376 PLI]ST's NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book y. 
with a serpentine channel, and, from the nature of the 
locality, this is interpreted at the present day as having been 
what was really represented by the story of the dragon 
keeping guard there. This tract of water surrounds an 
island, the only spot which is never overflowed by the tides 
of the sea, although not quite so elevated as the rest of the 
land in its vicinity. Upon this island, also, there is still in 
existence the altar of Hercules ; but of the grove that bore 
the golden fruit, there are no traces left, beyond some wild 
olive-trees. People will certainly be the less surprised at 
the marvellous falsehoods of the Greeks, which have been 
related about this place and the river Lixos^ when they re- 
flect that some of otir own^ countrymen as well, and that 
too very recently, have related stories in reference to them 
hardly less monstrous ; how that this city is remarkable for 
its power and extensive influence, and how that it is even 
greater than Grreat Carthage ever was ; how, too, that it is 
situate just opposite to Carthage, and at an almost im- 
measurable distance from Tingi, together with other details 
of a similf.r nature, all of which Cornelius Nepos has believed 
with the most insatiate credulity^. 
In the interior, at a distance of forty miles from Lixos, is 
Babba'*, surnamed Julia Campestris, another colony of Augus- 
tus ; and, at a distance of seventy-five, a third, called Banasa^, 
^ Now the Lucos. 
2 Hardouin is of opinion, that he here has a hit at G abinius, a Roman 
author, who, in liis Annals of Mauritania, as we learn from Strabo 
(B. xvii.), inserted numerous marvellous and meredible stories. 
^ When we find Phny accusing other writers of credulity, we are 
strongly reminded of the proverb, ' Clodius accusat moechos.' 
^ Or the " Juhan Colony on the Plains." Marcus suggests that the 
word JBahha may possibly have been derived from the Hebrew or Phoe- 
nician word heah or heaba^ " situate in a thick forest." Poinsinet takes 
Babba to be the Beni-Tuedi of modern times. D'Anville thinks that it 
is Naranja. 
^ There is considerable difficulty about the site of Banasa. Moletius 
thinks that it is the modern Fanfara, or Pefenfia as Marmol calls it. 
D'AnviUe suggests that it may be Old Mahmora, on the coast ; but, on 
the other hand, Ptolemy places it among the inland cities, assigning to 
it a longitude at some distance from the sea. Pliny also appears to 
make it inland, and makes its distance from Lixos seventy-five mUes, 
while he makes the mouth of the Subur to be fifty miles from the 
i^ame place. 
'H 
