REPORT OB IBIBIO 0~

B I S ~ 0 R I C A L

1 .

REPORT ON IBIBIO CLAN. 5 n a m

H I S T 0 R I C A L

Phoenician navigators sent by Necho ,

King of Egypt (B.C. 600) are said to have accomplished the navigation of Africa from

the Red Sea , by way of the Indian ocean,

round the southern promontory through the

Pillars of Hercules ~~d back to Egypt . The voyage is said to have taken three

years to accomplish, and as navigation

of such times was for the most part res-

tricted to coastwise sailing, these earl y

navigators must have cal led i n one of the

IBIBIO coasts , for food and wat er, especial) as the direction in whi ch they sail ed took

them against the set of the curr ent and

wind when in the Bi ghts .

The next record af fords more

certainty that the shores inhabited by the

IBIBIO were visited by early navigators.

About B.C. 450 Panno fitted out an ar.mada of

sixty l a r ge sh ips, in which sailed some

30, 000 person s of both sexes. The object of the expedition was to start a colony

on the African coast. They passed through

the ~ Pillars of Herculea, at a distance

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of two days from them, they founded the >

ci ty of Thyniaterium. A further voyage of

t o day s brought them to Cape Solocis, a

pranontory of L1 bya. Here they erected a

temple to Neptune. Thq then left and

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continued to voyage ahead till they reached a

region where the land appeared all on fire while torrents of flame rushed to the sea. If they wished to land, the soil was too hot to

allow them to walk on it . There was one parti-

cular object that held the attention, by night it appeared as a great fire nungling with the

stars, by day it was a mountain of stupendous

height to which they gave the name of the

"Chariot of' the Gods" . A voyage of three days

f'1-aom the "Chariot of' the Gods" brought them to

another bay with an island whose inhabitants,

human in for.m, were covered from head to foot

with shaggy hair. To these beings they gave

the name Gorill ae , a word of Agrican Origin

obtained f'rom their interpreters

2 . That these navigators were off the coast of

the land now inha~ited by the IBIBIO is cl ear

from this reference to a l arge and active

volcano. non the easter-n coast of' the Atlantic t he

only active vol cano is that of the Kamer uns , which

was seen i n action by t he Phoeni ci an Hanno"

3. Then for centuries ther e is silence , no r ecords of this part of' Africa have come to light showing

that it was visited by sea-going persons until

the rorman traders from around Dieppe claim to

have been t rading there on the Guinea coasts a

century before t he Port uguese arrived. 2hese French settlements are said to until about 1410 when the calamities

ove~ helmed France distracted people's :froz the trade of the Guinea ooaet.

have lasted which then

attention