Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/232

 remarkable whiteness and texture. The province of Gaul formed a rich appendix to the Roman empire, though the only ports directly connected with the Tiber were Massalia (Marseilles), Arelate (Arles), and Narbo (Narbonne), at that period the most frequented and most populous city in Gaul. Narbonne has since suffered the same fate as Ostia, the silting up of its port having entirely destroyed its value.

The chief exports of Gaul appear to have been gold, silver, and iron from its own mines; linens from every part of the country; corn and cheese of superior quality; with excellent salt pork, and tartan cloths. Burdigala (Bordeaux,) on the Garonne, was its chief port on the west, and on the north the Portus Itius (by some supposed to be Wissant, near Cape Grisnez, but more probably Boulogne). At this port, called afterwards Gessoriacum, and whence Cæsar sailed for Britain, was the lighthouse constructed by Caligula, some remains of which are said to have existed in the early part of the seventeenth century. This tower, or Pharos, the first lighthouse on record for any part of the coasts of the North Sea or English Channel, stood upon the promontory or cliff which commanded the port. Of an octagonal, form (if Bucherius is right in supposing the building he has drawn to be the remains of Caligula's structure), it was twenty-five feet in breadth, and the circumference of the whole at the base two hundred feet. It had twelve storeys or spaces for galleries, rising above each other. Each storey diminished in diameter as you ascended, and on the top of the tower.