INDEX TO THE PLATES AND CUTS IN THE SIXTH VOLUME. Plate IV. The Frontispiece. Plate VI. At the end of the volume. THIRD CHAPTER ON HOMER. Fig. 175, The Elk, or Island of Newfoundland Page 13 the coast of Guinea. I confine myself at present to these characters only of the romance; and (to draw a little further evidence from one or two of its incidents also) I think it cannot be doubted that the promise of the government of an island, which is Sancho's motive of action, has regard to the West India islands being cultivated by negroes from Africa; while the knight's battle with the windmills, is to be explained by his prototype (South America) being constantly under the action of the trade-winds: the lance in his hand, being the equatorial line. Having premised thus much, and thus much only, on this subject, I have further to observe, that America is supposed to have been first discovered by Columbus, in the the year 1493; and that Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, is said to have died in 1516 (du Fresnoy, vol. ii., p. 71s). Now supposing the statements above nade not to be without foundation, in respect to the representative characters of the composition; can it be considered as in any degree credible, that in the short period of 23 years, the whole of Ame rica and the West Indies, should have been so completely discovered, as to become the subject of a highly-wrought romance, like that of Don Quixote? I shall conclude this volume with a short explanation of a few more hicroglyphics: indeed there is reason to think that, if a proper ground were duly laid before hand, the explanation, even of the more abstruse of the hieroglyphics, would need only to be short. Referring the reader to the plate of the zodiac at the head of the fifth volume, I would put him in mind that it has already been observed that the constellation called Sirius or the greater dog, has his prototype in the Island of Cuba; and if that island be viewed with its west end uppermost and compared with the drawing of Sirius in the Zodiac, it will not be difficult to discover their coincidence; the crown of solar rays on the dog's head having relation to one of the chief positions of the sun, the Tropic of Cancer, the line of which just touches Cuba in the neighbourhood of the Havanna. The name of Sirius is to be derived probably from σpa (catena, funis, linea, a band or line) and may itself therefore, refer to that tropical line or boundary of the sun's course. So again, if the country of Honduras, the prototype of the dog drawn in fig. 195, be compared with the lesser dog in the zodiac, their coincidence will be perceivable; the west end of the country, being uppermost, will form the head of the dog looking south; the province of Granada one of his forelegs, Nicaragua, the other; his haunches at Mosquitos Sambos, and tail turned up in the course of the river Yaré. If these explanations stood alone, they might not possibly be completely satisfactory; but, just by the greater and the lesser dog in the zodiac, we have the constellation of the hare; it is reasonable to infer therefore, that the latter has its prototype in the island of Jamaica, as drawn in fig. 182, and, further, as the hare in the zodiac is near the constellation of Orion, if we compare the island of St. Domingo, and the copy of it drawn in fig. 194, with the figure of Orion in the zodiac, |