and committed to this Tower; from whence making his Escape, and being retaken, he was impal'd, (i. e.) put to a most cruel Death, by having a Pole thrust thro' his Body, from his Fundament to his very Neck; yet he indured it with incredible Patience.
Perhaps you expect that I should here give you an Account of those floating Islands, called Cyaneæ?] or Symplegades. But, to deal freely with you, those few Hours that I spent on the Pontus, I saw no such Islands at all; whether they had been carried to any other Place, I know not: If you desire to have a more particular Information concerning them, you may consult Peter Gyllius, who was an exact Enquirer into such Curiosities; for my Part, I shall record only what I saw, or know to be true. Yet I think it is not fit for me to conceal a Mistake that Polybius is guilty of; for he proposes many Arguments, to prove that, in Tract of Time, the Euxine will be choaked up with Sand and other Trash, brought in by the Danow, the Borysthenes, and other great Rivers falling into it, that it would be made unfit for Navigation; whereas, the contrary appeared to me; for that Sea is every jot as navigable, at this Day, as it was of old in the Days of Polybius. And though he seemed to have some Grounds for his Opinion, that to him were irrefragable, yet Time hath shewed them to be weak. The like Observation holds in other Cases; for, of old, who would not believe the Ancients, who affirmed, upon seemingly imaginable Grounds, That the Torrid Zone was inhabitable? whereas, later Discoveries have fully convinced us, That those hot Countries are as well inhabited as any other Part of the Terrestial Globe; nay, when the Sun is at the highest with them, and darts down its Rays perpendicu-
