maritime phrase, Cape Hercules. The name of this promontory, fcarcely otherwise to be accounted for, has given birth to a reasonable conjecture, though not fanctioned by direct tradition, that on its extreme point was anciently erected a fimilar Pharos, or, at least, a beacon, to ferve as a guide to the Phonician and Spanish mariners exploring the dangerous coaft of Britain. Add to this, that the Latin name of Cape Finisterre itself, or Promontorium Celticum, ferves decifively to mark both the eastern race who firft peo pled Spain, and their progress to this weftern region of it.

When the merchants arrived in Britain, they seem to have reforted to fome public emporium, where a mutual commerce for the articles wanted by each nation was commenced; but concerning fuch emporium and the ancient method of preparing and vending the tin, we have only the following obfcure paffage in Diodorus Siculus, which, however, feems to confirm the conjecture, that a confiderable portion of ground, lying between the Land's End and the Scylla Ifles, has either funk or been submerged. "The men of Belerium," fays that writer, "manufacture their tin with great ingenuity; for, though

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the land is rocky, it has foft veins of earth running through it, in which the tinners find the treasure, and which they extract, melt, and purify. Then shaping it, by moulds, into a kind of cubical figure, they carry it off to a certain ifland lying near the British fhore, which they call Ictis; for, at the recefs of the tide, the space between the island and the main land being dry, the tinners embrace that opportunity of carrying their tin in carts, as faft as poffible, over to Ictis; for it muft be obferved, that the iflands which lie be→ tween the Continent and Britain have this fingularity, that, when the tide is full, they are real iflands; but, when the fea retires, they are but fo many peninfulas. From this island the merchants buy the tin of the natives, and export it into Gaul; and, finally, through Gaul, by a journey of about thirty days, they bring it down on horfes to the mouth of the Eridanus."* By the Ictis here mentioned, it is impoffible Diodorus could mean the Ictis, or Vectis, of the ancients, at prefent called the Ifle of Wight; for, as Dr. Borlafe properly obferves, he is fpeaking of the western extremity of Cornwall, from which

Diod. Sic. lib. iv. p. 301.

that

that ifland is diftant near two hundred miles.* His own conjecture is both rational and just, when he adds, by Ictis that historian muft have meant fome place near the coaft of Cornwall, and Ictis muft either have been a general name for any peninsula on a creek, IK being a common Cornifh word denoting a cove, creek, or part of traffic, or else it must have been used to fignify fome particular peninfulą or emporium on the fame coaft, which has now loft its isthmus, name, and perhaps wholly disappeared, by means of fome great alteration on the fea-fhore of this country.†

This account of Diodorus, though not very elucidatory in refpect to the commercial tranfactions of the Phoenicians in Britain, appears to me to open a new view of the fubject, and makes us acquainted with another channel by which the tin of Britain was conveyed into the Mediterranean; for, by the mouths of the Eridanus, which is probably the mistake of fome transcriber, since the fenfe of the context proves the Rhone to be the river intended, by that expreffion muft be meant fome city or emporium, fituated in that latitude, not far from that point of the

Natural History of Cornwall, p. 177.

+ Ibid.

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coaft

coaft at which the Rhone discharges itself into the Mediterranean; either Narbonne, the capital of that divifion of Gaul, called by the Romans Narbonenfis, or the ancient but more remote commercial city of Meffalia, now Marseilles, whence it might easily be forwarded, in Tyrian or Gaulic veffels, to the Phoenician territories, It is evident, therefore, that the Gallic merchants, at fome period or other, largely participated in this lucrative trade, though I am inclined to think this account of Diodorus more applicable to the course of that commerce in his own, which was the Auguftan, age, than the early times to which we allude, efpecially fince Herodotus, who flourished 450 years before Chrift, frankly confeffes his ignorance of the exact fituation of the Caffiterides," whence," fays that writer, "comes all our tin." In truth, the profound policy of the Phoenicians induced them to obferve an inviolable fecrecy in regard to the islands, the grand fource of their wealth in the article of tin, left other nations fhould become their rivals in this trade, and rend from them a portion of the enormous gains refulting from their monopoly. of it. In proof of their jealous caution on this point, may be adduced the following

relation

relation given by Strabo: the master of a Phoenician veffel, employed in this trade, thinking himself closely pursued by one of Rome, chose to run upon a fhoal, and suffer fhipwreck, rather than difcover the prohibited tract, or disclose the leaft opening, by which another nation might be introduced to the knowledge of the Caffiterides; and, for the wife and intrepid fpirit of patriotism, displayed by this conduct, he is faid, on his return to Tyre, to have been loaded with wealth and honours by the magiftrates of that city.*

Having now confidered the two channels, by which, in those ancient times, this metal was exported to Afia, viz. in the Phoenician veffels, by the way of the Straits of Gades, direct to Tyre, and through Gaul, on horfes to Narbonne or Marseilles, on the Mediterranean, where the merchants of that nation, reforting in perfon, or through the medium of their Gallic agents, might have established a mart for the public fale of this commodity; it remains for inquiry, whether there did not anciently exist another route for the transportation to India of this and other European commodities lefs tedious and hazardous than

* Strabonis Geograph. lib. iii. p. 109.

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