All the minor geographical discoveries of this expedition have been lost to us, if any were recorded. No mention is made of the gold of south-east Africa, of any Arab settlements along the east coast, of the negro inhabitants of these wild regions, or the means by which the Phoenician mariners supplied themselves with food to supplement the corn which they grew and reaped. It would not have been difficult for them, coming from the east, to reach the southern extremity of Africa, and still less difficult if there really were Arab stations at which they could recruit in the vicinity of Sofala and Inyambane. The story, by no means an incredible one, rests almost entirely on a statement of Herodotos, but was thought to have received fresh support from records of the events of the reign of Niku II which were said to have been discovered in the collection of a French Egyptologist. These inscribed scarabs are however now believed to be clear forgeries[15]. There is nothing improbable about this legend of the Phoenician east-to-west circumnavigation of Africa. The winds and currents, be it observed, would make it much easier for sailing ships to circumnavigate Africa from the east coast round to the west coast, and then north, than in the reverse direction; and it is curious to note, among other shreds of historical record, that a Persian nobleman of Egypt in the sixth century B.C. and the Carthaginians of the same period both tried to sail round Africa from Morocco past the West coast, and gave up the enterprise as too difficult and tedious.