2: The fable of the "spicy breezes" said to blow from Arabia and India, is as old as Ctesias; and is eagerly repeated by Pliny? lib. xii. c. 42. The Greeks borrowed the tale from the Hindus, who believe that the Chandana or sandal-wood imparts its odours to the winds; and their poete speak of the Malayan as the westerns did of the Sabæan breezes. But the allusion to such perfumed winds was a trope common to all the discoverers of unknown lands: the companions of Columbus ascribed them to the region of the Antilles; and Verrazani and Sir Walter Raleigh scented them off the coast of Carolina. Milton borrowed from Diodorus Siculus, lib. iii. c. 46, the statement that:
"Far off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabæan odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest."
(P.L. iv. 163.)
Ariosto employs the same imaginative embellishment to describe the charms of Cyprus:
"Serpillo e persa e rose e gigli e croco
Spargon dall'odorifero terreno
Tanta suavita, ch'in mar sentire
La fa ogni vento che da terra spire."