PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIYEHSE. 497 



and the Numidian King Juba first gave names to the separate 

 islands, but, unfortunately, not Punic names, although undoubt- 

 edly in accordance with notices taken from Punic works. As 

 Plutarch says that Sertorius, when driven away from Spain, 

 wished to save himself and his attendants, after the loss of his 

 fleet, on a group of two Atlantic islands, ten thousand stadia to 

 the west of the mouth of the Bactis, it has been supposed that 

 he meant to designate the two islands of Porto Santo and 

 Madeira,* which were clearly indicated by Pliny as the Pur- 



* I have treated in detail this often-contested subject, as well as the 

 passages of Diodorus (v. 19 and 20), and of the Pseudo-Aristot. (Mirab. 

 Auscult., cap. 85, p. 172, Bekk.), in another work (Examen crit., t. i. 

 pp. 130-139; t. ii. pp. 158 and 169; t. iii. pp. 137-140). The compi- 

 lation of the Mirab. Auscult. appears to have been of a date prior to the 

 end of the first Punic war, since, in cap. 105, p. 211, it describes Sardinia 

 as under the dominion of the Carthaginians. It is also worthy of notice 

 that the wood-clad island, which is mentioned in this work, is described 

 as uninhabited (therefore not peopled by Guanches). The whole group of 

 the Canary Islands was inhabited by Guanches, but not the island of Ma- 

 deira, in which no inhabitants were found, either by John Gonzalves and 

 Tristan Vaz, in 1519, or still earlier by Robert Masham and Anna Dorset, 

 (supposing their Crusoe-like narrative to possess a character of veracity.) 

 Heeren applies the description of Diodorus to Madeira alone, yet he 

 thinks that in the account of Festus Avienus (v. 164), who is so conversant 

 with Punic writings, he can recognise the frequent volcanic earthquakes 

 of the Peak of Teneriffe. (See Idem uber Politik und Handel, th. ii. 

 abth. i. 1826, s. 106.) To judge from the geographical connection, the 

 description of Avienus would appear to indicate a more northern locality, 

 perhaps even the Kronic sea. (Examen crit., t. iii. p. 138.) Ammianus 

 Marcellinus (xxii. 15) also notices the Punic sources of which Juba availed 

 himself. Respecting the probability of the Semitic origin of the appella- 

 tion of the Canary Islands (the clog island of Pliny's Latin etymology !), see 

 Credner's Biblische Vorstdlung vom Paradiese, in Illgen's Zeitschr.fur 

 die historische Theologie, bd. vi. 1836, s. 166-186. Joaquim Jose da 

 Costa de Macedo, in a work entitled Memoria em que se pretende 

 provar que os Ardbes nao conhecerao as Canarias antes dos Portu- 

 guezes, 1844, has recently collected all that has been written from the 

 most ancient times to the middle ages, respecting the Canary Islands. 

 Where history, so far as it is founded on certain and distinctly expressed 

 evidence, is silent, there remain only different degrees of probability; 

 but an absolute denial of all facts in the world's history, of which 

 the evidence is not distinct, appears to me no happy application of 

 philological and historical criticism. The many indications which have 

 come down to us from antiquity, and a careful consideration of the rela- 

 tions of geographical proximity to ancient undoubted settlements on the 

 African shore, lead me to believe that the Canary Islands were known to 



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