328 plint's natural HISTOET. [Book ly. Europe, as far as Istropolis, have been already^ mentioned in our account of Thrace. Passing beyond that spot we come to the mouths of the Ister. This river rises in Grermany in the heights of Mount Abnoba^, opposite to Eauricum^, a to^Ti of Graul, and flows for a course of many miles beyond the Alj^s and through nations innumerable, under the name of the Danube. Adding immensely to the volume of its waters, at the spot where it first enters Illyricum, it assumes the name of Ister, and, after receiving sixty rivers, nearly one half of which are navigable, rolls into the Euxine by six** vast channels. The first of these is the mouth of Pence ^, close to which is the island of Pence itself, from which the neighboui'ing channel takes its name ; this mouth is swallowed up in a great swamp nineteen miles in length. Prom the same channel too, above Istropolis, a lake^ takes its rise, sixt)' -three miles in circuit ; its name is Halmyris. The second mouth is called Naracu- Stoma ; the third, which is near the island of Sarmatica, is called Calon-Stoma^ ; the fourth is known as Pseudo-Stomon^, with its island called Conopon-Diabasis^" ; after which come the Boreon- 1 Chap. 18 of the present Book. Istropolis is supposed to be the present I.stere, though some would make it to have stood on the site of the present Kostendsje, and Bi'otier identifies it with Kara-Kerman. 2 Now called the Schwarzwald or Black Forest. The Danube or Ister rises on the eastern side at the spot called Donauescloingen. 2 So called from the Raurici, a powerful people of GaUia Belgica, who possessed several tov^Tis, of which the most important were Augusta, now Augst, and Basiha, now Bale. '* Only tlu'ee of these are now considered of importance, as being the mam branches of the river. It is looked upon as hnpossible by modern geographers to identify the accounts given by the ancients vnth. the present channels, by name, as the Danube has undergone in lapse of time, very considerable changes at its mouth. Strabo mentions seven mouths, three being lesser ones. 5 So called, as stated by Pliny, from the island of Peuce, now Piczina. Pence appears to have been the most southerly of the mouths. ^ Now called Kara-Sou, accorduig to Brotier. Also called Rassefu in the maps. 7 Now called HazraH Bogasi, according to Brotier. It is called by Ptolemy the Narakian Mouth,
- Or the " Beautiful Mouth." Now Susie Bogasi, according to Brotier.
^ Or the "False Mouth" : now the Sulina Bogasi, the principal mouth of the Danube, so maltreated by its Russian guardians. ^^ Or the " Passage of the Gnats," so called from being the resort of
