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------Libya shows itself to be surrounded by water, except so much of it as borders upon Asia. Neco, king of Egypt, was the first we know of, that proved this; he, when he had ceased digging the canal leading from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, sent certain Phoenicians in ships, with orders to sail back through the Pillars of Hercules, into the Northern Sea, and so return to Egypt. The Phoenicians accordingly, setting out from the Red Sea, navigated the Southern Sea; when autumn came, they went ashore and sowed the land, by whatever part of Libya they happened to be sailing, and waited for the harvest; and having reaped the corn, they put to sea again. When two years had thus passed, in the third, having doubled the Pillars of Hercules, they arrived in Egypt, and related what to me does not seem credible, but may to others, that as they sailed round Libya, they had the sun on their right hand. Thus was Libya first known.— Herodotus: Melpomene, 42.