NEW NAMES FOR NEW PLACES.
We have seen in how many different ways many of the old places of this
world got their names. Some names go so far back that no one knows
what is their meaning, or how they first came to be used. But we know
that a great part of the world has only been discovered since the
fifteenth century, and that a great part of what was already known has
only been colonized in modern times.
With the discovery of the New World and the colonization of the Dark
Continent and other far-off lands, a great many new names were
invented. We could almost write a history of North or South America
from an explanation of their place-names.
In learning the geography of South America we notice the beautiful
Spanish names of most of the places. The reason for this is that it
was the Spaniards who colonized South America in the sixteenth
century. Very little of this continent now belongs to Spain, but in
those days Spain was the greatest country in Europe. The proud and
brave Spanish adventurers were in those days sailing over the seas
and founding colonies, just as the English sailors of Queen Elizabeth
soon began to do in North America.
Let us look at some of these names--_Los Angelos_ ("The Angels"),
_Santa Cruz_ ("The Holy Cross"), _Santiago_ ("St. James"), all names
of saints and holy things. Any one who knew no history at all might
guess, from the number of places with Spanish names spread over South
America, that it was the Spaniards who colonized this land. He would
also guess that the Spaniards in those days must have been a very
great nation indeed. And he would be right.
He would guess, too, that the Spaniards had clung passionately to the
Catholic religion. Here, again, he would be right. Any great
enthusiasm will make a nation great, and the Spaniards in the
sixteenth century were filled with a great love for the old Church
against which the new Protestantism was fighting. The Pope looked upon
Spain as the great bulwark of Catholicism. The new religious feeling,
which had swept over Europe, and which had made the Protestants ready
to suffer and die for their new-found faith, took the form in Spain of
this great love for the old religion. The nation seemed inspired. It
is when these things happen that a people turns to great enterprises
and adventure. The Spaniards of the sixteenth century regarded
themselves, and were almost regarded by the other nations, as
unconquerable. The great aim of Elizabethan Englishmen was to "break
the power of Spain," and this they did at last when they scattered
the "Invincible Armada" in 1588. But before this Spain had done great
things.
The Portuguese had been the first great adventurers, but they were
soon left far behind by the Spanish sailors, who explored almost every
part of South America, settling there, and sending home great
shiploads of gold to make Spain rich. And wherever they explored and
settled they spread about these beautiful names to honour the saints
and holy things which their religion told them to love and honour.
It was the great discoverer Christopher Columbus who first gave one of
these beautiful names to a place in South America. He had already
discovered North America, and made a second voyage there, when he
determined to explore the land south of the West Indies. He sailed
south through the tropical seas while the heat melted the tar of the
rigging. But Columbus never noticed danger and discomfort. He had made
a vow to call the first land he saw after the Holy Trinity, and when
at last he caught sight of three peaks jutting up from an island he
gave the island the name of _La Trinidad_, and "Trinidad" it remains
to this day, though it now belongs to the British. As he sailed south
Columbus caught sight of what was really the mainland of South
America, but he thought it was another island, and called it _Isla
Santa_, or "Holy Island."
It might seem curious that as Columbus had discovered both North and
South America, the continent was given the name of another man. As we
have seen, its name was taken from that of another explorer, Amerigo
Vespucci. The reason for this was that Columbus never really knew that
he had discovered a "New World." He believed that he had come by
another way to the eastern coast of Asia or Africa. The islands which
he first discovered were for this reason called the _Indies_, and the
_West Indies_ they remain to this day.
It was Amerigo Vespucci who first announced to the world, in a book
which he published in 1507 (three years after Christopher Columbus had
died in loneliness and poverty), that the new lands were indeed a
great new continent, and not Asia or Africa at all. People later on
said that Amerigo Vespucci had discovered a new continent, and that it
ought to be called by his name. This is how the name _America_ came
into use; but of course the work of Vespucci was not to be compared
with that of the great adventurer who first sailed across the "Sea of
Darkness," and was the real discoverer of the New World.
Though it was the Spaniards who discovered North America, it was the
English who chiefly colonized it.
It is interesting to notice the names which the early English
colonists scattered over the northern continent. We might gather from
them that, just as the love of their Church was the great passion of
the sixteenth-century Spaniards, so the love of their country was the
ruling passion of the great English adventurers. (Of course the
Spaniards had shown their love for their old country in some of the
names they gave, as when Columbus called one place _Isabella_, in
honour of the noble Spanish queen who had helped and encouraged him
when other rulers of European countries had refused to listen to what
they thought were the ravings of a madman.)
The English in Reformation days had a very different idea of religion
from the Spanish. Naturally they did not sprinkle the names of saints
over the new lands. But the English of Elizabeth's day were filled
with a great new love for England. The greatest of all the Elizabethan
adventurers, Sir Francis Drake, when in his voyage round the world he
put into a harbour which is now known as San Francisco, set up "a
plate of brass fast nailed to a great and firm post, whereon is
engraved Her Grace's name, and the day and the year of our arrival
there." The Indian king of these parts had freely owned himself
subject to the English, taking the crown from his own head and putting
it on Drake's head. Sir Francis called his land _New Albion_, using
the old poetic name for England.
But the colonization of North America was not successfully begun until
after the death of Elizabeth, though one or two attempts at founding
colonies, or "plantations," as they were then called, were made in
her time. Sir Walter Raleigh tried to set up one colony in North
America, and called it _Virginia_, after the virgin queen whom all
Englishmen delighted to honour. Virginia did not prosper, and
Raleigh's colony broke up; but later another and successful attempt at
colonizing it was made, and the same name kept. Virginia--"Earth's
only Paradise," as the poet Drayton called it--was the first English
colony successfully settled in North America. This was in the year
1607, when two hundred and forty-three settlers landed, and made the
first settlement at a point which they called _Jamestown_, in honour
of the new English king, James I.
The first settlers in Virginia were men whose chief aim was to become
rich, but it was not long before a new kind of settler began to seek
refuge in the lands north of Virginia, to which the great colonizer,
Captain John Smith, had by this time given the name of _New England_.
It was in 1620 that the "Pilgrim Fathers," because they were not free
to worship God as they thought right at home, sailed from Southampton
in the little _Mayflower_, and landed far to the north of Virginia,
and made a settlement at a place which Smith had already called
_Plymouth_.
Before long new colonies began to spring up all over New England; and
though we find some new names, like the Indian name of the great
colony _Massachusetts_, we may read the story of the great love which
the colonists felt for the old towns of the mother-country in the way
they gave their names to the new settlements.
A curious thing is that many of these new towns, christened after
little old towns at home, became later very important and prosperous
places, while the places after which they were called are sometimes
almost forgotten. Many people to whom the name of the great American
city of Boston is familiar do not know that there still stands on the
coast of Lincolnshire the sleepy little town of Boston, from which it
took its name.
Boston is the chief town of Massachusetts; but the first capital was
_Charlestown_, called after King Charles I., who had by this time
succeeded his father, James I. The place on which Charlestown was
built, on the north bank of the Charles River, was, however, found to
be unhealthy. The settlers, therefore, deserted it, and Boston was
built on the south bank.
It was not long before the Massachusetts settlers built a college at a
place near Boston which had been called _Cambridge_. This is a case in
which the old town at home remained, of course, much more important
than its godchild. If a person speaks of Cambridge, one's mind
immediately flies to the English university city on the banks of the
river Cam. Still the college built at the American Cambridge, and
called "Harvard College," after John Harvard, one of the early
settlers, who gave a great deal of money towards its building, is
famous now throughout the world.
It was natural and suitable that the early settlers should use the old
English names to show their love for the mother-country; but it was
not such a wise thing to choose the names of the great historic towns
of Europe, and give them to the new settlements. To give the almost
sacred name of _Rome_ to a modern American town seems almost
ridiculous. Certainly one would have always to be very careful to add
"Georgia, U.S.A." in addressing letters there. The United States has
several of these towns bearing old historic names. _Paris_ as the name
of an American town seems almost as unsuitable as Rome.
But this mistake was not made by the early colonists. If we think of
the names of the colonies which stretched along the east of North
America, we find nearly always that the names are chosen to do honour
to the English king or queen, or to keep the memory fresh of some
beloved spot in the old country.
In 1632 the Catholic Lord Baltimore founded a new colony, the only one
where the Catholic religion was tolerated, and called it _Maryland_,
in honour of Charles I.'s queen, Henrietta Maria. Just after the
Restoration of Charles II. in 1660, when the country was full of
loyalty, a new colony, _Carolina_, was founded, taking its name from
_Carolus_, the Latin for "Charles." Afterwards this colony was divided
into two, and became North and South Carolina.
To the north of Maryland lay the _New Netherlands_, for Holland had
also colonized here. In the seventeenth century this little nation was
for a time equal to the greatest nations in Europe. The Dutch had very
soon followed the example of that other little nation Portugal, which,
directed by the famous Prince Henry of Portugal, had been the first of
all the European nations to explore far-off lands. Holland was as
important on the seas as Spain or England; but this could not last
long. The Dutch and the English fought several campaigns, and in the
end the Dutch were beaten.
In 1667 the New Netherlands were yielded up to England. The name of
the colony was changed to _New York_, and its capital, New Amsterdam,
was given the same name. This was in honour of the sailor prince,
James, Duke of York, afterwards the unhappy King James II. Another of
the Stuarts who gave his name to a district of North America was
Prince Rupert, the nephew of Charles I., who fought so hard for the
king against Cromwell. In 1670 the land round Hudson Bay was given the
name of _Rupertsland_.
Sometimes, but not often, the new colonies were given the names of
their founders. William Penn, who founded the Quaker colony of
_Pennsylvania_, gave it this name in honour of his father, Admiral
Penn. _Sylvania_ means "land of woods," and comes from the Latin
_sylvanus_, or "woody."
But it is not only in America that the place-names tell us the
stories of heroism and romance. All over the world, from the icy lands
round the Poles to the tropical districts of Africa, India, and
Australia, these stories can be read. The spirit in which the early
Portuguese adventurers sailed along the coast of Africa is shown in
the name they gave to what we now know as the _Cape of Good Hope_.
Bartholomew Diaz called it the _Cape of Storms_, for he had discovered
it only after terrible battlings with the waves; but when he sailed
home to tell his news the king of Portugal said that this was not a
good name, but it should instead be called the _Cape of Good Hope_,
for past it lay the sea passage to India which men had been seeking
for years. And so the _Cape of Good Hope_ it remains to this day.
After this it was not long before the Portuguese explored the south
and east coasts of Africa and the west coast of India to the very
south, where they took the _Spice Islands_ for their own. From these
the Portuguese brought home great quantities of spices, which they
sold at high prices in Europe.
It was the great explorer Ferdinand Magellan who first sailed round
the world, being sure, as he said, that he could reach the Spice
Islands by sailing west. And so he started on this expedition, sailing
through the straits which have ever since been known as the _Magellan
Straits_ to the south of South America, into the Pacific, or
"Peaceful," Ocean, and then ever west, until he came round by the
east to Spain again, after three years of great hardship and wonderful
adventure.
The adventures of the early explorers most often took the form of
seeking a new and shorter passage from one ocean to another, and so
many straits bear the names of the explorers. The Elizabethan
explorer, Martin Frobisher, sought for a "North-west Passage" from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, and for a time it was thought that he had
found it in the very north of North America. But it was afterwards
found that the "passage," which had already been given the name of
_Frobisher's Straits_, was really only an inlet, and afterwards it
became known as _Lumley's Inlet_.
Frobisher never discovered a North-west Passage, for the ships of
those days were not fitted out in a way to enable the sailors to bear
the icy cold of these northern regions. Many brave explorers tried
later to discover it. Three times John Davis made a voyage for this
purpose but never succeeded, though _Davis Strait_ commemorates his
heroic attempts. Hudson and Baffin explored in these waters, as the
names _Hudson Bay_ and _Baffin Bay_ remind us.
It was nearly two hundred years later that Sir John Franklin sailed
with an expedition in two boats, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, determined
to find the passage. He found it, but died in the attempt; but,
strangely enough, his name was not given to any strait, though later
it was given to all the islands of the Arctic Archipelago.
The winning of India by the British in the eighteenth century did not
give us many new English names. India was not, like the greater part
of America, a wild country inhabited by savage peoples. It had an
older civilization than the greater part of Europe, and the only
reason that it was weak enough to be conquered was that the many races
who lived there could not agree among themselves. Most of the
place-names of India are native names given by natives, for centuries
before France and England began to struggle for its possession in the
eighteenth century India had passed through a long and varied history.
When we remember that the natives of India have no name to describe
the whole continent, it helps us to understand that India is in no way
a single country. The British Government have given the continent the
name _India_, taking it from the great river Indus, which itself takes
its name from an old word, _sindhu_, meaning "river."
In the days of the early explorers, after the islands discovered by
Columbus were called the _West Indies_, some people began to call the
Indian continent the _East Indies_, to distinguish it; and some of the
papers about India drawn up for the information of Parliament about
Indian affairs still use this name, but it is not a familiar use to
most people.
The mistake which Columbus and the early explorers made in thinking
America was India has caused a good deal of confusion. The natives of
North America were called Indians, and it was only long afterwards, in
fact quite lately, that people began to write and speak of the natives
of India as _Indians_. When it was printed in the newspapers that
Indians were fighting for the British Empire with the armies in
France, the use of the word _Indian_ seemed wrong to a great many
people; but it is now becoming so common that it will probably soon
seem quite right. When it is used with the old meaning we shall have
to say the "Indians of North America." Some people use the word
_Hindu_ to describe the natives of India; but this is not correct, as
only _some_ of the natives of India are Hindus, just as the name
_Hindustan_ (a Persian name meaning "land of the Hindus," as
_Afghanistan_ means "land of the Afghans"), which some old writers on
geography used for India, is really the name of one part of the land
round the river Ganges, where the language known as _Hindi_ is spoken.
The place-names of India given by natives of the many different races
which have lived in the land could fill a book with their stories
alone. We can only mention a few. The name of the great range of
mountains which runs across the north of the continent, the
_Himalayas_, means in Sanskrit, the oldest language used in India, the
"home of snow." _Bombay_ takes its name from _Mumba_, the name of a
goddess of an early tribe who occupied the district round Bombay.
_Calcutta_, which stretches over ground where there were formerly
several villages, takes its name from one of these. Its old form was
_Kalikuti_, which means the "ghauts," or passes, leading to the temple
of the goddess Kali.
In Australia, where a beginning of colonization was made through the
discoveries of Captain Cook towards the end of the eighteenth century,
the place-names were sometimes given from places at home, sometimes
after persons, but they have hardly the same romance as the early
American names.
_Botany Bay_ was the name chosen by Captain Cook in a moment of
enthusiasm for an inlet of New South Wales. He gave it this name
because of the great number of plants and flowers which grow there.
In Africa a good deal of history can be learned from the place-names.
Although the north of Africa had for many hundreds of years had its
part in the civilization of the countries round the Mediterranean Sea,
the greater part of Africa had remained an unexplored region--the
"Dark Continent," as it was called. In the fifteenth century the
Portuguese sailors crept along the western coast, and afterwards along
the south, as we have seen, past the Cape of Good Hope. But the
interior of the continent remained for long an unexplored region.
The Dutch had, very soon after the discovery of the Cape, made a
settlement there, which was known as _Cape Colony_. This was
afterwards won by the English; but many Dutchmen still stayed there,
and though, since the Boer War, when the Boers, or Dutch, in South
Africa tried to win their independence, the whole of South Africa
belongs to the British Empire, still there are naturally many Dutch
names given by the early Dutch settlers. Some of these became very
well known to English people in the Boer War. _Bloemfontein_ is one of
these names, coming from the Dutch word for "spring" (_fontein_), and
that of Jan Bloem, one of the farmers who first settled there. Another
well-known place in the Transvaal, _Pietermaritzburg_, took its name
from the two leaders who led the Boers out of Cape Colony when they
felt that the English were becoming too strong there. These leaders
were Pieter Retief and Georit Maritz. This movement of the Boers into
the Transvaal was called the "Great Trek," _trek_ being a Dutch word
for a journey or migration of this sort. Since the days of the Boer
War this word has been regularly used in English with this same
meaning. Like the English settlers in America, the Dutch settlers in
South Africa sometimes gave the names of places in Holland to their
new settlements. _Utrecht_ is an example of this.
Up to the very end of the nineteenth century no European country
besides England had any great possessions in Africa. The Portuguese
still held the coast lands between Zululand (so called from the
fierce black natives who lived there) and Mozambique. Egypt had come
practically under British rule soon after the days of Napoleon, and in
the middle of the nineteenth century the great explorers Livingstone
and Stanley had explored the lands along the Zambesi River and a great
part of Central Africa. Stanley went right across the centre of the
continent, and discovered the lake _Albert Edward Nyanza_. _Nyanza_ is
the African word for "lake," and the name Albert Edward was given in
honour of the Prince Consort. _Victoria Nyanza_, so called after Queen
Victoria, had been discovered some years before. It was all these
discoveries which led to the colonization of Africa by the nations of
Europe.
In 1884 the great German statesman, Prince Bismarck, set up the German
flag in Damaraland, the coast district to the north of the Orange
River; and soon after a German colony was set up in the lands between
the Portuguese settlements and the Equator. This was simply called
German East Africa. At the same time the other nations of Europe
suddenly realized that if they meant to have part of Africa they must
join in the scramble at once. There were soon a British East Africa, a
Portuguese East Africa, a Portuguese West Africa, a German South-west
Africa, and so on. All these are names which might have been given in
a hurry, and in them we seem to read the haste of the European
nations to seize on the only lands in the world which were still
available. They are very different from the descriptive names which
the early Portuguese adventurers had strewn along the coast, like
_Sierra Leone_, or "the lion mountain;" _Cape Verde_, or "the green
cape," so called from its green grass.
Still, romance was not dead even yet. There is one district of South
Africa which takes its name in the old way from that of a person.
_Rhodesia_, the name given to Mashonaland and Matabeleland, was so
called after Mr. Cecil Rhodes, a young British emigrant, who went out
from England in very weak health and became perfectly strong, at the
same time winning a fortune for himself in the diamond fields of
Kimberley. He devoted himself heart and soul to the strengthening of
British power in South Africa, and it is fitting that this province
should by its name keep his memory fresh.
The story of the struggle in South Africa between Boer and Briton can
be partly read in its place-names; and the story of the struggle
between old and new settlers in Canada can be similarly read in the
place-names of that land.
The first settlers in Canada were the French, and the descendants of
these first settlers form a large proportion of the Canadian
population. Many places in Canada still have, of course, the names
which the first French settlers gave them.
The Italian, John Cabot, had sailed to Canada a few years after
Columbus discovered America, sent by the English king, Henry VII., but
no settlements were made. Thirty-seven years later the French sailor,
Jacques Cartier, was sent by the French king, Francis I., to explore
there. Cartier sailed up the Gulf of St. Lawrence as far as the spot
where Montreal now stands. The name was given by Cartier, and means
"royal mount." It was Cartier, too, who gave Canada its name; but he
thought that this was already the Indian name for the land. A story is
told that some Red Indians were trying to talk to him and making
signs, and they pointed to some houses, saying, "Cannata." Cartier
thought they meant that this was the name of the country, but he was
mistaken. They were, perhaps, pointing out their village, for
_cannata_ is the Indian name for "village."
Cartier, like Cabot, sailed away again, and the first real founder of
a settlement in Canada was the Frenchman, Samuel de Champlain, who
made friends with the Indians, and explored the upper parts of the
river Lawrence, and gave his name to the beautiful _Lake Champlain_,
which he discovered. It was he who founded _Quebec_, giving it this
Breton name. Sailors from Brittany had ventured as far as the coast of
Canada in the time of Columbus, and had given its name to _Cape
Breton_. And so French names spread through Canada. Later, in one of
the wars of the eighteenth century, England won Canada from France;
but these French names still remain to tell the tale of French
adventure and heroism in that land.
We have seen many names in new lands, some of them given by people
from the Old World who settled in these lands. In the great European
War we have seen people from these new lands coming back to fight in
some of the most ancient countries of the Old World. The splendid
Australian troops who fought in Gallipoli sprinkled many new names
over the land they won and lost. One, at least, will always remain on
the maps. _Anzac_, where the Colonials made their historic landing,
will never be forgotten. It was a new name, made up of the initial
letters of the words "Australian and New Zealand Army Corps," and will
remain for ever one of the most honoured names invented in the
twentieth century.
Children who like history can read whole chapters in the place-names
of the old world and the new.