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
Hanno, the Carthaginian--Herodotus visits Egypt, Lybia, Ethiopia,
Phoenicia, Arabia, Babylon, Persia, India, Media, Colchis, the
Caspian Sea, Scythia, Thrace, and Greece--Pytheas explores the
coasts of Iberia and Gaul, the English Channel, the Isle of Albion,
the Orkney Islands, and the land of Thule--Nearchus visits the
Asiatic coast, from the Indus to the Persian Gulf--Eudoxus
reconnoitres the West Coast of Africa--Caesar conquers Gaul and
Great Britain--Strabo travels over the interior of Asia, and Egypt,
Greece, and Italy.
The first traveller of whom we have any account in history, is Hanno,
who was sent by the Carthaginian senate to colonize some parts of
the Western coast of Africa. The account of this expedition was
written in the Carthaginian language and afterwards translated into
Greek. It is known to us now by the name of the "Periplus of Hanno."
At what period this explorer lived, historians are not agreed, but
the most probable account assigns the date B.C. 505 to his
exploration of the African coast.
Hanno left Carthage with a fleet of sixty vessels of fifty oars each,
carrying 30,000 persons, and provisions for a long voyage. These
emigrants, for so we may call them, were destined to people the new
towns that the Carthaginians hoped to found on the west coast of
Libya, or as we now call it, Africa.
The fleet successfully passed the Pillars of Hercules, the rocks of
Gibraltar and Ceuta which command the Strait, and ventured on the
Atlantic, taking a southerly course. Two days after passing the
Straits, Hanno anchored on the coast, and laid the foundation of the
town of Thumiaterion.
Then he put to sea again, and doubling the cape of Solois, made
fresh discoveries, and advanced to the mouth of a large African
river, where he found a tribe of wandering shepherds camping on the
banks. He only waited to conclude a treaty of alliance with them,
before continuing his voyage southward. He next reached the Island
of Cerne, situated in a bay, and measuring five stadia in
circumference, or as we should say at the present day, nearly 925
yards. According to Hanno's own account, this island should be
placed, with regard to the Pillars of Hercules, at an equal distance
to that which separates these Pillars from Carthage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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