The Senegal River is a river in West Africa. It is 1,800 km long and is the border between Senegal and Mauritania. Pliny the Elder called it "Bambotus" (from a word meaning "hippopotamus") and Claudius Ptolemy called it "Nias". Hanno the Carthaginian went to the river in about 450 BC when he was going from Carthage to Mount Cameroon in the Gulf of Guinea. Carthage was destroyed in 146 BC, but before that time there was probably trade from here to the Mediterranean Sea.