Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/77

THE CANAEY AECHIPELAGO. 55 mention is made only of the in-sliore islands, which can scarcely be identified with the Canaries, unless Teneriffe be the " Land of Perfumes," whence flowed seawards fiery streams, and which were commanded by a lofty mountain, known to mariners as the " Chariot of the Gods." Nevertheless the name of Junonia, applied by Ptolemy to one of the islands, would sufiice to show that here was a Carthaginian settlement, for their great goddess was Tanith, identified by the Greeks and Romans with their Juno. The oldest extant documents which attempt to fix the exact locality of the Fortunate Islands, date from the time of imperial Rome, and the first mention of the word Canaria occurs in Pliny, who on the authority of a certain Statins Sebosus, assigns it to one of the islands, whence it has been extended to the whole group. According to Faidherbe, this name is derived from the Berber Canar, or Ganar, formerly attributed to the neighbouring African seaboard; and the Wolofs even still apply the term Ganar to the region stretching north of the Senegal river. Ptolemy also calls one of the western headlands of Africa Canaria, while Pliny speaks of some " Canarian " tribes among the populations dwelling about the Atlas Mountains. Amongst the islands mentioned by the ancient writers, two only can be now identified by their name — Canaria^ the Great Canary of modern times, and Nivaria, or the " Snowy," which certainly refers to the Peak of Teyde. The latter being described as the island farthest removed from the Gates of Hercules, it would seem to follow that the three western islands of Gomera, Palma, and Hierro, were unknown to the ancients, so that the others named by them would have to be sought in the group comprising Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and the neighbouring islets. Several of these being mere reefs were left unnamed, just as at present we speak summarily only of the seven larger islands, although, including the Selvagens, the whole archipelago comprises as many as sixteen distinct lands. Although it is impossible to identify Edrisi's seventeen islands of the " Gloomy Ocean," the Arabs are generally believed not only to have been acquainted with the Khalidat, or "Eternal" islands, but also to have lived, jointly with the Berbers, in the eastern part of the archipelago. In the thirteenth century Ibn-Said describes in detail the voyage of the navigator, Ibn-Fathima, to the south of Cape Bojador, and his shipwreck on the Arguin Bank. Nevertheless De Macedo has endeavoured to show that the Arabs were ignorant of the existence of the Canaries, and that their geographers merely repeated with modifications the texts of the ancients referring to this archipelago. While the Portuguese sailors were still cautiously feeling their way along the African seaboard, the Canaries, which lie south of Cape Nun, had long been visited by those of other nations. Before the expeditions of Gil Eannes, the Portuguese had not ventured to double Cape Nun, and did not get beyond Cape Bojador till 1436, whereas the Genoese were already acquainted with the Canaries at the end of the thirteenth century, and had even occupied Lanzarote, one of the group. Petrarch, born in 1304, tells us that " a full generation before his time "