We learn from Ephorus, as well as Eudoxus and Timosthenes, that there are great numbers of islands scattered all over this sea; Clitarchus says that king Alexander was informed of an island so rich that the inhabitants gave a talent of gold for a horse, and of another[749] upon which there was found a sacred mountain, shaded with a grove, the trees of which emitted odours of wondrous sweetness; this last was situate over against the Persian Gulf. Cerne[750] is the name of an island situate opposite to Æthiopia, the size of which has not been ascertained, nor yet its distance from the main land: it is said that its inhabitants are exclusively Æthiopians. Ephorus states that those who sail from the Red Sea into the Æthiopian Ocean cannot get beyond the Columnæ[751] there, some little islands so called. Polybius says that Cerne is situate at the extremity of Mauritania, over against Mount Atlas, and at a distance of eight stadia from the land; while Cornelius Nepos states that it lies very nearly in the same meridian as Carthage, at a distance from the mainland of ten miles, and that it is not more than two miles in circumference. It is said also that there is another island situate over against Mount Atlas, being itself known by the name of Atlantis.[752] Five days’ sail beyond it there are deserts, as far as the Æthiopian Hesperiæ and the promontory, which we have mentioned as being called Hesperu Ceras, a point at which the face of the land first takes a turn towards the west and the Atlantic Sea. Facing this promontory are also said to be the islands called the Gorgades,[753] the former abodes of the Gorgons, two days’ sail from the mainland, according to Xenophon of Lampsacus. Hanno, a general of the Carthaginians, penetrated as far as these regions, and brought back an account that the bodies of the women were covered with hair, but that the men, through their swiftness of foot, made their escape; in proof of which singularity in their skin, and as evidence of a fact so miraculous, he placed the skins[754] of two of these females in the temple of Juno, which were to be seen there until the capture of Carthage. Beyond these even, are said to be the two islands of the Hesperides; but so uncertain are all the accounts relative to this subject, that Statius Sebosus says that it is forty days’ sail, past the coast of the Atlas range, from the islands of the Gorgons to those of the Hesperides, and one day’s sail from these to the Hesperu Ceras. Nor have we any more certain information relative to the islands of Mauritania. We only know, as a fact well-ascertained, that some few were discovered by Juba over against the country of the Autololes, upon which he established a manufactory of Gætulian purple.[755] CHAP. 37. (32.)—THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS.