The first recorded African expedition along the Atlantic coast of Africa was, if we accept the account of Herodotus, that of the Phœnicians sent out by Pharaoh Necho (_c._ 600 B.C.), who started from the Red Sea and returned by the Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean.[59] Almost at the same time (_c._ 570 B.C., according to Vivien de St. Martin's estimate) the great Phœnician settlement of Carthage attempted in reverse order a voyage of colonisation and discovery along the West of the Continent outside the Straits. Eratosthenes refers to Phœnician (or Carthaginian) settlements already existing on what is now the coast of Marocco, both inside and outside the "Pillars;" this new expedition under Hanno was intended to strengthen the old, as well as to found new plantations. It is often compared with a similar venture, "to explore the outer coasts of Europe," undertaken by Himilco, probably about the same time.[60] [Footnote 59: Herod. ii, 158-9; iv, 42. These mariners took three years on their voyage: landed, sowed crops, and lived on the harvest during seasons unfavourable to navigation (especially autumn); during part of their journey they were astonished to find the sun on their right hand.] [Footnote 60: This is first noticed by Aristotle, "On Marvellous Narratives," § 37; by Mela, _De Situ Orbis_, iii, 9; and by Pliny, _Natural History_, ii, 67, § 167-170, and elsewhere. The _Periplus_ of Himilco seems to have been worked up by Avienus (_c._ 400 A.D.) in the first 400 lines of his poem, "_De Ora Maritima_."] Hanno[61] sailed from Carthage, according to our authority, with sixty penteconters, carrying 30,000(?) people, colonists and others, first to Cerne,[62] which was as far distant from the Pillars of Hercules as the Pillars were from Carthage. Then he ascended the river Chretes[63] to a lake. Twelve days' voyage south of Cerne he passed a promontory with lofty wooded hills,[64] and a little beyond this, a great estuary.[65] Five days more to the south brought him to the Western Horn,[66] and on the other side of this he coasted along a "fragrant shore," with "streams of fire running down into the sea," and "fiery mountains, the loftiest of which seemed to touch the clouds," and which he named[67] "Chariot of the Gods."[68] Three days' sail beyond this was his furthest point, the Southern Horn,[69] whence he returned directly to Carthage.