In
This Manner, By Means Of A Succession Of These Birds, The Crocodiles Get
Their Teeth Cleansed.
In this same river, there are many beasts
resembling horses; and upon the land, there are certain birds like our
cranes, which continually make war upon the serpents, which come thither
out of Arabia:
Which birds, and likewise the rats, which eat the eggs of
the crocodiles, are held in great reverence and estimation, by the
Egyptians.
But now, to return to my subject of discoveries. In the year 485 before
Christ, Xerxes, king of Persia, sent his nephew Sataspis to discover
India; who sailed from the Mediterranean through the Straits of Hercules,
and passed the promontory of Africa, which we now call the Cape of Good
Hope; but, wearying of the length of the voyage, he returned back again,
as Bartholomew Diaz did in our days[27]. In 443 A. C. Hamilco and Hanno,
two Carthaginian commanders who governed that part of Spain now called
Andalusia, sailed from thence with two squadrons. Hamilco, sailing
towards the north, discovered the coasts of Spain, France, England,
Flanders, and Germany; and some allege that he sailed to Gothland, and
even to Thule or Iceland, standing under the Arctic circle, in 64 degrees
north, and continued his voyage during two years, till he came to that
northern island, where the day in June continues for twenty-two hours,
and the nights in December are of a similar length; on account of which
it is there wonderfully cold.
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