This Antilia, or Island of the Seven Cities, is laid down in Martin Behaim’s map; the story was soon improved by giving seven bishops to the seven cities: and Galvam has been accused by Hornius of having invented it to give his countrymen the honour of having discovered the West Indies! Now it is evident that Antonio Galvam relates the story as if he did not believe it,—_contam_—they relate,—and, _diz_, it is said,—never affirming the fact, nor making any inference from it, but merely stating it as a report: and it is certain, which perhaps Hornius did not know, that there never lived a man of purer integrity than Antonio Galvam; a man whose history is disgraceful, not to his country, but to the government under which he lived, and whose uniform and unsullied virtue entitles him to rank among the best men that have ever done honour to human nature. The writers who repeat this story of the Seven Islands and their bishops, have also been pleased to find traces of Sacaru in the new world, for which the imaginary resemblances to Christianity which were found in Yucatan and other places, serve them as proofs.—_Gregorio Garcia_, _Origen de los Indios_, l. iv. c. 20. The work of Abulcacim, in which the story first appears, has been roundly asserted to be the forgery of the translator, Miguel de Luna. The Portugueze academician, Contador de Argote, speaking of this romantic history, acquits him of the fraud, which has with little reflection been laid to his charge. Pedraça, he says, in the Grandezas de Granada, and Rodrigo Caro, in the Grandezas de Sevilla, both affirm that the original Arabic exists in the Escurial, and Escolano asserts the same, although Nicholas Antonio says that the catalogues of that library do not make mention of any such book. If Luna had forged it, it would not have had many of those blunders which are observed in it; nor is there any reason for imputing such a fraud to Luna, a man well skilled in Arabic, and of good reputation. What I suspect is, that the book was composed by a Granadan Moor, and the reason which induces me to form this opinion is, the minuteness with which he describes the conquest which Tarif made of those parts of the kingdom of Granada, of the Alpuxarras and the Serra Neveda, pointing out the etymologies of the names of places, and other circumstances, which any one who reads with attention will observe. As to the time in which the composer of this amusing romance flourished, it was certainly after the reign of Bedeci Aben Habuz, who governed, and was Lord of Granada about the year 1013, as Marmol relates, after the Arabian writers; and the reason which I have for this assertion is, that in the romance of Abulcacim the story is told which gave occasion to the said Bedeci Aben Habuz to set up in Granada that famous vane, which represents a knight upon horseback in bronze, with a spear in the right hand, and a club in the left, and these words in Arabic,—Bedeci Aben Habuz says, that