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poets frequently resorted to Æthiopia to celebrate their festivities, yet neither the South nor the East can be looked upon as the region of fable in the primitive geography of the Greeks. When we turn to the West and North, we find a much larger share of mythic story mingling itself with the slender materials of certain information. The straits which separate Italy and Sicily are the portals which conduct Homer to the regions of fable; all beyond them is marvellous, and it is in this quarter alone that the pictures of the poet lose the colour of reality. Sicily he had some faint knowledge; the names of the Sicani and Siculi had reached him, and the account of the Cyclops is too true a picture of savage life to allow us to suppose it a mere sketch of fancy. The picture of men who, "relying on the gods for subsistence, neither sow nor reap; who live in caves on the tops of mountains, without laws or a chief, and not caring for one another; and who are ignorant of the use of ships, by which the luxuries of life are diffused;" such a picture, it is evident, is drawn with fidelity from the rudest condition of savage life.

From Sicily Ulysses is conducted by the poet to the isles of Æolus, from whom the hero obtains a bag containing the winds: with this present he sets sail, and is wafted gently homewards. On the tenth day Ithaca is already in sight, when, overcome with fatigue, he unluckily falls asleep, and his companions cut the bag, supposing it to be filled with treasures. Instantly the winds rush forth, and a hurricane arises, which drives the ship back to the isle of Æolus. The next place which Ulysses reaches is the country of the Læstrygons, a race of cannibals; and it is historically important to observe, that Homer places these fairly in the region of the miraculous. He next arrives at Eca, the island of Circe, from which he appears to lose sight altogether of the land of certainty. The hero, receiving the instructions of Circe, crosses the ocean to the shores of Proserpine, to the place where the Acheron, Periphlegethon, and other tributary rivers flow into the Styx. Sailing the whole day, he

comes at last to the ends of the ocean, where the Cimmerians dwell, wrapped in profound gloom; for they see neither the rising nor the setting sun, but the veil of night is constantly spread above them. Having here visited the infernal regions, he re-embarks, quits the ocean, and reaches the isle of Circe in the smooth sea at the first appearance of Aurora. On his voyage homeward afterwards he passes the Planctæ, or wandering rocks, escapes the Sirens, with the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, and thus returns once more within the circle of probability.

It is in vain that commentators and scholiasts have endeavoured to give precision to Homer's geography of the West. In vain they exhaust their learning to prove that Ulysses did not really sail into the Atlantic; yet the poet expressly says that he reached even the uttermost bounds of the ocean. But what business have chart and compass in the ocean of the early Grecian poets? It is true that Ulysses made but one day's sail from the isle of Circe; but then it must be observed, that in that island were the choirs of Aurora and the rising of the sun, so that the ends of the ocean could not be far off; besides, it is unreasonable to limit the speed of the mariner who profited from the counsels of a goddess, and who could occasionally freight his ship with the winds of Æolus. Some learned scholars have fixed on the promontory of Circæi, once nearly insulated by the Pontine marshes, as the island of the nymph; and at a suitable distance they have found the Styx and descent of Avernus. They thus inadvertently bring Cimmeria and its perpetual darkness into the smiling clime of Italy. The same system finds in Strongyle the once wandering rocks, and in Lipari the domain of Eolus. But in fact the old bard's geographical information beyond the nearest shores of Italy is purely Hesperian; that is to say, it is wholly derived from myths and traditions, without the slightest reference to distance or local details. Homer had heard of the ocean and Cimmeria in the west, but he knew not how far off they were. He

never purposely alloys the truth, or postpones it to fiction; but, on the other hand, he relates mythical traditions as readily as facts; and we shall find, as we proceed, that the bulk of these traditions always pointed to the Western Ocean.

When the stream of mankind was flowing constantly towards the West, it is no wonder that the weak reflux of positive information from that quarter should exhibit only the impulses of hope and superstition. Greece was nearly on the western verge of the world, as it was known to Homer, and it was natural for him to give wing to his imagination as he turned towards the dim prospects which spread beyond; but that his fables, far from being arbitrary, were founded on very ancient and widely-diffused myths, will clearly appear when we come to treat of the geography of the Hindoos.

Among the strange nations with which Ulysses became acquainted in his wanderings, the Phæacians deserve a moment's attention. It appears that they were much more refined and industrious than the Greeks; that they were better informed in the arts, more skilful navigators, and more addicted to commerce. They inhabited the island of Scheria, supposed to be the same as Corcyra, having been forced to leave their former abode in Hypereia, from the troublesome neighbourhood of the Cyclops. This mention of a retrograde movement from west to east, and of a people more cultivated than the Greeks, is extremely remarkable at so early an age. Homer names likewise the Siculi and Sicani, historic names; but yet his island Trinacria is rather mythic than real; he places in it, with mythical propriety, the flocks and herds of the sun. It is remarkable, too, that he calls it Thrinakia, from which it is manifest that the word was strange to him, and not of Greek derivation. Indeed, it is more probable that Sicily had its name of Trinacria, or three-peaked, from superstition, than from any acquaintance with its figure, which could hardly be known in the infancy of navigation.

Homer's knowledge, it is evident, hardly extended westward beyond Greece; but Hesiod, who lived perhaps a century later (750 B. C.), surprises us by his mention of " King Latinus, who ruled over all the Tyrseni." His acquaintance with the west, indeed, appears to have reached beyond Italy; for, in conjunction with the Scythians and Æthiopians, he mentions the Lygurians, who at that time probably occupied the whole length of coast from Spain to the Alps. Hesiod also names the Ister, or Danube, the Phasis, and the Eridanus, a name, however, which was so vaguely employed by the early Greek writers, that it would be hazardous to suppose it in this instance applied to the river Po. The Nile, known to Homer as the Ægyptus, received from Hesiod its proper designation, along with its seven mouths.

Ulysses never boasts of being the first who navigated the Western Ocean; but he was the first who escaped the dangers of the Planctæ, with the exception of Jason, to whom propitious Juno kindly lent her assistance to guide the Argo through the rocks. This mention of the chief Argonaut by the father of Grecian poetry is calculated to awaken regret at the imperfect accounts which remain of an expedition so important in the history of primitive geography. Many able scholars, indeed, have assented to the opinion of Gesner, that the poem of the Argonauts which bears the name of Orpheus is at least as ancient as the time of Homer; but a preponderating weight of internal evidence and of authority assigns it to a much later age. It appears, however, to have been really compiled from old current traditions, and may, on that account, be employed to illustrate the primitive geography of the Greeks.

Jason and the Argonautic Expedition.

As to the reality of the Argonautic expedition there cannot be any reasonable doubt. Like all other events

of remote antiquity, it comes to us mixed with much that is fabulous; but yet the enterprise which forms the basis of the story has nothing in it of an improbable character. Ancient writers unanimously state, that Jason built a ship of unusual size; manned a fleet with the bravest warriors of Greece; and directed his course to Colchis in the Euxine Sea. The date usually assigned to this expedition is the year 1263 before the Christian era. Traditions remain which prove that Jason was not the first Greek who attempted this navigation. Sinope is supposed to have been founded by some of the followers of that Apis or Epaphus who migrated from Argos into Egypt in the year 1866 B. C. Phryxus and Helle, whose story is almost lost in fable, preceded Jason by perhaps a century. Cytorus, mentioned by Homer, was founded by the son of Phryxus; and a temple built by him at Athena, to the east of Trebizond, is said by Pausanias to have served as a model to the Dioscuri, for that which they founded on their return home. The tradition of Jason's expedition was preserved in Colchis and Armenia, where he was said to have founded cities; nay, he was even thought to have penetrated into Media. The river Parthenia flowing into the Euxine, and the Halizones who inhabited the shores of that sea, suggest, at once, Boeotia and Samos, where the same names occur. As a general proof, however, of the early acquaintance of the Greeks with the Euxine, it may be sufficient to observe that the Grecian colonies in that sea, which acquired historical importance, preceded, by more than two centuries, those of Sicily and the West.

The local traditions regarding Jason, and the monuments of his progress along the shores of the Euxine, were too numerous and positive in antiquity to allow of any doubts as to the existence of that hero. All au

thors conduct him to the city of Æetes. That he should carry off the king's daughter is consistent with the manners of the age; that the proposed object of the enterprise should, at this distance of time, be, or