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CHAPTER V THE ISLAND OF THE SEVEN CITIES The mythical islands of the Atlantic (les Ues fantastiques) on the old maps have had divers origins, instructive to study. Perhaps only one of them derives its name and being directly from a real human episode of a twilight period in history. When the Moors descended on Spain in 711, routed King Roderick's army beside the Guadalete, and rapidly overran the Iberian Peninsula, it was most natural, indeed nearly inevitable, that some Christian fugitives should continue their flight from the seaboard to accessible islands already known or rumored, or even desperately commit themselves in blindness to the remoter mysteries of the ocean. Such an event would afford a fabric for the embroidery of later fancy. A part of this has been preserved by record; and it is curious to watch the develop- ment of the story, which takes several forms, not differing widely, however, one from another. THE ISLAND OF BRAZIL When Pedro de Ayala, Spanish Ambassador to Great Britain, found occasion in 1498 to report English exploring activities to Ferdinand and Isabella, he wrote: The people of Bristol have, for the last seven years, sent out every year two, three, or four light ships (caravels) in search of the island of Brasil and the seven cities. 1 There is indeed one well-attested voyage of 1480 conducted by well-known navigators, seeking this insular Brazil, and it was not the earliest. 1 G. E. Weare: Cabot's Discovery of North America, London. 1897, p. -9.