N W SOUTH WALES. • 
nary, or as it is ufually called, the Great Canary^ is one 
hundred and fifty. They have been poffeffed and colo- 
nized by Spain from the beginning of the 15 th century. 
There is no reafon to doubt that thefe are the iflands^ 
flightly known to the ancients under the name of 
Fortunate : though the miftake of Ptolemy cori- 
cerning their latitude has led one of the commentators 
on Solinus to contend, that this title belongs rather to 
the lllands of Cape Verd. Pliny mentions Canaria<) and 
accounts for that name from the number of large dogs 
which the ifland ccntained; a circumflance which fome 
modern voyagers, perhaps with little accuracy, repeat as' 
having occaiioned the fame name to be given by the 
Spaniards. Nivaria<, fpoken of by the fame author^ 
is evidently TenerifFe, and fynonymous, if we are 
rightly informed, to the modern name Ombrion^ or 
Pluviaiia,, is fuppofed to be Ferro ; where the drynefs 
of the foil has at all times compelled the inhabitants t© 
depend for water on the rains. . 
If the ancients made thefe ifland s the region of fable, 
and their poets decorated them with imaginary charms 
to fupply the want of real knowledge, the moderns 
cannot wholly be exempted from a fimilar imputation. 
Travellers have delighted to fpeak of the Peak of Tene- 
* Occafioned by the perpetual fnovvs with which the Peak is covered. Tencr, 
is faid to mean fnoiv^ and hte or ijffc a mountain, in the language of the ifland. 
riffe^ 
CHAP. 
III. 
