ADDITIONAL NOTES. XV
reality the older trunk road of the Hittite kingdom, whose capital,
Boghaz-Kevi, lay in the bend of the middle Halys. In all prob-
ability the regular Persian posting road was identical with the
Graeco-Roman road described further down p. 90 in the text.
Herodotus may have been misled by the fact that in 481-480 B.C,
Xerxes' Grand Army made use of the more northerly route. See
W. M. Calder, Classical Review, 1925, pp. 7-11.
P. 95. Dumb commerce
The scene of these silent negotiations was probably in Sene-
gambia. The same manner of conducting business was observed
on the West African coast by medieval travellers, and even by
explorers of the early nineteenth century.
P. 96,1. 26. The Troglodyte Aethiopians
Herodotus also knew of two other Aethiopian peoples, (i) The
Sudanese negroes, of whom he had no doubt seen specimens
during his stay in Egypt (3. 17-23). In eulogising these as
a long-lived and finely built race he may have been influenced by
Homer (editor's note to pp. 26-27); but his description of them
was not far wide of the mark. Herodotus believed that African
Aethiopia stretched to the south-western border of Ocean (3.114).
This was probably an inference from the story of the Nasamones
(pp. 96, 97 of the text), who had met with a negro population in
the region of the Niger. (2) The dark-skinned but lank-haired
pre-Aryan races of Sind and Beluchistan (7.70). Occasional Greek
travellers under the aegis of the Persian king Darius might have
had sight of these.
Pp. 96, 97. The expedition of the Nasamones
The track of the Nasamones probably lay southward to the
oasis of Aujila, thence south-west across the oasis of Murzuk and
Asben (to the west of L. Chad). The city by the Niger may have
been Timbuctu, from which the Niger is believed to have receded
in the last two thousand years.
Pp. 99-101. The circumnavigation of Africa
Herodotus' story has been carefully analysed by W. Miiller,
Die Umsegelung Afrikas durch phonikische Schiffer, and E. H.
Warmington, in Gary and Warmington, The Anwnt Explorers, ch, 5.
T. 25