Where the blue iflands, named of Hefper old,
Their fruitful bofoms to the deep unfold.

Here changeful nature shews her various face,
And frolicks o'er the flopes with wildest grace:
Here our bold fleet their ponderous anchors threw,
The fickly cherish, and our ftores renew.

From him the warlike guardian power of Spain,

f

Whofe fpear's dread lightning o'er th' embattled plain.

Has oft o'erwhelm'd the Moors in dire difmay,

And fixt the fortune of the doubtful day;

From him we name our station of repair,

And Jago's name that isle shall ever bear.

The northern winds now curl'd the blackening main,
Our fails unfurl'd we plough the tide again:
Round Afric's coaft our winding course we fteer,
Where bending to the Eaft the shores appear.
Here Jalofo its wide extent difplays,

And vaft Mandinga fhews its numerous bays;

Whofe

f Whofe Spear's dread lightning.- -It was common for Spanish and Portuguese commanders to fee St. James in complete armour fighting in the heat of battle at the head of their armies. The general and some of his officers declared they saw the warrior faint beckoning them with his spear to advance; San Iago, Iago, was immediately echoed through the ranks, and victory usually crowned the ardour of enthusiasm.

8 Here Jalofo.The province of Jalofo lies between the two rivers, the Gambea and the Zanago. The latter has other names in the feveral countries through which it runs. In its course it makes many islands, inhabited only by wild beasts. It is navigable 150 leagues, at the end of which it is croffed by a ftupendous ridge of perpendicular rocks, over which the river rushes with fuch violence, that travellers pafs under it without any other incon

veniency

Whose mountains' fides, though parch'd and barren, hold,

In copious ftore, the feeds of beamy gold.

The Gambea here his ferpent journey takes,

And through the lawns a thousand windings makes;

A thousand swarthy tribes his current laves,

Ere mixt his waters with th' Atlantic waves.

i

The Gorgades we past, that hated shore,

Famed for its terrors by the bards of yore;

Where but one eye by Phorcus' daughters fhared,
The lorn beholders into marble ftared;

Three dreadful fifters! down whofe temples roll'd
Their hair of snakes in many a hissing fold,
And scattering horror o'er the dreary strand,
With fwarms of vipers fow'd the burning fand.

Still

veniency than the prodigious noife. The Gambea, or Rio Grande, runs 180 leagues, but is not so far navigable. It carries more water, and runs with lefs noife than the other, though filled with many rivers which water the country of Mandinga, Both rivers are branches of the Niger. Their waters have this remarkable quality; when mixed together they operate as an emetic, but when separate they do not. They abound with great variety of fishes, and their banks are covered with horfes, crocodiles, winged ferpents, elephants, ounces, wild boars, with great numbers of other animals, wonderful for the variety of their nature and different forms. Faria y Soufa.

Whofe mountains' fides.Tombotu, the mart of Mandinga gold, was greatly reforted to by the merchants of Grand Cairo, Tunis, Oran, Tremisen, Fez, Morocco, &c.

i The Gorgades. -Contra hoc promontorium (Hefperionceras) Gorgades infulæ narrantur, Gorgonum quondam domus, bidui navigatione distantes a continente, ut tradit Xenophon Lampfacenus. Penetravit in eas Hanno Pœnorum imperator, prodiditque hirta fœminarum corpora viros pernicitate evafiffe, duarumque Gorgonum cutes argumenti et miraculi gratia in Junonis templo posvit, spectatas ufque ad Carthaginem captam. Plin. Hift. Nat. 1. 6. c. 31.

I

Still to the fouth our pointed keels we guide,

And through the Auftral gulph ftill onward ride.
Her palmy forests mingling with the skies,

k

Leona's rugged steep behind us flies:

The Cape of Palms that jutting land we name,
Already confcious of our nation's fame.
Where the vext waves against our bulwarks roar,
And Lufian towers o'erlook the bending shore :
Our fails wide fwelling to the constant blast,
Now by the isle from Thomas named we past;
And Congo's fpacious realm before us rose,
Where copious Zayra's limpid billow flows;
A flood by ancient hero never seen,

Where many a temple o'er the banks of green,
Rear'd by the Lufian heroes, through the night
Of Pagan-darkness, pours the mental light.

O'er the wild waves as fouthward thus we stray, Our port unknown, unknown the watery way;

Each

Leona's rugged freep. This ridge of mountains, on account of its great height, was named by the ancients Ov xa, the chariot of the gods. Camoëns gives it its Portuguese name, Serra Lioa, the Rock of Lions.

'Rear'd by the Lufian beroes.—During the reign of John II. the Portuguefe erected several forts, and acquired great power in the extenfive regions of Guinea. Azambuja, a Portuguese captain, having obtained leave from Caramanfa, a negro prince, to erect a fort on his territories, an unlucky accident had almost proved fatal to the discoverers. A huge rock lay very commodious for a quarry; the workmen began on it; but this rock, as the `devil would have it, happened to be a negro god. The Portuguese were driven away by the enraged worshippers, who were afterwards with diffi. culty pacified by a profufion of fuch prefents as they most esteemed.

VOL. II.

E

The

Each night we fee, impreft with folemn awe,
Our guiding stars and native fkies withdraw:
In the wide void we lofe their cheering beams:
Lower and lower ftill the Pole-star gleams,

Till past the limit, where the car of day

Roll'd o'er our heads, and pour'd the downward ray,
We now difprove the faith of ancient lore;
Bootes' fhining car appears no more:

For here we faw Califto's ftar m retire

Beneath the waves, unaw'd by Juno's ire.

Here, while the fun his polar journeys takes,
His vifit doubled, double feafon makes;

Stern

The Portuguese having brought an ambassador from Congo to Lisbon, fent him back inftructed in the faith. By his means the king, queen, and about 100,000 of the people were baptized; the idols were deftroyed, and churches built. Soon after, the prince, who was then absent at war, was baptized by the name of Alonzo. His younger brother, Aquitimo, however, would not receive the faith, and the father, because allowed only one wife, turned apoftate, and left the crown to his pagan fon, who, with a great army, furrounded his brother, when only attended by fome Portuguese and christian blacks, in all only thirty-feven. By the bravery of thefe, however, Aquitimo was defeated, taken, and flain. One of Aquitimo's officers declared, they were not defeated by the thirty-feven chriftians, but by a glorious army who fought under a fhining crofs. The idols were again deftroyed, and Alonzo fent his fons, grandfons, and nephews, to Portugal to study; two of whom were afterwards bishops in Congo. Extracted from Faria y Soufa.

m Califto's ftar.—According to fable, Calisto was a nymph of Diana. Jupiter, having affumed the figure of that goddefs, completed his amorous defires. On the discovery of her pregnancy, Diana drove her from her train. She fled to the woods, where the was delivered of a fon. Juno changed them into bears, and Jupiter placed them in heaven, where they form the conftellation of Urfa major and minor. Juno, ftill enraged, entreated Thetis never to fuffer Califto to bathe in the fea. This is founded on the appearance of the northern pole-ftar to the inhabitants of our hemifphere; but when Gama approached the fouthern pole, the northern, of confequence, difappeared under the waves.

Stern winter twice deforms the changeful year,

And twice the spring's gay flowers their honours rear.
Now preffing onward, past the burning zone,

Beneath another heaven, and ftats unknown,
Unknown to heroes, and to fages old,

With fouthward prows our pathlefs course we hold :
Here gloomy night affumes a darker reign,
And fewer stars emblaze the heavenly plain;
Fewer than those that gild the northern pole,
And o'er our feas their glittering chariots roll-
While nightly thus the lonely feas we brave
Another pole-star rifes o'er the wave;
Full to the fouth a shining cross " appears
Our heaving breasts the blissful omen cheers:
Seven radiant ftars compofe the hallowed fign
That rose still higher o'er the wavy brine.
Beneath this fouthern axle of the world,.
Never, with daring fearch, was flag unfurl'd;

Nor

n Full to the fouth a fhining cross appears.

-The conftellation of the fouthern

pole was called The Cross by the Portuguese failors, from the appearance of that figure formed by seven stars, four of which are particularly luminous. Dante, who wrote before the difcovery of the fouthern hemisphere, has these remarkable lines in the first canto of his Purgatorio.

I' mi volfi a man deftra, e pofi mente

All' altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle

Non vifte mai, fuor ch' alla prima geute.

Voltaire fomewhere obferves, that this looked like a prophecy, when, in the fucceeding age, these four stars were known to be near the Antarctic pole. Dante, however, spoke allegorically of the four cardinal virtues.

I

In the fouthern hemifphere, as Camcens obferves, the nights are darker than in the northern, the skies being adorned with much fewer stars.