385 



son of Hercules, Galacte, giving Ms name to that territory is a fable, tlie 

 author is no less persuaded."^'' 



The author then enters into extensive details to show that Gallicia 

 derives its name from a small town of great antiquity, situated at the 

 mouth of the Douero, named Calle, which afterwards gave its name to 

 the modern kingdom of Portugal, and of Gallicia being derived from this 

 ancient town of Calle. Pliny, Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Ptolomy, Livy, 

 Plorus, Orosius, and others, he states, confirm this opinion. All these 

 testimonies," says the author, prove the certain etymology of this name 

 Gallicia, in which, as we find in Hebrew the C changed into G, so it 

 is found in the Spanish tongue ; and thus the ancient name of this terri- 

 tory Calicea was first pronounced, and then transmuted into Gallicia.f 



'^At the distance," the same author observes, of one league from 

 the coast,^ in front of Bayonne, are two islands which now are called 

 the Islands of Eayona, but to which the Romans gave various names. 

 Ptolemy called them 'the Islands of the Goddesses ;' Pliny named them 

 * Cicas.' One bears the name of Lancia and the other Albiano. . . . 



" Of the river Yerno which Pomponius Mela speaks of, there is no- 

 thing now known. ... 



" On the coast of Cantabria, and at no great distance from the town 

 of Caldas, which was called of old Aque Celene, on account of some ther- 

 mal springs there, and so named Caldas from Calidas, there are some 

 islands very celebrated in ancient times, and greatly considered by the 

 P-omans on account of the tin which was found there in prodigious 

 quantity, and of so good a quality that it exceeded in goodness the pro- 

 duct of all other mines in the world. On which account the Romans 

 gave those islands the name of Cassiterides. The first, called Aroza, 

 the Romans named Aunios ; the second island, called formerly Corticata, 

 is now known as Cortegata."J 



This notice is deserving of attention, and in several other old Spanish 

 and Portuguese chronicles the same claim for Spain is set up for the Cas- 

 siterides. 



Pliny, in reference to the Cassiterides, says : — 



'' In adverse Celtiberise complures sunt insulse, Cassiterides, dicte 

 Grsecis, a fertilate plumbi et a regione Arrotrebarium promontorii deo- 

 rumsex, quas aliqui fortunatas appellere." — C. Plinii l^at. Hist., lib. iii., 

 cap. xxii., p. 63. 



This reference is evidently to the Hioses Islands, in the Bay of Yigo, 

 from the mention of the promontory. 



Solinus, on the same subject, says : — Cassiterides Insulse His- 

 paniae spectant adversus Celtiberise latus, plumbi fertiles," &c.§ — So- 

 linus PoL, cap. xxiii., p. 45. 



* Huerta y Vega, " Annales de Galicia," lib. i., cap. iii., p. 15. 

 t.Huerta y Vega, "Annales de Galicia," p. 14. % lb., pp. 4, 5. 



§ There is a very curious notice of these islands in the work " Hist. Litteraria de 

 Espana," tomo iv. : Mad., 1672, 4to, p. 378. 



