He Particularly Notices That The
Eastern Ethiopians, Or Indians, Differ From Those Of Africa By Their Long
Hair, As Opposed To The Woolly Head Of The African.
In his account of India
he interweaves much that is fabulous; but in the same manner as modern
discoveries
In geography have confirmed many things in Herodotus which were
deemed errors in his geography, so it has been ascertained that even his
fables have, in most instances, a foundation in fact. With regard to
Africa, his knowledge of Egypt, and of the country to the north of it,
seems to have been very accurate, and more minute and satisfactory than his
knowledge of any other part of the world. It is highly probable that he was
acquainted with the course of the western branch of the Nile, as far as the
11th degree of latitude. He certainly knew the real course of the Niger. On
the east coast of Africa he was well acquainted with the shores of the
Arabian Gulph; but though he sometimes mentions Carthage, and describes the
traffic carried on, without the intervention of language, between the
Carthaginians and a nation beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which we nave
already mentioned in treating of the commerce of the Carthaginians, yet he
seems to have been unacquainted with any point between Carthage and the
Pillars of Hercules.
In the history of Herodotus, there is an account of a map constructed by
Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, when he proposed to Cleomenes, king of
Sparta, to attack Darius, king of Persia, at Susa; from this account, the
vague, imperfect, and erroneous ideas entertained in his time of the
relative situations and distances of places, as well as of the extremely
rude and feeble advances which had been made towards the construction of
maps, may be inferred.
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