"When Necho had desisted from his attempts to join the Red Sea with the Mediterranean by means of a canal at the Isthmus of Suez, he despatched some vessels, under the guidance of Phoenician pilots, with orders to sail down the Red Sea and follow the coast of Africa: they were to return to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians, therefore, taking their course by way of the Red Sea, sailed onward to the Southern Ocean. Upon the approach of autumn they landed in Libya and planted corn in the place where they first went ashore. When this was ripe they cut it down and set sail again. Having in this manner consumed two years, in the third they passed the Pillars of Hercules and returned to Egypt. This story may be believed by others, but to me it appears incredible, for they affirm that when they sailed round Libya they had the sun on their right hand." In the time of Herodotus, the Greeks were unacquainted with the phenomenon of a shadow falling to the south,--one which the Phoenicians would naturally have witnessed had they actually passed the Cape of Good Hope, for the sun would have been on their right hand, or in the north, and would thus have projected shadows to the south. As this story was not one likely to have been invented in the time of Necho, it is the strongest proof that could be adduced of the reality of the voyage. Doubts have been raised in modern times upon the accuracy of the narrative; but the objections are considered as having been refuted by Rennell and Heeren. Bartholomew Diaz has the credit of having discovered and having been the first to double the Cape of Good Hope, in 1486: it is clear that, if the claims of the Phoenician pilots are to be regarded, Diaz was preceded in this path at least twenty centuries.