Chap. 1.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, &C. 153 



also believe tliat they were dug through by him ; upon which 

 the sea, which was before excluded, gained adjmssion, and 

 so changed the face of nature. 



CHAP. 1. (1.) — THE BOUNDARIES AND GULFS OF EUROPE 

 FIRST SET FORTH IN A GENERAL WAY. 



I shall first then speak of Europe, the foster-mother of that 

 people which has conquered all other nations, and itself by 

 far the most beauteous portion of the earth. Indeed, many 

 persons have, not without reason \ considered it, not as a 

 third part oidy of the earth, but as equal to all the rest, 

 looking upon the whole of our globe as divided into two 

 parts only, by a line drawn from the river Tanais to the 

 Straits of Grades. The ocean, after pouring the waters of the 

 Atlantic through the inlet which I have here described, and, 

 in its eager progress, overwhelming all the lands which have 

 had to dread its approach, skirts with its winding course the 

 shores of those parts which offer a more effectual resistance, 

 hollowing out the coast of Europe especially into numerous 

 bays, among which there are four Gulfs that are more parti- 

 cularly remarkable. The first of these begins at Calpe, which 

 I have previously mentioned, the most distant mountain of 

 Spain ; and bends, describing an immense curve, as far as 

 Locri and the Promontory of Bruttium^. 



CHAP. 2. — OF SPAIN GENERALLY. 



The first land situate upon this Gulf is that which is called 

 the Farther Spain or Baetica^ ; next to which, beginning at 

 the frontier town of Urgi*, is the Nearer, or Tarraconensian* 



^ This was the opinion of Herodotus, but it had been so strenuously 

 combated by Polybius and other writers before the time of Pliny, that it 

 is difficult to imagine how he should countenance it. 



^ He probably alludes to Leucopetra, now called Capo dell' Armi 

 Locri Epizephyrii was a town of Bruttium, situate north of the promon- 

 tory of Zephyrium, now called Capo di Bruzzano. 



3 So called from the Baetis, now the Guadalquivir or Great Eiver. 



* The situation of this town is not known, but it is supposed to have 

 been about five leagues from the present city of Mujacar, or Moxacar. 

 It was situate on the Sinus Urgitanus. 



* So called from the city of Tarraco, on the site of the present Tar- 

 ragona. 



