ILLUSTRATIONS (7). MEADOWS OF SEA-WEED. 47 



mariners came in a four clays' voyage from Gades to a place 

 where the sea was found covered with rushes and sea-weed 

 (dpvov teal 4>vkos). The sea-weed is uncovered at ebb, and 

 overflowed at flood tide." Does he not here refer to a shoal 

 lying between the 34th and 36th degrees of latitude ? Has 

 a shoal disappeared there in consequence of volcanic revo- 

 lution? Vobonne refers to rocks north of Madeira.* In 

 Scylax it is stated that ' ' the sea beyond Cerne ceases to be 

 navigable in consequence of its great shallowness, its mud- 

 diness, and its sea-grass. The sea-grass lies a span thick, 

 and it is pointed at its upper extremity, so that it pricks." 

 The sea-weed which is found between Cerne (the Phoenician 

 station for merchant vessels, Gaulea ; or, according to Gosse- 

 lin, the small estuary of Fedallah, on the north-west coast of 

 Mauritania,) and Cape Verde, at the present time by no 

 means forms a great meadow or connected group, " mare 

 herbidum" such as exists on the other side of the Azores. 

 Moreover, in the poetic description of the coast given by 

 Festus Avienus, j in which, as Avienus himself very distinctly 

 acknowledges, he availed himself of the journals of Phoenician 

 ships, the impediments presented by the sea- weed are described 

 with great minuteness ; but Avienus places the site of this 

 obstacle much further north, towards Ierne, the Holy Isle. 



Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem, 

 Sic segnis humor aequoris pigri stupet. 

 Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites 

 Exstare fucuin, et seepe virgulti vice 

 Retinere puppirn .... 

 Hgec inter undas rnulta casspitem jacet, 

 Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit. 



When we consider that the sea- weed (fucus) the mud or 

 slime (7rr)\bs), the shallowness of the sea, and the perpetual 

 calms, are always regarded by the ancients as characteristic of 

 the Western Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, we feel 

 inclined, especially on account of the reference to the calms, 

 to ascribe this to Punic cunning, to the tendency of a great 

 trading people to hinder others, by terrific descriptions, from 

 competing with them in maritime trading westwards. But even 



* See also Edrisi, Geogr. Nub., 1619, p. 157. 

 f Ora Maritima, v. 109, 122, 338, and 408. 



