LIF£ OF COLON, BY HIS SON. 19

foever Ariftotle’s authority may be the word might poffibly be corrupted, and mightbe writ navigandum inftead of potandum , which better agreed with what he treated of,commending it for plenty of drinking water, as well as fruitfulnefs in producing thingsto eat. This might well be verified of any one of the Azores , and with more reafon,becaufe neither Cuba nor Hifpaniola lie fo, as that the Carthaginians could be carriedto them either by reafon of their nearnefs, or by any mifchance ; for if thofe who wentpurpofely with the admiral to difcover thought the way fo long that they would haveturned back, how much longer muft it feein to them who defigned no fuch tediousvoyage, and who, as foon as the time would permit, had turned back towards theircountry ? Nor does any ftorm laft fo long as to carry a {hip from Cadiz to Hifpaniola jnor is it likely, that becaufe they were merchants, they fliould have any mind to runfarther from Spain or Carthage than the wind obliged them, efpecially at a time whennavigation was not come to that perfection as now it is. For which reafon very incon-fiderable voyages were then looked upon as great, as appears by what we read ofJafon’s voyage to Colchos, and that of Ulyffes through the Mediterranean, in which fomany years were fpent; and therefore they were fo famous that the moft excellentpoets have given an account of them, becaufe of the little knowledge they had then offea affairs; whereas it has been fo improved of late in our age, that there have beenthofe who had the boldnefs to fail round the world, which has contradicted the proverbthat faid, “ He that goes to cape Nam will either return or not which cape is inAfrick, not very much dillant from the Canaries. Befides it is a notorious miftake tothink the ifland whither thofe merchants were carried, could be either Cuba , or Hifpa-niola ; for it is well known, that with all the knowledge we have at this prefent, it isalmoft impoffible to come at them, without meeting with any other iflands that encom-pafs them all all round. But if we would fay that land or ifland was none of the Azores ,as has been faid above, one lie ought to be grafted upon another, by alledging that itwas the fame ifland of which Seneca in his fourth book makes mention, where he tellsus, that Thucydides fpeaks of an ifland called Atlantica, which in the time of thePeloponnefian war was all or moftly drowned. Whereof Plato alfo makes mention inhis Timaeus . But becaufe we have difcourfed too long concerning thefe fables, 1 willproceed to the next point, where it is faid that the Spaniards had entirely the dominionof the faid iflands ; which opinion is grounded on what Statius and Sebofus fay, thatcertain iflands called Hefperides, lay forty days fail weft of the iflands Gorgones. Andhence it is argued, that fince thofe muft of neceffity be Indies, and are called Hefperides,that name came from Hefperus, who was King of Spain , who of confequence, and theSpaniards were lords of that country. So that rightly confidering his words, he endea-vours from uncertain premifes to deduce three infallible confequences, contrary toSeneca’s rule, who in his fixth book of nature, fpeaking of fuch like things, fays it ishard to affirm any thing as fure and certain upon grounds that are no other than con-jectures, as here Ovideo does ; forafmuch as only Sebofus is faid to have made men-tion of thofe iflands Hefperides, declaring towards what part they lie but not mention-ing that they were the Indies, or of whom they took the name, or by whom conquered.And if Oviedo out of Berofus affirms that Hefperus was King of Spain , I grant it to betrue, but not that he gave the name to Spain or Italy ; but he, like a true hiftorian,owning that Berofus fails him in this particular, took up with Hyginus, yet cautiouflywithout mentioning in what book or chapter, and thus he conceals his authority ; forin ffiort, no place is to be found where Hyginus fpeaks of any fuch matter, but, on thecontrary, in one only book of his that is extant, intituled, De poetica Ajironomia, he has notonly no fuch words, but in three feveral places where he fpeaks of thefe Hefperides, he

d 2 ~ fays