106 EXPEDITIONS BEFORE ALEXANDER. [CHAP. southward along the coast, returning in the interval to their starting-point, though for what reason we are not informed. In the former of these, which was also the shorter, the most noteworthy incident was their reaching (Senegal a broa(j riverj full of crocodiles and hippopotami1. The name of this river is given by Pliny3— on the authority of Polybius, who explored this coast at a later time, and took note of the animals here mentioned— -as Bambotum ; but there can be little doubt, as Bochart has remarked3, that this is a corruption of Bamothum, for bamoth or behemoth is the Semitic name for the hippopotamus, so that the meaning would be Hippo- potamus river. It is the Senegal River of modern times. On the second voyage they sailed along the same coast, and after passing that river reached a mountainous promontory covered with a dense vegetation of aromatic trees : when they had round- (Cape Verde and Gambia ed this they found a very deep inlet with level Rlver>) land on either side of it4. Here the promontory is undoubtedly Cape Verde, which is now recognised as the western- most point of Africa, though of that fact the ancients were not aware : in its elevation, and the forests from which it has obtained its name, it corresponds, as no other point on this coast does, to the description just given. The inlet is the mouth of the Gambia River, which forms a broad estuary with flat shores. The next place which they reached to the southward of this was an extensive The western ^ay, known to their native interpreters as the Horn (Bay of Western Horn, in which lay an island so formed usages. tkat jt embracecl a harbour with another island within it. On this they disembarked, but in the course of the night they were so terrified by the sight of numerous fires in the woods, and the sound of cymbals and drums and voices, that 1 Pmflus, § 10 ; !K€t0ev TX&»/Tes els frepov irXcm)?, ytpavTO, KpoKofalXtav Kal tirvuv vorantuv. 3 H. jV., 5. 10 ; flumen Bambotum crocodilis et hippopotamis refertum. * See MUUer, op. dt.t p. 9. 4 Periplits, §§ 12, 13; 73} $' ofo T€\€vro,tg. Jifdpy, vpoffuptdcS^ev 6pe