Page:West African Studies.djvu/291

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
x
A LAND OF FIRE
235

water barrels, and continued their voyage five days further, when they reached a large bay which their interpreters said was called the Western Horn. In this bay they found a large island, in the centre of which was a salt lake with a small island in it. When they went ashore in the day time they saw no inhabitants, but at night time they heard in every direction a confused noise of pipes, cymbals, drums and song, which alarmed the crew, while the diviners they had with them, equivalent to our naval chaplains, strongly advised Hanno to leave that place as speedily as possible. Hanno, however, being less alarmed than his companions, pushed on South, and they soon found themselves abreast of a country blazing with fires, streams of which seemed to be pouring from the mountain tops down into the sea. "We sailed quickly thence," says Hanno, "being much terrified." Proceeding four days further they found that things did not improve in appearance from their point of view, for the whole country seemed ablaze at night, a country full of fire, and at one point the fire seemed to fly up to the very stars. Hanno says their interpreters told them that this great fire was the Chariot of the Gods. Three days more sailing South brought them to another bay, called the Southern Horn. In this bay they found a large island, in which again there was a lake with another island in it, having inhabitants who were savage, and whose bodies were covered with hair. These people the interpreters called the Gorillae—some were captured and taken aboard, but so savage and unmanageable did they prove that they were killed and the skins preserved. As most of the inhabitants of the Islands of the Gorillae seemed to be females, and as these ladies had made such a gallant fight of it with their Carthaginian