194. Next to these are the Gyzantes, 176 among whom honey is made in
great quantity by bees, but in much greater quantity still it is said
to be made by men, who work at it as a trade. However that may be, these
all smear themselves over with red ochre and eat monkeys, which are
produced in very great numbers upon their mountains.

195. Opposite these, as the Carthaginians say, there lies an island
called Kyrauis, two hundred furlongs in length but narrow, to which one
may walk over from the mainland; and it is full of olives and vines.
In it they say there is a pool, from which the native girls with birds'
feathers smeared over with pitch bring up gold-dust out of the mud.
Whether this is really so I do not know, but I write that which is
reported; and nothing is impossible, 177 for even in Zakynthos I saw
myself pitch brought up out of a pool of water. There are there several
pools, and the largest of them measures seventy feet each way and is
two fathoms in depth. Into this they plunge a pole with a myrtle-branch
bound to it, and then with the branch of the myrtle they bring up pitch,
which has the smell of asphalt, but in other respects it is superior to
the pitch of Pieria. This they pour into a pit dug near the pool; and
when they have collected a large quantity, then they pour it into the
jars from the pit: and whatever thing falls into the pool goes under
ground and reappears in the sea, which is distant about four furlongs
from the pool. Thus then the report about the island lying near the
coast of Libya is also probably enough true.

196. The Carthaginians say also this, namely that there is a place in
Libya and men dwelling there, outside the Pillars of Heracles, to whom
when they have come and have taken the merchandise forth from their
ships, they set it in order along the beach and embark again in their
ships, and after that they raise a smoke; and the natives of the country
seeing the smoke come to the sea, and then they lay down gold as an
equivalent for the merchandise and retire to a distance away from the
merchandise. The Carthaginians upon that disembark and examine it,
and if the gold is in their opinion sufficient for the value of the
merchandise, they take it up and go their way; but if not, they
embark again in their ships and sit there; and the others approach and
straightway add more gold to the former, until they satisfy them:
and they say that neither party wrongs the other; for neither do th