A short time previous to the era generally assigned to the destruction of
old Tyre, the Phoenicians are said to have performed a voyage, which, if
authentic, may justly be regarded as the most important that the annals of
this people record: we allude to the circumnavigation of Africa. As this
voyage has given rise to much discussion, we may be excused for deviating
from the cursory and condensed character of this part of our work, in order
to investigate its probable authenticity. All that we know regarding it is
delivered to us by Herodotus; according to this historian, soon after
Nechos, king of Egypt, had finished the canal that united the Nile and the
Arabian Gulf, he sent some Phoenicians from the borders of the Red Sea,
with orders to keep always along the coast of Africa, and to return by the
pillars of Hercules into the northern ocean. Accordingly the Phoenicians
embarked on the Erythrean Sea, and navigated in the southern ocean. When
autumn arrived, they landed on the part of Libya which they had reached,
and sowed corn; here they remained till harvest, reaped the corn, and then
re-embarked. In this manner they sailed for two years; in the third they
passed the pillars of Hercules, and returned to Egypt. They related that in
sailing round Libya, the sun was on their right hand. This relation,
continues Herodotus, seems incredible to me, but perhaps it will not appear
so to others.
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