106 
pliny's na-Tural history. 
[Book Yl. 
that Cerne is situate at the extremity of Mauritania, over 
against Mount Atlas, and at a distance of eight stadia from 
the land ; while Cornelius I^epos states that it lies very 
nearly in the same meridian as Carthage, at a distance from the 
mainland of ten miles, and that it is not more than two miles 
in circumference. It is said also that there is another island 
situate over against Mount Atlas, being itself known by the 
name of Atlantis. Five days' sail beyond it there are deserts, 
as far as the ^Ethiopian Hesperiae and the promontory, which 
we have mentioned as being called Hesperu Ceras, a point at 
which the face of the land first takes a turn towards the west 
and the Atlantic Sea. Facing this promontory are also said 
to be the islands called the Gorgades,^^ the former abodes of 
the Gorgons, two days' sail from the mainland, according to 
Xenophon of Lampsacus. Hanno, a general of the Cartha- 
ginians, penetrated as far as these regions, and brought back 
an account that the bodies of the women were covered with 
hair, but that the men, through their swiftness of foot, made 
their escape ; in proof of which singularity in their skin, 
and as evidence of a fact so miraculous, he placed the skins^^ 
of two of these females in the temple of Juno, which were 
to be seen there until the capture of Carthage. Beyond these 
even, are said to be the two islands of the Hesperides ; but 
so uncertain are all the accounts relative to this subject, that 
Statins Sebosus says that it is forty days' sail, past the coast 
of the Atlas range, from the islands of the Gorgons to those 
of the Hesperides, and one day's sail from these to the 
Hesperu Ceras. 'Not have we any more certain information 
relative to the islands of Mauritania. We only know, as a 
fact well -ascertained, that some few were discovered by Juba 
over against the country of the Autololes, upon which he es- 
tablished a manufactory of Gaetulian purple.^^ 
5^ Hardouin says that this is not the Atlantis rendered so famous by 
Plato, whose story is distantly referred to in B. ii. c. 92 of this work. It 
is difficult to say whether the Atlantis of Plato had any existence at all, 
except in the imagination. 
Medusa and her sisters, the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. The 
identity of their supposed islands seems not to have been ascertained. For 
the poetical aspect of their story, see Ovid's Met., B. iv. 
It is not improbable that these were the skins of a species of uran- 
outang, or large monkey. 
The Purpurarioe, or Purple Islands," probably the Madeira group. 
