106 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOEY. [Book VI. 



that Cerne is situate at the extremity of Mauritania, over 

 against Mount Atlas, and at a distance of eight stadia from 

 the land; while Cornelius Nepos states that it lies very 

 nearly in the same meridian as Carthage, at a distance from the 

 mainland of ten miles, and that it is not more than two^miles 

 in circumference. It is said also that there is another island 

 situate over against Mount Atlas, being itself known by the 

 name of Atlantis. 55 Five days' sail beyond it there are deserts, 

 as far as the ^Ethiopian HesperiaB and the promontory, which 

 we have mentioned as being called Hesperu Ceras, a point at 

 which the face of the land first takes a turn towards the west 

 and the Atlantic Sea. Facing this promontory are also said 

 to be the islands called the Gorgades, 56 the former abodes of 

 the Gorgons, two days' sail from the mainland, according to 

 Xenophon of Lampsacus. Hanno, a general of the Cartha- 

 ginians, penetrated as far as these regions, and brought back 

 an account that the bodies of the women were covered with 

 hair, but that the men, through their swiftness of foot, made 

 their escape ; in proof of which singularity in their skin, 

 and as evidence of a fact so miraculous, he placed the skins 57 

 of two of these females in the temple of Juno, which were 

 to be seen there until the capture of Carthage. Beyond these 

 even, are said to be the two islands of the Hesperides ; but 

 so uncertain are all the accounts relative to this subject, that 

 Statius Sebosus says that it is forty days' sail, past the coast 

 of the Atlas range, from the islands of the Gorgons to those 

 of the Hesperides, and one day's sail from these to the 

 Hesperu Ceras. Nor have we any more certain information 

 relative to the islands of Mauritania. We only know, as a 

 fact well- ascertained, that some few were discovered by Juba 

 over against the country of the Autololes, upon which he es- 

 tablished a manufactory of Gsetulian purple. 58 



55 Hardouin says that this is not the Atlantis rendered so famous by 

 Plato, whose story is distantly referred to in B. ii. c. 92 of this work. It 

 is difficult to say whether the* Atlantis of Plato had any existence at all, 

 except in the imagination. 



56 Medusa and her sisters, the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. The 

 identity of their supposed islands seems not to have been ascertained. For 

 the poetical aspect of their story, see Ovid's Met., B. iv. 



)7 It is not improbable that these were the skins of a species of uran- 

 outang, or large monkey. 



58 The Purpurariue, or " Purple Islands," probably the Madeira group. 



