Note 79 — SINDBAD THE SEAMAN[1] AND SINDBAD THE LANDSMAN. (continued 2)

These underground rivers (which Dr. Livingstone derided) are familiar to every geographer from Spenser’s “Mole” to the Poika of Adelberg and the Timavo near Trieste. Hence “Peter Wilkins” borrowed his cavern which led him to Grandevolet. I have some experience of Sindbad’s sorrows, having once attempted to descend the Poika on foot. The Classics had the Alpheus (Pliny v. 31; and Seneca, Nat. Quæ. vi.), and the Tigris-Euphrates supposed to flow underground: and the Mediævals knew the Abana of Damascus and the Zenderúd of Isfahan.