96 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book VI. 



mariners. Beyond it is the Port of Isis, distant ten days' 

 rowing from the town of the Adulitee : myrrh is brought to this 

 port by the Troglodytse. The two islands before the harbour 

 are called Pseudepylse, 1 and those in it, the same in number, 

 are known as Pylse ; 2 upon one of these there are some stone 

 columns inscribed with unknown characters. Beyond these is 

 the Gulf of Abalites, the island of Diodorus, 3 and other de- 

 sert islands ; also, on the mainland, a succession of deserts, and 

 then the town of Gaza, and the promontory and port of Mos- 

 sylum, 4 to the latter of which cinnamon is brought for ex- 

 portation : it was thus far that Sesostris led 5 his army. 



Some writers place even beyond this, upon the shore, one 

 town of ^Ethiopia, called Baricaza. Juba will have it that at 

 the Promontory of Mossylum 6 the Atlantic Sea begins, and that 

 with a north-west wind 7 we may sail past his native country, the 

 Mauritanias, and arrive at Gades. We ought not on this occa- 

 sion to curtail any portion of the opinions so expressed by him. 

 He says that after we pass the promontory of the Indians, 8 

 known as Lepteacra, and by others called Drepanum, the dis- 

 tance, in a straight line, beyond the island of Exusta and 

 Malichu, is fifteen hundred miles ; from thence to a place 

 called Sceneos two hundred and twenty-five ; and from thence to 

 the island of Adanu one hundred and fifty miles ; so that the dis- 



1 The " False Gates." 2 The " Gates." 



3 D'Anville and Gosselin think that this is the island known as the 

 French Island. 



4 Ansart thinks that this promontory is that known as Cape de Meta, 

 and that the port is at the mouth of the little river called Soul or Soal. 



5 In his ^Ethiopian expedition. According to Straho, he had altars and 

 pillars erected there to record it. 



6 Under the impression entertained by the ancients, that the southern 

 progress of the coast of Africa stopped short here, and that it began at this 

 point to trend away gradually to the north-west. 



7 Coro. Salmasius seems with justice,' notwithstanding the censures of 

 Hardouin, to ^have found considerable difficulty in this passage. If it is 

 Pliny's meaning that by sea round the south of the Promontory of Mos- 

 sylum there is a passage to the extreme north-western point of Africa, it 

 is pretty clear that it is not by the aid of a north-west wind that it could 

 be reached. " Euro," " with a south-east wind," has been very properly 

 suggested. 



8 By this name he means the JEthiopian Troglodytse. Of course it 

 would bembsurd to attempt any identification of the places here named, 

 as they must clearly have existed only in the imagination of the African 

 geographer. 



