The reality of this circumnavigation was confirmed to Herodotus by various Carthaginian informants,[544] and he himself fully believes it. There seems good reason for sharing in his belief, though several able critics reject the tale as incredible. The Phenicians were expert and daring masters of coast navigation, and in going round Africa they had no occasion ever to lose sight of land: we may presume that their vessels were amply stored, so that they could take their own time, and lie by in bad weather; we may also take for granted that the reward consequent upon success was considerable. For any other mariners then existing, indeed, the undertaking might have been too hard, but it was not so for them, and that was the reason why Nekôs chose them. To such reasons, which show the story to present no intrinsic incredibility (that, indeed, is hardly alleged even by Mannert and others who disbelieve it), we may add one other, which goes far to prove it positively true. They stated that, in the course of their circuit, they had the sun on their right hand (_i. e._ to the northward); and this phenomenon, observable according to the season even when they were within the tropics, could not fail to force itself on their attention as constant, after they had reached the southern temperate zone. But Herodotus at once pronounces this part of the story to be incredible, and so it would probably appear to every Greek[545], Phenician, or Egyptian, not only of the age of Nekôs, but even of the time of Herodotus, who heard it; since none of them possessed either actual experience of the phenomenon of a southern latitude, or a sufficiently correct theory of the relation between sun and earth, to understand the varying direction of the shadows; and few men would consent to set aside the received ideas with reference to the solar motions, from pure confidence in the veracity of these Phenician narrators. Now that under such circumstances the latter should invent the tale, is highly improbable; and if they were not inventors, they must have experienced the phenomenon during the southern portion of their transit. [544] Herodot. Οὕτω μὲν αὐτὴ ἐγνώσθη τοπρῶτον· (_i. e._ ἡ Λιβύη ἐγνώσθη ἐοῦσα περίῤῥυτος·) μετὰ δὲ, Καρχηδόνιοί εἰσιν οἱ λέγοντες. These Carthaginians, to whom Herodotus here alludes, told him that Libya was circumnavigable; but it does not seem that they knew of any other actual circumnavigation except that of the Phenicians sent by Nekôs; otherwise, Herodotus would have made some allusion to it, instead of proceeding, as he does immediately, to tell the story of the Persian Sataspês, who tried and failed. The testimony of the Carthaginians is so far valuable, as it declares their persuasion of the truth of the statement made by those Phenicians.