To The West Of Egypt
He Places Lybia, Where He Says The Lambs Are Born With Horns, And The Sheep
Bring Forth Three Times A Year.
In the Odyssey he conducts Neptune into Ethiopia; and the account he gives
seems to warrant the belief, that by the Ethiopians he meant not merely the
Ethiopians of Africa, but the inhabitants of India:
We know that the
ancients, even so late as the time of Strabo and Ptolemy, considered all
those nations as Ethiopians who lived upon the southern ocean from east to
west; or, as Ptolemy expresses it, that under the zodiac, from east to
west, inhabit the inhabitants black of colour. Homer represents these two
nations as respectively the last of men, one of them on the east and the
other on the west. From his description of the gardens of Alcinous, it may
even be inferred that he had received some information respecting the
climate of the tropical regions; for this description appears to us rather
borrowed from report, than entirely the produce of imagination.
Close to the gates a spacious garden lies,
From storms defended and inclement skies.
Four acres was th' allotted space of ground,
Fenc'd with a green enclosure all around,
Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould;
The red'ning apple ripens here to gold.
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows,
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,
And verdant olives flourish round the year.
The balmy spirit of the western gale
Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail:
Each dropping pear a following pear supplies,
On apples apples, figs on figs arise:
The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow;
Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear,
With all th' united labours of the year;
Some to unload the fertile branches run,
Some dry the black'ning clusters in the sun,
Others to tread the liquid harvest join,
The groaning presses foam with floods of wine.
Here are the vines in early flow'r descry'd,
Here grapes discolour'd on the sunny side,
And there in autumn's richest purple dy'd.
Beds of all various herbs, for ever green,
In beauteous order terminate the scene.
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