/ 



\ 



246 



formed the western extremity of the chain of 

 Atlas ; and it is also very uncertain, whether the 

 flames seen by Hanno were the effect of some 

 volcanic eruption, or whether they should be at- 

 tributed to the custom, common to so many 

 nations, of setting fire to the forests and dry 

 grass of the savannahs. In our own days simi- 

 lar doubts were entertained by the naturalists, 

 who, in the voyage of d'Entrecasteaux, saw the 

 island of Amsterdam covered with a thick 

 smoke*. On the coast of the Caraccas, trains of 

 reddish fire, fed by the burning grass, exhibited 

 to me, for several nights, the delusive aspect of 

 a current of lava, descending from the moun- 

 tains, and dividing itself into several branches. 



Though the journals of Hanno and Scylax, in 

 the state in which they have reached us, contain 

 no passage, which we can reasonably apply to 

 the Canary islands, it is however very probable, 

 that the Carthaginians, and even the Phoeni- 



entirely with hair, and very mischievous, because they de- 

 fended themselves with their teeth and nails. He boasts of 

 having flayed three of them to preserve their skins. Mr. 

 Gosselin places the isle of the Gorilli at the mouth of the 

 river Nun; but, according to this account, the lake, near 

 which Hanno saw a multitude of elephants feeding, should 

 be in the latitude of thirty-five and a half, almost at the 

 northern extremity of Africa. Recherches sur la GSographie 

 des Anciens, t. i, p. 74 et 93. 



* Voy. de Labillardiere, t, I, p. 112. Voy. de d'Entrecas- 

 teaux, t. i, p. 45. 



