The most ancient Phenician colonies were Utica, nearly on the northernmost point of the coast of Africa, and in the same gulf, (now known as the gulf of Tunis) as Carthage, over against cape Lilybæum in Sicily,—and Gadês, or Gadeira, on the south-western coast of Spain; a town which, founded perhaps near one thousand years before the Christian era,[515] has maintained a continuous prosperity, and a name (Cadiz) substantially unaltered, longer than any town in Europe. How well the site of Utica was suited to the circumstances of Phenician colonists may be inferred from the fact that Carthage was afterwards established in the same gulf and near to the same spot, and that both the two cities reached a high pitch of prosperity. The distance of Gadês from Tyre seems surprising, and if we calculate by time instead of by space, the Tyrians were separated from their Tartêssian colonists by an interval greater than that which now divides an Englishman from Bombay; for the ancient navigator always coasted along the land, and Skylax reckons seventy-five days[516] of voyage from the Kanôpic (westernmost) mouth of the Nile to the Pillars of Hêraklês (strait of Gibraltar); to which some more days must be added to represent the full distance between Tyre and Gadês. But the enterprise of these early mariners surmounted all difficulties consistent with the principle of never losing sight of the coast. Proceeding along the northern coast of Libya, at a time when the mouths of the Nile were still closed by Egyptian jealousy against all foreign ships, they appear to have found little temptation to colonize[517] on the dangerous coast near to the two gulfs called the great and little Syrtis,—in a territory for the most part destitute of water, and occupied by rude Libyan nomades, who were thinly spread over the wide space between the western Nile[518] and cape Hermæa, now called cape Bona. The subsequent Grecian towns of Kyrênê and Barka, whose well-chosen site formed an exception to the general character of the region, were not planted with any view to commerce,[519] and the Phenician town of Leptis, near the gulf called the great Syrtis, was founded by exiles from Sidon, and not by deliberate colonization. The site of Utica and Carthage, in the gulf immediately westward of cape Bona, was convenient for commerce with Sicily, Italy, and Sardinia; and the other Phenician colonies, Adrumêtum, Neapolis, Hippo (two towns so called), the lesser Leptis, etc., were settled on the coast not far distant from the eastern or western promontories which included the gulf of Tunis, common to Carthage and Utica. [515] Strabo speaks of the earliest settlements of the Phenicians in Africa and Iberia as μικρὸν τῶν Τρωϊκῶν ὕστερον (i, p. 48). Utica is affirmed to have been two hundred and eighty-seven years earlier than Carthage (Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. c. 134): compare Velleius Paterc. i, 2.