Northern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 1 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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But
where mountaines do continually burne we vnderstand that there is no
stopping of the passages, wherby they poure forth abundance of fire
sometime flaming, & sometime smoaking gas it were a streaming flood.
But if
betweene times the fire encreaseth, all secret passages being shut vp, the
inner parts of the mountaine are notwithstanding enflamed. The fire in the
vpper part, for want of matter, somewhat abateth for the time. But when a
more vehement spirite (the same, or other passages being set open again)
doth with great violence breake prison, it casteth forth ashes, sand,
brimstone, pumistones, lumpes resembling iron, great stones, & much other
matter, not without the domage of the whole region adioyning. Thus farre
Munster. Where consider (good Reader) how he cutteth his throat with his
owne sword, consider (I say) that in this place there is the very same
opinion of the burning of Hecla, & the burning of Aetna, which
notwithstanding in his 4. booke is very diuerse, for there he is faine to
run to infernall causes. A certaine fierie mountaine of West India hath
farre more friendly censurers, & historiographers then our Hecla, who make
not an infernall gulfe therof. The History of which mountain (because it is
short & sweete) I will set downe, being written by Hieronimus Benzo an
Italian, in his history of the new world, lib. 2. These be the words.
"About 35. miles distant from Leon there is a mountaine which at a great
hole belcheth out such mightie balles of flames, that in the night they
shine farre and neare, aboue 100. miles. Some were of opinion that within
it was molten gold ministring continuall matter & nourishment for the fire.
Hereupon a certain Dominican Frier, determining to make trial of the
matter, caused a brasse kettle, & an iron chain to be made: afterward
ascending to the top of the hill with 4. other Spaniards, he letteth downe
the chaine & the kettle 140. elnes into the fornace: there, by extreme
heate of the fire, the kettle, & part of the chaine melted. The monke in a
rage ran back to Leon, & chid the smith, because he had made the chaine far
more slender then himselfe had commanded. The smith hammers out another of
more substance & strength then the former. The Monke returnes to the
mountains, and lets downe the chaine & the cauldron; but with the like
successe that he had before. Neither did the caldron only vanish & melt
away: but also, vpon the sudden there came out of the depth a flame of
fire, which had almost consumed the Frier, & his companions. Then they all
returned so astonished, that they had small list afterward to prosecute
that attempt, &c." What great difference is there betweene these two
censures? In a fiery hill of West India they search for gold: but in mount
Hecla of Island they seeke for hel. Howbeit they wil perhaps reiect this as
a thing too new, & altogether vnknowen to ancient writers. Why therefore
haue not writers imagined the same prison of soules to be in Chimara an
hill in Lycia (which, by report, flameth continually day and night) that is
in mount Hecla of Island?
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