BOOK III. I. 2-5 



any history, and that thouirh their names are 

 mentioned, it is only as forming a portion of the 

 world and of the natural universc. 



The whole circuit of the earth is divided into three Three 

 parts, Europe, Asia and Africa. The starting point 

 is in the west, at the Straits of Gibraltar, where the Oibraiiar. 

 Atlantic Ocean bursts in and spreads out into the 

 inland seas. On the right as you enter from the ocean 

 is Africa and on the left Europe, with Asia between 

 them ; the boundaries are the river Don and the 

 river Nile. The ocean straits mentioned are fifteen 

 miles long and five miles broad, from the village 

 of Mellaria " in Spain to the White Cape * in 

 Africa, as given by Turranius Gracihs, a native 

 of the neighbourhood, while Livy and Cornehus 

 Nepos state the brcadth at the narrowest point 

 as seven miles and at the widest as ten miles : so 

 narrow is the mouth through which pours so boundless 

 an expanse of water. Nor is it of any great depth, 

 so as to lessen the marvel, for recurring streaks of 

 whitening shoal-water terrify passing keels, and con- 

 sequently many have called this place the threshold 

 of the Mediterranean. At the narrowest pai-t of the 

 Straits stand mountains on either side, enclosing the 

 channel, Ximiera in Africa and Gibraltar in Europe ; 

 these were the hmits of the labours of Hercules, and 

 consequently the inhabitants call them the Pillars 

 of that deity, and beheve that he cut the channel 

 through them and thereby let in the sea which had 

 hitherto been shut out, so altering the face of nature. 



To begin then with Europe, nurse of the race that Europe.- iu 

 has conquered all the nations, and by far the lovehest ■^""'^ 

 portion of the earth, which most authorities, not with- 

 out reason, have reckoned to be not a third part but a 



