History of Discovery.—Although in Egypt and along the Mediterranean coast (see CAR THAGE and EGYPT) Africa was the seat of re mote and comparatively high states of civiliza tion, up to the middle of the 19th century the whole of central Africa was a blank; it is now at least as well known as South America. The civilized nations of the ancient world approached Africa from the Mediterranean and the Red Sea ; there is reason to believe that till the in troduction of the camel in the 7th century A.D.
the desert was an insuperable barrier between the Mediterranean countries and central Sudan.
The name Africa is mythologically associated with Afer, a son of the Libyan Hercules; but this is only an eponym. It is certainly Phoe nician, and probably meant gnomadic,* a term applied by the Carthaginians to the tribes around. It was the name given by the Romans at first only to a small district of Africa in the immedi ate neighborhood of Carthage, and nearly corre sponding with the Roman province formed on the destruction of Carthage. The Greeks called Africa Libya, and the Romans often used the same name. The first African exploring expe dition on record is that mentioned by Herodotus as having been sent by Pharaoh Necho about the end of the 7th century 14.C. to circumnavigate the continent. The navigators, who were Phoe nicians, were absent three years, and according to report they accomplished their object. The story has been the subject of much controversy, and was for long generally discredited, but re cent authorities of weight have pronounced in its favor. The next important voyage recorded is that of Hanno, a Carthaginian, down the west coast, probably 50 or 100 years later. He passed a river with crocodiles and river-horses, and probably reached the coast of Upper Guinea. Herodotus also mentions some yodng men of the tribe of the Nasamones (living near the Gulf of Sidra) crossing the desert in a westerly direc tion, and coming to a great river where they saw crocodiles and black men, but it is doubtful if this could have been the Niger. There is no evidence that the Egyptians knew the Nile be yond the site of Khartum, though they may have sent ships as far as the coast of Somaliland by the Red Sea. Nero sent an expedition up the Nile which seems to have penetrated up the White Nile; and remains of Roman origin have been found some distance into the Sahara.
From the navigators and traders that frequented the east coast of Africa, Ptolemy may have learned that the Nile issued from two great lakes about the equator. Mohammedanism was car ried into North Africa in the 7th century and very rapidly spread to the Atlantic. By the 10th century the Arabs had crossed the desert, and between this and the 14th century Arab travelers visited central Sndan, the Niger and other regions, and till comparatively recently they were the great authorities on much of central Africa.
The first impulse to a more complete ex ploration of Africa was given by the Portuguese prince known as Henry the Navigator, who in the early part of the 15th century sent out a series of expeditions along the west coast. These were continued after his death, so that in 1486 Bartolomeu Diaz doubled the Cape and in 1497 Vasco de Gama sailed up the east coast as far as Mombasa, and thence to India. Thus for the first time the main outline of the African coast was laid down. Settlements were planted on the east and west coasts by Portuguese, French, English, Dutch and Brandenburgers, but there is no authentic information that any European penetrated into the interior. Maps of the 16th to the 18th century were covered with lakes and rivers, but these were swept away as unauthentic by D'Anville in the middle of the 18th century, and the interior left a blank. An association for the exploration of inner Africa was formed in London in 1788. Additions were made to geography under its auspices by Mungo Park, Hornemann, Burckhardt and others.
Modern African exploration may be said to begin with James Bruce, who penetrated through Abyssinia and Sennar to the headwaters of the" Blue Nile (1770-72). He was followed by Mungo Park, who reached the upper course of the Niger or Joliba, and whose efforts to ex plore the river to its mouth cost him his life (1795-1805). Dr. Lacerda, a Portuguese, about the same time reached the capital of Cazembe, west of Lake Bangweolo, where he died. Hornemann, who traveled for the same society as Park, perished in the desert after sending home accounts of Bornu and the neighboring states. In 1802-06 two Portuguese traders crossed the continent from Angola, through Cazembe's dominions, to the Portuguese posses sions on the Zambezi.