So is Strabo's.--"The Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean, towards the north from the haven of the Artabri. One of them is a desert, but the others are inhabited by men in black cloaks, clad in tunics reaching to the feet, and girt about the breast. Walking with staves, and bearded like goats; they subsist by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life. And having metals of tin and lead, these and skins they barter with the merchants for earthenware, and salt, and brazen vessels. Formerly the Phœnicians alone carried on this traffic from Gadeira, concealing the passage from every one; and when the Romans followed a certain ship-master, that they also might find the mart, the ship-master, out of jealousy, purposely ran his vessel upon a shoal, and leading on those who followed him into the same destructive disaster, he himself escaped by means of a fragment of the ship, and received from the State the value of the cargo he had lost. But the Romans, nevertheless, making frequent efforts, discovered the passage; and as soon as Publius Crassus, passing over to them, perceived that the metals were dug out at a little depth, and that the men being at peace were already beginning, in consequence of their leisure, to busy themselves about the sea, he pointed out this passage to such as were willing to attempt it, although it was longer than that to Britain."--Lib. iii. p. 239. Pliny is, to a great degree, in the same predicament with Strabo and Diodorus. Some of the statements which are not common to him and Cæsar, are undoubtedly referrible to the information which the conquest of Britain under Claudius supplied. Yet the greater part of them is old material--Greek in origin, and, as such, referrible to Western rather than Eastern Britain, and to the era of the Carthaginians rather than the Romans. Solinus' account is of this character; his _Britain_ being Western Britain and Ireland almost exclusively. A poem of Festus Avienus, itself no earlier than the end of the fourth century, concludes the list of those authors who represent the predecessors of Cæsar in the description of Britain. Recent as it is, it is important; since some of the details are taken from the voyage of Himilco, a Carthaginian. He supplies us with a commentary upon the word _Demeter_, in the so-called Orphic poem--a commentary which will soon be exhibited.