EARLY HISTORY AND EXPLORATION. In the earliest historic times, when civilization centred around the Mediterranean, Libya, as Africa was known to the ancients. was one of the three great divisions of the earth, of which Europe and Asia were the other two. The details of its history are to be found in the history of Egypt, still the earliest recorded civilization, and of the other states of northern Africa. as well as of the Roman Empire, which absorbed them all. The brown-hued Berbers seem to have been the fundamental race stock throughout northern Africa, with perhaps Aryan and Semitic infu sions. due to the contact of Egypt with Asia and Europe. Whether the Hamitic peoples of Africa were or were not autochthonous is a problem for the settlement of which no sufficient. data exists. The knowledge possessed by the ancients of the continent as a whole, so far as we have accounts of it, can be briefly stated. The rulers of Egypt, as subsequently those of Carthage. attempted to extend their influence toward the south and west; but the physical and climatic conditions and the savage tribes encountered presented an effective bar to extended progress at that time. An in scription assigned to the period of the Eleventh (Theban) Dynasty tells of a voyage made by command of one of the rulers of that dynasty to the land of Punt, probably Somaliland. Re cent discoveries also seem to increase the credi bility of traditions which assigned the biblical lands of Ophir to the eastern coast of Africa. About thirty centuries ago the enterprising Phomicians planted Utica (c.1100 n.c.). Carthage (826 rte.), and other lesser colonies along the Mediterranean coast, and Greek colonies were founded in Egypt. in Cyrenaica, and just cast of Carthage. during the period of Greek coloniza tion, which began ill the century B.C.
The known explorations of the Dark Continent may he said to begin with the famous voyage made by Phoenicians about 600 B.C., an account of which is preserved by Herodotus (iv. .42).
There are no sufficient reasons for doubting the general accuracy of the account, which describes the voyage as made by command of Necho. Ring of Egypt, who had just completed a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. The expedition sailed down the Red Sea and along the coast of Africa, until the sun for ninny weeks "rose on their right hand.' After a long absence the explorers returned to Egypt through the Pillars Of so that they must have circumnavi gated the continent. A hundred years later, also aeeording to Herodotus (iv. 43), a Persian of noble birth, Sat apes, started, with a Cartha ginian crew, down the west coast of Africa, but was compelled to turn back. It is doubtful if he went far beyond the Pluenician settlements, which, beginning at Gades, just without the Pil lars of Hercules, already extended well down the coast of Morocco, along which Hanno, about 450 B.C., planted a series of colonies. The "Islands of the Blessed" also (the Madeira and Canary islands) were probably within the scope of the sea-going trade of the Phoenicians and Cartha ginians. Carthaginian traders trafficked by sea with the Cold Coast, and by land along the cara van routes which communicated with the flour ishing regions of Upper Egypt and the Niger. It is probable that almost contemporaneously with the Phoenician settlements in Northern Africa. Arabs entered the country south of the Zambezi, and, going inland, found and worked the gold mine; which have been re•ently rediscovered. The Greeks began to colonize Northern Africa in the seventh century n.c. After the conquest and destruction of Carthage by Rome (146 a.c.). all Northern Africa was gradually drawn into the growing empire; but Rome's interest lay in the known and organized regions, upon which she strengthened the hold of civilization, ignoring all that lay beyond her well-defined boundaries, a poliey which was accentuated as the empire tended toward decay.