e oppresses them by his burning
heat, both themselves and their land. After this at a distance of ten
days' journey there is another hill of salt and spring of water, and men
dwell round it. Near this salt hill is a mountain named Atlas, which is
small in circuit and rounded on every side; and so exceedingly lofty is
it said to be, that it is not possible to see its summits, for clouds
never leave them either in the summer or in the winter. This the natives
say is the pillar of the heaven. After this mountain these men got their
name, for they are called Atlantians; and it is said that they neither
eat anything that has life nor have any dreams.

185. As far as these Atlantians I am able to mention in order the names
of those who are settled in the belt of sand; but for the parts beyond
these I can do so no more. However, the belt extends as far as the
Pillars of Heracles and also in the parts outside them: and there is
a mine of salt in it at a distance of ten days' journey from the
Atlantians, and men dwelling there; and these all have their houses
built of the lumps of salt, since these parts of Libya which we have now
reached 167 are without rain; for if it rained, the walls being made of
salt would not be able to last: and the salt is dug up there both white
and purple in colour. 168 Above the sand-belt, in the parts which are in
the direction of the South Wind and towards the interior of Libya, the
country is uninhabited, without water and without wild beasts, rainless
and treeless, and there is no trace of moisture in it.

186. I have said that from Egypt as far as the lake Tritonis Libyans
dwell who are nomads, eating flesh and drinking milk; and these do not
taste at all of the flesh of cows, for the same reason as the Egyptians
also abstain from it, nor do they keep swine. Moreover the women of
the Kyrenians too think it not right to eat cows' flesh, because of the
Egyptian Isis, and they even keep fasts and celebrate festivals for her;
and the women of Barca, in addition from cows' flesh, do not taste of
swine either.

187. Thus it is with these matters: but in the region to the West of
lake Tritonis the Libyans cease to be nomads, and they do not practise
the same customs, nor do to their children anything like that which
the nomads are wont to do; for the nomad Libyans, whether all of them
I cannot say for certain, but many of them, do as follows:--when their
children are four years old, they burn with a