DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0183
173
with illustrious fugitives of that memorable period, was the prac-
tice of ancient navigators in giving the names of their gods and
heroes to the lands which they discovered, in the same manner as
the moderns do those of their saints and martyrs: for in those early
ages every name thus given became the subject of a fable, because
the name continued when those who gave it were forgotten. In
modern times every navigator keeps a journal; which, if it contains
any new or important information, is printed and made public ; so
that, when a succeeding navigator finds any traces of European
language or manners in a remote country, he knows from whence
they came : but, had there been no narratives left by the first mo-
dem discoverers, and subsequent adventurers had found the name
of St. Francis or St. Anthony with some faint traces of Christianity
in any of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, they might have con-
cluded, or at least conjectured, that those saints had actually been
there : whence the first convent of monks, that arose in a colony,
would soon make out a complete history of their arrival and abode
there; the hardships which they endured, the miracles which they
wrought, and the relics which they left for the edification of the
faithful and the emolument of their teachers.
210. As the heroes of the Iliad were as familiar to the Greek
navigators, as the saints of the Calendar were to the Spanish and
Portuguese, and treated by them with the same sort of respect and
veneration ; there can be little doubt that they left the same sort of
memorials of them, wherever they made discoveries or piratical
settlements ; which memorials, being afterwards found among bar-
barous nations by succeeding navigators, when the discoverers
were forgotten and the settlers vanished; they concluded that those
heroes had actually been there : and as the works of the Greek
poets, by the general diffusion of the Greek language after the
Macedonian conquest, became universally known and admired,
those nations themselves eagerly co-operated in the deception
by ingrafting the Greek fables upon their own, and greedily
catching at any links of affinity which might connect them with a
people, from whom all that was excellent in art, literature, and
society, seemed to be derived.
with illustrious fugitives of that memorable period, was the prac-
tice of ancient navigators in giving the names of their gods and
heroes to the lands which they discovered, in the same manner as
the moderns do those of their saints and martyrs: for in those early
ages every name thus given became the subject of a fable, because
the name continued when those who gave it were forgotten. In
modern times every navigator keeps a journal; which, if it contains
any new or important information, is printed and made public ; so
that, when a succeeding navigator finds any traces of European
language or manners in a remote country, he knows from whence
they came : but, had there been no narratives left by the first mo-
dem discoverers, and subsequent adventurers had found the name
of St. Francis or St. Anthony with some faint traces of Christianity
in any of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, they might have con-
cluded, or at least conjectured, that those saints had actually been
there : whence the first convent of monks, that arose in a colony,
would soon make out a complete history of their arrival and abode
there; the hardships which they endured, the miracles which they
wrought, and the relics which they left for the edification of the
faithful and the emolument of their teachers.
210. As the heroes of the Iliad were as familiar to the Greek
navigators, as the saints of the Calendar were to the Spanish and
Portuguese, and treated by them with the same sort of respect and
veneration ; there can be little doubt that they left the same sort of
memorials of them, wherever they made discoveries or piratical
settlements ; which memorials, being afterwards found among bar-
barous nations by succeeding navigators, when the discoverers
were forgotten and the settlers vanished; they concluded that those
heroes had actually been there : and as the works of the Greek
poets, by the general diffusion of the Greek language after the
Macedonian conquest, became universally known and admired,
those nations themselves eagerly co-operated in the deception
by ingrafting the Greek fables upon their own, and greedily
catching at any links of affinity which might connect them with a
people, from whom all that was excellent in art, literature, and
society, seemed to be derived.