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The rest of this book deals with the history and the natural features of North Africa and its inhabitants. H. skilfully introduces this digression, as it illustrates (with the Scythian expedition) the farreaching ambitions of the Persians.

This digression falls into four parts:

(1) The colonization of Cyrene (cc. 145-58): of this, the story of Thera (cc. 145-9) is the prologue.

(2) The history of Cyrene to the Persian intervention (cc. 159-67).

(3) The account of the Libyans (cc. 168-99).

There can be little doubt that this minor digression is a further motive for the full treatment of North African history; H. was with reason proud of his geographical and ethnographical knowledge.

(4) The results of Persian intervention (cc. 200-5).

Many of the references to modern travellers are drawn from R. Neumann (Nord-Afrika nach Herodot, Leipzig, 1892, a very clear and useful little book) and from Rawlinson, who usually quotes passages in full. The comparisons are interesting and greatly to the credit of H. as a sifter of evidence, especially when we remember the proverbial unveracity of Oriental witnesses. ‘Happy are they who find the least resemblance between the description they have heard and the reality, for it often occurs that amplification and hyperbole have less to do in such accounts than pure invention.’ Beechey (Expedition to North Coast of Africa, 1821-2, p. 503), who elsewhere (p. 267), speaking of Barca, says the account of H. is more accurate in the general impression it gives than that of any later traveller.

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