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For my part I am astonished that men should ever have divided Libya,
Asia, and Europe as they have, for they are exceedingly unequal.
Europe extends the entire length of the other two, and for breadth
will not even (as I think) bear to be compared to them. As for
Libya, we know it to be washed on all sides by the sea, except where
it is attached to Asia. This discovery was first made by Necos, the
Egyptian king, who on desisting from the canal which he had begun
between the Nile and the Arabian gulf, sent to sea a number of ships
manned by Phoenicians, with orders to make for the Pillars of
Hercules, and return to Egypt through them, and by the
Mediterranean. The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt by
way of the Erythraean sea, and so sailed into the southern ocean.
When autumn came, they went ashore, wherever they might happen to
be, and having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain
was fit to cut. Having reaped it, they again set sail; and thus it
came to pass that two whole years went by, and it was not till the
third year that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and made good
their voyage home. On their return, they declared - I for my part
do not believe them, but perhaps others may - that in sailing round
Libya they had the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the
extent of Libya first discovered.
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