LIFF OF COLON, BY HIS SON.

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but’which had happened long before ; faying, It is reported that formerly an iflandwas found, and therefore it may well be faid according to the proverb, “ That in greattravels there are great lies which proverb is now verified ; for in that narrationthere are circumftances no way agreeable to reafon, forafmuch as it fays, that this iflandabounded in all things, but had never been inhabited, which is not confonant norlikely, forafmuch as fruitfulnefs in land proceeds from its being cultivated by the inha-bitants ; and where there are no inhabitants, the land is fo far from producing any-thing of itfelf that even thofe things which art produces grow wild and ufelefs. Nor isit more likely that the Carthaginians flioukl be difpleafed becaufe their people hadfound fuch an ifland, and fhould put to, death the difcoverers ; for if it was fo remotefrom Carthage as the Indies are, it was a folly to fear that thofe who fhould come toinhabit there would conquer Carthage unlefs that, as Oviedo affirms, the Spaniardspoffeffed thofe iflands before. He would farther affert, that the Carthaginians wereprophets, and that now their jealoufy and prophecy were fulfilled, the Emperor takingTunis or Carthage, with the money brought from the Indies ; which I am fatisfied hewould have faid, to gain more favour by telling fuch news than he did, but that his bookwas publifhed before. So that any j udicious perfon may conceive it is a folly to faythat ifland was never more heard of, becaufe the Carthaginians quitted the dominionof it, for fear any other nation fhould take it from them, and come afterwards to de-ftroy their liberty ; for they ought to have feared this much more from Sicily orSardinia , that lay but two days fail from their city, than from Hifpaniola, betweenwhich and them there lay one third of the world. And if it fhould be obje&ed thatthey apprehended the wealth of that country might empower their enemies to do themharm ; I anfwer, they had more caufe to hope, that being themfelves mailers of thoferiches they might oppofe and fubdue whom they pleafed, and that if they left thatifland unpeopled, they left it in the power of another to difcover it; whence the famemifchief might follow which they feared. And therefore they ought rather to fortifyit and fecure their trade to it, as we know they did another time upon the like occa-fion ; for having found the iflands which they then called Caffiterides, and now wecall the Azores , they kept that voyage very private, becaufe of the tin they broughtfrom thence, as Strabo tells us at the latter end of the third book of his Cofmography.Wherefore, granting it were true what Ariftotle had writ in this fable, it might be faidhe meant it of the voyage to the iflands Azores , which either for want of better under-ftanding, and the great antiquity of the teftirnony, or through affection, which blindsmen, Oviedo argues fhould be underflood of the Indies we now poffefs, and not of thefaid iflands Azores, or any of them. If it fhould be replied that this cannot be becaufeStrabo does not fay they were the Carthaginians who were poffeffed of the iflands Azores,but the Phoenicians, I anfwer that the Carthaginians being come from Phoenicia withtheir Queen Dido, therefore fhe and they were called Phoenicians at that time, as theChriftians born in the iflands are now called Spaniards. And fhould it be again urged,that the place of Ariftotle which fpeaks of this iflands, fays it had many navigablerivers, which are not to be found in the iflands Azores, but in Cuba and Hifpaniola, Ianfwer, that if we will take notice of this particular, they add, that there were abundanceof beafts in them, which there are not in Cuba or Hifpaniola; and it may well be,that in a thing of fuch antiquity there might be fome miftake in relating that particular,as often happens in many of thefe uncertain and fo far diftant antiquities. Obfervethat neither Cuba nor Hifpaniola have any deep navigable rivers, as the place quotedintimates; and that any fhips may enter the mouths of the biggeft rivers of thofeiflands, but not conveniently fail up them. Befides that, as has been faid, how great

foever