LETTER XXXIV.

OF THE AFRICAN ISLANDS.

MY DEAR BOY,

I WIL

WILL now conduct you over the vast ocean to the African iflands; and for the pleasure of coming back, we will go to the farthest first.

Let us, therefore, make the best of our way from England, round the Cape of Good Hope, to the Arabian Gulf, on the eaftmost part of Africa, called alfo formerly the Red Sea,

-Whofe waves o'erthrew

Proud Pharaoh and his Memphian cavalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursu’d
The fojourners of Gothen; who beheld,
From the fafe fhore, their floating carcafes,
And broken chariot wheels.

MILTON

Being arrived here, at the mouth of the Red Sea, we will pay a vifit to the island that failors now call Socrata, famous for its aloes, esteemed the best in the world.

Sailing down, fouthward, we come to the prodigious ifland Madagafcar, or St. Lawrence, abounding in cattle and corn, and moft

of the neceffaries of life; but there is not fufficient merchandize to induce Europeans to fettle colonies in it. It has feveral petty favage kings of its own, both Arabs and Negroes, who make war on each other, and tell their prisoners for flaves to the shipping which call here, taking clothes, utensils, and other neceffaries, in return.

Near it you fee the four Comora Ifles, whofe petty kings are tributary to the Portuguefe; and hereabouts 'lies the French ifland Bourbon, and a little higher Mauritius, fo called by the Dutch, who firft touched here in 1598, from one of their princes. It is now in poffeffion of the French.

Quitting the eaftern world and the Indies, we must steer our courfe quick back round the Cape of Good Hope, into the immenfe Atlantic Ocean, where the first island we touch at is the fmall but pleafant St. Helena, at which place all the English Eaft-India fhips ftop to get fresh water and provifions in their way home. Near it are the Guinea Ilands, St. Mathew, St. Thomas, and others, not far from the coaft, under the equinoctial line, belonging to the Portuguese. Thefe were fo named by the failors who first found them on St. Helen's, St. Thomas's, and St. Matthew's festivals.

翦

Thence, northward, over against Cape Verd, is a lage group of iflands, fo called from their verdure. The ancients called them Gorgades, or land of Gorgons, and Hefperides, or Golden Apples, well known in poetical story. They now belong to the Portuguese, who are furnished with falt and goat fkins from thence.

We fee, higher north, the pleasant Canaries, belonging to the Spaniards, from whence first came our Canary wine, and the pretty finging birds, called Canary Birds. The ancients called them the Fortunate Ifles, and placed there the Elyfian Fields. They are ten or twelve in number; the chief are Teneriffe, Gomera, Ferro, and Great Canary.

The fertile iflands of Madeira, ftill higher north, belong to the Portuguese.

These islands were difcovered by Matcham, an English mariner, who fled from England for an illicit amour; he was driven on one of them by a storm, and his mistress dying there, he made a canoe, and carried the news of his discovery to Pedro, king of Arragon, which occafioned the report that the island was difcovered by a Portuguese, A. D. 1345.

We ftill go further northward till we come to the Azores, off Portugal, to which they belong, formerly abounding in gofhawks,