speaks of them as then destitute of inhabitants, but containing (vestigia ædificiorum) the remains of buildings. From this circumstance it must appear that they had been inhabited before the Carthaginian discovery. In Plutarch's time, the Fortunate Islands were not only inhabited, but were so celebrated for their fertility that they were supposed to be the seat of the blessed.

When Madeira and Porto Santo were discovered by the Normans and Portuguese, both were uninhabited. A question then arises, If these islands were sometimes inhabited and at other times deserted, what became of their inhabitants? It must have been some uncommon event which could induce them to abandon so pleasant and fruitful a country without leaving a single family behind. If they perished in the islands, it is still more extraordinary; for it is a most singular circumstance that all the inhabitants of any place should be destroyed, and yet the place itself remain. George Glas, who published a history of these islands in 1764, attempts to solve the inquiry thus:*

"Almost two thirds of the Canary Islands are covered with calcined rocks, pumice * Page 167, 4to.

VOL. I.-E

stones, and black ashes, which have been for. merly thrown out from volcanoes, the remains of which are still seen in every one of these islands. Many of the natives might have been destroyed by these violent eruptions, and the remainder, being terrified, might abandon their country and go in quest of new habitations: but where they went is a question not easily solved, though some assert that they passed over to America." An event exactly similar is said by the same author to have happened about thirty years before he wrote.* "A volcano broke out in the S.W. part of the island of Lancerotta, near the sea, but remote from habitation, which threw out such an immense quantity of ashes and stones, with so dreadful a noise, that many of the natives deserted their houses and fled to Fuertaventura, another island, for the preservation of their lives."

But whether we admit the conjecture that, being thus obliged to quit the islands, they "passed over to America," or not, yet it is extremely probable that, in some of the ancient circumnavigations of Africa, or in passing to and from these islands, or even in coasting the continent from the Straits of Gib* Page 200.

raltar, some vessels might be drawn by currents or driven by tempests within the verge of the trade-wind, "which begins not far to the southward of the straits, and blows nine months of the year on the coast of Morocco." In this case it would be next to impossible for those who had met with any considerable damage in their masts, sails, or rigging, to run in any other direction than before the wind to the westward, and this course must bring them to the continent, or islands of America.

In confirmation of this remark, several facts have been adduced by way of proof. One is thus related by Glas:* "A few years ago, a small bark, laden with corn and passengers, bound from Lancerotta to Teneriffe, met with some disaster at sea, by which she was rendered incapable of getting to any of the Canary Islands, and was obliged to run many days before the wind, till she came within two days sail of the coast of Caraccas, in South America, where she met an English ship, which supplied the surviving passengers with water, and directed her to the port of La Guiara, on that coast." La Guiara is one of the ports to which the trade from the Ca

* Introduction, page 5.

naries is restricted by the King of Spain, and the run thither from Teneriffe is generally performed in less than thirty days with the trade-wind.*

Another fact is taken from Gumilla,† who says, "In December, 1731, while I was at the town of St. Joseph, in the Island of Trinidad, a small vessel of Teneriffe, with six seamen, was driven into that island by stress of weather. She was laden with wine, and bound for one other of the Canary Islands; she had provision only for a few days, which, notwithstanding the utmost care, had been expended, and the crew subsisted wholly on wine. They were reduced to the last extremity, and were received with astonishment by the inhabitants, who ran in crowds to see them. Their emaciated appearance would have sufficiently confirmed the truth of their story, if the papers which they produced had not put the matter beyond all doubt."

A third fact is related by Herrera, the royal Spanish historian.‡ Columbus, in his second voyage to America, having discovered

* Introduction, p. 329, 333.

+ Cited by Edwards in his History of the W. Indies, vol. i., p. 109.

Decad. i., book ii., chap. vii.

the Island of Guadaloupe, "found a piece of timber belonging to a ship, which the seamen call the stern-post, which they much admired, not knowing which way it should come thither, unless carried by tempestuous weather from the Canaries, or from the Island of Hispaniola," where the admiral's ship was cast away in his former voyage. Ferdinand Columbus, in the life of his father,* does not distinctly assert this, but speaks of their finding "an iron pan," and endeavours to account for it by saying, "that the stones there being of the colour of iron, a person of an indifferent judgment might mistake the one for the other." Not content with this solution, he goes on thus: "though it were of iron, it was not to be admired, because the Indians of the Island of Guadaloupe, being Caribbees, and making their excursions to rob as far as Hispaniola, perhaps they had that pan of the Christians, or of the other Indians of Hispaniola; and it is possible they might carry the body of the ship the admiral lost to make use of the iron; and though it were not the hulk of that ship, it might be the remainder of some other wreck, carried thither by the wind and current from our parts."

* Chapter xlvii., in Churchill's Collections, vol. ii.