Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 1.: The Exploration of the WorldVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 1.: The Exploration of the World
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
They set sail again, and Hanno reached the mouth of the river
Chretes, which forms a sort of natural harbour, but as they
endeavoured to explore this river, they were assailed with showers
of stones from the native negro race, inhabiting the surrounding
country, and driven back, and after this inhospitable reception they
returned to Cerne. We must not omit to add that Hanno mentions
finding large numbers of crocodiles and hippopotami in this river.
Twelve days after this unsuccessful expedition, the fleet reached a
mountainous region, where fragrant trees and shrubs abounded, and it
then entered a vast gulf which terminated in a plain. This region
appeared quite calm during the day, but after nightfall it was
illumined by tongues of flame, which might have proceeded from fires
lighted by the natives, or from the natural ignition of the dry
grass when the rainy season was over.
In five days, Hanno doubled the Cape, known as the Hespera Keras,
there, according to his own account, "he heard the sound of fifes,
cymbals, and tambourines, and the clamour of a multitude of people."
The soothsayers, who accompanied the party of Carthaginian explorers,
counselled flight from this land of terrors, and, in obedience to
their advice, they set sail again, still taking a southerly course.
They arrived at a cape, which, stretching southwards, formed a gulf,
called Notu Keras, and, according to M. D'Avezac, this gulf must
have been the mouth of the river Ouro, which falls into the Atlantic
almost within the Tropic of Cancer. At the lower end of this gulf,
they found an island inhabited by a vast number of gorillas, which
the Carthaginians mistook for hairy savages. They contrived to get
possession of three female gorillas, but were obliged to kill them
on account of their great ferocity.
This Notu Keras must have been the extreme limit reached by the
Carthaginian explorers, and though some historians incline to the
belief that they only went to Bojador, which is two degrees North of
the tropics, it is more probable that the former account is the true
one, and that Hanno, finding himself short of provisions, returned
northwards to Carthage, where he had the account of his voyage
engraved in the temple of Baal Moloch.
After Hanno, the most illustrious of ancient travellers, was
Herodotus, who has been called the "Father of History," and who was
the nephew of the poet Panyasis, whose poems ranked with those of
Homer and Hesiod. It will serve our purpose better if we only speak
of Herodotus as a traveller, not an historian, as we wish to follow
him so far as possible through the countries that he traversed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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