It has already been observed, that before the time of He rodotus, the Carthaginians had established a commercial intercourse with some of the nations on the western coast of Africa, though it is not exactly known when this inter course began, or how far it extended. There is reason, however, to believe, that the voyage of Hanno, which some say reached to the mouth of the Senegal, was not earlier than the end of the fifth, or beginning of the fourth century before Christ, and that it was about the same time that the Carthaginians first became acquainted with the Canaries, the northern provinces of Spain, and the British islands. The latter, indeed, had, in all probability, been visited at a much earlier period by the Phoenicians, who carried on a lucra tive trade in tin with the inhabitants of Cornwall. During this same period, the Greeks continued to cultivate geogra phy with ardour and success. Hippocrates, the celebrated physician of Cos, retracing the footsteps of Herodotus, and sometimes penetrating beyond his predecessor, collected many valuable observations on the temperature and humi dity of different climates as affecting the human constitu tion, and may perhaps be justly styled the father of physical geography. The subject in all its bearings wanted only to be reduced to a regular and systematic form, to be placed on a footing with the other sciences, and fortunately the ex ecution of this task fell to one, who of all men, perhaps, was the best qualified to do it justice. Aristotle, directing towards it the energies of his powerful mind, stamped a value on the discoveries and observations of others, which till his time they had never possessed. He collected and combined the whole of these facts into one system of geo graphical knowledge, deduced from them the spherical figure of the earth, (the fundamental principle of all geo graphy,) and in this simple form put the science, along with others, into the hand of his royal pupil, to smooth the march of conquest, and make sonic reparation for the vio lated liberties of mankind.
The expedition of Alexander constitutes an era in the history of ancient geography. As eager to be thought the patron of science as the conqueror of the world, he was careful on all occasions to blend the two characters, and judiciously left to posterity an accurate geographical ac count of his expeditions, as the most durable monument of his military glory. His successors indeed, however anxious they were to imitate him in other respects, did not skew the same predilection for literary fame. But from the school which he established in Alexandria, the light of science continued to emanate with increasing splendour ; and even to one of his generals, Seleucus Nicanor, who carried his victoriousarms from the Indus, where Alexan der's expedition terminated, to the mouth of the Ganges, geography was not a little indebted. His ambassadors Megasthenes and Dahnachus, who were sent to Palibothra, the capital of a large kingdom on the Ganges, and thought to be the Allahabad, or according to others, Baliputra of modern India, collected a great deal of important informa tion with regard to the natural history of the country, as well as the manners of the inhabitants. The spirit of com
mercial enterprise, which prevailed particularly in Greece during, the century after Alexander's death, served not only to keep up a constant intercourse with the countries thus discovered, but also to extend the boundaries of geo graphy to others before unknown. The Grecian kings of Egypt carried on a regular trade with India and Tapro bane (Ceylon,) while the Carthaginians extended their commerce along the western coast, as well as into the inte rior of Africa. The Romans also, having obtained posses sion of all Italy, began to aspire after foreign conquest. Their expeditions against Carthage made them acquainted with Africa, and what was of still greater consequence, taught them the construction and management or ships. In the Macedonian war they acquired a knowledge of Greece, and rendered themselves formidable in Asia Minor by the defeat of Antiochus. Their subsequent conquests were still more important in a geographical point of view. Julius Cmsar gave the earliest and the most accurate ac count of the interior of Gaul and the south of Britain, Ger manicus penetrated as far as the Elbe, and Elius Gallus traversed the interior of Arabia. Thus, by the commence ment of the Christian xra, geography had received a vast accession, not merely in extent, but it point of accuracy. Countries that had only been heard of from the casual visit of a solitary traveller, or misrepresented by the selfish po licy of the avaricious trader, were now familiarly known from the march of victorious armies, whose leaders were as anxious to describe as to conquer, and by a happy com bination of events, a Strabo arose to transmit an account of all these discoveries to posterity. Of the elegant and learned work of this celebrated writer, we cannot pretend to give any thing like an analysis ; and indeed no analysis could do it justice. We have only to ob serve, that the portion or the globe which he describes is bounded on the north by the Baltic, towards the east by the Ganges, and on the south nearly by the line joining the mouth of that river with the mouth of the Senegal. Of course his description of all the countries contained within these limits cannot be equally minute, nor is he always accurate in his delineation of those that were more perfectly known. lie is frequently mistaken with regard to the situation of particular places, the course of rivers, and the direction of chains of mountains. These, however, are errors which will readily be overlooked, when we consider the period at which the work was composed, a period when the traveller had to struggle with difficulties in all inland ex peditions, and the geographer laboured under disadvanta ges from the want or the imperfection of instruments, of which moderns can hardly form an idea.