Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/98

 the case of Egypt we find an example of the most elaborate and scientific process of gold-mining known to the ancients. For we shall find that the process employed in Spain by the Romans for refining the crude gold was not nearly so elaborate as that employed by the Egyptians.

It is of course quite possible that supplies of gold either in the form of dust or of rings may have reached Egypt from the interior of Africa, but of that we have not as far as I am aware any historical record. For the negroes who are depicted in Egyptian paintings bringing tribute of gold rings might have brought them from Nubia or from a region on the coast of the Mediterranean further west. It is indeed a fact of great interest that down to the present day gold in the shape of rings or links is brought to Massowah on the Red Sea from Sennaar (Nubia). This is the best of the three qualities which reach Massowah; the second quality is Abyssinian gold, "in grains or beads," and the third is also Abyssinian gold "in ingots." Thus two most ancient ways of using gold are employed in this region still, for the gold in grains or beads reminds us at once of the story of its being employed by the Debae to form necklaces.

Once more let us advance westward, and notice the last gold-*field on the continent of Africa. That gold was obtained by the Carthaginians from a district in North Africa is put beyond doubt by a passage of Herodotus ( 195), who, after describing a certain people called the Gyzantes, who coloured themselves red with raddle, and ate apes, says that "the Carthaginians declare that opposite this people lies an island named Cyraunis, two hundred stades long (25 miles) but narrow in breadth, with a crossing from the mainland; the island is full of olives and vines, and there is a lake in it from which the native maidens by means of birds' feathers smeared with pitch take up gold dust out of the silt." Whatever may be the exact spot meant on the coast of the Libyan nomads we may at least conclude that there is a distinct indication that the Carthaginians were well acquainted with gold deposits in this quarter. Whether or not the Carthaginians and in later times the Romans may have obtained by caravans across the desert supplies of gold from the great gold-bearing