This excess of caution defeated its own purpose. Women, left much alone

within their cloister-like homes, waited not in vain for opportunity.

The gay mistress could often too easily win over her attendant, and make

of her dueña a go-between; yet if we may believe the record, infidelity

was rare, and for two reasons. First, woman in her seclusion escaped

many temptations; and secondly, a wholesome fear, the certainty that

vengeance, swift and sure, would follow the offence, resulting in the

death of one or both offenders, placed a curb on passion. Females of

the lower classes, left alone to take care of their virtue as best

they might, with faces open and actions free, were less given to

transgression than their wealthier sisters.

Lewd women could not testify in criminal cases. Respectable women

were permitted to testify, but the judge was obliged to wait on them

at their homes, as they were not allowed to attend court. Learning to

write was discouraged in females, as they could then have it in their

power to scribble love-letters to their gallants. Queen Isabella did

much to elevate and purify both religion and morals. The court of

Enrique IV., her predecessor, has been described as but little better

than a brothel, where "the queen, a daughter of Portugal, lived openly

with her parasites and gallants, as the king did with his minions and

mistresses." Maids of honor were trained courtesans, and the noblemen

of the court occupied their time in illicit amours and love intrigues.

From the king on his throne to his lowest subject, all who could afford

it kept a mistress.

Ware states that within a century the widows of Madrid were "compelled

to pass the whole first year of their mourning in a chamber entirely

hung with black, where not a single ray of the sun could penetrate,

seated on a little mattress with their legs always crossed. When this

year was over, they retired to pass the second year in a chamber hung

with grey." This savagism is paralleled by the Thlinkeets of Alaska,

who at certain times confine women in a little kennel for six months,

giving them one a size larger for the second six months; likewise by

the Tacullies of New Caledonia, who make the widow carry the deceased

husband's ashes upon her back in a bag for one or two years.

[Sidenote: EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN GENERAL.]

A glance at English and French society shows us, however, that the

character of the Spanish women of this epoch compared favorably with

that of their northern sisters. Though perhaps no chaster than the

French, they were not street-brawlers like the English women. These

latter, we are told, from whom the men would separate themselves in

their debauches, would likewise assemble at the public house, drink

their ale, talk loudly and lewdly, and gossip, swear, and fight. In a

religious play of the period, representing the deluge, Noah, when ready

to enter the ark, seeks his wife, and finds her carousing with her

gossips at the public drink-house.

"Young ladies, even of great families," says Wright, "were brought up

not only strictly but even tyrannically by their mothers, who kept

them constantly at work, exacted from them almost slavish deference

and respect, and even counted upon their earnings." A mother in those

days was accounted a little severe who beat her daughter "once in the

week, or twice, and sometimes twice a day," and "broke her head in two

or three places," or still worse, permitted her to "speak with no man,

whosoever come."

Witness the wooing of Matilda of Flanders by William the Conqueror.

Having had the audacity to refuse him, the noble suitor entered her

home, seized her long tresses, dragged her about the floor, struck her;

then flinging her from him, he spurned her with his foot. Matilda at

once accepted him, saying: "He must be a man of courage who dare beat

me in my father's palace."

Pedro el Cruel, king of Castile and Leon, about the middle of the

fourteenth century held good, and commanded, under heavy penalties,

that no one of the laboring classes, man or woman, who was able to

work, should be found begging. He fixed the day's wage of every class

with the most punctilious exactitude. Shoemakers, tailors, armorers,

and others who worked by the job, had a definite price attached to the

making of every article. A shoe of such and such leather, made after

such a fashion, with a double or single sole; a cloak, lined or unlined;

a weapon of an ordinary, or of a superior temper and finish—each article

in its fabrication was to cost just so much and no more.

It was an age of interference in the affairs of men, the strong against

the weak. It was in these trade regulations, and in sumptuary laws, the

superstition of political economy and social statics, that the science

of ignorance culminated. It was then that learned men threw dust into

the air, cast a cloud about their own intellect, and labored hard to

inculcate the principles of nescience into the minds of men. In England

the number of servants a nobleman might have was fixed by law, as was

also costume, and the number of courses at dinner. Soup and two dishes

legally constituted a Frenchman's dinner in 1340.

Ferdinand and Isabella were, perhaps, the most parentally inclined of

all. No affair, religious, moral, political, judicial, economical,

literary, industrial, mechanical, or mercantile could escape their

attention. From the regulation and organization of the high councils,

and of the civil and ecclesiastical tribunals, to the ordinances for

the leather-dressers and cloth-shearers; from the decrees concerning

the universities and the literary and scientific bodies, to the orders

that prescribed the weight of horseshoes; from the general laws on

commerce and navigation, to those which fixed the expenditure at

weddings and baptisms, and the amount of wax to be burned at funerals;

from the highest interests and rights of religion and of the throne,

down to the most humble and mechanical industries—all were considered,

legislated upon, and seen to by their Catholic Majesties, with infinite

pains and vigilance. In 1510, thinking the colonists of Española too

fond of ostentation and extravagance, Ferdinand issued a proclamation,

forbidding them to wear rich silks, brocades, or gold or silver lace.

Owners of vessels, in times of peace, were forced to engage at fixed

prices in perilous voyages of discovery or commerce.

[Sidenote: SUMPTUARY LAWS.]

In England it appears that the dress of the men commanded the special

attention of their rulers. Spaniards made men and women alike to

feel the iron heel of sumptuary legislation; while the English, in

laws of nearly coincident date, for the most part omitted the sex. By

distinctive qualities, Edward IV., 1461-1483, regulated the dress of his

people—from the royal cloth-of-gold down to the two-shillings-a-yard,

and under, cloth of the laboring classes; but, if we may believe

Sanford, he took care to exempt his women subjects from the provisions

of this act, save only the wives of the two-shillings-a-yard boor, who

might be expected to have other things to attend to.

The continental ladies, it appears, could flaunt it bravely upon

occasion, at least in France and Flanders. For through these countries

crusaded, in 1428, Thomas Conecte, a Carmelite friar, preaching against

the evils of the age, or what he considered as such. Among these, dress

held a place, and many other things not generally condemned at present.

His manner of going to work was peculiar, and is pretty well described

by Monstrelet.

In his audiences he always separated the men from the women by a

cord, "for he had observed some sly doings between them while he was

preaching." Having taken these wise precautions, he was accustomed

earnestly to admonish his hearers "on the damnation of their souls and

on pain of excommunication, to bring to him whatever backgammon-boards,

chessboards, nine-pins, or other instruments for games of amusement

they might possess." Right bitterly would he then attack the luxurious

apparel of ladies of rank; especially the monstrous head-gear which was

in fashion at that time; all of which bred trouble, as may readily be

imagined, and produced no good results.

We see the same style of preaching indulged in by the Wesleys in England

and Whitefield and others in America at different times, and ever with

the same lack of practical results. The most costly jewelry, the finest

apparel, grand houses and free living are as conspicuous among the

followers of these self-sacrificing and conscientious men as among the

members of any other church, or among those who are not members of any

church. And if the pious Carmelite friar failed in his crusade against

fine clothes, free living, and monstrous head-gear among the Spanish of

the fifteenth century, so have more modern crusaders failed in similar

attempts in later times.

* * * * *

This then was Spain and Spanish character, as nearly as I have been able

to picture them in the short space allotted, at or prior to the dawn

of the sixteenth century. We have found Spaniards the noblest race on

earth at that time; their men brave, their women modest. Before them

opened a career more brilliant than the world has ever seen before or

since. To follow them in some parts of that career is the purpose of

these volumes.

We have found these people after all not so very different from

ourselves—more loyal than we, but more ignorant; more religious, but

more superstitious; more daring, but more reckless; more enthusiastic,

but more chimerical. They were endowed with the virtues and vices of

their age, as we are with the virtues and vices of ours. They were

sincere in their opinions, and honest in their efforts; but we have

the advantage of them by four centuries of recorded experiences. Our

knowledge, our advantages, are superior to theirs; do we make superior

use of them? Spain lighted a hemisphere of dark waters, brought forth

hidden islands and continents, and presented half a world to the other

half. With all our boasted improvement, have we done more?

It is the custom of historical commentators to praise and to blame _ad

libitum_. This is right if it be done judiciously. We should praise

discreetly, and blame with steadiness. But there is really little to

praise or to blame in history, and most of it that is done is simply

praising or blaming the providence of progress. Would you blame the

Spanish people for being ignorant, submissive, and cruel? They were as

God and circumstances made them. Would you blame their king and princes

for domineering them? They were as the people and circumstances made

them. The people were indignant if their rulers did not impose upon

them. Says Grenville, writing in his memoirs so late as 1818: "The

Regent drives in the park every day in a tilbury, with his groom sitting

by his side; grave men are shocked at this undignified practice."

Meanwhile, amidst the many so-called spirits which in this epoch hovered

over man, the spirit of discovery was not the least potent. Curiosity,

the mother of science, became the mother of new worlds; gave birth to

continents, islands, and seas; gave form and boundary to earth. Over the

sea, the mists of the Dark Age had rested with greater density even than

on land. The aurora of progress now illumined the western horizon as of

old it did the eastern. Hitherto the great ocean, beyond a few leagues

from shore, was a mystery. As may be seen depicted on ancient charts,

it was filled, in the imaginations of navigators, with formidable

water-beasts and monsters, scarcely less terrible than those that Æneas

saw as he entered the mouth of Hades:

"Multaque præterea variarum monstra ferarum:

Centauri in foribus stabulant, Scyllæque biformes,

et centumgeminus Briareus, ac belua Lernæ

horrendum stridens, flammisque armata Chimæra,

Gorgones Harpyiæque et forma tricorporis umbræ."

Ancient geographers affirmed that the heat of the torrid zone was

intolerable, that men and ships entering it would shrivel. This belt of

consuming heat presented an impenetrable barrier between the known and

the unknown.

What wonder that intellect was stunted, civilization dwarfed, restricted

as was human knowledge to the narrow grave-like walls of western

Europe! No sooner were these ancient boundaries burst, and the black and

dreadful fog-banks which lay upon primeval ocean pierced, than fancy,

like a freed bird, bounded forth, swept the circumference of the earth,

soared aloft amid the stars, and dared even to ask of religion a reason.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: EUROPE AND AMERICA.]

One glance westward. On either side of an unswept sea, a Sea of Darkness

it was called by those that feared it, there rested at the opening of

this history two fair continents, each unknown to the other. One was

cultivated; its nations were well advanced in those arts and courtesies

that spring from accumulated experiences; the other, for the most part,

unmarred by man, lay revelling in primeval beauty, fresh as from the

Creator's hand. The leaven of progress working in one, brought to its

knowledge the existence of the other; the Sea of Darkness with its

uncouth monsters was turned into a highway, and civilized Europe stood

face to face with sylvan America. This world newly found was called the

New World; though which is the new and which the old; which, if either,

peopled the other, is yet undetermined. One in organism and in the

nature human, the people of the two worlds were in color, customs, and

sentiment several. The barbarous New World boasted its civilizations,

while the civilized Old World disclosed its barbarisms; on Mexican

and Peruvian highlands were nations of city-builders as far superior

in culture to the islanders and coast-dwellers seen by Columbus, as

were the European discoverers superior to the American highlanders. Of

probable indigenous origin, this lesser civilization shows traces of

high antiquity; even the ruder nations of the north leave far behind

them absolute primevalism.

I do not say with some that in America were seen in certain directions

marks of as high culture as any in Europe. There were no such marks.

But this unquestionably is true; that, as in Europe, we here find that

most inexplicable of phenomena, the evolution of civility; man's mental

and spiritual necessities, like his physical wants, appear everywhere

the same. The mind, like the body, craves nutriment, and the dimmed

imprisoned soul a higher sympathy; hence we see men of every clime

and color making for themselves gods, and contriving creeds which

shall presently deliver them from their dilemma. The civilizations of

America, unlike well-rooted saplings of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, were

sensitive-plants which collapsed upon the first foreign touch, leaving

only the blackness of darkness; hence it was the wild tribes, far more

than the cultivated nations, that influenced the character of subsequent

American societies.

In her civil and religious polities America was every whit as consistent

as Europe. Neither was altogether perfect or wise; and we wonder at the

blindness and stupidity of one as of the other. Although we could catch

but a glimpse of the Americans before they vanished, yet we might see

that intellect was not stationary, but growing, and that society was

instinct with intelligent and progressional activity.

[Sidenote: COMPARATIVE RELIGIONS.]

In their religions the Americans paralleled the rest of mankind. Every

religion derives its form and color from the mind of the worshippers,

so that by their gods we may know them. From elevated natures emanate

chaste and refined conceptions of the deity; from brutish natures coarse

conceptions. Christianity is the highest and purest of all religions;

but if we study the moral precepts of the foremost American nations,

we shall see that in many respects they were not far behind, and were

indeed in some instances in advance of Christianity. True, the Aztecs

practised human sacrifice, with all its attendant horrors; but what were

the religious wars, the expulsion of Jews, the slaughter of Infidels,

the burning of heretics, but human sacrifice? Moreover, while we turn

in horror from the sacrificial stone of the Aztecs, where the human

victims were treated as gods and whence their souls were sent direct

to Paradise, yet we find among them little of that most infamous of

crimes—persecution for opinion's sake; nor yet do we read of their

ingenuity being taxed for the contrivance of engines of the most

excruciating torture, as we do in the history of Christianity. Tortures

which, while killing the body, it was believed consigned the soul to

eternal agonies.

There was little in the social or political systems of Europe of which

the counterpart could not be found in America; indeed, the economical,

social, and political condition of every civilization finds its

counterpart in every other civilization; and there were institutions

then existing in America at whose feet Europe might have sat with

benefit.

[Sidenote: AMERICAN ABORIGINALS.]

Among the wilder tribes we find prevalent the patriarchal state, with

its hundreds of languages and theologies; a slight advance from which

are those associations of families banded for safety, thus presenting a

state of society not unlike that of European feudalism. From this point,

every quality and grade of government presents itself until full-blown

monarchy is attained, where a sole sovereign becomes an emperor of

nations with a state and severity equal to that of the most enlightened.

The government of the Nashua nations, which was monarchical and nearly

absolute, denotes no small progress from primordial patriarchy.

Like their cousins of Spain and England, the sovereigns of Mexico had

their elaborate palaces, with magnificent surroundings, their country

residence and their hunting-grounds, their botanical and zoological

gardens, and their harems filled with the daughters of nobles, who

deemed it an honor to see them thus royally defiled. There were

aristocratic and knightly orders; nobles, plebeians, and slaves;

pontiffs and priesthoods; land tenures and taxation; seminaries of

learning, and systems of education, in which virtue was extolled and

vice denounced; laws and law courts of various grades, and councils

and tribunals of various kinds; military orders with drill, engineer

corps, arms, and fortifications; commerce, caravans, markets, merchants,

pedlers, and commercial fairs, with a credit system, and express and

postal facilities.

They were not lacking in pleasures and amusements similar to those

of the Europeans, such as feasts with professional jester, music,

dancing; and after dinner the drama, national games, gymnastics, and

gladiatorial combats. They were not without their intoxicating drink,

delighting in drunkenness while denouncing it. Their medical faculty and

systems of surgery they had, and their burial-men; also their literati,

scholars, orators, and poets, with an arithmetical system, a calendar,

a knowledge of astronomy, hieroglyphic books, chronological records,

public libraries, and national archives.

The horoscope of infants was cast; the cross was lifted up; incense

was burned; baptism and circumcision were practised. Whence arose these

customs so like those of their fellow-men across the Atlantic, whom they

had never seen or heard of?

The conquerors found all this when they entered the country. They

examined with admiration the manufactures of gold, silver, copper,

tin, and lead, wrought to exquisite patterns with surprising skill.

They gazed with astonishment on huge architectural piles, on monumental

remains speaking louder than words; on temples, causeways, fountains,

aqueducts, and light-houses, surrounded as they were with statues and

intricate and costly stone carvings. They found that the Americans made

cloth, paper, pottery, and dyes, and were proficient in painting. Their

mosaic feather-work was a marvel.

There are many points of interest, well worth examination, which I have

not space here properly to mention. The interested reader, however, will

find all material necessary to careful comparison in my _Native Races of

the Pacific States_. He will there find described conditions of society

analogous to feudalism and chivalry; he will find municipal governments,

walled towns, and standing armies. There were legislative assemblies

similar to that of the Cortes, and associations not unlike that of the

Holy Brotherhood. To say that trial by combat sometimes occurred is

affirming of them nothing complimentary; but upon the absence of some

European institutions they were to be congratulated.

Although living lives of easy poverty, the wild tribes of America

everywhere possessed dormant wealth enough to tempt the cupidity alike

of the fierce Spaniard, the blithe Frenchman, and the sombre Englishman.

Under a burning tropical sun, where neither meat nor clothing was

essential to comfort, the land yielded gold, while in hyperborean

forests where no precious metals were discovered the richest peltries

abounded; so that no savage in all this northern continent was found so

poor that grasping civilization could find nothing to rob him of.

When Europe undertook the mastery of America, she found the people, as a

rule, ready to be friendly. Some at first were startled into the seizure

of their arms, the first impulse of the wild man on meeting anything

strange being to defend himself. But their fears were easily allayed,

their confidence easily gained, and their pledges of good faith were

usually to be depended upon.

[Sidenote: COMPARATIVE CHARACTERISTICS.]

The variations between them and their brethren across the Atlantic

were less of kind than of quality. They were more children than wild

beasts. Physically they were complete, but mentally they were not fully

developed. Their minds were not so broad, nor so strong or subtle as

those of white men. Their cunning partook more of brute instinct than

of civilized artifice. There was mind-power enough, but it lacked shape

and consistency. They were naturally no more blood-thirsty, or cruel, or

superstitious than their conquerors, but their cruelty and superstitions

were of coarser, cruder forms. The American aboriginal character has

been greatly misconstrued, and is to-day but imperfectly understood.

The chief difference, or cause of difference, between the people

of Europe and the more advanced nations of America, it seems to me,

lay in the ignorance of some few things, apparently insignificant in

themselves, yet mighty enough to revolutionize Christendom; such as the

use of iron, gunpowder, and movable types. The absence of horses, and

other of the more useful domestic animals, was also a disadvantage.

After reading of the Europeans of that day it is irony to call the

Americans revengeful or cruel. Where is it possible to find more

strongly developed those qualities which civilization most condemns

than among civilized nations—the same, only refined? So blind are we to

our own faults, so quick to see and condemn the faults of our weak and

defenceless neighbor!

Catalogue crime and place the white beside the red. Seldom was the

Indian treacherous until he had been deceived. The Indians tortured

their prisoners; so did the white men, hunting them with bloodhounds,

enslaving them, branding them with hot irons, beating and roasting them,

making them work in the mines until death relieved them by thousands,

butchering wives and children because the husband and father dared

strike a blow in their defence. It is well to call them brutal in

warfare when the white man so quickly adopts their most brutal customs;

it is well to call them beasts of prey, when the white man crosses the

ocean to prey upon those very beasts which he pretends to slur.

In speaking of the Indians, it has become the custom wilfully to

misapply terms. If a tribe resist an injury, it is called an outbreak;

if successful in war, it is a massacre; if successful in single combat,

it is a murder. Thus soldiers speak to cover the disgrace of defeat,

and thus reports are made by men who regard not decency in speaking

of a savage, to say nothing of fairness. It is enough that we have

exterminated this people, without attempting to malign them and exalt

our own baseness. What should we do were a foreign power to come in

ships to our shore and begin to slaughter our animals, to stake off our

land and divide it among themselves? We should drive them away if we

were able; but if we found them the stronger, we should employ every art

to destroy them, and in so doing regard ourselves as patriots performing

a sacred obligation. This is the Indians crime; and in so doing we

call him cunning, revengeful, hateful, diabolical. But the white man

brings him blankets, it may be said, brings him medicine, tells him of

contrivances, teaches him civilization. These things are exactly what

the savage does not want, and what he is much better off without. The

white man's comforts kill him almost as quickly as do his cruelties; and

the teachings of Christ's ministers are abhorrent if they are coupled

with the examples of lecherous and murderous professors of Christianity.

These, however, were by no means all that white men gave the Indian.

We might enumerate alcohol, small-pox, measles, syphilis, and a dozen

other disgusting adjuncts of civilization of which the savage before

knew nothing. Can savagism boast greater achievements? White men have

killed fifty Indians where Indians have killed one white man, and

this, notwithstanding that nine tenths of all injuries inflicted have

been perpetrated by white invaders. A thousand Indian women have been

outraged by men whose mothers had taught them the Lord's prayer, where

one white woman has been injured by these benighted heathen. At any

time in the history of America I would rather take my chances as a white

woman among savages, than as an Indian woman among white people.

[Sidenote: SIGNIFICATIONS OF PROGRESS.]

Brethren by procreation, but by destiny foes, as we behold them there

the so-called New and Old thus so strangely brought together, naturally

enough we ask ourselves, Whence came the one, and whither tends the

other? Whence came these dusky denizens of the forest, and for how many

thousands of ages has the feeble light of their intelligence struggled

with the darkness, dimly flickering, now gathering strength, now falling

back into dense obscurity; how long and in what manner has the divine

spark thus wrestled with its environment? And whither tends this fierce

flame of human advancement which just now bursts its ancient boundaries,

sweeps across the Sea of Darkness, absorbs all lesser lights, and

dazzles and consumes a hemisphere of souls? More especially, when we

look back toward what we are accustomed to call the beginning, and mark

the steady advance of knowledge, the ever-increasing power of mind;

when we consider the progress of even the last half century, and listen

to the present din and clatter of improvement, do we raise our eyes

to the future and ask, Whither tends all this? Whither tends with so

rapidly accelerating swiftness this self-begetting of enlightenment,

this massing of human acquirements; whither tends this perpetually

increasing domination of the intellectual over the material? Within the

past few thousand years we have seen our race emerge from barbarism,

and notwithstanding the inherent tendency to evil ever present in

our natures, we have seen mankind put on civilization and accept for

their faith Christianity, the purest and highest type of religion.

We have seen nations cease somewhat their hereditary growlings, and

brutal blood-sheddings, and mingle as brethren; we have seen wavy grain

supplant the tangled wildwood, gardens materialize from the mirage,

and magnificent cities rise out of the rocky ground. Thus we have seen

the whole earth placed under tribute, and this mysterious reasoning

intelligence of ours elevating itself yet more and more above the

instincts of the brute, and asserting its dominion over nature; belting

the earth with an impatient energy, which now presses outward from every

meridian, widening its domain as best it may toward the north and toward

the south, building equatorial fires under polar icebergs. All this and

more from the records of our race we have seen accomplished, and yet do

see it; civilization working itself out in accordance with the eternal

purposes of Omnipotence, unfolding under man's agency, yet independent

of man's will; a subtile, extraneous, unifying energy, stimulated by

agencies good not more than by agencies evil, yet always tending in its

results to good rather than to evil; an influence beyond the reach or

cognizance of man, working in and round persons and societies, turning

and overturning, now clouding the sky with blackness and dropping

disorder on floundering humanity, but only to be followed by a yet

more fertilizing sunshine; laying waste and building up, building up by

laying waste, civilizing as well by war and avarice as by good-will and

sweet charity, civilizing as surely, if not as rapidly, with the world

of humanity struggling against it, as with the same human world laboring

for it.

Slowly rattles along the dim present, well-nigh buried in its own dust;

it is only the past that is well-defined and clear to history.

SUMMARY OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE AND DISCOVERY FROM THE EARLIEST

RECORDS TO THE YEAR 1540.

Before entering upon the narration of events composing this history,

it seems to me important, in order as well properly to appreciate the

foregoing Introduction as to gain from succeeding chapters something

more than gratified curiosity, that an exposition of Early Voyages

should be given,—acting powerfully as they did on evolving thought and

material development, giving breadth and vigor to intellect, enthusiasm

to enterprise, and in elevating and stimulating that commercial spirit

which was eventually to depose kings, exalt the people, strip from

science its superstitions, from religion its cabalistic forms, and by

its associations, its negotiations, its adventurous daring, its wars,

its alliances, and its humanizing polities, to break the barriers of

ancient enmity and bring together in common brotherhood all the nations

of the earth.

Therefore, I now propose to give a chronological statement of every

authentic voyage of discovery made beyond the Mediterranean prior to

1540, while doubtful and disputed voyages will be discussed according

to their relative importance. I shall notice, moreover, such books and

charts relating to America as were produced during this period, with

fac-similes of the more important maps, to illustrate, at different

dates, the progress of discovery. It is my purpose, so far as possible,

in the very limited space allowed, to state fairly the conclusions of

the best writers on every important point.

* * * * *

One word as to the authorities consulted in the preparation of this

Summary. Of books relating to America, published prior to 1540, there

are in all about sixty-five; only twenty-five, however, contain original

information; twenty-three are general cosmographical works with brief

sections on America compiled from the original twenty-five; while

seventeen merely mention the New World or its discoveries, and are

therefore of no value in this connection. Of the forty-eight containing

matter more or less important, there are over two hundred editions, the

earliest of which only, in most instances, will be mentioned, and that

without extensive bibliographical notes. These books and charts I notice

in chronological order under dates of their successive appearance.

The subject of Early Voyages has been so frequently and so thoroughly

discussed by able modern writers that it is unnecessary, and indeed

impracticable in so condensed an essay, to refer to ancient authorities

alone, and prove everything from the beginning. I shall therefore,

besides the Spanish historians Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Las Casas,

Gomara, Herrera, and the standard collections of Ramusio, Grynæus,

Purchas, and Hakluyt, freely use the works of later writers according

to their relative worth. And of these last mentioned I epitomize

the following. _Historia del Nuevo-Mundo, escribíala D. Juan Baut.

Muñoz_, tom. i.—all ever published—_En Madrid_, 1793, contains a

clear well-written _prologo_, or essay, on the first three voyages of

Columbus with minor mention of contemporary discoveries. An account

is also given of the author's labors in beginning the large and

invaluable collection of documents completed and published by Martin

Fernandez de Navarrete, _Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que

hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del siglo XV._, 5 vols. 4to,

Madrid, 1825-37. This collection of Navarrete's is without doubt the

most valuable work on the subject of early American voyages, and the

foundation of all that followed; containing as it does the original

Spanish, Latin, and Portuguese texts of the more important Spanish

and Portuguese expeditions from 1393 to 1540—the Latin and Portuguese

done into Spanish—together with over five hundred original documents

from the Spanish archives, with extensive and generally impartial

notes by the editor. For a biographical sketch of this author see

chapter iii. of this volume. Washington Irving's _Life and Voyages

of Christopher Columbus and his Companions_, published in London,

1828-31 (edition used, that of New York, 1869, 3 vols.), is an able and

elegant abridged translation of Navarrete, and of _La Historia de el

Almirante D. Christoval Colon_, by his son Fernando Colon, in _Barcia_,

_Historiadores Primitivos_, tom. i., Madrid, 1749. Alexander von

Humboldt's _Examen critique de l'histoire de la Géographie du nouveau

continent, et des progrès de l'astronomie nautique aux 15ème et 16ème

Siècles_, 5 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1836-9, is a most exhaustive digest of

materials furnished by Navarrete and the older historians, illustrated

with the results of the author's personal investigations. The work

embraces two treatises; first, the causes which led to the discovery of

America; second, facts relating to Columbus and Vespucci, with the dates

of geographic discoveries. Humboldt's _Abhandlung über die ältesten

Karten_, printed as an introduction to _Ghillany_, _Geschichte des

Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim_, Nuremberg, 1853, of which I have only

a manuscript English translation, is an essay as well on the naming of

America as on early maps. Another important treatise is that of J. G.

Kohl, _Die beiden ältesten General-Karten von America_, Weimar, 1860,

of nearly two hundred large folio pages on the earliest manuscript and

printed maps, two of the former, dated 1527 and 1529, accompanying the

work, reproduced in chromo-lithographic fac-simile. The same author

has produced other works on the subject, the most important being _A

History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North America, published

in Collections of the Maine Historical Society_, 2d series, vol. i.,

Portland, 1869. This contains reduced copies of twenty-three early

maps, and is perhaps the most complete work existing, so far as the

northern coasts are concerned, giving comparatively little attention to

more southern voyages. _Kunstmann_, _Die Entdeckung Amerikas_, Munich,

1859, is a careful compilation of ninety-six imperial quarto pages,

with copious notes and references, written to accompany a collection

of thirteen large chromo-lithographic reproductions of manuscript

maps preserved in the Academy of Sciences at Munich, and generally

known as the _Munich Atlas_. Herr Kunstmann treats chiefly of the

Atlantic islands, with special reference to the connection between the

discoveries of Spaniards and Northmen. _Major's Life of Prince Henry of

Portugal_, London, 1868, is the best authority for Portuguese voyages as

well as for the revival of maritime enterprise in the fifteenth century.

_Stevens' Historical and Geographical Notes on the Earliest Discoveries

in America, 1453-1530_, New Haven, 1869, was written originally as

an introduction to a book by the author's brother on his proposed

interoceanic communication via Tehuantepec. It is a concise statement

of the whole matter, presenting some of its phases in a practically new

light. _Varnhagen_, _Le Premier Voyage de Amerigo Vespucci_, Vienna,

1869, must not be omitted as the chief support of a theory on Vespucci's

voyages which nearly concerns the first discovery of our Pacific States

territory proper. _Rafn_, _Antiquitates Americanæ_, Hafniæ, 1837, is the

source of nearly all our knowledge of the discoveries of the Northmen

in America in the tenth and following centuries; and _De Costa_, _The

Pre-Columbian Discovery of America_, Albany, 1868, presents an English

translation of the same Icelandic _sagas_ in which the enterprises

of the Northmen are recorded. The _Cartografía Mexicana_ of Orozco y

Berra, published by the Mexican Geographical Society, contains, as its

title indicates, a mention of early maps in chronologic order; and the

_Mapoteca Colombiana_ of Urricœchea, London, 1860, is another important

contribution of similar nature. There should be mentioned the excellent

review given in the first volume of _Bryant's History of the United

States_, which has appeared since this Summary was written; and I might

present quite a list of papers read before the various learned societies

of Europe and America on different topics connected with this subject in

late years, none of them I believe materially affecting my conclusions.

The above form but a small portion of the works devoted wholly or in

part to the subject, but they are believed to contain all the material

necessary for even a more detailed statement than my purpose demands.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ADVENTURES OF THE ANCIENTS.]

Of the voyages of the ancients, properly so called, that is, of such as

preceded the fall of the Roman Empire at the end of the fourth century,

I shall here say little. These maritime expeditions, confined for the

most part to the Mediterranean, though extending for some distance

along the coasts of the Indian and Atlantic oceans, with occasional

voyages designedly or accidentally prolonged to more distant islands,

and it may be continents, come down to us through antique histories,

cosmographies, and poems, so mixed with vague hypothetical and

mythological conceptions, that the most searching investigation is often

unable to separate fact from fable. There are multitudes of classic

and mediæval legends adopted by Tasso, Pulci, and other Italian poets,

such, for example, as that which makes the Greek wanderer Ulysses the

pioneer of western adventure, which in a sober treatise are scarcely

worthy of mention. Turning to the dawn his vessel's poop, this son of

Laertes, it is said, passed Gibraltar, the bound ordained by Hercules

not to be overstepped by man, and, as Dante tells us, sailed for the

Happy Isles of the unknown Atlantic, unrestrained by son, or father, or

even Penelope's ever-weaving web of love.

A little journey was a wonderful exploit before the time of

Christ—instance the immortal fame achieved by Hanno, the Carthaginian,

in visiting the west coast of Africa, B. C. 570; by Herodotus, in making

the excursion of Egypt and India, B. C. 464-456; by Pytheas, in his

voyage to the British Isles, B. C. 340; by Nearchus, in descending the

Indus, B. C. 326; by Eudoxus, in his attempt to sail round Africa, B.

C. 130; by Cæsar, in undertaking the conquest of Gaul, B. C. 58; by

Strabo, in penetrating Asia some thirty or forty years later. After

the Christian era Pausanias, a Roman, in 175 wrote a guide-book of

Greece; Fa Hian, a Chinese monk, went westward into India in the year

400 or thereabout; Cosmas Indicopleustes travelled in India a century

and a half later and wrote a book to prove the world square, and the

universe an oblong coffer; Arculphe wrote of the Holy Land about 650; an

Englishman, Willibald, made the tour of southern Europe and Palestine,

setting out from Southampton in 721; in 851 went Soliman from Persia to

the China sea. So it has been said.

Indeed, the writings of Herodotus indicate that, over two thousand years

before Dias and Vasco da Gama, Africa was circumnavigated by a fleet of

Phœnician ships sent by Pharaoh Necho down the Red Sea with orders to

return to Egypt by way of the Pillars of Hercules. A Persian, Sataspes,

endeavored to accomplish the voyage from the other direction, but

failed. Plato's island of Atlantis, founded by the god Neptune, was of

great size, "larger than Asia and Libya together, and was situated over

against the straits now called the Pillars of Hercules." The climate

and soil were so good that fruits ripened twice every year. There were

metals, with elephants and other animals in abundance. Upon a mountain

was a beautiful city with gold and ivory palaces, having gardens and

statues. Unfortunately in time the sea swallowed up this island, so that

it could scarcely have been America.

[Sidenote: THE PROPHECY OF QUETZALCOATL.]

So far as these voyages and strange tales concern the possible knowledge

of America by the ancients, I have already discussed them in my _Native

Races of the Pacific States_. Therein is mentioned a theory which has

found many advocates, and to which I will again briefly allude in this

place. It is that at the beginning of the Christian era America was

visited by the Apostle St Thomas. He was accompanied by a number of

fellow-laborers in the ministry, who preached the gospel and planted

the Christian religion in America. The theory is ably advocated in the

excellent work of Rev. W. Gleeson, _The History of the Catholic Church

in California_. The principal arguments advanced may be briefly stated

as follows: First, that the whole tenor of Scripture teaching is in

favor of the supposition that the gospel was preached to all the world

from the beginning, rather than after the lapse of several centuries.

Second, that at a date fixed by Mexican hieroglyphics as a little before

the middle of the first century after Christ, a celebrated personage,

certainly the most remarkable in Mexican mythology, came from the north.

He is represented as a white man, with flowing beard, clad in a long

white robe, adorned with red crosses, head uncovered, and a staff in his

hand. This was the Quetzalcoatl, whom the Mexicans afterward worshipped,

and whose return was so anxiously looked for by them. See _Torquemada_,

_Monarq. Ind._ Third, that to him popular tradition ascribes the worship

paid to the cross, the practice of confession, and in a word all the

customs found on the arrival of the Spaniards to be nearly identical

with those of the Christian religion. _Veytia_, _Hist. Ant. de Mexico_.

Fourth, that the name Quetzalcoatl is synonymous with that of St Thomas.

See _Native Races_, v. 26. Fifth, that Quetzalcoatl promised on his

departure to return at some future day with his posterity and resume

the possession of the empire, and that day was looked forward to with

general confidence, _Prescott's Conq. Mex._, and that a general feeling

prevailed at the time of Montezuma that the period of his return had

arrived. _Veytia_, _Hist. Ant. Mex._ Sixth, that there were at the

convent of Nijapa, in the province of Oajaca, hieroglyphs containing

all the principal doctrines of the Christian religion, and the coming

of the Apostle to the country. _Id._

Sahagun, who wrote at the time of the conquest, speaks of the general

belief in this prophecy, and assures us that on the arrival of the

Spaniards they repeatedly offered them divine honors, believing that

their god Quetzalcoatl had returned. _Conq. Mex._, i. chap. iii.

"It is then undeniably true," says Gleeson, _Catholic Church in Cal._,

185, "that a popular tradition existed in the country respecting a

prophecy made by Quetzalcohuatl, in which was foretold the future

arrival of whites on the coast; and this, while it proves the reality

of the man, and his character as a teacher of religion, also proves the

still more important and appreciable fact of his being a Christian, and

of western origin; for, it was clearly set forth in the prophecy, that

the persons who should come would be whites, and of the same religion

as he. The time also seems to have been specified by the Apostle, if

we are to judge by the expression that they were expecting him every

day. And, indeed, Boturini assures us that the time mentioned in the

Mexican hieroglyphics was that in which the Christians arrived. The year

_ce acatl_ was that foretold by Quetzalcohuatl, and in that year the

Spaniards landed in the Country." On ancient voyages and cosmography

see also Humboldt, _Exam. Crit._, tom. i. pp. 125-206.

It is the results of ancient voyages, the point of geographical

knowledge attained by ancient civilization in its most advanced stage

and by it bequeathed to the Dark Age, and not the voyages themselves,

with which we have to do at present. This knowledge is found for the

most part embodied in the system of Ptolemy, the Alexandrian geographer

of the second century, whose works became the standard text-books, and

holding their prominence for fourteen hundred years were not superseded

as late as the sixteenth century, but were republished from time to

time, with additions, setting forth the results of new discoveries. In

this manner twenty-one editions appeared during the first half of that

century. Nor was even Ptolemy the originator of this prolonged system.

One hundred and fifty years before him was the Greek geographer Strabo,

who gave descriptions of countries and peoples, fixing his localities

usually by itinerary distances; and to this work of Strabo's, Ptolemy

added a century and a half of progress, and determined his localities

by astronomical observation. The work of Pomponius Mela, the Roman

geographer who wrote probably somewhat later than Strabo, is regarded

as no improvement on that of his predecessor.

Ptolemy's World was nearly all in the north temperate zone, embracing

about fifty degrees of latitude and one hundred and twenty of longitude.

The Fortunate Isles, now called the Canaries, were known to Ptolemy, and

by him used as a western limit or first meridian. This, and as a nucleus

of poetic myths, seem to have been their only use; as Muñoz says,

_Hist. del Nuevo Mundo_, p. 30: "Fuera de este uso apenas aprovecharon

sino para entretenir ociosas imaginaciones con fábulas de poetas."

The eastern limit was vaguely located in the region beyond the Ganges;

actually in about 100° east longitude. On the south were included the

African coasts of the Mediterranean and Red Sea, with the southern

coasts of Arabia and India proper—the term India being then applied

indefinitely to all eastern lands, including even parts of Africa—thus

fixing the southern bound at about 30° north latitude in the west, and

10° in the east. Northward the limit may be placed a little above 60°,

within which falls the southern part of the Scandinavian peninsula, then

supposed to be an island, and also the island of Thule, the location

of which is disputed, some claiming it to have been Iceland, others the

Faroe Islands, and others the Shetland Islands. But Ptolemy's latitudes

were all some ten degrees too far north, while in his longitudes he

went still further astray; since, reckoning from the Canaries as his

first meridian, he made his last meridian 180°, when it should have been

120°, and thus by narrowing half the circumference of the globe some

sixty degrees he made the world nearly one third less than it really

is. Authorities differ, however, as to what were Ptolemy's ideas. But

more of this hereafter. On the opposite page is a map in which the world

as known in these times is left white, the shaded portions being the

result of subsequent discoveries down to the last half of the fifteenth

century. A map of Ptolemy's World, reduced to its true proportions,

may be seen in _Goselin_, _Recherches sur la géographie systématique et

positive des anciens_, tom. iv., Paris, 1813.

[Illustration: THE WORLD; THE WHITE PART AS KNOWN AT THE END OF THE

FOURTH CENTURY, THE LIGHTLY SHADED PORTIONS AS KNOWN AT THE END OF

THE FIFTEENTH.]

Within these limits, then, geographical knowledge was confined at the

end of the fourth century; limits not sharply defined, but indefinite

and wavering according to ages, to the directions of conquest, and to

distances from Mediterranean centres. Beyond these limits was a realm

of darkness peopled by strange beings, creatures of poetic fancy or

crude conjecture. Just as the wonder-land of Homer to contemporaneous

eastern Greeks, was Italy, with its strange waters inhabited by very

strange beasts, and Sicily, and neighboring isles, where were the

Satyrs, and the gigantic one-eyed Cyclops eating milk and mutton and

men, so to later teachers were the strange seas beyond. On the north was

an impenetrable region of eternal ice; on the south, an equatorial zone

of burning heat; a barrier of frost on the one side and of fire on the

other, both equally uninhabitable to the European man, and cutting off

all communication with possible habitable lands elsewhere. The burning

zone, however, seems to have been a popular idea, rather than a part of

the system taught by Ptolemy, who, indeed, held that Africa extended

south-east and north-east toward the eastern parts of Asia, making of

the Indian Ocean an immense gulf not connected with the Atlantic on

the west. Strabo and other geographers who preceded Ptolemy gave Africa

approximately its correct shape; traditions of its circumnavigation even

were kept alive, in spite of Ptolemy's theory, influencing geographic

thought not a little during the fifteenth century. Irving is of opinion,

_Columbus_, vol. iii. p. 440, that modern authors consider the knowledge

of the ancients concerning Africa much less extensive than has been

generally supposed; but Major, _Prince Henry_, p. 89 et seq., accepts

a circumnavigation of Africa in the seventh century B. C., and also

Hanno's voyage far down the African coast, placing the date of the

latter 570 B. C. Among the philosophers of western Europe no definite

hypotheses appear to have been advanced as to the extent of land beyond

the known region; as to the ideas of the Arabs and Buddhist priests

concerning the matter it is difficult to determine. See _Kohl's Hist.

Discov._, p. 149; _Draper's Intellectual Development_, p. 451, New

York, 1872. Beyond the Fortunate Isles to the west stretched a _Mare

Tenebrosum_, or Sea of Darkness, as early writers express it, separating

the known western coast from the far unknown east. In this dark sea

tradition planted islands at various points, reiterating the fact of

their existence so often that names and locations were finally given

them on maps, though the islands themselves have never yet been found.

Except these fabulous islands, there was little thought of land between

the coasts of Europe and Asia. Compare maps in this volume; also _George

Bancroft's History of the United States_, vol. i. p. 6, Boston, 1870;

_D'Avesac_, in _Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_, 1845, tom. cv. p. 293;

tom. cvi. p. 47.

To sum up the geographical knowledge of the ancients, we have first,

the sphericity of the earth surmised, although its size was vaguely

conceived and underrated; secondly, the positive knowledge of Europeans

limited to the unshaded portion of the map on page 73; thirdly, divers

theories respecting the conformation of southern Africa; fourthly,

a _mare oceanum_ stretching westward to the unknown Asiatic shore,

with hypothetical islands intervening, and expressed opinions that

this sea was navigable, and that possibly India might be reached by

sailing westward. These ideas, vague as they seem, were held only by

the learned few; the world of the ignorant reached scarcely beyond the

horizon of their actual experience. Not until long after its actual

circumnavigation, in the sixteenth century, was the popular mind able

to grasp the idea of the earth's sphericity.

* * * * *

We come now to mediæval times, when from the fifth to the fifteenth

century the cosmographical as well as all other knowledge of the

ancients lay well-nigh dormant; to the people a land of darkness as

well as a sea, though in some few colleges and convents these things

were thought of. "Ces ténèbres," says Humboldt, _Exam. Crit._, tom.

i. p. 59, "s'étendaient sans doute sur les masses; mais, dans les

couvens et les colléges quelques individus conservaient les traditions

de l'antiquité." Upon this world of darkness light first broke from

the far north, the voyages of the Scandinavians from the ninth to the

twelfth centuries being the _aurora borealis_ of maritime discovery.

These Northmen, as in their expeditions Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes

were indiscriminately called, by their warlike propensities made

themselves known and feared along the shores of Europe at an early

date; but their western discoveries were known only to themselves; at

all events, no trace of distant voyages to the west are found in the

records of their neighbors. It is only quite recently that the sagas

of the Northmen were brought to the attention of European scholars;

and when the Danish bishop, Müller, published his bibliography of the

sagas, 3 vols., Copenhagen, 1817-1820, these narratives were held to

be more fiction than fact. Even so late a writer as George Bancroft,

_History of the United States_, vol. i. pp. 5, 6, says that the story

of colonization by the Northmen "rests on narratives, mythological in

form, and obscure in meaning; ancient, yet not contemporary," and that

"no clear historic evidence establishes the natural probability that

they accomplished the passage." Irving, _Columbus_, vol. iii. pp. 432-5,

considers the matter "still to be wrapped in much doubt and obscurity."

Both of these authors, however, seem to have considered only the

evidence presented by Malte-Brun and Forster. Since their time proofs

beyond question have established the authenticity of these voyages of

the Northmen. The sagas on American discoveries are preserved in the

archives at Copenhagen, with a collection of other historical data,

reaching down to the fourteenth century, the date of their completion.

It is true that they deal somewhat in the marvellous—they would not

be authentic else, written at that time—but they contain tales no more

wonderful or monstrous than the writings of more southern nations. See

an account of the Copenhagen documents and the examination of their

authenticity in _De Costa's Pre-Columbian Discov. Am._, pp. i-lx. Two

nearly contemporary ecclesiastical histories—that of Adam of Bremen,

1073, and Ordericus Vitalis, about 1100—describe briefly the western

lands of the Northmen. Further reference, _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._,

p. 32; _Rafn_, _Antiquitates Am._, p. 337; _Kohl's Hist. Discov._, p.

76.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: THE NORTHMEN AND THEIR SAGAS.]

Vague notions were not wanting of communication with America before the

time of the Northmen, but these, whatever they were, are now to us pure

speculation and may be omitted here. Passing over a general movement

by which before the middle of the ninth century the Northmen appear

to have broken through their former bounds, and to have extended their

plundering raids in all directions, taking possession of the Shetland

and Faroe islands and even of the north of Britain, we come to the first

definite adventure westward.

[A. D. 860-4.] Two bold men, Naddod and Gardar, in one of their

coast-island cruises, were driven from their course to the north-west

and discovered Iceland, called by one Snowland, and by the other Gardar

Island. Kohl, _Hist. Discov._, p. 61, dates both voyages 860; Forster

gives 861 to Naddod's; other authors place the former in the year 860,

and the latter in 864.

[874.] Ingolf made a settlement in Iceland at a point still called

by his name. Other immigrants followed, and a flourishing colony was

founded. The Northmen found on the island Irish priests, who had come

there at a time not definitely known, but who immediately abandoned

the country to the new settlers. Within twenty years thereafter Iceland

was fairly well inhabited. De Costa, _Pre-Columbian Discov. Am._, pp.

xxii-iv., makes the date A. D. 875.

[876.] One Gunnbjörn, an Icelandic colonist, is reported to have seen

accidentally, from a distance, the coast of Greenland. Kohl dates this

voyage 877.

[982-6.] Eric the Red, banished from Iceland for murder in 982, sailed

west, found land, remained there three years, and returned, naming the

country Greenland to attract settlers. In 985, or 986, he sailed again

with a larger force, this time founding a settlement to which other

adventurers resorted. Of the first voyage Kohl makes no mention.

[983.] One of the sagas contains a report by an Irish merchant that one

Are Marson was carried in a storm to Whiteman's Land "in the Western

Ocean, opposite Vinland, six days' sail west of Ireland." Rafn thinks

this may have been that part of America in the vicinity of Florida;

others make it the Azores. There are also vague reports of later voyages

to the same land by Björn Asbrandson in 999, and by Gudleif in 1027.

In the present stage of investigation the proof is insufficient to

establish an Irish pre-Scandinavian discovery of America.

[990.] In this year, or, as De Costa makes it, in 986, Biarne, sailing

from Iceland in search of his father, who had previously gone to

Greenland, was carried far to the south-west, to within sight of land,

undoubtedly America, which he coasted north-east for several days and

returned to Greenland. Three points particularly noticed on the new

coast are conjectured by Kohl to have been Cape Cod, Nova Scotia, and

Newfoundland.

[1000.] Leif, son of Eric the Red, sailed from Greenland south-west in

search of the lands seen by Biarne, reached the same in reverse order,

landing probably at Newfoundland, which he named Helluland (Stony

Land); Nova Scotia, he called Markland (Woodland); and passing round

Cape Cod, made a settlement, named after himself, Leifsbudir, at some

point on Narragansett Bay. He called this country Vinland from the fact

that vines were found there, and the name was afterwards applied to the

whole region extending northward to Markland. In the spring of 1001 Leif

returned to Greenland with a cargo of grapes and wood.

[1002-5.] Thorwald, another of Eric's sons, sailed with one vessel to

Vinland, where Leif had landed, and lived there through the winter by

fishing. Early in 1003 he explored the country westward in boats, and in

the spring of 1004 doubled Cape Cod, naming it Kialarnes (Ship's Nose),

and perished in a battle with the Skraellings, or Indians, at some point

on the shore of Massachusetts Bay. His companions spent the winter at

Leifsbudir and returned to Greenland in 1005.

[1008.] In the spring of 1008 Thorfinn Karlsefne sailed from Greenland

with three vessels to Helluland—which name was applied not only to

Newfoundland but to the region north of that point—and thence along the

coast to Nova Scotia, and to Cape Cod. Here the party divided, Thorhall,

the hunter, in attempting to explore northward, being driven by a

storm to Ireland, while Thorfinn spent the winter farther south near

Leifsbudir, where a son was born to him. After an unsuccessful search

for Thorhall by one vessel, a third winter was spent in Vinland, and in

1011 Thorfinn returned to Greenland, leaving perhaps a small colony. De

Costa, _Pre-Columbian Discov. Am._, pp. 48-76, makes the date of this

voyage 1007-10.

[1012.] Helge, Finboge, and Eric's daughter Freydisa, who had before

visited America with her husband, sailed to Vinland, and such as

were not killed in the internal dissensions of the party returned to

Greenland in 1013. The records of this expedition are very slight. De

Costa's date is 1011-12.

[1035.] Adam of Bremen speaks of Frisian or German navigators who about

the year 1035 landed on an island beyond Iceland, where the inhabitants

were of great size, and were accompanied by fierce dogs—perhaps the

Eskimos.

[1121.] After the expeditions that have been mentioned, concerning each

of which the sagas contain one or more accounts, no farther regular

reports have been preserved; but various voyages are briefly alluded

to in different records, as though trips to the new regions of Vinland

were no longer of sufficient rarity to be specially noticed. Such

allusions refer to voyages made in 1121, 1285, 1288, 1289, 1290, and

1357. After 1357 no more is heard of the western lands. The settlements

were gradually abandoned both in Vinland and Greenland, as the power of

the Northmen declined, and so far as can be known, even their memory

was buried in the unread records of former greatness. On Scandinavian

discoveries, besides Rafn and De Costa, see _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung

Am._, p. 32; _Kohl's Hist. Discov._, pp. 61-85 and 478; _Humboldt_,

_Exam. Crit._, tom. ii. pp. 88-128; _Abstract of Rafn_, in _Journal

Lond. Geog. Soc._, 1838, vol. viii. pp. 114-29.

[Sidenote: DECLINE OF SCANDINAVIAN DISCOVERY.]

Thus after this play of northern lights upon the western horizon

for four or five centuries, enterprise in that direction languished,

and finally the Sea of Darkness lapsed into its primeval obscurity.

Nevertheless the deeds of the Scandinavians must have become more or

less known to other parts of Europe, for the spirit of uneasiness

which sent these Northmen across their western waters sent them

also—particularly the Danes—eastward in the Holy Crusades. It would

be well for the student to examine the works of Adam of Bremen, and

Ordericus Vitalis, who beside these pre-Columbian voyages describe also

the Crusades. Moreover, Iceland had Catholic bishops and was therefore

in communication with Rome, where the discoveries of the Northmen

must have been known. Rafn, _Antiquitates Am._, pp. 283, 292, and De

Costa, _Pre-Columbian Discov. Am._, pp. 106-109, give translations from

Scandinavian archives of contemporaneous descriptions of the earth in

which these New World discoveries of the Northmen are included. Sailing

charts and maps of the new discoveries must have been drawn by the

Northmen, for although none of them were preserved, yet in _Torfæus_,

_Grœnlandia antiqua_, Hauniæ, 1706, made by Icelandic draughtsmen in the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in Ptolemy's Geography, edition

of 1482, is information of certain things contained in no other charts

of the period extant, which must therefore have been partially compiled

from Scandinavian sources.

It is not to be supposed that the Northmen imagined that they had found

a new continent; very naturally to them Greenland, Helluland, Markland,

and Vinland were but the western continuation of Europe. It is to this

belief, as well as to the prevailing apathy and skepticism of the age

concerning matters beyond the reach of positive knowledge, that the

strange fact of the loss of all trace of these discoveries is due.

The exact results of these ancient expeditions, and their influence on

the subsequent revival of maritime enterprise, form a difficult and as

yet undecided point in the discussion of this subject. Kunstmann gives

particular attention to this matter, and attaches more importance to

northern voyages and their connection with later expeditions than most

other authors; still it has not yet been proved that Prince Henry,

Toscanelli, or Columbus in the fifteenth century had any knowledge of

north-western discoveries.

* * * * *

[1096-1271.] The Crusades—as expeditions, but chiefly for their

results—deserve a brief mention in this connection. When in the

seventh century Palestine passed from Christian to Mahometan hands,

in which possession it has remained with but temporary interruptions

to the present time, Christian pilgrimages to the Holy City for a few

centuries were allowed, and to some extent protected. By successive

changes of dynasty, however, power was transferred from the Arab to

the Turkish branch of the Mahometans, so that in the eleventh century

Christian pilgrims were cruelly oppressed, and hindered from their

pious visits to the tomb of Christ. Roused at first by the exhortations

of Peter the Hermit, Italy, France, England, and Germany sent armies

of the undisciplined and fanatical rabble to avenge the insults to

their faith, and wrest the Holy City from the power of barbarian

heretics. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century nine expeditions

were undertaken eastward in the prosecution of this work. Jerusalem

was several times taken and retaken, but finally the Crescent was

successful in resisting the encroachments of the Cross, and the Crusades

failed in their visionary purpose. Still the continued migration of

vast multitudes, from different nations through strange and distant

lands, contributed much to increase popular knowledge of the world, to

arouse fresh interest in regions hitherto little known, and to excite

curiosity respecting the countries still further to the east. Meanwhile,

commerce received an impetus from the work of furnishing supplies to

the crusaders; so that these expeditions are included by modern writers

as prominent among the causes which led to the coming revival of

civilization.

[1147.] During the twelfth century few maritime expeditions are reported

deserving of notice. At some not very clearly defined date before 1147,

eight Arabs, the Almagrurins, are said to have sailed thirty-five

days south-west from Lisbon with the intention of exploring the Sea

of Darkness. At the end of the thirty-five days they found and named

an Isle of Sheep, and twelve days farther south reached another island

peopled by red men. They are said to have found there a man who spoke

Arabic. Upon the whole the claim to a discovery of any part of America

in this voyage should be slight. If the voyage be authentic, the land

reached was perhaps the Canary Islands; some say those of Cape Verde.

[1160-73.] Benjamin de Tudela, a Spanish Jew, travelled for thirteen

years in India, bringing back considerable information respecting

Chinese Tartary and the islands of the Indian Ocean. _D. Benjamini_,

_Itinerarium ex versione Montani_, Antwerp, 1575; _Itinerarium D.

Benjaminis_, Leyden, 1633; _Travels of Benjamin, Son of Jonas_, London,

1783.

[1170.] In this year is placed the reported voyage of Madoc, a Welsh

prince, who, sailing to the west and north from Ireland, landed on an

unknown shore. He afterward returned to this new country with ten ships

with the intention of colonizing, but was never again heard of. This

voyage rests on very slight authority, but has claimed importance by

reason of reports, long believed, of the existence in various parts of

America of Welsh-speaking Indian tribes. These reports, like scores

of others referring the Americans to European relationships, proved

groundless. To say the least, the voyage of Madoc must be considered

doubtful. _The most ancient Discouery of the West Indies by Madoc the

sonne of Owen Guyneth, Prince of North-wales, in the yeere 1170; taken

out of the history of Wales, in Hakluyt_, vol. iii. p. 1.

[1246 et seq.] In the middle of the thirteenth century the desire

to extend Christianity was encouraged by rumored conversions already

made in the dominions of the Mogul, and especially by the report of a

powerful Christian monarch, Prester John, who had reigned somewhere in

the interior of Asia. This report led to the sending of several priests

as missionaries to the far East. Carpini in 1246, and Ascelino in 1254,

Italian Franciscans, penetrated to the region now known as Chinese

Turkestan. About the same time, 1253 according to Hakluyt, Rubruquis,

also a Franciscan, from Brabant, traversed the central Asiatic deserts.

He was the first to present a definite idea of the position of Tartary

and Cathay. A notice of his travels was given in the writings of Roger

Bacon in 1267. Toward the end of this century Odorico, of the same

order, visited Persia, India, and finally China, remaining three years

in Peking. _Viaggio del Beato Frate Odorico di Porto Maggiore del

Frivli fatto nell'Anno MCCCXVIII_ (half a century later than above), in

_Ramusio_, tom. ii., fol. 254. See also _Hakluyt's Voy._, vol. i. pp.

21-117; vol. ii. pp. 39, 53; _Navarrete_, _Col. Viages_, tom. i. pp.

ix. x.

[Sidenote: VENETIAN AND GENOESE EXPEDITIONS.]

[1250-95.] Nicolo and Maffio Polo, Venetian brothers, left Venice in

1250 on a trading trip north-eastward. Passing north of the Caspian Sea,

they spent three years at Bokhara, and afterward in 1265, proceeded to

the court of Kublai Khan at Kemenfu in Chinese Tartary, whence they

returned in 1269, intrusted with a mission to the Pope. In 1271 they

again set out, taking with them Marco, son of Nicolo. They revisited

the Tartar court, where they spent seventeen years, and returned by

sea down the Chinese and Indian coasts to Ormuz in Persia and thence

overland to Constantinople, reaching Venice in 1295. Marco seems to have

been a great favorite at the eastern court, where he was intrusted with

missions in all directions. By means of his own travels and by reports

of the natives from all sections whom he met, he gained an extensive

knowledge of China and adjoining countries, including the numerous

islands of the coast, chief among which was Zipangu, or Japan. From his

memoranda, he afterwards wrote in prison, a full account of his eastern

travels, which was copied and widely circulated in manuscript. See

_Hakluyt Society_, _Divers Voyages_, Introd., p. lii., London, 1850,

for an account of printed editions of Polo's work. Its authenticity

and general reliability are now admitted, though doubtless errors have

been multiplied by copyists. This journey of Marco Polo was by far the

most important, for revising geography, of any undertaken during the

middle ages. From this time the coasts of Asia were laid down on maps

and described with tolerable accuracy by cosmographers. _De i Viaggi

di Messer Marco Polo, Gentil 'hvomo Venetiano_, in _Ramusio_, tom. ii.

fol. 2-60; _Marco Polo de Veniesia de le meravegliose cose del mondo_,

Venice, 1496; _Marci Pauli veneti de regionibus orientalibus libri

tres_, Cologne, 1671.

The Venetians were the most enterprising navigators of the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They reached England at an early

date,—_Estancelin_, _Recherches_, pp. 114-16, Paris, 1832—and not

improbably extended their commercial operations still farther north,

Iceland being at the time a flourishing republic with Catholic bishops.

_Kohl's Hist. Discov._, pp. 92-4. No details however are preserved

of any particular one of these voyages, nor of such as may have been

directed toward Cape Non, the southern limit of oceanic navigation. Some

time during this century a Moor, Ibn Fatimah, was driven by storms from

Cape Non down past Cape Blanco, and his adventure was recorded in an

Arabian geography.

[1291.] Doria and Vivaldi, Genoese, undertook a voyage down the African

coast with a view of reaching India, and were last heard of at a place

called Gozora. On this voyage, which rests on several authorities,

has been founded a claim that the Italians preceded the Portuguese in

passing Cape Bojador. Major, _Prince Henry_, pp. 99-110, concludes

from an examination of all the documents that there are no grounds

for this claim, although admitting the voyage and its purpose, in fact

everything but its success. Gozora was probably Cape Non. Kohl regards

this expedition as uncertain. One of the documents gives the date as

1281; from which circumstance Kohl and Humboldt erroneously make of it

two voyages. D'Avesac, in _Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_, 1845, tom.

cviii. p. 45, has the date 1285. Muñoz, _Hist. Nuevo Mundo_, pp. 30-1,

speaks of Genoese expeditions and the rediscovery of the Canaries during

this century.

[1306.] On a map made by the Venetian Sanuto in 1306, Africa is

represented as surrounded by the sea, but there is no evidence that the

geography of that region is derived from any actual observations. The

map simply shows one of the two theories then held respecting the shape

of southern Africa.

[1332 et seq.] Sir John Mandeville, an English physician, between 1332

and 1366, travelled in eastern parts, including the Holy Land, India,

and China. On his return he wrote in three languages an account of his

adventures, with descriptions of the countries visited. See _Hakluyt

Soc._, _Divers Voy._, Introd. p. xliii. His work corroborates that of

Marco Polo, and although full of exaggerations, and probably tampered

with by copyists in respect to adventures and anecdotes, "yet," says

Irving, "his accounts of the countries which he visited have been found

far more veracious than had been imagined." _Purchas_, _His Pilgrimes_,

vol. iii. pp. 128-38; _Travels of Sir John Mandeville_, London, 1725.

[1341 et seq.] As we have seen, the Canaries were known to the ancients,

and made by Ptolemy the western limit of the world; but subsequently

they were nearly forgotten until rediscovered and visited, perhaps

several times, toward the middle of the fourteenth century, by the

Portuguese. There is a definite account of one of these voyages. Two

vessels were sent there by the King of Portugal in 1341, and nearly all

the islands of the group visited, but no settlement was made. Before

this, Luis de la Cerda represented to the Pope the existence of such

islands, and received by a bull of lordship of them, with the title of

Prince of Fortune. The king of Portugal claimed in 1345 to have sent

out previous expeditions to the islands. The project of Cerda proved

a failure and no colony was founded. Voyages to the Canaries became

quite frequent before the end of the century. _Galvano_, _Discoveries_,

London, 1862; and in _Collection of Curious Voyages_, London, 1812, p.

10; _Muñoz_, _Hist. Nuevo Mundo_, pp. 30-1; _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung

Am._, pp. 1-4. Major, _Prince Henry_, pp. 139-45, dates the bull 1334.

[1346.] In August, 1346, Jaime Ferrer, a Catalan navigator, sailed from

Majorca in the Mediterranean to search down the African coast for the

Rujaura, or River of Gold, and never was heard from. This is proved by

a document in the Genoese archives, and by an inscription on a Catalan

map of 1375. Major shows this to have been an expedition in search of an

unknown or imaginary river of gold, whose supposed existence rested on

ancient traditions that a branch of the Nile flowed into the Atlantic,

and which belief was strengthened by the gold brought from Guinea by

the Arabs. Humboldt understands this Rujaura to have been the Rio d'Ouro

below Cape Bojador, an inlet named later by the Portuguese; and he also

states that Ferrer actually reached that point; but of this there seems

to be no evidence.

[1351 et seq.] The Azores appear to have been discovered by the

Portuguese early in this half century, appearing on a map of 1351.

There is however no account of the voyage by which this discovery was

made, although there is a tradition of a Greek who was there cast away

in 1370. On a Genoese map of the same date the Madeira group is shown,

having probably been discovered by Portuguese ships under Genoese

captains early in the fourteenth century.

[1364.] By Villault de Bellefond, _Relation des costes d'Afrique_,

Paris, 1669, it is stated that the Dieppese in 1364 made a voyage round

Cape Verde, and far beyond, establishing trading-posts, which were

repeatedly visited in the following years. On this account, repeated

by many writers—_Estancelin_, _Recherches_, p. 72; _Humboldt_, _Exam.

Crit._, tom. i. p. 285—is founded the French claim of having preceded

the Portuguese in passing Cape Bojador and occupying the gold coast.

Major, _Prince Henry_, pp. 117-33, maintains by strong proofs that this

voyage rests on no good authority, and that the French occupation of

that coast is of much later date.

[Sidenote: THE ZENI.]

[1380.] Nicolo Zeno, a Venetian, sailing northward for England, was

driven in a storm still farther north, and landed on some islands in

possession of the Northmen, which he named Friesland, but which are

supposed to have been the Faroe group. Kindly received by the people,

he sent to Venice for his brother, and both spent there the rest of

their lives, making frequent excursions to neighboring islands, and

gaining a knowledge of other more distant lands known to the Northmen,

including two countries called Drogeo and Estotiland, lying to the

southward of Greenland, which countries the Frieslanders claimed

once to have visited. Nicolo died in 1395, and Antonio in 1404, after

writing an account of their adventures, which, with a chart, he sent

to a third brother, Carlo. The manuscript was preserved by the family

and first published under the title _Dei Commentarii del viaggio in

Persia, etc._, Venezia, 1558. After passing the ordeal of criticism the

work is generally accepted as a faithful report of actual occurrences,

though embellished, like all writings of the time, with fable. _Dello

Scoprimento dell' Isola Frislanda Eslanda, en Grovelanda, et Icaria_,

in _Ramusio_, tom. ii. fol. 230-4; _Hakluyt's Voy._, vol. iii. pp.

121-8; _Bos_, _Leben der See-Helden_, pp. 523-7; _Cancellieri_, _Notizie

di Colombo_, pp. 48-9; _Lelewel_, _Géog. du moyen âge_, tom. iii. pp.

74 et seq. Irving, however, _Columbus_, vol. iii. pp. 435-40, sees in

this voyage only another of "the fables circulated shortly after the

discovery of Columbus, to arrogate to other nations and individuals the

credit of the achievement," while Zahrtmann, _Remarks on the Voy. to

the Northern Hemisphere, ascribed to the Zeni of Venice_, in _Journal

of the Geog. Soc._, vol. v. pp. 102-28, London, 1835, claims that the

whole account is a fable.

The chart by the brothers Zeni, published with the manuscript, is of

great importance as the first known map which shows any part of America.

It contains internal evidences of its own authenticity, one of which

is that Greenland is much better drawn than could have been done from

other or extraneous sources even in 1558. I give from Kohl's fac-simile

a copy of the map, omitting a few of the names.

[Illustration: ZENO'S CHART, DRAWN ABOUT 1390.]

There can be little doubt that the countries marked Estotiland, Drogeo,

and Icaria—possibly Nova Scotia, New England, and Newfoundland—owe their

position on this chart to the actual knowledge of America, obtained

either by a fishing-vessel wrecked there, as stated by the Zeni, or

from a tradition preserved since the time of the Northmen. The lines of

latitude and longitude were not on the original manuscript chart, but

were added by the editors in 1558. _Lelewel_, _Géog. du moyen âge_, tom.

iii. pp. 79-101, Bruxelles, 1852; _Kohl's Hist. Discov._, pp. 97-106.

At an unknown date, probably near the end of the thirteenth century,

Robert Machin, an Englishman, eloped with a lady in his own vessel

from Bristol. He steered for France, but was driven by a tempest to

the island of Madeira, where both died. Some of the crew escaped to

the African coast, where they were taken prisoners, but afterward were

redeemed by the Spaniards, to whom one of them related the discovery of

Madeira, his account leading to its rediscovery. Major concludes, "that

henceforth the story of this accidental discovery of Madeira by Machin

must be accepted as a reality," but the date cannot be fixed. That of

1344 often assigned to the voyage results from a misreading of Galvano.

Beside _Galvano_, _Discov._, pp. 58-9, see _Purchas_, _His Pilgrimes_,

vol. ii. p. 1672; _The Voyage of Macham, an English man, wherein he

first of any man discovered the Iland of Madera_, in _Hakluyt_, vol. ii.

pt. ii. p. 1; _Curious and Ent. Voy._, p. 13; _Major's Prince Henry_,

p. 67; _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._, p. 4.

[1402.] At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Jean de Betancourt

with a company of Norman adventurers conquered Lanzarote, one of the

Canary Islands. He afterward became tributary to the crown of Castile,

and by the aid of the Spanish government obtained possession of other

islands of the group, establishing there a permanent colony. _Muñoz_,

_Hist. del Nuevo Mundo_, pp. 30-33; _Peter Martyr_, dec. i. cap.

i., gives the date 1405; _Galvano_, _Discov._, p. 60; _Kunstmann_,

_Entdeckung Am._, p. 6; _Pinkerton's Col. Voy._, vol. xvi. pp. 808-15.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL.]

We enter now a new epoch in maritime discovery. Hitherto, if we exclude

the voyages of the Northmen, there had been no attempt worthy the name

of systematic ocean exploration. In the words of Major, "the pathways

of the human race had been the mountain, the river, and the plain, the

strait, the lake, the inland sea," but now a road is open through the

trackless ocean, "a road replete with danger, but abundant in promise."

Portugal, guided by the genius of Prince Henry the Navigator, was the

first to shake off the lethargy which had so long rested on Europe.

For some time past the Portuguese had been gradually eclipsing the

Italians in maritime enterprise; but not until a prince leaves the

pleasures of youth for the perils of the sea, throwing his life into

the cause with all the ardor of a devotee, does ocean navigation become

anything more than private commercial speculation, with now and then

some slight aid from governments. True, others had undertaken the

voyage round Africa, but Portugal was perhaps the first to make it. As

D'Avesac remarks, _Nouvelles Annales des Voy._, 1846, tom. cx. p. 161:

"Les Portugais ne s'y engagèrent point les premiers; mais seuls ils y

persevérèrent, et les premiers ils atteignirent le but." Born in the

year 1394, at a time when under his father, John, Portugal was already

casting wistful glances over the Sea of Darkness, Prince Henry devoted

his early life to geographical studies and his later life to discovery.

Leaving the pomp and luxury of his father's court, he removed to the

coast of Algarve, and from the dreary headland of Sagres let fly his

imagination along the unknown shores of Africa. Drawing to him such

young noblemen as were willing to share his labors, he established a

school of navigation, giving special care to the study of cartography

and mathematics. The geographical position of his native land was to

the Portuguese, in regard to oceanic adventure, not unlike that of the

Italians in regard to Mediterranean navigation. Several causes united

to inspire this prince with so noble an ambition. He desired to promote

geographical science; to test the theories and traditions of the day; to

know the truth concerning the disputed question of the form and extent

of southern Africa; to turn the flow of riches, the gold and spices and

slaves of India, from Italy into his own country. Nor was this last

stimulant lessened by the fact that of late, by reason of Mahometan

encroachments on Christian dominions, the old avenues of eastern traffic

_via_ the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf, or by the Red Sea and caravans

across the deserts, were yearly becoming more insecure, and this too at

a time when the taste for eastern luxuries was constantly increasing.

Yet other incentives were Christian rivalry and Christian zeal. Spain

had carried the cross to the Canaries; rumors kept coming in of Prester

John and his Christian kingdom, now supposed to be in Africa instead of

in Asia. Prince Henry moreover was grand master of the Order of Christ,

and it behooved him to be stirring. _Navarrete_, _Col. de Viages_, tom.

i. p. xxvi.; _Muñoz_, _Hist. Nuevo Mundo_, pp. 33-4.

[1415.] Prince Henry began his voyages along the coast of Africa about

the year 1415, at which time João de Trasto was sent with vessels to the

Canaries. It was Henry's custom to despatch an expedition almost every

year, endeavoring each time to advance upon the last, and so finally

attain the end of the mystery—whereat the nobles grumbled not a little

about useless expense. Obviously progress southward at this rate was

very slow, and many years elapsed before Cape Bojador was passed and

unknown seas were entered. _Major's Prince Henry_, pp. 64-65.

[1416-28.] Meanwhile Pedro, Henry's brother, travelled extensively,

journeying through the Holy Land, visiting Rome, Babylon, and even

England. Fortunately he found at Venice a copy of Marco Polo's work,

and brought it home to Prince Henry. _Galvano's Discov._, pp. 66-7;

_Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._, pp. 11, 12.

[1418.] Gonzalez and Vaz, who were sent this year by Prince Henry

on the regular annual expedition, were driven from their course and

rediscovered Porto Santo. _Galvano_, _Discov._, pp. 62-4; _Kunstmann_,

_Entdeckung Am._, pp. 11, 12; _Curious and Ent. Voy._, pp. 14, 15.

[1419.] Nicolo di Conti, Venetian, spent twenty-five years in India,

Mangi, and Java, returning in 1444, and confirming many of Polo's

statements. _Discorso sopra il Viaggio di Nicolo di Conti Venetiano_, in

_Ramusio_, tom. i. fol. 373. Twice in 1419, if we may credit Navarrete,

_Col. de Viages_, tom. i. p. xxvi., did Prince Henry's ships pass

seventy leagues beyond Cape Non.

[1420.] Gonzalez again embarks from Portugal intending to plant a

colony, and guided by one Morales, a survivor of Machin's voyage,

rediscovered Madeira. _Navarrete_, _Col. de Viages_, tom. i. pp.

xxvi-vii.; _Major's Prince Henry_, pp. 73-7; _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung

Am._, p. 13; _Galvano's Discov._, pp. 63-4; _Aa_, _Naaukeurige

Versameling_, tom. i. pt. ii. p. 16. On a certain map dated 1459 is a

cape supposed to be Good Hope, with the statement that in 1420 an Indian

junk had passed that point from the east; but for this no authority is

given.

1431.] The Formigas and Santa María islands of the Azore group were this

year discovered by Cabral. Kunstmann, _Entdeckung Am._, p. 15, makes

the date August 15, 1432. For details of the discovery and settlement

of all the eastern Atlantic islands, see _idem_, pp. 1-25.

[1434-6.] Gil Eannes, after an unsuccessful attempt in the preceding

year, succeeded in 1434 in doubling Cape Bojador for the first time.

Muñoz, _Hist. Nuevo Mundo_, p. 34, makes the date 1433, and Navarrete,

_Col. de Viages_, tom. i. p. xxvii., 1423. In 1435 Eannes with Baldaya

passed fifty leagues beyond the cape, and in 1436 Baldaya advanced to

a point fifty leagues beyond the inlet since known as Rio d'Ouro.

[Sidenote: THE SLAVE-TRADE.]

[1441-8.] For several years after the successful doubling of Cape

Bojador, no new attempt of importance is recorded, but in 1441 the

voyages were renewed, and in the next eight years the exploration was

pushed one hundred leagues below Cape Verde. Prior to 1446 fifty-one

vessels had traded on the African coast, nearly one thousand slaves

had been taken to Portugal, and the discoveries in the Azores had been

greatly extended. By these explorations Prince Henry had exploded the

theory of a burning zone impassable to man, and of stormy seas impeding

all navigation; his belief that Africa might be circumnavigated was

confirmed; and he had obtained from the pope a grant to the crown of

Portugal of lands he might discover beyond Cape Bojador to the Indies

inclusive.

[1455-6.] According to Ramusio, _Viaggi_, tom. i. p. 105, Alvise

Cadamosto, a Venetian, the first of his countrymen as he claims to sail

down the new coast, made a voyage for Prince Henry to the Gambia River

below Cape Verde. This expedition derives its importance not from the

limit reached, where others had preceded him, but from his numerous

landing points, careful observations, and the detailed account published

by the voyager himself in _La Prima Navigazione, etc._, Vicenza, 1507;

also in _Ramusio_, _Viaggi_, tom. i. pp. 104-15. This explorer touched

at Porto Santo, Madeira, the Canaries, Cape Blanco, Senegal, Budomel,

Cape Verde, and the Gambia River.

[1457.] Cadamosto claims, _La seconda navigazione_, in _Ramusio_,

_Viaggi_, tom. i. pp. 116-20, to have made a second voyage, during which

he discovered the Cape Verde Islands; but Major, _Prince Henry_, pp.

278-88, shows that such a voyage was not made in that year, if at all.

[1460.] Diogo Gomez discovered the Cape Verde Islands, and their

colonization was effected during the following years. Major, _Prince

Henry_, pp. 288-99, publishes the original account for the first

time in English. Prince Henry died in November of this year. _Major's

Prince Henry_, p. 303; _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._, p. 19. Irving,

_Columbus_, vol. i. p. 30, fixes this date 1473; and Galvano, _Discov._,

p. 14, says 1463.

[1461.] The spirit of discovery and the thirst for African gold and

slaves had become too strong to receive more than a temporary check in

the death of its chief promoter. In the year following Prince Henry's

death a fort was built on the African coast to protect the already

extensive trade, and in 1461 or 1462 Pedro de Cintra reached a point

in nearly 5° north, being over six hundred miles below the limit

of Cadamosto's voyage. _La Nauigation del Capitan Pietro di Sintra

Portoghese, scritta per Meser Aluise da ca da Mosto_, in _Ramusio_, tom.

i. fol. 119.

[1469-89.] In 1469 Fernam Gomez rented the African trade from the king

of Portugal for a term of five years, and during that time pushed his

explorations under Santarem and Escobar to Cape St Catherine in 2°

south, first crossing the equator in 1471. Under João II., who succeeded

Alfonso V. in 1481, the traffic continued, and in 1489 Diogo Cam reached

a point in 22°, over two hundred leagues below the Congo River, planting

there a cross which is said to be yet standing. Martin Behaim, the

mathematician and cosmographer, accompanied Cam on this voyage, and an

error or interpolation in _Schedel_, _Registrum, etc._, Nuremberg, 1493,

gave rise to the unfounded report that they sailed west and discovered

America. _Humboldt_, _Exam. Crit._, tom. i. pp. 257, 283, 292, 309;

_Major's Prince Henry_, pp. 325-38; _Navarrete_, _Col. de Viages_, tom.

i. p. xl.; _Harrisse_, _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, p. 40;

_Galvano's Discov._, pp. 74-6; _Otto_, in _Am. Phil. Soc._, vol. ii.,

1786.

* * * * *

We enter now the Columbian epoch proper, to which, as we have seen, the

enterprises of Prince Henry and the Portuguese were precursory. About

1484, Christopher Columbus having proposed a new scheme of reaching

India by sailing west, the king of Portugal surreptitiously sent a

vessel to test his theory, which, after searching unsuccessfully for

land westward, returned to the Cape Verde Islands. _Muñoz_, _Hist. Nuevo

Mundo_, pp. 53-4 et al. Columbus had resided in Portugal since 1470,

and had made several trips in Portuguese ships down the African coast,

in the course of which he is supposed to have first conceived his new

project. Indignant at the conduct of the Portuguese king, Columbus left

for Spain. _Colon_, _Hist. del Almirante_, in _Barcia_, _Hist. Prim._,

tom. i. pp. 9-10; translation in _Pinkerton's Col. Voy._, vol. xii. pp.

1-16; and in _Kerr's Col. Voy._, vol. iii. pp. 1-242.

In 1486 Bartolomeu Dias sailed round Cape Good Hope and continued his

voyage to Great Fish River on the south-east coast, from which point

he was compelled to return on account of the murmurs of his men. The

cape, now for the first time doubled by Europeans, was seen and named

by him on his return. In 1487 King João sent two priests, Covilham and

Payva, to travel in the East, in the hope of gathering more definite

information respecting Prester John and his famous Christian kingdom.

Prester John they did not find, but Covilham in his wanderings reached

Sofala on the east coast of Africa in about 20° south latitude,

being the first of his countrymen to sail on the Indian Ocean. At

Sofala he learned the practicability of the voyage which Dias had

actually accomplished a little before, and a message to that effect

was immediately sent to the king. _Major's Prince Henry_, pp. 339-42;

_Navarrete_, _Col. de Viages_, tom. i. p. xl-i; _Humboldt_, _Exam.

Crit._, tom. i. pp. 230 et seq.; _Galvano's Discov._, pp. 77-8.

From this time to the great discovery of 1492, few expeditions remain

to be mentioned. It must not be forgotten, however, that by this time

trading voyages were of ordinary occurrence all along the eastern

Atlantic coast and its adjoining islands from Scandinavia to Guinea.

A lively commerce was carried on throughout this century between

Bristol and Iceland, and in the words of Kunstmann, substantiated by

older authorities, "a bull of Nicolas IV. to the bishops of Iceland,

proves that the pope in 1448 was intimately acquainted with matters in

Greenland." It seems incredible that during all this intercourse with

northern lands, no knowledge of America was gained by southern maritime

nations, yet so far as we know there exists no proof of such knowledge.

[1476.] John of Kolno, or Szkolny, is reported to have made a voyage

in the service of the king of Denmark in 1476, and to have touched on

the coast of Labrador. The report rests on the authority of Wytfliet,

_Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ augmentum_, Lovanii, 1598, fol. 188, supported

by a single sentence, "Tambien han ydo alla hombres de Noruega con el

Piloto Iuan Scolno," in _Gomara_, _Hist. Gen. de las Indias_, Anvers,

1554, cap. xxxvii. fol. 31; by a similar sentence in _Herrera_, _Hist.

Gen._, Madrid, 1601, dec. i. lib. vi. cap. xvi., in which the name is

changed to Juan Seduco; and by the inscription, _Jac Scolvus Groetland_,

on a country west of Greenland on a map made by Michael Lok in 1582,

fac-simile in _Hakluyt Soc._, _Divers Voy._, p. 55. According to Kohl,

_Hist. Discov._, pp. 114-15, this voyage is considered apocryphal by

Danish and Norwegian writers. Lelewel, _Géog. du moyen âge_, p. 106,

regards the voyage as authentic, and Kunstmann, _Entdeckung Am._, pp.

45-8, attaches to it great importance as the source of all the voyages

to the north which followed. Humboldt, _Exam. Crit._, tom. ii. pp.

152-4, gives but little attention to the voyage, and confesses his

inability to decide on its merits: "Je ne puis hasarder aucun jugement

sur cette assertion de Wytfliet."

[1477.] In this year Columbus, whom we first find with the Portuguese

traders on the African coast, sailed northward, probably with an English

merchantman from Bristol, to a point one hundred leagues beyond Thule,

in 73° north. _Colon_, _Hist. del Almirante_ in _Barcia_, tom. i. p. 4;

_Muñoz_, _Hist. Nuevo Mundo_, pp. 43-7; _Humboldt_, _Exam. Crit._, tom.

i. p. 272. He probably visited Iceland, although he gives the latitude

incorrectly, taking it very likely from ancient geography rather than

his own observations.

[1482.] According to Kunstmann, the edition of Ptolemy this year,

_Ptolomæi Cosmographia_, Ulmæ, 1482, lib. viii., contains a map that

includes Greenland, and must have been compiled from northern sources.

[1488.] Desmarquets, _Mémoires Chronologiques, etc._, Dieppe, 1785, tom.

i. pp. 92-8, states that one Cousin sailed from Dieppe early in 1488,

stood off further from land than other voyagers had done, and after

two months reached an unknown land and a great river, which he named

the Maragnon. Was this the Marañon in South America? He then sailed

south-eastward and discovered the southern point of Africa, returning

to Dieppe in 1489. The discovery was kept secret, but Cousin made a

second voyage round the cape and succeeded in reaching India. Major,

besides pointing out some inconsistencies in this account, shows that M.

Desmarquets "could commit himself to assertions of great moment which

are demonstrably false." He is not good authority for so remarkable a

discovery not elsewhere recorded.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: THE COLUMBIAN EPOCH.]

Before striking out with Columbus in his bold venture to the west,

let us sum up what we have learned thus far and see where we stand.

First, the geographical knowledge of the ancients was restricted to a

parallelogram extending north-west and south-east from the Atlantic

to the Indian ocean, comprising one hundred and twenty degrees east

and west by fifty degrees north and south; circumscribe this knowledge

with legendary stories and hypothetical and traditional beliefs

concerning the regions beyond; then add a true theory of the earth's

sphericity, though mistaken as to its size. This is all they knew,

and this knowledge they committed to the Dark Age, during which time

it was preserved, and, indeed, little by little enlarged, as we have

seen. During the latter part of the fifteenth century, particularly,

a powerful impulse had been given to discovery, especially toward the

south; so that now the limits of the ancients were moved eastward

at least forty degrees, to the eastern coasts and islands of Asia,

chiefly by the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville. Toward

the south, the true form of Africa had been ascertained, and its coasts

had been explored by the Portuguese, except a space of about fifteen

degrees on the south-west. Northward the old limit had been advanced

but slightly, but within this limit much information had been gained

by actual navigation about regions only vaguely described by Ptolemy.

Westward, in what was still a Sea of Darkness, great discoveries had

been made by the Northmen, but their results were now practically lost;

while toward the south, several important groups of islands had been

added to the known world. See map on page 73, where the regions added

during this period are lightly shaded. And now, within the old bound

the world is much better known than at the beginning of the period, and

many minor geographical errors of the ancients have been corrected by

the Crusaders, and others who attempted on a smaller scale to extend

the Catholic faith, as well as by commercial travellers in distant

lands. Again, by the influx of Mahometans into Europe during five or six

centuries, eastern luxuries had been introduced to an extent hitherto

unknown, and had in fact become necessities in Christian courts, thus

making the India trade the great field of commercial enterprise even

by the tedious and uncertain overland routes where middle-men absorbed

the profits, and rendering the opening of other and easier routes an

object of primary importance. The almost exclusive possession of trade

_via_ the old routes by the Italians, furnished an additional motive

to other European nations for explorations by sea. The art of printing,

recently invented, facilitated the diffusion of learning, so that it was

impossible for the world ever again to lapse into the old intellectual

darkness. The astrolabe, the foundation of the modern quadrant, had been

adapted by a meeting of cosmographers in Portugal to the observation

of latitudes by the sun's altitude, and thus the chief obstacle to long

sea-voyages was removed. The polarity of the magnet had long been known,

but the practical adaptation of the magnetic needle to purposes of

navigation occurred about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The

mariner's compass, however, only attained its highest purpose toward the

close of the fifteenth century, when the Sea of Darkness was traversed.

But before this, the greatest impediments to ocean navigation had been

overcome by voyages actually made through the aid of the new inventions.

Beside the coasts brought to light by these voyages, they had done much

to dispel the old superstitions of burning zones, impassable capes, and

unnavigable seas.

[Sidenote: REAL AND IMAGINARY ISLANDS.]

We have seen that, as a result either of the poetic fancy or of the

actual discovery of the ancients, various islands were traditionally

located in the Atlantic. Most of them undoubtedly owed their existence

to the natural tendency of man to people unknown seas with fabulous

lands and beings, "Il est si naturel à l'homme de rêver quelque chose

au-delà de l'horizon visible," observes Humboldt. For a full account

of the history and location of these islands, "dont la position est

encore plus variable que le nom," and the important part played by them

in ancient and middle-age geography, see _Humboldt_, _Exam. Crit._,

tom. ii. pp. 156-245, and _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._, pp. 6 et seq.,

and 35-37. In the fifteenth century, with the revival of maritime

enterprise, came a renewal and multiplication of the old fables.

Monastic scholars, by their continued study of the old writers, by their

attempts to reconcile ancient geography with fabulous events in the

lives of the saints, and by their inevitable tendency to exaggeration,

had contributed largely to their preservation. Still, throughout the

preceding period, the belief in the existence of such islands had

been vague and hypothetical; but when the actual existence of numerous

islands in the western ocean was proved, and the Canary, Madeira, Azore,

and Cape Verde groups were discovered and explored, the old ideas

were naturally revived and confirmed, and with them rose a desire to

rediscover all that had been known to the ancient voyagers. The reported

wonders of the fabulous isles, having on them great and rich cities,

were confidently sought in each newly found land, and not appearing in

any of them, the islands themselves were successively located farther

and farther to the west, out in the mysterious sea, to be surely brought

to light by future explorations.