[Footnote 150: Regio ignobilis, ct vix quicquam illustre
sortita, parvis oppidis habitatur, parva flumina emittit,
solo quam viris melior, et segnitie gentis obscura.
Pomponius Mela, i. 5, iii. 10. Mela deserves the more
credit, since his own Phoeniclan ancestors had migrated from
Tingitana to Spain (see, in ii. 6, a passage of that
geographer so cruelly tortured by Salmasius, Isaac Vossius,
and the most virulent of critics, James Gronovius). He lived
at the time of the final reduction of that country by the
emperor Claudius; yet, almost thirty years afterwards, Pliny
(Hist. Nat v. i.) complains of his authors, too lazy to
inquire, too proud to confess their ignorance of that wild
and remote province.]