Histories

Off their coast (the Carthaginians say) lies an island called Cyrauis, twenty-five miles long and narrow across, accessible from the mainland; it is full of olives and vines.

It is said that there is a lake on this island from which the maidens of the country draw gold-dust out of the mud on feathers smeared with pitch. I do not know whether this is true; I just write what is said. But all things are possible; for I myself saw pitch drawn from the water of a pool in +Zakinthos [20.9,37.783] (inhabited place), Nisos Zakinthos, Zakinthos, Ionian Islands, Greece, Europe Zacynthus.

The pools there are numerous; the greatest of them is seventy feet long and broad, and twelve feet deep. Into this they drop a pole with a myrtle branch fastened to its end, and bring up pitch on the myrtle, smelling like asphalt, and for the rest better than the pitch of +Pieria [22.416,40.25] (department), Macedonia, Greece, Europe Pieria. Then they pour it into a pit that they have dug near the pool; and when a fair amount is collected there, they fill their vessels from the pit.