﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK 1 5 



native aid), Ponce de Leon's pathetic effort to turn a dream into 

 reality. 



Among vagrant fancies, the Voyage of St. Brandan preserves a 

 few significant facts. The island where were " the whitest and 

 greatest sheep they ever saw," pasturing on luxuriant herbage never 

 touched by frost, recalls the northern side of Teneriffe and its fleece- 

 robed inhabitants, who lived mainly by their flocks, as depicted on 

 the spot by Espinosa, whose work was first printed in Spain in 1597. 

 A visit to a neighboring region, seemingly continental, is also related, 

 whence the explorers carried away " fruit and gems." Now Africa, 

 having both, is not very far away. Even more apt and explicit are the 

 accounts of volcanic phenomenon ; for example : " They saw a hill 

 all one fire and the fire stood on each side of the hill like a wall, all 

 burning." Such a picture might have been photographed within 

 four or five years among the Canary Islands, and has many times 

 been repeated during the march of centuries. 



No doubt there are many islands having volcanoes, but not among 

 the Bahamas. One might find some difficulty in discovering sheep, 

 cliffs, active volcanoes, fruit, tropical weather, good pasturage, 

 and an earthly paradise, all nearly together ; but at any rate it must be 

 conceded that no part of the world within reach of the saint, except 

 the " Fortunate Isles " or their neighbors could probably supply the 

 combination. 



Espinosa relates traditions of the few surviving Guanches, concern- 

 ing an early evangelist supposed to be an apostle (as in so many other 

 instances) ; thirty people who landed long ago at Icod, " the gathering 

 place of the sons of the great one," and the finding, before the Span- 

 iards came, of a miraculous image, inscribed with uninterpreted 

 assemblages of Latin letters ; also a curious quotation from an uniden- 

 tified calendar, which relates the sojourn in those islands of St. Bran- 

 dan and St. Malo for seven years. The latter, it tells us, performed an 

 ecclesiastical experiment in resuscitating the dead and damned, there- 

 by learning uncomfortable things about " Hell " — and permitted his 

 patient to die again (and finally) " in the time of the Emperor 

 Justinian." The statuette (of the Madonna and child) above referred 

 to, or a later substitute as some say, is still borne in religious pro- 

 cessions about the island of Teneriffe ; and withholds obstinately the 

 message of its cryptic characters. Until these cipher writings shall 

 have been read to some purpose, they obviously can not help to es- 

 tablish any connection with St. Brandan. Mr. Daly thinks the saint 



