[4] The country which we are describing is fertile, and irrigated by rivers both large and small, all of which flow from the eastern parts parallel with the Tagus: most of them are navigable and full of gold dust. After the Tagus, the most noted rivers are the Mondego1 and the Vouga,2 which are navigable but for a short distance. After these is the Douro,3 which flows from afar by Numantia,4 and many other colonies of the Keltiberians and Vaccæi; it is capable of being navigated in large vessels for a distance of nearly 800 stadia. Besides these there are other rivers, after which is the [river] of Lethe, which some call the Limæa,5 others the Belio,6 it likewise rises amongst the Keltiberians and Vaccæi. After this is the Bænis, (some call it the Minius,7) by far the largest river of Lusitania,8 being navigable for a distance of 800 stadia. Posidonius says this too rises amongst the Cantabrians.9 An island10 lies before its outlet, and two moles affording anchorage for vessels. A natural advantage [of this country] well deserving of commendation is, that the banks of the rivers are so lofty as to be capable of containing the entire of the water raised by the high tides of the sea, without either being overfilled, or overflowing the plains. This was the limit of Brutus's expedition. Beyond there are many other rivers parallel to those I have named.
1 Munda.
2 Vacua.
3 Durius.
4 A city situated near Soria in Old Castile.
5 Now the Lima.
6 Xylander and many of the commentators propose to read ᾿οβλιουιῶνα, or Oblivion, in place of βελιῶνα. The conjecture seems extremely probable.
7 The Minho of the present day.
8 The Minho is far surpassed in size, both by the Duero and the Tagus.
9 The text here is evidently incorrect. In the first place, the καὶ αὐτὸν, which we have rendered this too, evidently sustained some relation, no longer subsisting, to what preceded; and in the second, the sources of the Minho were not in Cantabria, but Gallicia.
10 Strabo here appears to confound the mouth of the Minho with a small bay about five leagues distant, near to the city of Bayona in Gallicia, and before which there is still the small island of Bayona.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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