beyond, men were for the most part content to remain ignorant. It has already been stated, that the Phenicians, as coast explorers, were even more enterprising than the Phôkæans; but their jealous commercial spirit induced them to conceal their track,—to give information designedly false,[541] respecting dangers and difficulties,—and even to drown any commercial rivals when they could do so with safety.[542] One remarkable Phenician achievement, however, contemporary with the period of Phôkæan exploration, must not be passed over. It was somewhere about 600 B. C. that they circumnavigated Africa; starting from the Red sea, by direction of the Egyptian king Nekôs, son of Psammetichus,—going round the cape of Good Hope to Gadês,—and from thence returning to the Nile. [541] The geographer Ptolemy, with genuine scientific zeal, complains bitterly of the reserve and frauds common with the old traders, respecting the countries which they visited (Ptolem. Geogr. i, 11). [542] Strabo, iii, pp. 175-176; xvii, p. 802. It appears that Nekôs, anxious to procure a water communication between the Red sea and the Mediterranean, began digging a canal from the former to the Nile, but desisted from the undertaking after having made considerable progress. In prosecution of the same object, he despatched these Phenicians on an experimental voyage round Libya, which was successfully accomplished, though in a time not less than three years; for during each autumn, the mariners landed and remained on shore a sufficient time to sow their seed and raise a crop of corn. They reached Egypt again, through the strait of Gibraltar, in the course of the third year, and recounted a tale,—“which (says Herodotus) others may believe if they choose, but I cannot believe,”—that, in sailing round Libya, they had the sun on their right hand, _i. e._ to the north.[543] [543] Herodot. iv, 42. Καὶ ἔλεγον, ἐμοὶ μὲν οὐ πιστὰ, ἄλλῳ δὲ δή τεῳ, ὡς περιπλώοντες τὴν Λιβύην, τὸν ἡέλιον ἔσχον ἐς τὰ δεξιά.