ON THE ICTIS OF DIODORUS SICULUS. 301 
of the past. Any one of these modes of solution 
is preferable to that reckless charge of ignorance, 
or want of historical accuracy, of which many are 
so ready to avail themselves, when their efforts 
to throw light upon the records of antiquity are 
baffled, and they find themselves unable to inter- 
pret the written memorials of former times, or to 
admit the credibility of facts, to which nothing 
similar, or analogous, has occurred, within the 
range of their own limited experience. It is well 
known that such was once the fate of certain nar- 
ratives in the history of Herodotus, the accuracy 
of which has been abundantly confirmed by sub- 
sequent investigation ; and if this result has been 
attained in regard to a writer, who is known 
occasionally to have mingled fable with history, 
candour requires that we should pause, before we 
reject as incredible a statement of Diodorus, 
which not only involves nothing of the nature of 
a physical impossibility, but bears impressed upon 
it the strongest internal marks of having been 
committed to writing, on the testimony of eye 
witnesses. 
Assuming the correctness, therefore, of the 
geographical description now under consideration, 
and discarding, as improbable, the supposition, 
Ss 
