Many centuries before the Christian era the spirit of geographical inquiry was abroad. There were then, as in later times, ardent minds whose eager curiosity would not let them rest content with a knowledge of their own countries. Then, as in the Middle Ages, kings and emperors thirsted for political aggrandisement, merchants for new sources of wealth, and enterprising spirits for opportunities to do deeds of high emprise which would send their names down to posterity.
Phœnicia, Greece, Carthage, Rome, had each its bold navigators and travellers, whose explorations can be more or less credibly gleaned from the mass of fable and misrepresentation which time and ignorance have gathered round them.
Even in those early days—twenty or more centuries ago—Africa was the chief centre of attraction to such as longed to extend their possessions or their knowledge of the earth’s surface. Already the mystery of the Nile and Inner Africa beyond the Great Desert had asserted its fascination over men’s minds. The Mediterranean nations vied with each other in sending expedition after expedition to explore the coast-line, and if possible circumnavigate the continent. Of these some ventured by way of the Straits of Gibraltar—the Pillars of Hercules, as they were then called—while others tried the Red Sea and the eastern coast. What these ancient mariners actually accomplished has been for centuries a matter of keen dispute, with but small clearing up of the obscure horizon. It is not therefore for us to enter into the debatable land, and happily the questions involved lie outside our province. Sufficient for our purpose is it to know that very extensive voyages were undertaken along both the east and west coasts of Africa. Among the most noteworthy and credible of these is the expedition sent by Necho, King of Egypt, with Phœnician navigators, which is said to have accomplished the circumnavigation of the continent; and the Carthaginian expedition of Hanno, which undoubtedly explored the western coast for a very considerable distance towards the equator.
But the enterprise of the Mediterranean nations was not confined only to the coast-line. The commercial spirit of Carthage and the warlike genius of Rome alike led them to seek the interior.
In this direction, however, each was fated to be as effectually checked as their sailors had been by sea. The burning heat, the wide stretches of barren sand, the waterless wastes, and the savage nomads which they had to encounter, were as terrible to face as the huge waves and frightful storms of the Atlantic. To the natural terrors of this desert region, forsaken of the gods, their imagination added every conceivable monstrosity, so that he indeed was a bold man who ventured from the gay and pleasant confines of the northern lands into the awful horrors of the Sahara.
Yet men there must have been, whether warriors, merchants, or simple explorers, we know not, who crossed the dreaded desert zone, and reached the more fertile countries of the negroes which lay beyond. In the pages of Herodotus and Strabo, of Pliny and of Ptolemy, amid all the mythological absurdities and ridiculous stories with which they abound, we find not only ample evidence of such successful adventure, but a wonderfully just estimate of the physical conditions which characterised the region lying between the Mediterranean and the Sudan. They describe first a zone of sharply contrasted fertility and barrenness, of green oasis and repellent desert, scantily inhabited by wild, roving tribes. Next comes a more terrible region lying further to the south—a land of desolation and death, swept by the wild sirocco and sandstorm, burnt by fierce relentless suns, unrefreshed by sparkling earth-born springs, unmoistened by the heaven-sent rain or by the gentle dew of night. Beyond lies a third region—the land of the negroes—made fertile by spring and stream, by marsh and lake.
More remarkable still is the fact that in each of the writers mentioned we find clear indications of a knowledge of a great river running through Negroland.
With minds on the search for a solution of the Nile problems—its origin, its course, and the mystery of its annual overflow—and from the likelihood that some of their informants had actually seen this river when it ran in an easterly direction, the opinion generally adopted by the ancients was that the river of the negroes was the Nile itself.
Of the various sources of information upon which the classical writers depended for their descriptions of these savage lands we know but little. One there is, however, which stands out with wonderful clearness and prominence and a general air of credibility—the expedition of the Nasamones as related by Herodotus.
The Nasamones—five young men of distinction, doubtless without suitable outlets for their ambitions and energies at home—set out from their native country to the south-west of Egypt, bent on the exploration of the heart of Africa.