up a ship's prow in the form of a horse's head, and upon
his return to Alexandria some merchants professed to recognize it as
belonging to a ship of Cadiz. Eudoxus thereupon concluded that Africa
was circumnavigable, and presently sailed through the Mediterranean and
out upon the Atlantic. Somewhere upon the coast of Mauritania he found
natives who used some words of similar sound to those which he had
written down when visiting the eastern coast, whence he concluded that
they were people of the same race. At this point he turned back, and the
sequel of the story was unknown to Posidonius.[356]

[Footnote 355: Herodotus, iv. 43.]

[Footnote 356: The story is preserved by Strabo, ii. 3, Sec.Sec. 4,
5, who rejects it with a vehemence for which no adequate reason
is assigned.]

[Sidenote: Wild exaggerations.]

It is worthy of note that both Pliny and Pomponius Mela, quoting
Cornelius Nepos as their authority, speak of Eudoxus as having
circumnavigated Africa from the Red Sea to Cadiz; and Pliny, moreover,
tells us that Hanno sailed around that continent as far as
Arabia,[357]--a statement which is clearly false. These examples show
how stories grow when carelessly and uncritically repeated, and they
strongly tend to confirm the doubt with which one is inclined to regard
the tale of Necho's sailors above mentioned. In truth, the island of
Gorillas, discovered by Hanno, was doubtless the most southerly point on
that coast reached by navigators in ancient times. Of the islands in the
western ocean the Carthaginians certainly knew the Canaries (where they
have left undoubted inscriptions), probably also the Madeiras, and
possibly the Cape Verde group.[358]

[Footnote 357: Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, ii. 67; Mela, _De Situ
Orbis_, iii. 9.]

[Footnote 358: After the civil war of Sertorius (B. C. 80-72),
the Romans became acquainted with the Canaries, which, because
of their luxuriant vegetation and soft climate, were identified
with the Elysium described by Homer, and were commonly known as
the Fortunate islands. "Contra Fortunatae Insulae abundant sua
sponte genitis, et subinde aliis super aliis innascentibus
nihil sollicitos alunt, beatius quam aliae urbes excultae." Mela,
iii. 10.

[Greek: Alla s' es Elysion pedion kai peirata gaies
athanatoi pempsousin, hothi xanthos Rhadamant