The soil was exceedingly fertile; the scenery was diversified by
rivers, mountains, and forests. It was the custom of the inhabitants to
retire during the summer to magnificent country-houses, which stood in
the midst of beautiful gardens. Fish and game were found in great
abundance; the climate was delicious, and the trees bore fruit at all
seasons of the year." Homer, Plutarch, and other ancient writers mention
islands situated in the Atlantic, "several thousand stadia from the
Pillars of Hercules." Silenus tells Midas that there was another
continent besides Europe, Asia, and Africa--"a country where gold and
silver are so plentiful that they are esteemed no more than we esteem
iron." St. Clement, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, says that there
were other worlds beyond the ocean.
Attention may here be called to the extraordinary number of instances in
which allusion is made in the Old Testament to the "islands of the sea,"
especially in Isaiah and Ezekiel. What had an inland people, like the
Jews, to do with seas and islands? Did these references grow out of
vague traditions linking their race with "islands in the sea?"
The Orphic Argonaut sings of the division of the ancient Lyktonia into
separate islands.
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