"Nor is this island delineated merely in ancient maps of the time of Columbus. It is laid down as one of the Canary Islands in a French map published in 1704; and Mons. Gautier, in a geographical chart annexed to his Observations on Natural History, published in 1759, places it five degrees to the west of the Island of Ferro, in the 29th degree of north latitude.[211] "Such are the principal facts existing relative to the island of St. Brandan. Its reality was for a long time a matter of firm belief. It was in vain that repeated voyages and investigations proved its non-existence: the public, after trying all kinds of sophistry, took refuge in the supernatural to defend their favorite chimera. They maintained that it was rendered inaccessible to mortals by divine providence or by diabolical magic. Most inclined to the former. All kinds of extravagant fancies were indulged concerning it:[212] some confounded it with the fabled island of the Seven Cities, situated somewhere in the bosom of the ocean, where, in old times, seven bishops and their followers had taken refuge from the Moors. Some of the Portuguese imagined it to be the abode of their last king, Sebastian. The Spaniards pretended that Roderic, the last of their Gothic kings, had fled thither from the Moors after the disastrous battle of the Guadalete. Others suggested that it might be the seat of the terrestrial paradise--the place where Enoch and Eliiah remained in a slate of blessedness until the final day; and that it was made at times apparent to the eyes, but invisible to the search of mortals. Poetry, it is said, has owed to this popular belief one of its beautiful fictions; and the garden of Armida, where Rinaldo was detained enchanted, and which Tasso places in one of the Canary Islands, has been identified with the imaginary San Borondon.[213] "The learned father Feyjoo[214] has given a philosophical solution to this geographical problem. He attributes all these appearances, which have been so numerous and so well authenticated as not to admit of doubt, to certain atmospherical deceptions, like that of the Fata Morgana, seen at times in the Straits of Messina, where the city of Reggio and its surrounding country is reflected in the air above the neighboring sea; a phenomenon which has likewise been witnessed in front of the city of Marseilles. As to the tales of the mariners who had landed on these forbidden shores, and been hurried from thence in whirlwinds and tempests, he considers them as mere fabrications.