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 witli 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 



