Note 3166 — BOOK IV. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED.

Or the “Islands of the Blest.” We cannot do better than quote a portion of the article on this subject in Dr. Smith’s “Dictionary of Ancient Geography.” “‘Fortunatæ Insulæ’ is one of those geographical names whose origin is lost in mythic darkness, but which afterwards came to have a specific application, so closely resembling the old mythical notion, as to make it almost impossible to doubt that that notion was based, in part at least, on some vague knowledge of the regions afterwards discovered. The earliest Greek poetry places the abode of the happy departed spirits far beyond the entrance of the Mediterranean, at the extremity of the earth, and upon the shores of the river Oceanus, or in islands in its midst; and Homer’s poetical description of the place may be applied almost word for word to those islands in the Atlantic, off the west coast of Africa, to which the name was given in the historical period. (Od. iv. l. 563, seq.) ‘There the life of mortals is most easy; there is no snow, nor winter, nor much rain, but Ocean is ever sending up the shrill breathing breezes of Zephyrus to refresh men.’ Their delicious climate, and their supposed identity of situation, marked out the Canary Islands, the Madeira group, and the Azores, as worthy to represent the Islands of the Blest. In the more specific sense, however, the name was applied to the two former groups; while, in its widest application, it may have even included the Cape de Verde Islands, its extension being in fact adapted to that of maritime discovery.” Pliny gives a further description of them in B. vi. c. 37.