Duke Hercules, of Ferrara, had a garden celebrated for its fruits in one of the islands of the Po.

It has more than once happened to me, that I have lain weeks in the canals, with my hold as clean as a friar's conscience, when orders have come to weigh, with some such cargo as a messenger, who has got into his berth as we cleared the port, to get out of it on the coast of Dalmatia, or among the Greek islands.

"Here is safety, noble ladies," said the youthful Venetian, in the soft accent of her native islands; "none will dare do you harm within these walls.

"Si, si," he answers indifferently, shrugging his shoulders and relapsing into silence, as he pushes his wife and mother before him for a refuge; for the men of the islands were less at home in argument with the priests than were the women of their households.

About thirteen hundred years ago, when Attila the Hun, called "the scourge of God," was overrunning the falling empire of the Romans, some of the noblest citizens of the small cities of the Adriatic fled, with their families and effects, to the inaccessible marshes and islands at the extremity of that sea, and formed a permanent settlement.

In process of time they united their islands together by bridges, and laid the foundation of a mercantile state.

Nobody surmised that there was a Cape of Good Hope which could be doubled, and would open the way to the Indian Ocean and its islands of spices and gold.

He knew that the earth was round, and he inferred from the plants and carved wood and even human bodies that had occasionally floated from the West, that there must be unknown islands on the western coasts of the Atlantic, and that this ocean, never yet crossed, was the common boundary of both Europe and Asia; in short, that the Cipango could be reached by sailing west.

He cruises among the Bahama islands, discovers Cuba and Hispaniola (now called Hayti), explores their coasts, holds peaceful intercourse with the natives, and is transported with enthusiasm in view of the beauty of the country and its great capacities; but he sees no gold, only a few ornaments to show that there is gold somewhere near, if it only could be found.

He sailed around Cuba and Jamaica and other islands, but as yet had not seen the mainland or found mines of gold or silver.

Within four years of the discovery of the West India Islands by Columbus, Cabot had sailed past Newfoundland, and Vasco da Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and laid the foundation of the Portuguese empire in the East Indies.

The south-west end of Europe is in Ispania or Spain, where it is bounded by the ocean; but the Mediterranean almost closes at the islands called Gades, where stand the pillars of Hercules.

The northern boundary of Africa is the Mediterranean sea all the way westwards, to where it is divided from the ocean by the pillars of Hercules; and the true western boundaries of Africa are the mountains called Atlas and the Fortunate Islands.

Having thus stated the boundaries of Africa, we shall now speak of the islands in the Mediterranean: Cyprus lies opposite to Cilicia, and Isauria on that arm of the sea called Mesicos, being 170 miles long, and 122 miles broad.

There are fifty-three of the islands called the Cyclades.

To the west the Balearic islands, and to the north Corsica.

Africa is to the south of the Balearic islands, Gades to the west, and Spain to the north.

Thus I have shortly described the situation of the islands in the Mediterranean.

But they likewise appear to have occupied some of the islands in the Baltic.

That is, both inhabiting North Jutland and the islands of Funen, Zeeland, Langland, Laland, and Falster.

Orcadus is unquestionably Orcades, or the islands of Orkney and Shetland.

For twenty years the few intervals of Lord Elgin's residence in these islands were to be counted not by years, but by months; and the majority of those who might be reckoned amongst his friends and acquaintances, remembered him chiefly as the eager and accomplished Oxford student at Christ Church or at Merton.'

I recalled as I stumbled along how a trader at Metalanim in the Caroline Islands had swam out to our schooner when we were down there the previous year, and how the poor devil had told old Hergoff, the captain, that a chatak tree at the back of his hut had begun to make faces at him, and I began to understand the complaint that had gripped that trader as I climbed along by the side of the puffing islanders.

Places like Papua, the Caroline Islands, parts of Borneo, and the Never Never country in inland Australia seem to possess a fist that attempts to push you off when you endeavour to bring the atmosphere of civilization into a silence that has been unbroken for centuries.

I had an only son, Androgeos by name, and he was dearer to me than the hundred cities of Crete and the thousand islands of the sea over which I rule.