That ne'er art call'd, but when the dragon womb Of Stygian darkness spits her thickest gloom, And makes one blot of all the air, Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, Wherein thou rid'st with Hecate. And befriend Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end 136 Of all thy dues be done, and none left out, Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice morn on th' Indian steep From her cabin'd loophole peep, 140 And to the tell-tale sun descry Our conceal'd solemnity. Come, knit hands, and beat the ground In a light fantastic round. (143) It is not difficult to conceive that the tides as they flow between the narrow channels of the multitude of islands, which compose the Jardin de la Reine and constitute Comus's rout of monsters (monsters, as causing such horrible diseases) undergo a considerable degree of agitation; and this perhaps is alluded to by their dance (with its regularity, as marked by the term The Measure. Break off, break off, I feel the different pace 145 Of some chaste footing near about this ground. "measure)." These tides impregnated with the brackish ferruginous impurities which the sands that accompany them bring down from the volcanoes of Peru, (from whence those sands ultimately derive their origin) and intercepted in their return to the sea, become stagnant in the close woods and windings between the numerous and small islands before-mentioned, and there generate ague, fever, and pestilence. The Lake of Titicaca mentioned in the last note is thus described by Don A. D'Ulloa. "This lake lying in the province of Chucuito, is, of all the known lakes in South America, much the largest. Ten or twelve large rivers, besides a great number of smaller streams empty themselves into it. The water of it, though neither bitter nor brackish, is turbid, and has in its taste something so nauseous that it cannot be drunk." Do the stagnant Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees, waters of this lake contribute to the impurity of those, the effects of which are so sorely felt in the West Indies? I have certainly met with an account somewhere of a river that empties itself into the great West India Gulf at the top of South America, (the name and exact situation of which I cannot at this moment point out, but I believe it to be not far from the mouth of the river Oronooko,) and which is excessively muddy and turbid for many miles after its fall into the sea; but whether it is so during the whole year or only at particular seasons I cannot state. This river may perhaps be the medium of communication between those stagnant waters and the West India Gulf. For it is certain that the great rivers of the upper part of South America, are subject to the same sort of periodical inundations as the Nile, Euphrates, and the Indian rivers in the eastern hemisphere; and that they occur at the same time of the year, i, e. Our number may affright. Some virgin sure (For so I can distinguish by mine art) about the sun's coming to the tropic of Cancer, and are owing to the same cause, i. e. the earth from her libration swinging between the tropics. Now it seems to follow necessarily that those waters, whencesoever they may have come originally, which, either in the Lake of Titicaca or in Le Jardin de la Reine by Cuba, or in the low plains in the upper part of South America, (denominated by D'Anville in his map, "plain land overflowed in the rainy season,' " had been stagnant and thence become impure as lying under the influence of a sun still active and powerful there even during the winter tropic, should at the time of the tropic of Cancer, by means of the inundations in. question be very extensively, (though, as being liable to be influenced by storms or by currents, irregularly) diffused; and wherever they alight, they would become the probable and natural cause of the pestilential mischief, the effects of which are often so dreadful. All this would seem to be implied Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms 151 by the poetical invocation to Cotytto, or the country bordering upon that lake. (148) The lady or the virgin is drawn in Fig. 185. Her prototype is the Gulf of Honduras, or rather, primarily, the fresh water rivers at the head of that gulf whose banks are so famous for the logwood cut there. This gulf is situate directly opposite to the south side of the Isle of Cuba, and the course of those rivers would naturally carry them to and amongst the numerous small istands which constitute the district called Le Jardin |