I goo- 1.] Spanish Documents Relative to the Canary Islands. 47 



loclus, healing herbs, Oighreog, wild strawberry, and Uachdar, "Sanicula 

 montana." 



The Peruvians called their kings Tahuantin-Suyu-Capac, or Lords 

 of the four quarters of the earth. The title is a very old one, as certain 

 ancient Babylonian monarchs termed themselves kings of the four 

 regions, and others commemorated their victories over the four races 

 or kiprat arba. It is to be remembered also that there was a Kirjath 

 Arba in Palestine, it being a name of Hebron, in what afterwards 

 became the domain of the tribe of Judah ; but it is to be noted that, 

 while arba is Semitic, and even Mongol for the number four, it is not 

 so in Hittite. The Basques are familiar with the term, as appears 

 in the Rev. Wentworth Webster's Basque Legends, one of which 

 represents Mr. Laur Cantons as seeking a vine-dresser's daughter in 

 marriage. Laur Cantons is the Four Quarters. There was an ancient 

 hero called Arba, the father of Anak, whose sons, the Anakim, were 

 Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai (Joshua xv., 13, 14). They were 

 Hittites, and pertained to the Gesshurite branch of the Zerethite, 

 Cherethite, or Dardanian family. Talmai, king of Gesshur, the father 

 of Absalom's mother, was of this race. The name Anak became a 

 title, and was borrowed by the Greeks in the form anax, to denote 

 "a prince." In the New World it became Inca, and the Inca was 

 suitably Lord of the Four Quarters. Arba is a common name in the 

 Iberic inscriptions of the Canaries, and Telama or Talmai is also found 

 in them as a princely name. Jackson, in his version of Shabeeny's 

 Travels, says : " The opinion of the author of the History and Conquest 

 of the Canary Islands, is, that the inhabitants came originally from 

 Mauritania, and this he founds on the resemblance of names of places 

 in Africa and in the islands " : " for " says he, " Telde, which is the 

 name of the oldest habitation in Canada, Orotaba, and Tegesta, are all 

 names which we find given to places in Mauritania and Mount Atlas. 

 It is to be supposed that Canaria, Fuertaventura, and Lancerotta, were 

 peopled by the Alarbes, who are the nation most esteemed in Barbary ; 

 for the natives of those islands named milk Aho, and barley Temecin, 

 which are the names that are given to those things in the language of 

 the Alarbes of Barbary." The Al-Arbes as founders of places called 

 Telde seems to suggest the presence of the Toltecs in Barbary and the 

 Canary Islands. Immediately opposite the African coast in southern 

 Spain dwelt the Iberic Turdetani in the days of the classical 

 geographers. Strabo calls them " the most intelligent of all the 

 Iberians ; they have an alphabet, and possess ancient writings, poems, 

 and metrical laws, six thousand years old, as they say." Whether 



