[fol. 268] Gibraltar 7 Feb. 1716/7 Sir I have had the satisfaction of hearing from Mr Aime that you received the letter I troubled you with sometime ago, I am in a particular manner obliged to return you my hearty thanks for the care you have taken of my mother, to whom I owe so much that I shall always esteem any favour is shown her much more than if they were conferr’d upon my self. I have made a considerable addition to my medals & gold some from Tangiers I sake. I have one that was sent from far off, it shes on one side an Cæ & the sun & moon on the other an ear of corn with the following letters BAILO. I am very apt to believe it belongs to that city wich Ptolemy calls Βαιλωγ & the other ancient Geographers/ Belo & Bælone/ I am assured by several persons of very good credit that two leagues & a half to the Westward of Sariff, directly opposite to Tangier,, there are very considerable coins, wch the country people there Conts call Bolonia. The situation agrees exactly with the description Strabo gives of Bælo In his [v. 268] 3rd book. & the corruption of the name is very easily accounted for in an oral tradition. Offe many years. About half a league on the side Cape Trafalgar there are other ruins call’d by the Spaniards Aquas de Mecca, perhaps the remains of the antient Bæsippo usque ad Junonis premontorium oram fieti occupat; by what follows it appears plainly that Janonis promontorium the Cape of Trafalgar illud iam in occidentem et Oceanum oblique iugo excursons, atque ei quod em. Africa Amphisium esse diseeramus, adverum, qua nostia maria sum finit Europen. I wish I could give
as probable an account of the situation of Mellaria & Julia Traducta, but I have not been able to get any lights on that subject either from several people in these parts of whom I have made enquiry, or any author that treats of these parts of whom I have made enquiry, or any author that treats of those places the text of Mela, from whom wee might expect the most perfect accounts, is so much corrupted where he mentions them, that it has given rise to great disputes amongst several learned men. Casaubon in his notes upon the 3d book of Strabo gives the following lection of that passage of Mella. Hinus atha est, in eoque Cartia, ut [fol. 269] quidam putant aliquandi Sartessus, et quam hanu vecti ex Africa Phænices hasibaul or Singi e regione sita Mellania. Salmacius makes it Singi altera, tum Mallaria & takes the preceding transvecti to be a description of the Juliae Traducta Casaubon in the notes already quotes appears likewise to have thought that the transvecti related to Julia Traducta but in conclusion applies it to Carteia Salmacius’s opinion seems to be the most probable because Bælo & not Julia Traducta is plac’d by Strabo over against Singer, & the Carteia was originally founded by the Phœnicians it has been erected into a Latin Colony many years before Mela wrote, & therefore he could not probably say: Carteia quam, Phœnician habitant, & if he had design’d to take notice of the found other city, surely he would have made use of another word or att least have said habitarunt besides, if Julia Traducta according to Casaubon is not denoted in that passage it must have been entirely omitted by Mela, w(i)ch seems very unlikely considering he was born in those parts & that mention is made of it by Strabo who liv’d before him & Ptolemy and several others that liv’d aside him. I have found amongst the Spanish Cass many thus medus [v. 269] of Julia Traducta of the same stamp with those wher by Cponorius in his edition of Mela, but I cannot guess att the exact situation either of that or Mellarir Saveleius I may venture to say that the SPanihs authors & modern Geographers are entirely mistake about the latter wch they place Bejus de la miel, I previously account of the resemblance la nirol has to Mellasia, but that town ins on the side Cape Trafalgar, whereas Mela & also the other antient authours agree that Mellaria stood on this side Cape Trafalgar & Bæsippe & Belo, wch according to Strabo was over against Tangiers. Cellarius by giving too much credit to the Spanish authors has fall’n into so many errors in his Geography of these parts, that it would weary Me too far to sett him right att present. I design shortly to go as far as Cape Trafalgar along the sea side there to visit the ruins. I have been mentioning, I’ve hopes of making some discoveries of the antient situation of the cities in question; & at my return will make bold to trouble you with what falls under my observation there. I have with some difficulty pick’d up a tolerable collection of the best Spanish authors that treated the antiquities and History of their own country. I have employed several persons at Tangiers Seville & Cadiz to buy medals or any stones with Roman inscription I have also wyth some by me. You may be assur’d I spare no pains nor cost to provide any amount and spare no pains nor cost to he can affording high embellishment my country of satisfaction. So my friend, I shall be proud s any other occasion of demonstrating the kind useful & acknowledgement of hon & humble I obliged ser. John Conduitt
Conduitt thanks Sloane for helping his mother. He describes his newly acquired medals in detail and a drawing of a coin with the inscription ‘CAESAR AVGVST PONT MAXIM’.
John Conduitt (1688-1737) attended Trinity College, Cambridge and served as judge-advocate to the British forces in Portugal. He later become captain in a regiment of dragoons serving in Portugal (Philip Carter, Conduitt, John (16881737), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6061, accessed 29 June 2011]).
