From thence I went to the blacke Sea: but commonly Mare Euxinum, where I saw Pompeyes Pillar of Marble, standing neere the shoare, upon a rocky Iland: and not far from thence, is a Lanthorne higher then any Steeple, whereon there is a panne full of liquor, that burneth every night to give warning unto ships how neare they come the shore; It is not much unlike these Lanthornes of Ligorne and Genua. The water of this Sea is never a whit blacker then other Seas: but it is called blacke, in respect of the dangerous events in darke and tempestuous nights, which happen there; and because of the Rockes and Sands which lye a great way from the maine shore: upon which many vessels many times are cast away.
William Lithgow, Totall Discourse, IV, 140. Pompeyes Pillar.