328 
pliisty's natijeal histokt. 
[Book lY. 
Europe, as far as Istropolis, liavebeen already^ mentioned in 
our account of Thrace. Passing beyond that spot we come 
to the mouths of the Ister. This river rises in Q-ermany in 
the heights of Mount Abnoba^, opposite to Eauricum^, a 
town of Graul, and flows for a course of many miles beyond 
the Alps and through nations innumerable, under the name 
of the Danube. Adding immensely to the volume of its 
waters, at the spot where it first enters lUyricum, it assumes 
the name of Ister, and, after receiving sixty rivers, nearly 
one half of which are navigable, rolls into the Euxine by 
six"* vast channels. The first of these is the mouth of 
Pence ^, close to which is the island of Pence itself, from 
which the neighbouring channel takes its name ; this mouth 
is swallowed up in a great swamp nineteen miles in length. 
Erom the same channel too, above Istropolis, a lake^ takes 
its rise, sixty -three miles in circuit ; its name is Halmyris, 
The second mouth is called Naracu-Stoma^ ; the third, which 
is near the island of Sarmatica, is called Calon-Stoma^ ; the 
fourth is known as Pseudo-Stomon^, with its island 
called Conopon-Diabasis^^ ; after which come the Boreon- 
^ Chap. 18 of the present Book. Istropohs is supposed to be the 
present Istere, though some would make it to have stood on the site of 
the present Kostendsje, and Brotier identifies it with Kara-Kerman. 
2 Now called the Schwarzwald or Black Forest. The Danube or Ister 
rises on the eastern side at the spot called Donaueschingen. 
3 So called from the Raurici, a powerful people of Galha Belgica, who 
possessed several towns, of which the most important were Augusta, now 
Augst, and Basiha, now Bale. 
Only three of these are now considered of importance, as beiag the 
main branches of the river. It is looked upon as impossible by modem 
geographers to identify the ' accounts given by the ancients with the 
present channels, by name, as the Danube has undergone in lapse of time, 
very considerable changes at its mouth. Strabo mentions seven mouths, 
three being lesser ones. 
^ So called, as stated by PHny, from the island of Pence, now Piczina.. 
Pence appears to have been the most southerly of the mouths. 
^ Now called Kara-Sou, according to Brotier. Also called Eassefu 
in the maps. 
7 Now called Hazrah Bogasi, according to Brotier. It is called by 
Ptolemy the Narakian Mouth. 
s Or the " Beautiful Mouth." Now Susie Bogasi, according to Brotier. 
^ Or the "False Mouth" : now the Sulina Bogasi, the principal mouth 
of the Danube, so maltreated by its Kussian guardians. 
Or the "Passage of the Grnats," so called from being the resort of 
