ILLUSTRATIONS (22). MOUNT ATLAS. Ill 



to the Cassiterides, from whence they obtained tin, and to the 

 Prussian coasts where they procured amber found there; 

 whilst southward they penetrated as far as Madeira and the 

 Cape de Verd Islands. Amongst other regions they visited the 

 Archipelago of the Canary Isles, where their attention was 

 arrested by the Peak of Teneriffe, whose great height appears 

 to be even more considerable than it actually is from the 

 circumstance of the mountain projecting directly from the 

 sea. Through their colonies established in Greece, especially 

 under Cadmus in Bceotia, the Greeks were made acquainted 

 with the existence of this mountain which soared high above 

 the region of clouds, and with the ' Fortunate Islands' on 

 which this mountain was situated, and which were adorned 

 with fruits of all kinds, and particularly with the golden 

 orange. By the transmission of this tradition through the 

 songs of the bards, Homer became acquainted with these 

 remote regions, and he speaks of an Atlas to whom all the 

 depths of ocean are known, and who bears upon his shoulders 

 the great columns which separate from one another the hea- 

 vens and the earth,* and of the Elysian Plains, described as 

 a wondrously beautiful land in the west."f Hesiod expresses 

 himself in a similar manner regarding Atlas, whom he repre- 

 sents as the neighbour of the Hesperides.^ The Elysian 

 Plains, which he places at the western limits of the earth, he 

 terms the ' Islands of the Blessed. '§ Later poets have still 

 further embellished these myths of Atlas, the Hesperides, their 

 golden apples, and the Islands of the Blessed, which are 

 destined to be the abode of good men after death, and have 

 connected them with the expeditions of the Tyrian God of 

 Commerce, Melicertes, the Hercules of the Greeks. 



" The Greeks did not enter into rivalship with the Phoenicians 

 and Carthaginians in the art of navigation until a com- 

 paratively late period. They indeed visited the shores of the 

 Atlantic, but they never appear to have advanced very far. 

 It is doubtful whether they had penetrated as far as the Canary 

 Isles and the Peak of Teneriffe ; but be this as it may, they 

 were aware that Mount Atlas, which their poets had described 



* Od., i. 52, 



+ II, iv. 561. 



+ Theog., r. 517. 



§ Op. et Dies, v. 167. 



