The circumference of Teneriffe is not above one hundred and twenty miles, but that of Canary, or as it is usually called, the Great Canary, is one hundred and fifty.

They have been possessed and colonized by Spain from the beginning of the 15th century.
There is no reason to doubt that these are the islands slightly known to the ancients under the name of Fortunate: though the mistake of Ptolemy concerning their latitude has led one of the commentators on Solinus to contend, that this title belongs rather to the Islands of Cape Verd.
Pliny mentions Canaria, and accounts for that name from the number of large dogs which the island contained; a circumstance which some modern voyagers, perhaps with little accuracy, repeat as having occasioned the same name to be given by the Spaniards.

Nivaria, spoken of by the same author, is evidently Teneriffe, and synonymous, if we are rightly informed, to the modern name*.

Ombrion, or Pluvialia, is supposed to be Ferro; where the dryness of the soil has at all times compelled the inhabitants to depend for water on the rains.
[* Occasioned by the perpetual snows with which the Peak is covered.

Tener is said to mean snow, and itte or iffe a mountain, in the language of the island.] If the ancients made these islands the region of fable, and their poets decorated them with imaginary charms to supply the want of real knowledge, the moderns cannot wholly be exempted from a similar imputation.