382 PLUfT's ITATUEAL HISTORY. PBook V. 



story there are still existing in its vicinity many vestiges which 

 tend to prove that the locality was once inhabited ; such as 

 the remains of vineyards and plantations of palm-trees. 



Suetonius Paulinus^ whom we have seen Consul in our 

 own time, was the first Eoman general who advanced a 

 distance of some miles beyond Mount Atlas. He has given 

 us the same information as we have received from other 

 sources with reference to the extraordinary height of this 

 moimtain, and at the same time he has stated that all the 

 lower parts about the foot of it are covered with dense 

 and lofty forests composed of trees of species hitherto un- 

 known. The height of these trees, he says, is remarkable ; 

 the trunks are without knots, and of a smooth and glossy 

 surface ; the foliage is like that of the cypress, and besides 

 sending forth a powerful odour, they are covered with a 

 flossy down, from which, by the aid of art, a fine cloth might 

 easily be manufactured, similar to the textures made from the 

 produce of the silk-worm. He informs us that the summit 

 of this moiuitain is covered with snow even in summer, and 

 says tliat having arrived there after a march of ten days, he 



Proceeded some distance beyond it as far as a river which 

 ears the name of Ger^; the road being through deserts 

 covered with a black sand', from which rocks that bore the 

 appearance of having been exposed to the action of fire, pro- 

 jected every here and there ; localities rendered quite uninha- 

 bitable by the intensity of the heat, as he himself experienced, 



1 The same general who afterwards conquered the Britons under Boa- 

 dicea or Bonduca. While Propraetor in Mauritania under the Emperor 

 Claudius, in the year a.d. 42, he defeated the Mauri who had risen in 

 revolt, and advanced, as Pliny here states, as far as Mount Atlas. It is 

 not known from what point PauHuus made his advance towards the Atlas 

 range. Mannert and Marcus are of opinion that he set out from Sala, 

 the modem Sallee, while Latreille, Malte Brun, and Walkenaer think 

 that his point of departure was the mouth of the river Lixos. Sala was 

 the most southerly town on the western coast of Africa that in the time 

 of Pliny had submitted to the Roman arms. 



* Some of the editions read ' Niger' here. Marcus suggests that that 

 river may have been called 'Niger' by the Phoenician or Punic colonists 

 of the western Mauritania, and 'Ger' or • Gbr' in another quarter. The 

 same writer also suggests that the Sigilmessa was the river to which 

 Paulinus penetrated on his march beyond Atlas. 



• The Sigilmessa, according to Marmol, flows between several moun* 

 tains which appear to be of a blackish hue. 



