BOOK VI 



I. The Euxine or Black Sea, formerly because of its TUe Biaci- 

 inhospitable roughness called the Axine," owing to a '^^''' 

 pecuUar jealousy on the part of Nature, which here 

 indulges the sea's greed wiihout any limit, actually 

 spreads into Europe and Asia. The Ocean was not 

 content to have encircled the earth, and with still 

 further cruelty to have reft aw-ay a portion of her 

 surface, nor to have forced an entrance through a 

 breach in the mountains and rent Gibraltar away 

 from Africa, so devouring a hirger area than it left 

 remaining, nor to have swallowed up a fm*ther space 

 of land and flooded the Sea of Marmara through 

 the Dardanelles ; even bcyond the Straits of Con- 

 stantinople also it widens out into another desolate 

 expanse, with an appetite uasatisfied until the Sea 

 of Azov links on its own tresj)ass to its encroachments. 

 That this event occurred against the will of the earth 

 is proved by the number of narrows, and by the small- 

 ness of the gaps left by Nature's resistance, measuring 

 at the Dardanelles 875 paces,* at the Straits of Con- 

 stantinople and Kertsch the passage being actually 

 fordable by oxen — which fact givcs both of them their 

 name '^ ; — and also by a certain harmonious affinity con- 

 tained in their disseverance, as the singing of birds 

 and barking of dogs on one side can be heard on the 

 other, and even the interchange of human speech, 

 conversation going on between the two workls, save 

 whcn the actual sound is carried away by the wind. 



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