Travels in South Africa (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Travels in South Africa<br><br>The 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.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.