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94 the Red Sea, ordering them to return to Egypt by the pillars of Hercules—that is, by the Strait of Gibraltar. As these were their orders, it is to be presumed that the route was already known. They spent three years in accomplishing their task, as they had to sow grain on the way, and wait for the harvest. Herodotus pronounces their voyage apocryphal, because they reported they had the sunrise on their right hand as they sailed round Libya, but which proves indeed that they had doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Sataspes, a Persian, tried to sail round Africa in the other direction, but failed. He had got beyond Cape Soloeis (Spartel) to a country inhabited by a dwarfish people, who dressed in palm-leaves; and there, as he declared, the ship stopped, and would go no further. He had evidently fallen in with the southerly trade-wind, and was not aware that, in order to proceed, he ought to have pushed across towards the South American continent. He met with a fate worse even than that of some later discoverers: he was not only disbelieved, but put to death on his return. Darius appears to have taken a great interest in such discoveries, and it was he who sent Scylax the Carian down the Indus to explore the Indian Ocean.

Amongst the strange customs which Herodotus records of the Scythians was their manner of keeping the anniversary of the burial of their kings. They slew fifty young men and fifty choice horses, stuffed