tain the situation of the Cassiterides: they are often taken for the Scilly Isles, but are found by a comparison. of the oldest authorities to be the islands situated in the neighbourhood of Vigo Bay.

The ancients thought that the west side of Spain extended from Cadiz to a point but little north of Lisbon, and that Cape St. Vincent was as nearly as possible the central point of the western coast. The country between Capes Rocca and Carboeira was considered to form one large promontory, from which the northern coast stretched as far as the foot of the Pyrenean range. All the districts, therefore, between this promontory and Finisterre or Nerium, were, according to their ideas, a portion of the northern coast. Lusitania ended at the present northern boundary of Portugal, and between that point and Cape Nerium were situated the " Havens of the Artabri," in the mouths of the rivers between Vigo and Finisterre; and here, not far from the shore, are the islands which the Greeks called Cassiterides. They are described by many writers as lying close to the Iberian shore, and north of Lusitania :-" Above the country of the Lusitanians," said Diodorus, "there are many mines of tin in the little islands, on that account called Cassiterides, lying off Iberia in the ocean." "The Cassiterides," said Strabo, "are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean towards the north from the haven of the Artabri;" but added in another passage, "the Cassiterides lie over against the Artabri to the north, situated out at sea somewhere within the Britannic region." Pliny placed them correctly on the Spanish coast, which he knew to be at a great distance from Britain; but Strabo, following older calculations, believed that the north of the Peninsula (by which he meant the

neighbourhood of Lisbon) was not more than about 500 miles from the south of Britain. The originals of all these passages will be found in the first part of the Appendix.

The well-known description of the tin-islanders (which is often taken as applying to the ancient inhabitants of Cornwall) appears to have been first taken from the travels of Posidonius, who visited Spain, Gaul, and Britain some generations after Pytheas. The islands are ten in number: one is deserted, but the others are inhabited by people who wear black cloaks and long tunics reaching to the feet, girded about the breast: they walk with long staves, and look like the Furies in a tragedy: they subsist by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life: and they barter hides, tin, and lead with the merchants in exchange for pottery, salt, and implements of bronze."

Publius Crassus conquered the north-west of Spain about a century before Christ, and found the Cassiterides, the situation of which was not up to that time known to the Romans. "As soon as he reached them," says Strabo, "he perceived that the mines were very slightly worked, and that the natives were peaceable, and already employing their leisure in learning navigation: so he taught all that were willing, how to make the voyage:" i.e. the voyage from Vigo to Marseilles. He adds, that "this passage was longer than the journey to Britain ;" by which he appears to mean, that it was thought worth while to carry the tin round to Marseilles, even though the merchants of that place had an easier way of getting it by the caravan-route across Gaul.

It has been a common belief, ever since the revival of archæology in the days of Camden, not only that the Cassiterides were the Scilly Isles, but that they were discovered by the Carthaginians in very early times; the

authority being found in a geographical poem of the fourth century, written by Festus Avienus, a foolish writer, whose only merit lies in the fact that he has preserved a fragment of the voyage of Himilco, which had been engraved on a votive tablet in a Carthaginian temple many centuries before his time.1

1 Mr. Kenrick adopts the view that the Cassiterides were the Scilly Isles. He is struck by the description of the coracles and of the fact that Finisterre slopes to the south; but the Iberian coracles were as well known as those of the Britons, and Cape St. Vincent resembles 66 Estrymnis" in stretching to the south, as well as Cape Finisterre. If the lines immediately preceding the extract from Avienus are consulted, it will be seen that Cape St. Vincent is intended. "That by the Cassiterides, or Estrymnides, the ancients meant the Scilly Islands is highly probable, because, though they do not in all points correspond with their description, no others answer so well; and in all attempts to identify ancient with modern geography we find difficulties arising from vague language and inaccurate knowledge. The following is the account of them given by Avienus (Ora Maritima, 114):- Beneath this promontory spreads the vast Œstrymnian gulf, in which rise out of the sea the islands Estrymnides, scattered with wide intervals, rich in metal of tin and lead. The people are proud, clever, and active, and all engaged in incessant cares of commerce. They furrow the wide rough strait, and the ocean abounding in sea-monsters, with a new species of boat. For they know not how to frame keels with pine or maple, as others use, nor to construct their curved barks with fir; but, strange to tell, they always equip their vessels with skins joined together, and often traverse the salt sea in a hide of leather. It is two days' sail from hence to the Sacred Island, as the ancients called it, which spreads a wide space of turf in the midst of the waters, and is inhabited by the Hibernian people. Near to this again is the broad island of Albion.' The latter part is derived from some other authority than that of Himilco; but in his account we recognise the coracle, the characteristic boat of Britain, navigating the stormy sea between the Land's End and the Scilly Islands. Pliny describes the coracle still more exactly, as made of wicker-work, round which leather was sewed. Boats of similar construction are still used on the west coast of Ireland, and can live in seas which would be fatal to craft of more solid materials. It is true, that in the Scilly Islands tin is not now worked; and according to Borlase, the ancient workings were neither

The subject of the Carthaginian voyages is extremely interesting, but it has little to do with the history of Britain. Himilco can be traced not to the Scilly Islands, or even to the Bay of Biscay, but to the Azores, and to the region of the Sargasso Sea: and he appears to have discovered Madeira and the Peak of Teneriffe. "In the flourishing times of Carthage" (no nearer date is known), Hanno and Himilco, two brothers belonging to the dominant clan of Mago, were despatched by the Senate to find new trading stations, and to found new colonies of the half-bred "Liby-Phoenician" population, from whose presence the State was always anxious to be freed. Each admiral was in command of a powerful fleet. Hanno was directed to go south from the Pillars of Hercules, and to skirt the African coast: Himilco was in like manner directed to keep to the coast of Spain. The records of both voyages were long preserved on votive tablets in the temple of Moloch; and Hanno's account is still extant in a Greek translation. Himilco's tablet is lost, though it was extant as late as the fourth century of the Christian era; but its form is known from the "Periplus of Hanno," and its substance is preserved in certain extracts to be found in Pliny, the poems of Festus Avienus, and the "Book of Wonderful Stories," which long passed current under the name and authority of Aristotle.1

numerous nor deep." (Kenrick, Phoen. 217; Borlase, Cornw. 30; Lyson's Cornw. 337.) The passage from Avienus is less confused than most of the other passages in which he describes the Sacred Cape and the Phoenician factories; his whole account of the Spanish coast is a mixture of various old traditions of Greece and Carthage.

1 Several extracts relating to Himilco's voyage will be found in the Appendix. Hanno's voyage may be read in Cory's "Fragments of Phoenician, Carthaginian, and other Authors ;" and also in a very good version contained in the first volume of "Purchas' Pilgrims."

By a comparison of these authorities we find that Himilco started from Gaddir and rounded the Sacred Cape, proceeding northwards, and founding factories and colonies, which afterwards became filled with a large Carthaginian population: that he reached the Cassiterides or Estrymnic Islands," where he found a proud and active race of men, ready for all kinds of commerce, and accustomed to pass between the islands and to visit the mainland in canoes or coracles of wicker-work covered with hides the later poets long gave them the formal epithets of "rich and magnanimous Iberians." From this point the fleet ventured into the open sea, and were driven to the south. Thick fogs hid the sun;1 and the ships drove before the north wind. Afterwards, they came to a warmer sea, and were becalmed, where vast plains of seaweed stretched for many days' journey, and the ships could hardly be pushed through the interlacing branches. There seemed to be no depth of water, as if the fleet was passing over submerged land; and they dreaded the neighbourhood of dangerous reefs. Shoals of large tunnies and other fish, as was afterwards noticed in the same place by Columbus, swam in and out between the ships, and “the

1 Himilco's description of the fog in the paraphrase of Avienus will be found in the Appendix. A more graceful version of the incident by M. Flaubert, the author of a well-known romance of ancient Carthage, seems to be worthy of quotation. He describes the courage of the pilots, who were bold enough to explore the recesses of the ocean without compass or astrolabe, and thus depicts an incident of the possible voyage: "Ils continuaient dans l'Ouest durant quatre lunes sans rencontrer de rivages, mais la proue des navires s'embarrassait dans les herbes : des brouillards couleur de sang obscurcissaient le soleil, une brise toute chargée de parfums endormait les équipages: et ils ne pouvaient rien dire, tant que leur mémoire était troublée."