TRAVELS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

CHAPTER I.

SOUTH AFRICA.-ITS DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT.

THE

HE fact that the northern part of Africa was well known to the civilized nations of antiquity gave rise to very early attempts to explore the dimensions of that continent. The first authentic record of such an attempt is given by Herodotus, who relates that Pharaoh Necho (about 600 years before the Christian era) sent an expedition down the Red Sea, with orders to sail around what was then considered to be an island, reaching to the latitude of the Equator. The vessels sailed until the autumn, landed, sowed grain, waited until they had reaped the harvest, and then sailed further. In the third year of their voyage they reached the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), and returned to Egypt with the intelligence, which Herodotus utterly discredits, that they had seen the sun in the north. This circumstance, alone, seems to be sufficient proof that the Egyptians really circumnavigated Africa.

The second attempt, of which we have a more particular description, was made by the Carthaginians, about the year 500 B. C., when the famous Admiral Hanno set out on his voyage of colonization, some