This narrative, as given by Hanno himself, hardly fills two octavo pages: volumes of commentaries have been written upon it by geographers and antiquaries. The most probable of the various hypotheses formed upon it, is, that Hanno's voyage extended to Sherbro Sound, a little south of Sierra Leone. The features of man and nature, as described by Hanno, are to be found in Tropical Africa only: Ethiopians or negroes; Gorillæ, who are clearly apes, or orang-outangs; rivers so large as to contain crocodiles and river-horses. The great conflagrations of the grass, too, and the music and dancing prolonged through the night, are phenomena which have been observed only in the negro territories. But this hypothesis is not accepted by all geographers, one of whom gives to Hanno's course an extent of three thousand miles, while another limits it to less than seven hundred. While Hanno was thus exploring the western coast of Africa, another Carthaginian, named Himilcon, was sent by his countrymen to the North of Europe. From a very vague description of his voyage given in a Latin poem entitled _Ora Maritima_, it is plain that he crossed the Bay of Biscay, and found, upon islands, as is asserted, but probably upon the mainland, a race of athletic people who went fearlessly to sea in barks made of skins sewed together. They crossed, in the space of two days, to a place called the Sacred Island, (Ireland,) which was not far from another island, named Al-Bion, (England.) No further details of this expedition have been preserved. Upon the establishment of the Persian sway over the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, towards the close of the fifth century B.C., the exploration of Africa became the peculiar province of the Persian monarchs. But this nation labored under an unconquerable aversion for the sea, and the only maritime effort of theirs on record was entirely casual in its origin, and futile in its results. It was as follows, as recorded by Herodotus: