lles started off on his
northern trip. Unfortunately, his diary and book called _The Circuit
of the Earth_ have perished, and our story of geographical discovery
is the poorer. But these facts have survived.

The ships first touched at Cadiz, the "Tyre of the West," a famous
port in those days, where Phoenician merchants lived, "careless and
secure" and rich. This was the limit of Greek geographical knowledge;
here were the Pillars of Hercules, beyond which all was dim and
mysterious and interesting. Five days' sail, that is to say, some three
hundred miles along the coast of Spain, brought Pytheas to Cape St.
Vincent.

He thought he was navigating the swift ocean river flowing round the
world. He was, therefore, surprised to find as he rounded the Cape
that the current had ceased, or, in his own words, the "ebb came to
an end." Three days more and they were at the mouth of the Tagus. Near
this part of the coast lay the Tin Islands, according to Greek ideas,
though even to-day their exact locality is uncertain. Pytheas must
have heard the old tradition that the Cassiterides were ten in number
and lay near each other in the ocean, that they were inhabited by people
who wore black cloaks and long tunics reaching to the feet, that they
walked with long staves and subsisted by their cattle. They led a
wandering life; they bartered hides, tin, and lead with the merchants
in exchange for pottery, salt, and implements of bronze.

That these islands had already been visited by Himilco the
Carthaginian seems fairly certain. He had started from Cadiz for the
north when Hanno started for the south. From the Tin Islands his fleet
had ventured forth into the open sea. Thick fogs had hidden the sun
and the ships were driven south before a north wind till they reached,
though they did not know it, the Sargasso Sea, famous for its vast
plains of seaweed, through which it was difficult to push the ships.

"Sea animals," he tells us, "crept upon the tangled weed." It has been
thought that with a little good fortune Himilco might have discovered
America two thousand years before the birth of Columbus. But Himilco
returned home by the Azores or Fortunate Islands, as they were called.

Leaving the Tin Islands, Pytheas voyaged on to Cape Finisterre,
landing on the island of Ushant, where he found a temple served by
women priests who kept up a perpetual fire in honour of their god.
Thence Pytheas sailed prosperously on up the English Cha