![]() He described people with almost mythic powers, claiming that there were a group of men living in caves who could run faster than horses. His most harrowing story, though, comes from his exploration of an island. “In the daytime we could see nothing but the forest,” Hanno reported, “but during the night we noticed many fires alight and heard the sound of flutes, the beating of cymbals and tom-toms, and the shouts of a multitude.”Īn oracle he had brought with him urged him to leave the island and soon as possible. When he was back on his boat and looked back at the island, it was on fire. “Large torrents of fire emptied into the sea, and the land was inaccessible because of the heat,” Hanno wrote. For four days, we saw the coast by night full of flames.” 9Himilco and the Sea Monsters of Britain “Quickly and in fear, we sailed away from that place. He set up colonies along the way and opened trade routes with the people who lived there, who he called “a vigorous tribe” that were “proud spirited, energetic and skillful.” While Hanno went south, down Africa, another Carthaginian, Himilco, traveled north, along the coastline of Europe and all the way up to modern England. The strangest part, though, is how Himilco describes his trip. And, he claimed, it was filled up with “numerous sea monsters.” According to Himilco, Britain was under a constant fog, with shallow waters so full of seaweed that it was nearly impossible to move a ship an inch. It is not entirely clear what Himilco actually saw. He may have struggled with some animal he had never seen before and mistaken it for a monster-or he might have just lied. That is the most popular theory-that Himilco thought his discoveries in Britain were so valuable that he had to keep them secret from the world. When he came home, he told the Greeks there were killer sea monsters to keep them from exploring Britain for themselves. Sometime in the sixth century B.C., the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho outdid Hanno’s trip. He sent men out down the Red Sea and had them follow the coast of Africa, heading all the way down to the tip of South Africa, up along the west, and back through the Nile. These were the first people in all of history to circumnavigate the continent. The trip took more than two years to complete. Then, in the spring, they would head back aboard their ship and sail off again.Įvery autumn, the men would dock their ship wherever they were and set up farms to survive through the winter.
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