To modern students, who have learnt more of Phoenician enterprise, the story does not seem so incredible as it did to Herodotus; and a modern poet, Edwin Arnold, has dreamed into verse a delightful account of what this voyage may have been like.

Ithobal of Tyre, Chief Captain of the seas, standing before Neco, Pharaoh and King, Ruler of Nile and its lands, relates the story of his two years' voyage, of the strange things he saw, of the hardships he endured, of the triumphant end. He tells how, with the help of mechanics from Tarshish, Tyre, and Sidon, he built three goodly ships, "Ocean's children," in a "windless creek" on the Red Sea, how he loaded them with cloth and beads, "the wares wild people love," food-flour for the ship, cakes, honey, oil, pulse, meal, dried fish and rice, and salted goods. Then the start was made down the Red Sea, until at last "the great ocean opened" east and south to the unknown world and into the great nameless sea, by the coast of that "Large Land whence none hath come" they sailed.

Ithobal had undertaken no light task; contrary winds, mutiny on board, want of fresh water, all the hardships that confront the mariner who pilots his crews in search of the unknown. Strange tribes met them on the coast and asked them whither they went.

"We go as far as the sun goes
As far as the sea rolls, as far as the stars
Shine still in sky. To find for mighty Pharaoh what his world
Holds hidden."

South and ever south they sailed, "day after day and night succeeding night, close clinging to the shore." New stars appeared, lower and lower sank the sun, moons rose and waned, and still the coast stretched southwards till they reached a "Cape of Storms" and found the coast was turning north. And now occurred that strange phenomenon mentioned by Herodotus, that while sailing westwards the sun was on their right hand. "No man had seen that thing in Syria or in Egypt."

A year and a half had now passed away since they left home, but onward to the north they now made their way, past the mouth of the golden waters (Orange River), past the Congo, past the Niger, past the island of Gorillas described by Hanno, who explored the west coast under Neco either before or after this time, until at last the little Phoenician ships sailed peacefully into the Mediterranean Sea.

"Here is the Ocean-Gate. Here is the Strait
Twice before seen, where goes the Middle Sea
Unto the Setting Sun and the Unknown—
No more unknown, Ithobal's ships have sailed
Around all Africa. Our task is done.
These are the Pillars, this the Midland Sea.
The road to Tyre is yonder. Every wave
Is homely. Yonder, sure, Old Nilus pours
Into this Sea, the Waters of the World,
Whose secret is his own and thine and mine."

It will ever remain one of the many disputed points in early geography whether or not Africa was circumnavigated at this early date. If the Phoenicians did accomplish such a feat they kept their experiences a secret as usual, and the early maps gave a very wrong idea of South Africa. On the other hand, we know they had good seaworthy ships in advance of their neighbours.

THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, AS SHOWN IN THE ANGLO-SAXON MAP OF THE WORLD, TENTH CENTURY.