aloft, and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still
soaring higher and higher, till he be come to his full pitch, and in
the end when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a
sudden: so will I, having now come at last into these ample fields of
air, wherein I may freely expatiate and exercise myself for my
recreation, awhile rove, wander round about the world, mount aloft to
those ethereal orbs and celestial spheres, and so descend to my former
elements again. In which progress I will first see whether that
relation of the friar of [2997] Oxford be true, concerning those
northern parts under the pole (if I meet obiter with the wandering Jew,
Elias Artifex, or Lucian's Icaromenippus, they shall be my guides)
whether there be such 4. Euripes, and a great rock of loadstones, which
may cause the needle in the compass still to bend that way, and what
should be the true cause of the variation of the compass, [2998]is it a
magnetical rock, or the pole-star, as Cardan will; or some other star
in the bear, as Marsilius Ficinus; or a magnetical meridian, as
Maurolieus; Vel situs in vena terrae, as Agricola; or the nearness of
the next continent, as Cabeus will; or some other cause, as Scaliger,
Cortesius, Conimbricenses, Peregrinus contend; why at the Azores it
looks directly north, otherwise not? In the Mediterranean or Levant (as
some observe) it varies 7. grad. by and by 12. and then 22. In the
Baltic Seas, near Rasceburg in Finland, the needle runs round, if any
ships come that way, though [2999]Martin Ridley write otherwise, that
the needle near the Pole will hardly be forced from his direction. 'Tis
fit to be inquired whether certain rules may be made of it, as 11.
grad. Lond. variat. alibi 36. &c. and that which is more prodigious,
the variation varies in the same place, now taken accurately, 'tis so
much after a few years quite altered from that it was: till we have
better intelligence, let our Dr. Gilbert, and Nicholas [3000]Cabeus the
Jesuit, that have both written great volumes of this subject, satisfy
these inquisitors. Whether the sea be open and navigable by the Pole
arctic, and which is the likeliest way, that of Bartison the Hollander,
under the Pole itself, which for some reasons I hold best: or by Fretum
Davis, or Nova Zembla. Whether [3001]Hudson's discovery be true of a
new found ocean, any likelihood of Button's Bay in 50. degrees,
Hubberd's Hope in 60. that of ut ultra near Sir Thomas Roe's welcome in
Northwest Fox, being that the sea ebbs and flows constantly there 15.
foot in 12. hours, as our [3002]new cards inform us that California is
not a cape, but an island, and the west winds make the neap tides equal
to the spring, or that there be any probability to pass by the straits
of Anian to China, by the promontory of Tabin. If there be, I shall
soon perceive whether [3003]Marcus Polus the Venetian's narration be
true or false, of that great city of Quinsay and Cambalu; whether there
be any such places, or that as [3004]Matth. Riccius the Jesuit hath
written, China and Cataia be all one, the great Cham of Tartary and the
king of China be the same; Xuntain and Quinsay, and the city of Cambalu
be that new Peking, or such a wall 400 leagues long to part China from
Tartary: whether [3005]Presbyter John be in Asia or Africa; M. Polus
Venetus puts him in Asia, [3006]the most received opinion is, that he
is emperor of the Abyssines, which of old was Ethiopia, now Nubia,
under the equator in Africa. Whether [3007]Guinea be an island or part
of the continent, or that hungry [3008]Spaniard's discovery of Terra
Australis Incognita, or Magellanica, be as true as that of Mercurius
Britannius, or his of Utopia, or his of Lucinia. And yet in likelihood
it may be so, for without all question it being extended from the
tropic of Capricorn to the circle Antarctic, and lying as it doth in
the temperate zone, cannot choose but yield in time some flourishing
kingdoms to succeeding ages, as America did unto the Spaniards. Shouten
and Le Meir have done well in the discovery of the Straits of Magellan,
in finding a more convenient passage to Mare pacificum: methinks some
of our modern argonauts should prosecute the rest. As I go by
Madagascar, I would see that great bird [3009]ruck, that can carry a
man and horse or an elephant, with that Arabian phoenix described by
[3010]Adricomius; see the pelicans of Egypt, those Scythian gryphes in
Asia: and afterwards in Africa examine the fountains of Nilus, whether
Herodotus, [3011]Seneca, Plin. lib. 5. cap. 9. Strabo. lib. 5. give a
true cause of his annual flowing, [3012]Pagaphetta discourse rightly of
it, or of Niger and Senegal; examine Cardan, [3013]Scaliger's reasons,
and the rest. Is it from those Etesian winds, or melting of snow in the
mountains under the equator (for Jordan yearly overflows when the snow
melts in Mount Libanus), or from those great dropping perpetual showers
which are so frequent to the inhabitants within the tropics, when the
sun is vertical, and cause such vast inundations in Senegal, Maragnan,
Oronoco and the rest of those great rivers in Zona Torrida, which have
all commonly the same passions at set times: and by good husbandry and
policy hereafter no doubt may come to be as populous, as well tilled,
as fruitful, as Egypt itself or Cauchinthina? I would observe all those
motions of the sea, and from what cause they proceed, from the moon (as
the vulgar hold) or earth's motion, which Galileus, in the fourth
dialogue of his system of the world, so eagerly proves, and firmly
demonstrates; or winds, as [3014] some will. Why in that quiet ocean of
Zur, in mari pacifico, it is scarce perceived, in our British seas most
violent, in the Mediterranean and Red Sea so vehement, irregular, and
diverse? Why the current in that Atlantic Ocean should still be in some
places from, in some again towards the north, and why they come sooner
than go? and so from Moabar to Madagascar in that Indian Ocean, the
merchants come in three weeks, as [3015]Scaliger discusseth, they
return scarce in three months, with the same or like winds: the
continual current is from east to west. Whether Mount Athos, Pelion,
Olympus, Ossa, Caucasus, Atlas, be so high as Pliny, Solinus, Mela
relate, above clouds, meteors, ubi nec aurae nec venti spirant
(insomuch that they that ascend die suddenly very often, the air is so
subtile,) 1250 paces high, according to that measure of Dicearchus, or
78 miles perpendicularly high, as Jacobus Mazonius, sec. 3. et 4.
expounding that place of Aristotle about Caucasus; and as
[3016]Blancanus the Jesuit contends out of Clavius and Nonius
demonstrations de Crepusculis: or rather 32 stadiums, as the most
received opinion is; or 4 miles, which the height of no mountain doth
perpendicularly exceed, and is equal to the greatest depths of the sea,
which is, as Scaliger holds, 1580 paces, Exer. 38, others 100 paces. I
would see those inner parts of America, whether there be any such great
city of Manoa, or Eldorado, in that golden empire, where the highways
are as much beaten (one reports) as between Madrid and Valadolid in
Spain; or any such Amazons as he relates, or gigantic Patagones in
Chica; with that miraculous mountain [3017]Ybouyapab in the Northern
Brazil, cujus jugum sternitur in amoenissimam planitiem, &c. or that of
Pariacacca so high elevated in Peru. [3018]The peak of Tenerife how
high it is? 70 miles, or 50 as Patricius holds, or 9 as Snellius
demonstrates in his Eratosthenes: see that strange
[3019]Cirknickzerksey lake in Carniola, whose waters gush so fast out
of the ground, that they will overtake a swift horseman, and by and by
with as incredible celerity are supped up: which Lazius and Wernerus
make an argument of the Argonauts sailing under ground. And that vast
den or hole called [3020]Esmellen in Muscovia, quae visitur horriendo
hiatu, &c. which if anything casually fall in, makes such a roaring
noise, that no thunder, or ordnance, or warlike engine can make the
like; such another is Gilber's Cave in Lapland, with many the like. I
would examine the Caspian Sea, and see where and how it exonerates
itself, after it hath taken in Volga, Jaxares, Oxus, and those great
rivers; at the mouth of Oby, or where? What vent the Mexican lake hath,
the Titicacan in Peru, or that circular pool in the vale of Terapeia,
of which Acosta l. 3. c. 16. hot in a cold country, the spring of which
boils up in the middle twenty foot square, and hath no vent but
exhalation: and that of Mare mortuum in Palestine, of Thrasymene, at
Peruzium in Italy: the Mediterranean itself. For from the ocean, at the
Straits of Gibraltar, there is a perpetual current into the Levant, and
so likewise by the Thracian Bosphorus out of the Euxine or Black Sea,
besides all those great rivers of Nile, Po, Rhone, &c. how is this
water consumed, by the sun or otherwise? I would find out with Trajan
the fountains of Danube, of Ganges, Oxus, see those Egyptian pyramids,
Trajan's bridge, Grotto de Sybilla, Lucullus's fishponds, the temple of
Nidrose, &c. (And, if I could, observe what becomes of swallows,
storks, cranes, cuckoos, nightingales, redstarts, and many other kind
of singing birds, water-fowls, hawks, &c. some of them are only seen in
summer, some in winter; some are observed in the [3021]snow, and at no
other times, each have their seasons. In winter not a bird is in
Muscovy to be found, but at the spring in an instant the woods and
hedges are full of them, saith [3022]Herbastein: how comes it to pass?
Do they sleep in winter, like Gesner's Alpine mice; or do they lie hid
(as [3023]Olaus affirms) in the bottom of lakes and rivers, spiritum
continentes? often so found by fishermen in Poland and Scandia, two
together, mouth to mouth, wing to wing; and when the spring comes they
revive again, or if they be brought into a stove, or to the fireside.
Or do they follow the sun, as Peter Martyr legat Babylonica l. 2.
manifestly convicts, out of his own knowledge; for when he was
ambassador in Egypt, he saw swallows, Spanish kites, [3024]and many
such other European birds, in December and January very familiarly
flying, and in great abundance, about Alexandria, ubi floridae tunc
arbores ac viridaria. Or lie they hid in caves, rocks, and hollow
trees, as most think, in deep tin-mines or sea-cliffs, as [3025]Mr.
Carew gives out? I conclude of them all, for my part, as [3026]Munster
doth of cranes and storks; whence they come, whither they go,
incompertum adhuc, as yet we know not. We see them here, some in
summer, some in winter; their coming and going is sure in the night: in
the plains of Asia (saith he) the storks meet on such a set day, he
that comes last is torn in pieces, and so they get them gone. Many
strange places, Isthmi, Euripi, Chersonesi, creeks, havens,
promontories, straits, Lakes, baths, rocks, mountains, places, and
fields, where cities have been ruined or swallowed, battles fought,
creatures, sea-monsters, remora, &c. minerals, vegetals. Zoophytes were
fit to be considered in such an expedition, and amongst the rest that
of [3027]Harbastein his Tartar lamb, [3028]Hector Boethius goosebearing
tree in the orchards, to which Cardan lib. 7. cap. 36. de rerum
varietat. subscribes: [3029]Vertomannus wonderful palm, that [3030] fly
in Hispaniola, that shines like a torch in the night, that one may well
see to write; those spherical stones in Cuba which nature hath so made,
and those like birds, beasts, fishes, crowns, swords, saws, pots, &c.
usually found in the metal mines in Saxony about Mansfield, and in
Poland near Nokow and Pallukie, as [3031]Munster and others relate.
Many rare creatures and novelties each part of the world affords:
amongst the rest, I would know for a certain whether there be any such
men, as Leo Suavius, in his comment on Paracelsus de sanit. tuend. and
[3032]Gaguinus records in his description of Muscovy, that in
Lucomoria, a province in Russia, lie fast asleep as dead all winter,
from the 27 of November, like frogs and swallows, benumbed with cold,
but about the 24 of April in the spring they revive again, and go about
their business. I would examine that demonstration of Alexander
Picolomineus, whether the earth's superficies be bigger than the seas:
or that of Archimedes be true, the superficies of all water is even?
Search the depth, and see that variety of sea-monsters and fishes,
mermaids, seamen, horses, &c. which it affords. Or whether that be true
which Jordanus Brunus scoffs at, that if God did not detain it, the sea
would overflow the earth by reason of his higher site, and which
Josephus Blancanus the Jesuit in his interpretation on those
mathematical places of Aristotle, foolishly fears, and in a just tract
proves by many circumstances, that in time the sea will waste away the
land, and all the globe of the earth shall be covered with waters;
risum teneatis amici? what the sea takes away in one place it adds in
another. Methinks he might rather suspect the sea should in time be
filled by land, trees grow up, carcasses, &c. that all-devouring fire,
omnia devorans et consumens, will sooner cover and dry up the vast
ocean with sand and ashes. I would examine the true seat of that
terrestrial [3033]paradise, and where Ophir was whence Solomon did
fetch his gold: from Peruana, which some suppose, or that Aurea
Chersonesus, as Dominicus Niger, Arias Montanus, Goropius, and others
will. I would censure all Pliny's, Solinus', Strabo's, Sir John
Mandeville's, Olaus Magnus', Marcus Polus' lies, correct those errors
in navigation, reform cosmographical charts, and rectify longitudes, if
it were possible; not by the compass, as some dream, with Mark Ridley
in his treatise of magnetical bodies, cap. 43. for as Cabeus magnet
philos. lib. 3. cap. 4. fully resolves, there is no hope thence, yet I
would observe some better means to find them out.
I would have a convenient place to go down with Orpheus, Ulysses,
Hercules, [3034]Lucian's Menippus, at St. Patrick's purgatory, at
Trophonius' den, Hecla in Iceland, Aetna in Sicily, to descend and see
what is done in the bowels of the earth: do stones and metals grow
there still? how come fir trees to be [3035]digged out from tops of
hills, as in our mosses, and marshes all over Europe? How come they to
dig up fish bones, shells, beams, ironworks, many fathoms under ground,
and anchors in mountains far remote from all seas? [3036]Anno 1460 at
Bern in Switzerland 50 fathom deep a ship was digged out of a mountain,
where they got metal ore, in which were 48 carcasses of men, with other
merchandise. That such things are ordinarily found in tops of hills,
Aristotle insinuates in his meteors, [3037]Pomponius Mela in his first
book, c. de Numidia, and familiarly in the Alps, saith [3038]Blancanus
the Jesuit, the like is to be seen: came this from earthquakes, or from
Noah's flood, as Christians suppose, or is there a vicissitude of sea
and land, as Anaximenes held of old, the mountains of Thessaly would
become seas, and seas again mountains? The whole world belike should be
new moulded, when it seemed good to those all-commanding powers, and
turned inside out, as we do haycocks in harvest, top to bottom, or
bottom to top: or as we turn apples to the fire, move the world upon
his centre; that which is under the poles now, should be translated to
the equinoctial, and that which is under the torrid zone to the circle
arctic and antarctic another while, and so be reciprocally warmed by
the sun: or if the worlds be infinite, and every fixed star a sun, with
his compassing planets (as Brunus and Campanella conclude) cast three
or four worlds into one; or else of one world make three or four new,
as it shall seem to them best. To proceed, if the earth be 21,500 miles
in [3039]compass, its diameter is 7,000 from us to our antipodes, and
what shall be comprehended in all that space? What is the centre of the
earth? is it pure element only, as Aristotle decrees, inhabited (as
[3040] Paracelsus thinks) with creatures, whose chaos is the earth: or
with fairies, as the woods and waters (according to him) are with
nymphs, or as the air with spirits? Dionisiodorus, a mathematician in
[3041]Pliny, that sent a letter, ad superos after he was dead, from the
centre of the earth, to signify what distance the same centre was from
the superficies of the same, viz. 42,000 stadiums, might have done well
to have satisfied all these doubts. Or is it the place of hell, as
Virgil in his Aenides, Plato, Lucian, Dante, and others poetically
describe it, and as many of our divines think? In good earnest, Anthony
Rusca, one of the society of that Ambrosian College, in Milan, in his
great volume de Inferno, lib. 1. cap. 47. is stiff in this tenet, 'tis
a corporeal fire tow, cap. 5. I. 2. as he there disputes. Whatsoever
philosophers write (saith [3042]Surius) there be certain mouths of
hell, and places appointed for the punishment of men's souls, as at
Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead men are familiarly seen, and
sometimes talk with the living: God would have such visible places,
that mortal men might be certainly informed, that there be such
punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God. Kranzius Dan.
hist. lib. 2. cap. 24. subscribes to this opinion of Surius, so doth
Colerus cap. 12. lib. de immortal animae (out of the authority belike
of St. Gregory, Durand, and the rest of the schoolmen, who derive as
much from Aetna in Sicily, Lipari, Hiera, and those sulphureous
vulcanian islands) making Terra del Fuego, and those frequent volcanoes
in America, of which Acosta lib. 3. cap. 24. that fearful mount
Hecklebirg in Norway, an especial argument to prove it, [3043]where
lamentable screeches and howlings are continually heard, which strike a
terror to the auditors; fiery chariots are commonly seen to bring in
the souls of men in the likeness of crows, and devils ordinarily go in
and out. Such another proof is that place near the Pyramids in Egypt,
by Cairo, as well to confirm this as the resurrection, mentioned by
[3044]Kornmannus mirac. mort. lib. 1. cap. 30. Camerarius oper. suc.
cap. 37. Bredenbachius pereg. ter. sanct. and some others, where once a
year dead bodies arise about March, and walk, after awhile hide
themselves again: thousands of people come yearly to see them. But
these and such like testimonies others reject, as fables, illusions of
spirits, and they will have no such local known place, more than Styx
or Phlegethon, Pluto's court, or that poetical Infernus, where Homer's
soul was seen hanging on a tree, &c., to which they ferried over in
Charon's boat, or went down at Hermione in Greece, compendiaria ad
Infernos via, which is the shortest cut, quia nullum a mortuis naulum
eo loci exposcunt, (saith [3045]Gerbelius) and besides there were no
fees to be paid. Well then, is it hell, or purgatory, as Bellarmine: or
Limbus patrum, as Gallucius will, and as Rusca will (for they have made
maps of it) [3046]or Ignatius parler? Virgil, sometimes bishop of
Saltburg (as Aventinus _anno_ 745 relates) by Bonifacius bishop of
Mentz was therefore called in question, because he held antipodes
(which they made a doubt whether Christ died for) and so by that means
took away the seat of hell, or so contracted it, that it could bear no
proportion to heaven, and contradicted that opinion of Austin, Basil,
Lactantius that held the earth round as a trencher (whom Acosta and
common experience more largely confute) but not as a ball; and
Jerusalem where Christ died the middle of it; or Delos, as the fabulous
Greeks feigned: because when Jupiter let two eagles loose, to fly from
the world's ends east and west, they met at Delos. But that scruple of
Bonifacius is now quite taken away by our latter divines: Franciscus
Ribera, in cap. 14. Apocalyps. will have hell a material and local fire
in the centre of the earth, 200 Italian miles in diameter, as he
defines it out of those words, Exivit sanguis de terra—per stadia mille
sexcenta, &c. But Lessius lib. 13. de moribus divinis, cap. 24. will
have this local hell far less, one Dutch mile in diameter, all filled
with fire and brimstone: because, as he there demonstrates, that space,
cubically multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred
thousand millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square)
which will abundantly suffice; Cum cerium sit, inquit, facta
subductione, non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum. But if it
be no material fire (as Sco. Thomas, Bonaventure, Soncinas, Voscius,
and others argue) it may be there or elsewhere, as Keckerman disputes
System. Theol. for sure somewhere it is, certum est alicubi, etsi
definitus circulus non assignetur. I will end the controversy in
[3047]Austin's words, Better doubt of things concealed, than to contend
about uncertainties, where Abraham's bosom is, and hell fire: [3048]Vix
a mansuetis, a contentiosis nunquam invenitur; scarce the meek, the
contentious shall never find. If it be solid earth, 'tis the fountain
of metals, waters, which by his innate temper turns air into water,
which springs up in several chinks, to moisten the earth's superficies,
and that in a tenfold proportion (as Aristotle holds) or else these
fountains come directly from the sea, by [3049]secret passages, and so
made fresh again, by running through the bowels of the earth; and are
either thick, thin, hot, cold, as the matter or minerals are by which
they pass; or as Peter Martyr Ocean. Decad. lib. 9. and some others
hold, from [3050] abundance of rain that falls, or from that ambient
heat and cold, which alters that inward heat, and so per consequens the
generation of waters. Or else it may be full of wind, or a sulphureous
innate fire, as our meteorologists inform us, which sometimes breaking
out, causeth those horrible earthquakes, which are so frequent in these
days in Japan, China, and oftentimes swallow up whole cities. Let
Lucian's Menippus consult with or ask of Tiresias, if you will not
believe philosophers, he shall clear all your doubts when he makes a
second voyage.
In the mean time let us consider of that which is sub dio, and find out
a true cause, if it be possible, of such accidents, meteors,
alterations, as happen above ground. Whence proceed that variety of
manners, and a distinct character (as it were) to several nations? Some
are wise, subtile, witty; others dull, sad and heavy; some big, some
little, as Tully de Fato, Plato in Timaeo, Vegetius and Bodine prove at
large, method. cap. 5. some soft, and some hardy, barbarous, civil,
black, dun, white, is it from the air, from the soil, influence of
stars, or some other secret cause? Why doth Africa breed so many
venomous beasts, Ireland none? Athens owls, Crete none? [3051]Why hath
Daulis and Thebes no swallows (so Pausanius informeth us) as well as
the rest of Greece, [3052]Ithaca no hares, Pontus asses, Scythia swine?
whence comes this variety of complexions, colours, plants, birds,
beasts, [3053]metals, peculiar almost to every place? Why so many
thousand strange birds and beasts proper to America alone, as Acosta
demands lib. 4. cap. 36. were they created in the six days, or ever in
Noah's ark? if there, why are they not dispersed and found in other
countries? It is a thing (saith he) hath long held me in suspense; no
Greek, Latin, Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as differing
from our European animals, as an egg and a chestnut: and which is more,
kine, horses, sheep, &c., till the Spaniards brought them, were never
heard of in those parts? How comes it to pass, that in the same site,
in one latitude, to such as are Perioeci, there should be such
difference of soil, complexion, colour, metal, air, &c. The Spaniards
are white, and so are Italians, when as the inhabitants about
[3054]Caput bonae spei are blackamoors, and yet both alike distant from
the equator: nay they that dwell in the same parallel line with these
Negroes, as about the Straits of Magellan, are white coloured, and yet
some in Presbyter John's country in Ethiopia are dun; they in Zeilan
and Malabar parallel with them again black: Manamotapa in Africa, and
St. Thomas Isle are extreme hot, both under the line, coal black their
inhabitants, whereas in Peru they are quite opposite in colour, very
temperate, or rather cold, and yet both alike elevated. Moscow in 53.
degrees of latitude extreme cold, as those northern countries usually
are, having one perpetual hard frost all winter long; and in 52. deg.
lat. sometimes hard frost and snow all summer, as Button's Bay, &c., or
by fits; and yet [3055]England near the same latitude, and Ireland,
very moist, warm, and more temperate in winter than Spain, Italy, or
France. Is it the sea that causeth this difference, and the air that
comes from it: Why then is [3056]Ister so cold near the Euxine, Pontus,
Bithynia, and all Thrace; frigidas regiones Maginus calls them, and yet
their latitude is but 42. which should be hot: [3057] Quevira, or Nova
Albion in America, bordering on the sea, was so cold in July, that our
[3058]Englishmen could hardly endure it. At Noremberga in 45. lat. all
the sea is frozen ice, and yet in a more southern latitude than ours.
New England, and the island of Cambrial Colchos, which that noble
gentleman Mr. Vaughan, or Orpheus junior, describes in his Golden
Fleece, is in the same latitude with little Britain in France, and yet
their winter begins not till January, their spring till May; which
search he accounts worthy of an astrologer: is this from the easterly
winds, or melting of ice and snow dissolved within the circle arctic;
or that the air being thick, is longer before it be warm by the
sunbeams, and once heated like an oven will keep itself from cold? Our
climes breed lice, [3059] Hungary and Ireland male audiunt in this
kind; come to the Azores, by a secret virtue of that air they are
instantly consumed, and all our European vermin almost, saith Ortelius.
Egypt is watered with Nilus not far from the sea, and yet there it
seldom or never rains: Rhodes, an island of the same nature, yields not
a cloud, and yet our islands ever dropping and inclining to rain. The
Atlantic Ocean is still subject to storms, but in Del Zur, or Mare
pacifico, seldom or never any. Is it from tropic stars, apertio
portarum, in the dodecotemories or constellations, the moon's mansions,
such aspects of planets, such winds, or dissolving air, or thick air,
which causeth this and the like differences of heat and cold? Bodin
relates of a Portugal ambassador, that coming from [3060]Lisbon to
[3061]Danzig in Spruce, found greater heat there than at any time at
home. Don Garcia de Sylva, legate to Philip III., king of Spain,
residing at Ispahan in Persia, 1619, in his letter to the Marquess of
Bedmar, makes mention of greater cold in Ispahan, whose lat. is 31. gr.
than ever he felt in Spain, or any part of Europe. The torrid zone was
by our predecessors held to be uninhabitable, but by our modern
travellers found to be most temperate, bedewed with frequent rains, and
moistening showers, the breeze and cooling blasts in some parts, as
[3062]Acosta describes, most pleasant and fertile. Arica in Chile is by
report one of the sweetest places that ever the sun shined on, Olympus
terrae, a heaven on earth: how incomparably do some extol Mexico in
Nova Hispania, Peru, Brazil, &c., in some again hard, dry, sandy,
barren, a very desert, and still in the same latitude. Many times we
find great diversity of air in the same [3063]country, by reason of the
site to seas, hills or dales, want of water, nature of soil, and the
like: as in Spain Arragon is aspera et sicca, harsh and evil inhabited;
Estremadura is dry, sandy, barren most part, extreme hot by reason of
his plains; Andalusia another paradise; Valencia a most pleasant air,
and continually green; so is it about [3064]Granada, on the one side
fertile plains, on the other, continual snow to be seen all summer long
on the hill tops. That their houses in the Alps are three quarters of
the year covered with snow, who knows not? That Tenerife is so cold at
the top, extreme hot at the bottom: Mons Atlas in Africa, Libanus in
Palestine, with many such, tantos inter ardores fidos nivibus,
[3065]Tacitus calls them, and Radzivilus epist. 2. fol. 27. yields it
to be far hotter there than in any part of Italy: 'tis true; but they
are highly elevated, near the middle region, and therefore cold, ob
paucam solarium radiorum refractionem, as Serrarius answers, com. in.
3. cap. Josua quaest. 5. Abulensis quaest. 37. In the heat of summer,
in the king's palace in Escurial, the air is most temperate, by reason
of a cold blast which comes from the snowy mountains of Sierra de
Cadarama hard by, when as in Toledo it is very hot: so in all other
countries. The causes of these alterations are commonly by reason of
their nearness (I say) to the middle region; but this diversity of air,
in places equally situated, elevated and distant from the pole, can
hardly be satisfied with that diversity of plants, birds, beasts, which
is so familiar with us: with Indians, everywhere, the sun is equally
distant, the same vertical stars, the same irradiations of planets,
aspects like, the same nearness of seas, the same superficies, the same