Histories

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.

Whatever falls into the pool is carried under the ground and appears again in the sea, which is about a half a mile distant from the pool. So, then, the story that comes from the island lying off the Libyan coast is like the truth, too.

Another story is told by the Carthaginians. There is a place in Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya, they say, where men live beyond the Pillars of Heracles; they come here and unload their cargo; then, having laid it in order along the beach, they go aboard their ships and light a smoking fire. The people of the country see the smoke, and, coming to the sea, they lay down gold to pay for the cargo, and withdraw from the wares.