EQUESTRIAN STATUES 169 Atilie. But perhaps the best and most apposite account is that of Manuel de Faria y Sousa in the "Historia del Reyno de Portugal :" In the Azores, on the summit of a mountain which is called the moun- tain of the Crow, they found the statue of a man mounted on a horse without saddle, his head uncovered, the left hand resting on the horse, the right extended toward the west. The whole was mounted on a pedes- tal which was of the same kind of stone as the statue. Underneath some unknown characters were carved in the rock. 12 Apparently the reference is to the first ascent of Corvo after its rediscovery between 1449 and 1460. The mention of "characters" recalls those found in a cave of St. Michael, also by rediscoverers, during the same period, as related by Thevet 13 long afterward, most likely from tradition. A man of Moorish-Jewish descent, who was one of the party, thought he recognized the inscription as Hebrew, but could not or did not read it. Some have supposed the characters to be Phoenician. There is naturally much uncer- tainty about these stories of very early observations by untrained men, recorded at last, as the result of a long chain of transmis- sions: but they tend more or less to corroborate the other evi- dences of Phoenician presence. It may be possible that the persistent and widely distributed story of westward-pointing equestrian statues marking important islands may have grown out of the ancient mention of the pillars of Saturn, afterward Hercules, and Strabo's discussion 14 as to whether they were natural or artificial in origin; but this puts a severe strain on fancy. We know that the Carthaginians did set up commemorative columns; and that the horse figured conspicu- ously in their coinage. Nothing in the enterprising character of the Phoenician people is opposed to the idea of incitement to ex- ploration westward. It seems easier to believe that they set up these statuary monuments on one island after another than that the whole tradition has grown out of a misunderstanding. Such u Humboldt, Examen critique, Vol. 2, p. 227. w Andre Thevet: La cosmographie universelle, 2 vols., Paris, IS7S; reference in Vol. 2, p. 1022. 14 The Geography of Strabo, transl. by H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer (Bonn's Classical Library), 3 vols., London, 1854; reference in Vol. i, pp. 255-257.
