"
It is probable that Spain and Rome are interpolations. Cabrera claims
that the Votanites were Carthaginians. He thinks the Chivim of Votan
were the Hivim, or Givim, who were descended of Heth, son of Canaan,
Phoenicians; they were the builders of Accaron, Azotus, Ascalon, and
Gaza. The Scriptures refer to them as Hivites (Givim) in Deuteronomy
(chap. ii., verse 32), and Joshua (chap. xiii., verse 4). He claims that
Cadmus and his wife Hermione were of this stock; and according to Ovid
they were metamorphosed into snakes (Culebres). The name Hivites in
Phoenician signifies a snake.
Votan may not, possibly, have passed into Europe; he may have travelled
altogether in Africa. His singular allusion to "a way which the Culebres
had bored" seems at first inexplicable; but Dr. Livingstone's last
letters, published 8th November, 1869, in the "Proceedings of the Royal
Geographical Society," mention that "tribes live in underground houses
in Rua. Some excavations are said to be thirty miles long, and have
running rills in them; a whole district can stand a siege in them. The
'writings' therein, I have been told by some of the people, are drawings
of animals, and not letters; otherwise I should have gone to see them.
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