80 AN HISTORICAL DISQUISITION

SECT. is known to be its real position, he describes itII. as stretching towards the west above five hundredstadia Pomponius Mela, the author next inorder of tirne , is uncertain whether he shouldconsider Taprobane as an island, or as the begin-ning of another world; but as no person, he• says , had ever sailed round it , he seems to

incline towards the latter opinion 47 . Pliny givesa more ample description of Taprobane, which,instead of bringing any accession of light, invol-ves every thing relating to it in additionalobscurity. After enumerating the various anddiscordant opinions of the Greek writers , heinforms us, that ambassadors were sent by a kingof that island to the emperor Claudius , fromwhom the Romans learned several things con-cerning it, which were formerly unknown par-ticularly that there were , five hundred towns inthe island, and that in the centre of it there wasa lake three hundred and seventy five miles incircumference. These ambassadors were astonishedat the sight of the Great Bear, and the Pleiades,being constellations which did not appear in theirsky; and were still more amazed when they be-held their shadows point towards the north , andthe fun rife on their left hand, and set on theirright. They affirmed too, that in their' countrythe moon was never seen until the eighth day

4 ‘ Strabo , lib. ii. 124. B. igo. B. 192. A, lib. xy.1012 B.

47 De Situ Orbis, lib. iii. c. 7.