TOPOGRAPHY. 



305 



<j\ail in his retreat, he observes with a serene and penetrating 

 eye, that applause and honour, nay friends even, come with 

 fortune, and with her depart. The same reasonings apply to 

 countries, in the history of which the consequences are equally 

 cogent. In the time of Solomon, how many regions did not 

 the earth contain, felicitous in the wisdom of their legislation, 

 in the flourishing condition of their agriculture, or in the pas- 

 tures which afforded nourishment to their useful and numerous 

 flocks ? Their sites, and even their names, have, notwith- 

 standing, been forgotten, because they were poor ; and we 

 bear in our remembrance Ophir alone, on account of the gold 

 with which it abounded. If the land discovered by Columbus 

 had not afforded the prospe6l of any other utility, beside that 

 of introducing, among its aborigines, the customs and faith 

 of the Europeans, the glory of that adventurous Genoese 

 would have vanished with his life, or even before, with the 

 enterprize itself. Ferrer Maldonado, Quiros, Hudson, Baf- 

 fins. Cook, &c. exposed their lives a thousand times to dis- 

 cover unknown lands ; and in reality they discovered many. 

 The want of riches in these parts scarcely allowed a miserable 

 spot to be assigned to them in the geographical maps, at the 

 same time that all the ignorant, and many of the learned, 

 spoke with enthusiasm of Gran-Paititi, Gran-Quivira, Terra 

 Firma, and the country of the x^mazons, in consequence of 

 the gold which was ascribed to them, notwithstanding one of 

 the most celebrated of the national writers*, had demon- 

 strated that the opulence of all these kingdoms was imaginary. 

 The zeal for the propagation of the gospel, the spirit of con- 



Feyjoo: Teatro Critico, torn. iv. disc. lO. 



R r 



quest. 



