Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/276

 262 STRABO. CASAUB. 175. relates concerning the Ebro is unusual and peculiar to itself, for he says that it sometimes overflows after continued north winds, although there may have been neither rains nor snows. The cause of this [he supposes] to be the lake through which the Ebro flows, its waters being driven by the winds into the current of the river. l 10. The same writer mentions a tree at Gades, which had boughs reaching to the ground ; its sword-shaped leaves often measuring a cubit long, and four fingers broad. Also that about Carthagena there was a tree whose thorns produced a bark from which most beautiful stuffs were woven. As for the tree [he saw] at Gades, we ourselves have observed a similar in Egypt, so far as the inclination of the boughs is concerned, but with a differently shaped leaf, and producing no fruit, which according to him the other did. In Cappadocia there are stuffs made from thorns, but it is not a tree which produces the thorn from which the bark is taken, but a low plant ; he also tells us of a tree at Gades, from which if a branch be broken off a milk will flow, and if the root be cut a red fluid runs. Thus much for Gades, 11. 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 desert, but the others are inhabited by men in black cloaks, clad in tunics reaching to the feet, girt about the breast, and walking with staves, thus resembling the Furies we see in tragic representa- tions. 2 They subsist by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life. Of the metals they have tin and lead ; which with skins they barter with the merchants for earth- enware, salt, and brazen vessels. Formerly the Pho3nicians alone carried on this traffic from Gades, concealing the pas- sage from every one ; and when the Romans followed a certain 1 We are not aware that the Ebro passes through any lake. 2 This is probably a description of the appearance of the Druids. Taci- tus, (Ann. lib. xiv. 30,) speaking of the consternation into which the Druids of Anglesey threw the Roman soldiers who had disembarked there, says, " Druidaeque circum, preces diras, sublatis ad coolum manibus, fundentes, novitate adspectus perculere milites, ut, quasi heerentibus membris, im- mobile corpus vulneribus praeberent." Immediately before these words he thus describes the women, "Stabat pro litore diversa acies, densa armis virisque, intercursantibus feminis in modum furiarum, quae veste ferali, crinibus dejectis, faces praeferebant.