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MOORISH VOYAGES 7 MOORISH VOYAGES The Moors who conquered Spain took up the task of Atlantic exploration from that coast after a time. Its islands appear in divers of the Arabic maps. In particular we know through Edrisi, 8 the most celebrated name of Arabic geography, of the extraordinary voyage of the Moorish Magrurin of Lisbon, who set out at some undefined time before the middle of the twelfth century to cross the Sea of Darkness and Mystery. They touched upon the Isle of Sheep and other islands which were or were to become notable in sea mythology. Perhaps these islands were real, but they are not capable of certain identification now. These Moorish adventurers seem to have reached the Sargasso Sea and to have changed their course in order to avoid its im- pediments, attaining finally what may have been one of the Canary Islands, where they suffered a short imprisonment and whence, after release, they followed the coast of Africa home- ward. Edrisi about 1 154 wrought a world map in silver (long lost) for King Robert of Sicily and also wrote a famous geography illus- trated by a world map and separate sectional or climatic maps. He devotes some space to Atlantic islands and their legends, shows a few of them, and believes in twenty-seven thousand; but the very few copies of his work which remain were made at different periods and in different nations, and their maps dis- agree surprisingly; so that it is not practicable to restore with certainty what he originally depicted. He seems to have had at least some acquaintance with the authentic island groups from the Cape Verde Islands to the Azores and Britain. The fantastic legends he appends to some of them do not seem to have greatly affected the prevailing European lore of that kind. 8 Edrisi's "Geography," in two versions, the first based on two, the second on four manuscripts, viz. : (i) P. A. Jaubert (translator) : Geographic d'Edrisi, traduite de 1'Arabe en Francais, 2 vols. (Recueil de Voyages et de Memoires public par la Socieie de Geographic, Vols. 5 and 6), Paris, 1836 and 1840; reference in Vol. 2, p. 27; (2) R. Dozy and M. J. De Goeje (translators): Description de 1'Afrique et de 1'Espagne par Edrisi: Texte arabe public pour la premiere fois d'apres les man. de Paris et d'Oxford, Leiden, 1866.