Page:West African Studies.djvu/285

 said he had seen a nation of little men who wore garments made of palm leaves, who, whenever his crew drew their ships ashore, left their cities and flew into the mountains, though he did them no injury, only taking some cattle from them; and the reason he gave for his not sailing round Libya was that his ships could go no further." Sataspes's end was sad, but one cannot feel that he was a loss to the class of romancers of travel.

Another and a more determined navigator was Eudoxus of Cyzicus (. 117). The scanty record we have of his exploration is of great interest. While he was making a stay in Alexandria, he met an Indian who was the sole survivor of a crew wrecked on the Red Sea coast. He is the Indian who persuaded Ptolemy Euergetes to fit out an expedition to sail to India, and off they went and succeeded in it greatly, but on their return the king seized the cargo; so therefore, as a private enterprise, the thing was a failure. However, Eudoxus was a man of great determination, and on the death of Ptolemy VII. in the reign of his successor, he set out on another expedition to India. On his return voyage he was driven down the African Coast, and found there on the shore amongst other wreckage the prow of a vessel with the figure of a horse carved on it. This relic he took with him as a curiosity, and on his successful return to Alexandria exhibited it there in the market place, and during its exhibition it was recognised by some pirates from Cadiz (Gades) who happened to be in that city, and they testified that the small vessels which were employed in the fisheries along the West African Coast as far as the River Lixius (Wadi al Knos) always had the figure of a horse on their prows, and on this account were called "horses." The fact