At the narrowest part of the Straits, there are mountains placed to form barriers to the entrance on either side, Abyla[804] in Africa, and Calpe[805] in Europe, the boundaries formerly of the labours of Hercules[806]. Hence it is that the inhabitants have called them the Columns of that god; they also believe that they were dug through by him; upon which the sea, which was before excluded, gained admission, and so changed the face of nature. CHAP. 1. (1.)—THE BOUNDARIES AND GULFS OF EUROPE FIRST SET FORTH IN A GENERAL WAY. I shall first then speak of Europe, the foster-mother of that people which has conquered all other nations, and itself by far the most beauteous portion of the earth. Indeed, many persons have, not without reason[807], considered it, not as a third part only of the earth, but as equal to all the rest, looking upon the whole of our globe as divided into two parts only, by a line drawn from the river Tanais to the Straits of Gades. The ocean, after pouring the waters of the Atlantic through the inlet which I have here described, and, in its eager progress, overwhelming all the lands which have had to dread its approach, skirts with its winding course the shores of those parts which offer a more effectual resistance, hollowing out the coast of Europe especially into numerous bays, among which there are four Gulfs that are more particularly remarkable. The first of these begins at Calpe, which I have previously mentioned, the most distant mountain of Spain; and bends, describing an immense curve, as far as Locri and the Promontory of Bruttium[808]. CHAP. 2.—OF SPAIN GENERALLY. The first land situate upon this Gulf is that which is called the Farther Spain or Bætica[809]; next to which, beginning at the frontier town of Urgi[810], is the Nearer, or Tarraconensian[811] Spain, extending as far as the chain of the Pyrenees. The Farther Spain is divided lengthwise into two provinces, Lusitania[812] and Bætica, the former stretching along the northern side of the latter, and being divided from it by the river Ana[813]. The source of this river is in the district of Laminium[814], in the Nearer Spain. It first spreads out into a number of small lakes, and then again contracts itself into a narrow channel, or entirely disappears under ground[815], and after frequently disappearing and again coming to light, finally discharges itself into the Atlantic Ocean. Tarraconensian Spain lies on one side, contiguous to the Pyrenees, running downwards along the sides of that chain, and, stretching across from the Iberian Sea to the Gallic ocean[816], is separated from Bætica and Lusitania by Mount Solorius[817], the chains of the Oretani[818] and the Carpetani[819], and that of the Astures[820]. CHAP. 3.—OF BÆTICA. Bætica, so called from the river which divides it in the middle, excels all the other provinces in the richness of its cultivation and the peculiar fertility and beauty of its vegetation.