and the prodigious darkness attendant upon those fogs, is most beautifully described, (190), —ου γαρ τ' ιδμεν οπη ζοφος ουδ' όπη έως Ουδ' οπη ηέλιος Φαεσιμβροτος εισ' υπο γαιαν. I cannot forbear remarking here, that besides the thousand collateral evidences in proof of the English (represented by the traveller Odurosus) having been the first discoverers of America, by a westward course, the name of Newfoundland itself (when considered, together with the eastern or more proximate situation of that island, and its fishing banks, in respect of the British isles) makes it very probable that that was the part of America first discovered by them; and that probability is increased on considering the names of the two next succeeding provinces of Nova Scotia and New England. In respect of the interior of this part of America, the thing most remarkable is the celebrated cataract of Niagara, of which Homer has accordingly, under the fable of Elpenor, given a striking description: according to the first part of the course of the River St. Lawrence, it would seem that it should naturally have its embouchure in the Atlantic, somewhere about the mouth of the Delaware, rather than find it where it does by a course so much to the north. This backward course of the river into which the cataract falls, is expressed by the word adoggov, and the cataract itself is figuratively described under the idea of Elpenor's breaking his neck in hastening down stairs. 10 Od. 552, Ελπήνωρ δε τις εσκε νεώτατος, ὅτε τι λιην I now pass over to the western side of the continent of North America, of which, from Cape California in the south, to the ice within the straits between Asia and America in the north, the forty or fifty lines which follow the 116th of the 9th Odyssey convey. a general description. The several circumstances detailed in those lines, are all of them applicable to the vast tract of country in question, so far as the accounts we have of it, and particularly the voyages of Cook, Peyrouse, and Vancouver, enable us to compare them. Its uncultivated and almost unpeopled condition, the infant state of civilization of the few inhabitants which it has; the fogs, the darkness, and density of the air, the prodigious swell of the sea, the heavy surf upon the shore, are all successively mentioned: the λ evoguos seems to involve an ænigma, and to be referable to the triangular space inclosed within the two extreme capes of Asia and America, and the line of ice in front on the north; which ice, in a poetical view, would form a harbour capable of holding ships sufficiently fast; this triangular space is afterwards alluded to again, under the figure of Ulysses and his companions exploring it in three divisions (153), εδινεομεσθα κατ' αυτην, τριχα κοσμηθετες; the иen Uπоσπ8 at the head of the harbour, refers to the streams of fresh water trickling from under the caverns of the ice, and the xavos, mentioned in the 167th line, may relate to the fogs, or perhaps to the volcano of Mount St. Elias situate in that neighbourhood. Ulysses and his companions appear to have wintered (εμειναμεν τω διαν) somewhere on the outside of the triangular space before mentioned, and to have proceeded within it in the spring of the year, poetically expressed by an allusion to the morning of the day, -φανη ροδοδάκτυλος πως. In regard to the more southern part of the vast tract of country last under consideration, I would observe, that in an account of California, by Père F. M. Piccolo, in the Jesuits Travels, or Letters Edifiantes, it is said, that "there are found in California running springs of the clearest water. whose banks are covered with wild vines." added there, that "California is no less prolific in grain than in fruit, and there are fourteen sorts of It is the former, which the natives feed upon. The soil is so vastly rich, that many plants bear fruits thrice a year; and-Heaven has been so indulgent to the Californians, that their land produces spontaneously many things which are not brought forth in other countries, except with vast pains and labour." He further adds, " that during the rainy season, a deluge of water descends." Let the account so given of California, by Père Piccolo, be compared with the following lines from Homer, descriptive of the same country: 9 Od. 106, Κυκλώπων δ' ες γαιαν υπερφιαλων αθεμίςων Ικομεθ' οι ρα θεοισι πεποιθότες αθανατοισιν Ούτε φυτεύεσι χερσι φυτον στ' αρρωσιν Αλλα ταγ' ασπαρτα και ανήροτα παντα φύονται |