ars well in your hands and cleave the sea's narrow strait, for the
light of safety will be not so much in prayer as in strength of hands.
Wherefore let all else go and labour boldly with might and main, but ere
then implore the gods as ye will, I forbid you not. But if she flies
onward and perishes midway, then do ye turn back; for it is better to
yield to the immortals. For ye could not escape an evil doom from the
rocks, not even if Argo were of iron.

"O hapless ones, dare not to transgress my divine warning, even though
ye think that I am thrice as much hated by the sons of heaven as I am,
and even more than thrice; dare not to sail further with your ship in
despite of the omen. And as these things will fall, so shall they fall.
But if ye shun the clashing rocks and come scatheless inside Pontus,
straightway keep the land of the Bithynians on your right and sail on,
and beware of the breakers, until ye round the swift river Rhebas and
the black beach, and reach the harbour of the Isle of Thynias. Thence ye
must turn back a little space through the sea and beach your ship on the
land of the Mariandyni lying opposite. Here is a downward path to the
abode of Hades, and the headland of Acherusia stretches aloft, and
eddying Acheron cleaves its way at the bottom, even through the
headland, and sends its waters forth from a huge ravine. And near it ye
will sail past many hills of the Paphlagonians, over whom at the first
Eneteian Pelops reigned, and of his blood they boast themselves to be.

"Now there is a headland opposite Helice the Bear, steep on all sides,
and they call it Carambis, about whose crests the blasts of the north
wind are sundered. So high in the air does it rise turned towards the
sea. And when ye have rounded it broad Aegialus stretches before you;
and at the end of broad Aegialus, at a jutting point of coast, the
waters of the river Halys pour forth with a terrible roar; and after it
Iris flowing near, but smaller in stream, rolls into the sea with white
eddies. Onward from thence the bend of a huge and towering cape reaches
out from the land, next Thermodon at its mouth flows into a quiet bay at
the Themiscyreian headland, after wandering through a broad continent.
And here is the plain of Doeas, and near are the three cities of the
Amazons, and after them the Chalybes, most wretched of men, possess a
soil rugged and unyielding--sons of toil, they busy themselves with
working iron. And near them dwell