All These Countries,
Together With A Portion Of The South Of Italy, Were Visited By Him.
The
information which his history conveys respecting other parts of the world
was derived from others:
In most cases, it would seem, from personal
enquiries and conversation with them, so that he had an opportunity of
rendering the information thus acquired much more complete, as well as
satisfactory, than it would have been if it had been derived from their
journals.
Herodotus trusted principally or entirely to the information he received,
with respect to the interior of Africa and the north of Europe, and Asia to
the east of Persia. While he was in Egypt he seems to have been
particularly inquisitive and interested respecting the caravans which
travelled into the interior of Africa; and regarding their equipment,
route, destination, and object, he has collected a deal of curious and
instructive information. On the authority of Etearchus, king of the
Ammonians, he relates a journey into the interior of Africa, undertaken by
five inhabitants of the country near the Gulf of Libya; and, in this
journey, there is good reason to believe that the river Niger is accurately
described, at least as far as regards the direction of its course.
It is evident from the introduction to his third book that the Greek
merchants of his time were eminently distinguished for their courage,
industry, and abilities; that in pursuit of commercial advantages they
visited very remote and barbarous countries in the north-eastern parts of
Europe, and the adjacent parts of Asia; and that the Scythians permitted
the Greek merchants of the Euxine to penetrate farther to the east and
north "than we can trace their progress by the light of modern
information." To them Herodotus was much indebted for the geographical
knowledge which he displays of those parts of the world; and it is by no
means improbable that the spirit of commercial enterprize which invited the
Greek merchants on the Euxine to penetrate among the barbarous nations of
the north-east, also led them far to the east and south-east; and that from
them, as well as from his personal enquiries, while at Babylon and Susa,
Herodotus derived much of the information with which he has favoured us
respecting the country on the Indus, and the borders of Cashmere and
Arabia.
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