58 ANCIENT HISTORY. [chap. iv. 



African shores were explored far to the southward hy that 

 leader, who, on his return, as Pliny tells us, hung up in the 

 temple of Saturn a register of his discoveries ; and, more- 

 over, in the temple of Juno, as evidence of their truth, two 

 skins of female Gorgons covered with hair, which remained 

 there till the destruction of Carthage ; yet the Greek account 

 of this voyage, which has come down to us is so mixed with 

 fiction, and accords so ill with the known geography of the 

 coast, that Strabo did but show the usual soundness of his 

 judgment in rejecting its authority. After the fall of Carthage 

 a survey of these seas was undertaken by the Roman general, 

 historian, and geographer, Polybius, who likewise found an 

 island, to which he assigned the name of Cerne ; but it was 

 one which lay not more than a mile from the shore. 



By the time, however, that Augustus Caesar ruled the 

 Roman Empire, when that literary sovereign governed the 

 kingdoms of Mauritania, of whom it was said that he was 

 " still more memorable for the renown of his studies than for 

 the extent of his dominions," the fragments which remain of 

 his geographical delineations prove that both the Canary and 

 the Madeira Islands were then distinctly known. 



" Juba," says Pliny, " has given this as the result of his 

 investigations concerning the Fortunate Islands, that they are 

 situate in the south, towards the west, 320 miles from the 

 Purple Islands, so as that the navigation lies for Q50 miles 

 above the sunset (i. e. south-west) ; then for 70 miles the 

 course is eastward. The first island, called Ombrion, has no 

 traces of buildings. On its hills is a piece of standing water. 

 It bears trees resembling a ferula, from which is expressed a 

 water, bitter from the black species, but from those of a 

 whiter colour pleasant to drink. Another island is called 

 Junonia, and on it there is one little building of stone. 



