherever they might happen to be, and having sown a
tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut.
Having reaped it, they again set sail j and thus it came to pass
that two whole years went by, and it was not till the third year
that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and made good their
voyage home. On their return, they declared — I for my part do
not believe them, but perhaps others may — that in sailing round
Libya they had the sun upon their right hand. In- this way was
the extent of Libya first discovered V

Herodotus does not inform us from what source he obtained
this story, but we may assume with some confi- The story
dence that it was either from the Egyptians or the
Phoenicians. The preciseness of statement with

which it is delivered, as far as it goes, is in its ans*
1 Herod. 4. 42.
7-2