once of the story of its being employed by the Debae to form necklaces40.
Once more let us advance westward, and notice the last gold-field on the continent of Africa. That gold was obtained by the Carthaginians from a district in North Africa is put beyond doubt by a passage of Herodotus (IV. 195), who, after describing a certain people called the Gyzantes, who coloured themselves red with raddle, and ate apes, says that “the Carthaginians declare that opposite this people lies an island named Cyraunis, two hundred stades long (25 miles) but narrow in breadth, with a crossing from the mainland; the island is full of olives and vines, and there is a lake in it from which the native maidens by means of birds’ feathers smeared with pitch take up gold dust out of the silt.” Whatever may be the exact spot meant on the coast of the Libyan nomads we may at least conclude that there is a distinct indication that the Carthaginians were well acquainted with gold deposits in this quarter. Whether or not the Carthaginians and in later times the Romans may have obtained by caravans across the desert supplies of gold from the great gold-bearing regions of West Africa, we have no means of judging, but it is on the whole probable that they did. The voyage of Hanno, the Carthaginian admiral, along the western side of Africa can hardly have failed to make known to them the existence of rich gold fields, even if they had been previously ignorant of them; but it is still more likely that it was the knowledge of such an Eldorado far away beyond the great Sahara that induced them to send out the expedition.