The colonies of the Mediterranean have now been, all of them, noticed, excepting those which lay upon the south coast of Spain.  Of these the most important were Malaca (now Malaga), Sex or Sexti, and Abdera (now Adra).  Malaca is said by Strabo to have been “Phoenician in its plan,"[5147] Abdera is expressly declared by him to have been “a Phoenician settlement,"[5148] while Sexti has coins which connect it with early Phoenician legends.[5149] The mountain range above Malaca was anciently rich in gold-mines;[5150] Sexti was famous for its salt-pans;[5151] Abdera lay in the neighbourhood of productive silver-mines.[5152] These were afterwards worked from Carthagena, which was a late Carthaginian colony, founded by Asdrubal, the uncle of Hannibal.  Malaga and Carthagena (i.e.  New-Town) had well-sheltered harbours; but the ports of Sexti and Abdera were indifferent.

Outside the Straits of Gibraltar, on the shores of the Atlantic, were two further sets of Phoenician colonies, situated respectively in Africa and in Spain.  The most important of those in Africa were Tingis (now Tangiers) and Lixus (now Chemmish), but besides these there were a vast number of staples ({emporia}) without names,[5153] spread along the coast as far as Cape Non, opposite the Canary Islands.  Tingis, a second Gibraltar, lay nearly opposite that wonderful rock, but a little west of the narrowest part of the strait.  It had a temple of the Tyrian Hercules, said to have been older than that at Gades;[5154] and its coins have Phoenician legends.[5155] The town was situated on a promontory running out to the north-east at the extremity of a semicircular bay about four miles in width, and thus possessed a harbour not to be despised, especially on such a coast.  The country around was at once beautiful and fertile, dotted over with palms, and well calculated for the growth of fruit and vegetables.  The Atlas mountains rose in the background, with their picturesque summits, while in front were seen the blue Mediterranean, with its crisp waves merging into the wilder Atlantic, and further off the shores of Spain, lying like a blue film on the northern horizon.[5156]

While Tingis lay at the junction of the two seas, on the northern African coast, about five miles east of Cape Spartel, Lixus was situated on the open Atlantic, forty miles to the south of that cape, on the West African coast, looking westward towards the ocean.  The streams from Atlas here collect into a considerable river, known now as the Wady-el-Khous, and anciently as the Lixus.[5157] The estuary of this river, before reaching the sea, meanders through the plain of Sidi Oueddar, from time to time returning upon itself, and forming peninsulas, which are literally almost islands.[5158] From this plain, between two of the great bends made by the stream, rose in one place a rocky hill; and here the Phoenicians built their town, protecting it along the brow of the hill with a strong wall, portions