chap, iv.] ANCIENT HISTORY. 59 



Near this is a smaller island of the same name. Then Ca- 

 praria, full of great lizards. In sight of them is Nivaria, 

 taking its name from perpetual snow, and covered with clouds. 

 Next to that, Canada, so called from a multitude of dogs of 

 great size, two of which were brought to Juba ; and traces of 

 habitations appear there. As they all abound in plenty of 

 apples, and birds of every kind, so this abounds in date- 

 bearing palms, and in the nut of the pine tree." 



No one who is acquainted with the snoiv-capped and cloudy 

 peak of Teneriffe, the date-palms, and the pine trees with 

 edible nuts, still growing in that island, and who remembers 

 that at the time of the Spanish invasion flocks of goats 

 formed the chief possessions of the Guanches, and that the 

 dwelling of that people, according to the Spanish authors, 

 was, in general, not in houses, but in the rocks, can fail to 

 recognise the Canaries in this description. But if we are 

 certain that the Fortunate Islands of Juba are the same with 

 our Canaries, in that case it is impossible not to identify also 

 his Purple Islands with our Madeiras. For the course and 

 distance here stated of 250 miles south westerly, would bring 

 a vessel to the most western of the Canaries, whilst the 70 

 miles from Madeira, easterly course, would sweep a great part 

 of the remainder of the group. 



We are further informed by Pliny that these Purple 

 Islands, also called by him the Mauritanian Islands, were 

 " over against the Axitotoles,'" opposite, that is, to the western 

 coast of Morocco, that they were " few in number," that they 

 were " discovered by Juba," and that he had projected the 

 carrying on in them a manufacture for dying the Goetulian 

 purple : hence, doubtless, the name of the Purple Islands. 

 Whether any of the various shell-fish from which the much- 

 prized Goetulian purple was extracted frequent the shores of 



