Northern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 1 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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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.
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