ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE OF AFRICA. 27 



to be the pillar of heaven, — a creed adopted, or perhaps 

 invented, by the Greeks and Romans. Herodotus here 

 stops, frankly owning that his information did not enable 

 iiim to go farther. The only other accounts which had 

 reached him respected a nation beyond the Pillars of Her- 

 cules, with whom the Carthaginians carried on trade in a 

 very peculiar manner. This wild and timid race would 

 not approach or hold parley with the strangers, who, on 

 drawing near to the shore, kindled a fire, uttered loud cries, 

 and laid on the sand a certain quantity of goods. The na- 

 tives, hearing them, and seeing the smoke, came down, sur- 

 veyed the deposite, placed beside it a certain portion of gold, 

 the precious article of their traffic, and withdrew. The Car- 

 thaginians approached to examine the tender thus made, 

 and, according to their estimate of its value, either carried 

 away the gold or left the whole untouched ; in which last 

 case, the natives understood that more of the precious metal 

 was expected. Thus the parties went backwards and for- 

 wards till the exchange was adjusted. 



If the accounts given by Herodotus of this western region 

 be tinctured with fable, the narrative of Diodorus shows 

 still more that the ancients had made it one of the gi^nd 

 theatres of their mythology. To it they refer the ancient 

 and early reign of Saturn, under the appellation of Ouranus, 

 or Heaven ; the birth of Jupiter, and his nursing by Amal- 

 thsea ; the impious race of the Titans, and their wars with 

 the sky ; Cybele, with her doting love for Atys, and frantic 

 grief for his fate. Diodorus represents the Atlantic people 

 as claiming these objects for themselves ; but it seems much 

 more probable that the warm imagination of the Greeks, 

 attracted by the mysterious grandeur of the re^on, trans- 

 ported thither the creations of their own fancy. Our au- 

 thor, however, makes a positive averment as to the exist- 

 ence of a race of Amazons there, still more warlike and 

 formidable than those en the banks of the Thermodon. 

 They did not, Uke these last, positively exterminate or expel 

 the male sex from their confines ; but, reserving to them- 

 selves all the high'cares of war and government, employed 

 their lords in keeping the house, tending the children, and 

 performing all the functions which are elsewhere exclu- 

 sively assigned to females. As soon as the wife had gone 

 tiiroujrh the necessary trouble of bearing a child, she handed 



