2ir. THE BOTTOM OF THE SMA. 



assign a limit to the habitable world. " The sea and 

 all that therein is " appears surrounded with a poetic 

 and miraculous aureole, which is the birth at once of 

 fear and of superstition. 



Before our ancestors had dared to launch out upon 

 the boundless ocean, the Mediterranean and its shores 

 were the abode of the marvellous. As man extended 

 the bounds of his empire, the region of wonder and 

 superstition also gradually enlarged itself. Old records 

 show that the Spirit of the Storms demanded its 

 victims of the first navigators who doubled the 

 dreaded Cape of Good Hope; monsters the most 

 hideous or grotesque were supposed to haunt the 

 coasts of Norway; and the bottomless Maelstrom 

 had its genii like the rocks of Scylla and Cha- 

 ry bdis. 



Popular tradition pointed to the existence of 

 islands situated far away to the westward. The 

 report went that, after the conquest of Spain by the 

 Arabs, a certain number of Christians put to sea, and 

 found refuge in the legendary islands, where they 

 built seven cities. At the time of Columbus this sup- 

 posed country bore the reputed name of Sette Citade, 

 and was called by geographers Antilia, which name 

 appears on the niaps down to the end of the fifteenth 

 century — together with that of another great island, 

 situate in the latitude of Newfoundlan<l, and called 



