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152
PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY.
[Book III.

in, is poured forth into the inland seas. As it makes its entrance from that side, Africa is on the right hand and Europe on the left; Asia lies between them[1]; the boundaries being the rivers Tanais[2] and Nile. The Straits of the ocean, of which I have just spoken, extend fifteen miles in length and five[3] in breadth, measured from the village of Mellaria[4] in Spain to the Album Promontorium[5] or White Promontory in Africa, as we learn from Turranius Gracilis, who was born in that vicinity. Titus Livius and Cornelius Nepos however have stated the breadth, where it is least, to be seven miles, and where greatest, ten; from so small a mouth as this does so immense an expanse of water open upon us! Nor is our astonishment diminished by the fact of its being of great depth; for, instead of that, there are numerous breakers and shoals, white with foam, to strike the mariner with alarm. From this circumstance it is, that many have called this spot the threshold of The Inland Sea.

At the narrowest part of the Straits, there are mountains placed to form barriers to the entrance on either side, Abyla[6] in Africa, and Calpe[7] in Europe, the boundaries formerly of the labours of Hercules[8]. Hence it is that the inhabitants have called them the Columns of that god; they

  1. This is said more especially in reference to the western parts of Asia, the only portion which was perfectly known to the ancients. His meaning is, that Asia as a portion of the globe does not lie so far north as Europe, nor so far south as Africa.
  2. Now the Don. It was usually looked upon as the boundary between Europe and Asia. Pliny's meaning seems to be, that the Tanais divides Asia from Europe, and the Nile, Asia from Africa, the more especially as the part to the west of the Nile was sometimes considered as belonging to Asia. It has been however suggested that he intends to assign these rivers as the extreme eastern boundaries of the internal or Mediterranean sea.
  3. At no spot are the Straits less than ten miles in width; although D'Anville makes the width to be little less than five miles. This passage of our author is probably in a corrupt state.
  4. This probably stood near the site of the town of Tarifa of the present day.
  5. Probably the point called 'Punta del Sainar' at the present day.
  6. Now called Ximiera, Jebel-el-Mina, or Monte del Hacho.
  7. The Rock of Gibraltar.
  8. The fable was that they originally formed one mountain, which was torn asunder by Hercules, or as Pliny says, "dug through."