ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES
There are two names still in common use for American regions, which
long antedate Columbus and most likely commemorate achievements of
earlier explorers. They are Brazil and the Antilles. The former is
earlier on the maps and records; but the case for Antillia, as an
American pre-Columbian map item, is in some respects less complex and
more obvious.
ANTILLIA
A good many decades before the New World became known as such, Antillia
was recognized as a legitimate geographical feature. A comparatively
late and generally familiar instance of such mention occurs in
Toscanelli’s letter of 1474 to Columbus,[237] recommending this
island as a convenient resting point on the sea route to Cathay. Its
authenticity has been questioned, notably by the venerable and learned
Henry Vignaud,[238] but at least some one wrote it and in it reflected
the viewpoint of the time.
Nordenskiöld in his elaborate and invaluable “Periplus” declares: “As
the mention of this large island, the name of which was afterwards
given to the Antilles, in the portolanos of the fourteenth century,
is probably owing to some vessel being storm-driven across the
Atlantic (as, according to Behaim, happened to a Spanish vessel in
1414), those maps on which this island is marked must be reckoned
as Americana.”[239] The word “fourteenth” is probably an accidental
substitute for “fifteenth.” The reference to Behaim undoubtedly means
the often-quoted inscription on his globe of 1492, which avers that
“1414 a ship from Spain got nighest it without being endangered.”[240]
This seems to record an approach rather than an actual landing. But at
least it was evidently believed that Antillia had been nearly reached
in that year by a vessel sailing from the Iberian Peninsula. Little
distinction would then have been made between Spain and Portugal in
such a reference by a non-Iberian.
Ruysch’s map of 1508 is a little more vague in its Antillia inscription
as to the time of this adventure.[241] He says it was discovered by
the Spaniards long ago; but perhaps this means a rediscovery, for he
also chronicles the refuge sought there by King Roderick in the eighth
century.
PETER MARTYR’S IDENTIFICATION OF ANTILLIA
Both of these representations show Antillia far in the ocean
dissociated from any other land, but in the work of Peter Martyr
d’Anghiera, contemporary and historian of Columbus, writing before
1511, we have an explicit identification as part of a well-known
group or archipelago. He has been narrating the discovery of Cuba and
Hispaniola and proceeds:
Turning, therefore, the stems of his ships toward the east, he
assumed that he had found Ophir, whither Solomon’s ships sailed
for gold, but, the descriptions of the cosmographers well
considered, it seemeth that both these and the other islands
adjoining are the islands of Antillia.[242]
Perhaps he meant delineations, like those we have yet to consider, and
not descriptions in words; or writings concerning these islands may
then have been extant which have since vanished as completely as the
celebrated map of Toscanelli.
Among “the other islands adjoining” we may be sure he included that
island of Beimini, or Bimini (no other than Florida), a part of which,
thus marked, occurs in his accompanying map and has the distinction
of owning the fabled fountain of youth and luring Ponce de Leon into
romantic but futile adventure. Perhaps only one other map gives it the
name Bimini; but its insular character is plain on divers maps (made
before men learned better), with varying areas and under different
names.
OTHER IDENTIFICATIONS
Peter Martyr was not alone in his identification of the “islands of
Antillia.” Canerio’s map,[243] attributed to 1502, names the large West
India group “Antilhas del Rey de Castella,” though giving the name
Isabella to the chief island; and another map of about the same date
(anonymous)[244] gives them the collective title of Antilie, though
calling the Queen of the Antilles Cuba, as now. A later map,[245]
probably about 1518, varies the first form slightly to “Atilhas [i. e.
Antilhas] de Castela” and shows also “Tera Bimini.” This is the second
Bimini map above referred to.
It is true that the name Antillia, often slightly modified, was not
restricted to this use but occasionally was applied in other quarters.
Beside Behaim’s globe and Ruysch’s map already mentioned, a Catalan map
of the fifteenth century (obviously earlier than the knowledge of the
Portuguese rediscovery of Flores and Corvo)[246] presents a duplicate
delineation of most of the Azores, giving the supposed additional
islands a quite correct slant northwestward and individual names
selected impartially from divers sources. One of these is Attiaela,
recalling the doubtful “Atilae” of the warning-figure inscription on
the map of the Pizigani of 1367[247] (Fig. 2), which may have suggested
it, being applied in the same or a neighboring region. The islands
remain mysterious, perhaps merely registering a free range of fancy at
divers periods.
AN ANTILLIA OF THE MAINLAND
Again, at a much later time, when the exploration of the South American
coast line had proceeded far enough to demonstrate the existence of a
continent, some one speculated, it would seem, concerning an Antillia
of the mainland. One of the maps[248] in the portolan atlas in the
British Museum known as Egerton MS. 2803 bears the word “Antiglia”
running from north to south at a considerable distance west of
the mouth of the Amazon, apparently about where would now be the
southeastern part of Venezuela. Also, the world map[249] in the same
atlas (Fig. 8) bears “Antiglia” as a South American name, in this
instance moved farther westward to the region of eastern Ecuador and
neighboring territory.
But these aberrant applications of the name Antillia in its various
forms were mostly late in time and probably all suggested by some novel
geographical disclosures. The standard identification, as disclosed
on the maps discussed below, at least from Beccario’s of 1435 to
Benincasa’s of 1482, was with a great group of western islands; as was
Peter Martyr’s, much later.
THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME
Naturally the origin of the word has been found a fascinating problem.
Ever since Formaleoni,[250] near the close of the eighteenth century,
called attention to the delineation of Antillia in Bianco’s map of
1436, discussed below, as indicating some knowledge of America, there
have been those to urge the claims of the suppositional lost Atlantis
instead. The two island names certainly begin with “A” and utilize
“t,” “l,” and “i” about equally; but “Atlantis” comes so easily out of
“Atlas,” and the great mountain chain marches so conspicuously down to
the sea in all early maps, that the derivation of the former may be
called obvious; whereas you cannot readily or naturally turn “Atlas”
into “Antillia,” and there is no evidence that any one ever did so.
As to geographical items, both have been located in the great western
sea; but that is true of many other lands, real or fanciful. Something
has been made of the elongated quadrilateral form of Antillia; but
Humboldt points out[251] that in the description transmitted by Plato
this outline is ascribed to a particular district in Atlantis, not to
the great island as a whole, and that, even if it could be understood
in the latter sense, there seems no reason why a fragment surviving
the great cataclysm should repeat the configuration of Atlantis as a
whole. There seems a total lack of any direct evidence, or any weighty
inferential evidence, of the derivation of Antillia from Atlantis.
HUMBOLDT’S HYPOTHESIS
Humboldt, in rejecting this hypothesis, advanced another, which is
picturesque and ingenious but hardly better supported.[252] His choice
is “Al-tin,” Arabic for “the dragon.” Undoubtedly Arabs navigated to
some extent some parts of the great Sea of Darkness, and these monsters
were among its generally credited terrors. The hardly decipherable
inscriptions in the neighborhood of an island on the map of the
Pizigani of 1367[253] (Fig. 2), as we have seen (Ch. VI), seem to cite
Arabic experience in proof of perils from _fulvos_ (krakens) rising
from the depths of the sea, coupling dragons with them in the same
legend and illustrating it by a picture of a kraken dragging one seaman
overboard from a ship in distress, while a dragon high overhead flies
away with another. It is even true that Arabic tradition established
a dragon on at least one island as a horrible oppression, long ago
happily ended, and that another island (perhaps more than one) was
known as the Island of the Dragon. But in all this there is nothing
to connect dragons with Antillia, and that most hideous medieval
fancy is out of all congruity with the fair and almost holy repute of
this island as the place of refuge of the last Christian ante-Moorish
monarch of Spain in the hour of his despair and as the new home of the
seven Portuguese bishops with their following.
In passing, we may note that Antela, the version of the Laon globe
hereinafter referred to, is identical with the name of that Lake Antela
of northwestern Spain which is the source of the river Limia, fabled
to be no other than Lethe, so that Roman soldiers drew back from it,
fearing the waters of oblivion. But as yet no one has taken up the
cause of Spanish Antela as the origin of the island’s name. Probably it
is a mere matter of coincidence.
Humboldt admits that Antillia may be readily resolved into two
Portuguese words, _ante_ and _illa_ (island). He even cites several
parallel cases, of which Anti-bacchus will serve as an example. But
he objects that such compound names have been used in comparison with
other islands, not with a continent. In the present instance, however,
the comparison would be with Portugal, not with all Europe, and the
other member of it would be a map island which, he says, is as long
as Portugal and seems curiously to borrow and copy Portugal’s general
form and is arranged opposite to that kingdom far beyond the Azores
across a great expanse of sea. It must be remembered that _illa_ is the
old form of _ilha_, found in many maps, that either would naturally be
pronounced “illia,” and that you cannot say “anteillia” or “antiillia”
at all rapidly without turning it almost exactly into Antillia. The
“island out before,” or the “opposite island,” would be the natural
interpretation. The latter seems preferable. Notwithstanding the great
importance which must always be attached to any opinion of Humboldt’s,
there really seems no need to let fancy range far afield when an
obvious explanation faces us in the word itself and on the maps.
THE WEIMAR MAP
Nordenskiöld, practically applying his test of the presence of Antillia
and arranging his materials in chronological order, heads his list
of “The Oldest Maps of the New Hemisphere”[254] with the anonymous
map preserved in the Grand Ducal library in Weimar and credited to
1424.[255] But it seems that this map does not deserve that position,
for it is not entitled to the date; Humboldt, inspecting the original,
made out certain fragments of words and the Roman characters for
that year on a band running from south to north between the Azores
and Antillia; also, in more modern ink, the date 1424 on the margin.
Whatever the explanation, he was convinced of error by subsequent
correspondence with the Weimar librarian and admitted that it was
probably the work of Conde Freducci not earlier than 1481. Apart from
all considerations of workmanship and map outlines, the use of “insule”
instead of “insulle” and of “brandani” instead of “brandany” in the
inscription concerning the Madeiras marks the map as almost certainly
belonging to the last quarter, not the first quarter, of the fifteenth
century.
THE BECCARIO MAP OF 1426
The second map on Nordenskiöld’s New World list is “Becharius 1426,”
a Latinization of the surname of Battista Beccario and at least not
so weird a transformation as Humboldt’s “Beclario or Bedrazio.”
Apparently the year of this map has not been doubted, but there is a
lack of first-hand evidence that the original contains Antillia. No
reproduction of this map had been published prior to the writer’s paper
on St. Brendan’s Islands in the July, 1919, _Geographical Review_,
nor, so far as is known, has its extreme western part been copied in
any way. The section there reproduced, and herewith reprinted only
slightly curtailed (Fig. 3), is one of several sent me in response
to arrangements, made before the war, for a photograph of the map,
but by some mistake the very portion that would have been conclusive
was omitted, and all attempts to remedy the error have failed. But,
if there were any inscription concerning recently discovered islands
located as in his later map, some part of it at least would probably be
seen on what I have; and for this and other reasons I do not believe
that Antillia is delineated or named on the Beccario map of 1426.
THE BECCARIO MAP OF 1435
The addition to fifteenth-century geography of a great group of large
western islands roughly corresponding to a part of the West Indies and
Florida rests mainly on the testimony of the following maps now to
be discussed: Beccario 1435, Bianco 1436, Pareto 1455, Roselli 1468,
Benincasa 1482, and the anonymous Weimar map probably by Freducci and
dating somewhere after 1481. Of these the most complete as well as
the earliest is Beccario’s[256] (Fig. 20). He gives the islands the
collective title of “Insulle a novo rep’te” (newly reported islands),
which may refer to the discovery recorded by Behaim for 1414 or to
some more recent experience. The interval would not be much greater
than that between the first landing of Columbus and the narrative of
Peter Martyr beginning with equivalent words. It is likely, however,
that some lost map or maps preceded Beccario’s, for the artificially
regular outlines of his islands, though in accord with the fashion
of cartography in his time, seem rather out of keeping with a first
appearance. The type had somehow fixed itself with curious minuteness
and was repeated faithfully by his successors. In spite of these
impossibly symmetrical details and some discrepancies as to individual
direction of elongation and latitude, the fact remains that in the
Atlantic there is no such great group except the Antilles and that
the general correspondence is too surprising to be explained by mere
accident or conjecture. Surely some mariner had visited Cuba and some
of its neighbors before 1435.
[Illustration: FIG. 20--Section of the Beccario map of 1435 showing
the four islands of the Antilles, St. Brendan’s Islands, Daculi, and
others. (After Uzielli’s photographic facsimile.)]
This map of Beccario had been somewhat neglected, with misreading of
the names, before it was taken in hand by the Italian Geographical
Society and reproduced very carefully by photo-lithography. As regards
the island names in particular, this eliminated some misunderstanding
and confusion and made their meaning plain. Thus rendered, the map
affords a convenient standard for the others, which, indeed, differ
from it very little as to these “Islands of Antillia.”
THE FOUR ISLANDS OF THE ANTILLES ON THE BECCARIO MAP
This group, or more properly series--for three of them are strung out
in a line--comprises the four islands Antillia, Reylla, Salvagio, and I
in Mar. All these names have meaning, easy to render.
ANTILLIA
The largest and most southerly, Antillia, the “opposite island,”
which I take to be no other than Cuba, is shown as an elongated, very
much conventionalized parallelogram, extending from the latitude of
Morocco a little south of the Strait of Gibraltar to that of northern
Portugal. As Humboldt says, it is about a third as wide as it is long;
and in this respect it is singularly even throughout its length. In
its eastern front there are four bays, and three in its western. The
intervals on each side are pretty nearly equal, and each bay is of a
three-lobed form resembling an ill-divided clover leaf. In the lower
end there is a broader and larger bay nearly triangular. The artificial
exactness of these minute details is in keeping with the treatment on
divers maps of the really well-known islands of the eastern Atlantic
archipelagoes, except that the comparative smallness of a Teneriffe, a
Terceira, or even a Madeira, offered less opportunity. The slant of the
island is very slightly east of north, obviously quite different from
the actual longitudinal direction of the even more elongated Queen of
the Antilles.
REYLLA
Behind the lower part of Antillia, much as Jamaica is behind the
eastern or lower part of Cuba, and about in similar proportions of
relative area, Beccario shows a smaller but, nevertheless, considerable
island, pentagonal in outline, mainly square in body, with a low
westward-pointing broad-based triangular extension. He gives it the
impressive name of Reylla, King Island, not ill suited to the royal
beauty of that mountainous gem of the seas.
SALVAGIO
North of Antillia and nearly in line with it, but at a rather wide
interval, he shows Saluagio or Salvagio (“u” and “v” being equivalent),
which has the same name then long given to a wild and rocky cluster of
islets between Madeira and the Canaries, that still bears it in the
form Salvages. Wherever applied the name is bound to denote some form
of savageness; perhaps “Savage Island” is an adequate rendering, the
second word being understood. This Salvagio imitates the general form
of Antillia on a reduced scale, being, nevertheless, much larger than
any other island in the Atlantic south of the parallel of Ireland.
Like Antillia, its eastern and western faces are provided with highly
artificial bays, three in each. Its northern end is beveled upward
and westward. I think this large island probably represents Florida,
similarly situated to the northward of Cuba and divided from it by
Florida Strait. Its area must have been nakedly conjectural, as much
later maps show its line of supposed severance from the mainland to
have been drawn by guesswork.
I IN MAR
The inclined northern end of Salvagio is divided by a narrow sea belt
from I in Mar, which has approximately a crescent form and a bulk not
very different from that commonly ascribed at that time to Madeira.
“I,” of course, stands for Insula or one of its derivatives, such as
Illa, a word or initial applied or omitted at will. “Island in the Sea”
is probably the true rendering, though formerly the initial and the two
words were sometimes blended, as Tanmar or Danmar, to the confusion of
geographers. A larger member of the Bahama group lying near the Florida
coast would seem to fill the requirements, being naturally recognized
as more at sea than Florida or Cuba. Great Abaco and Great Bahama
are nearly contiguous and, considered together, would give nearly
the required size and form; but it is not necessary to be individual
in identification. Possibly Insula in Mar as drawn was meant to be
symbolical and representative of the sea islands generally rather than
to set forth any particular one of them.
THE ROSELLI MAP OF 1468
The Roselli map of 1468,[257] the property of the Hispanic Society of
America, New York City, is nearly as complete as the Beccario map of
1435. It lacks only the western part of Reylla (a name here corrupted
into “roella”), by the reason of the limitations of the material. These
maps were generally drawn on parchment made of lambskin with the narrow
neck of the skin presented toward the west, perhaps as the quarter in
which unavoidable omissions were thought to do the least harm. Because
of the island’s position on the very edge of the skin, its outline,
although unmistakable, is faint and in a few decades of exposure of
the original might have vanished altogether. This raises the question
whether certain outlines, now missing but plainly called for, on other
maps of the same period, have not met with the same fate. Probably this
has happened. Antilia--spelled thus--is plain in name and outline;
so is the island next above it, spelled Saluaega. The “I” is omitted
from I in Mar, as was often done in like cases, and the words “in
Mar” are uncertain, but seem as above. The island figure is correctly
given by Beccario’s standard, and in general the representation of the
island series is almost exactly the same. Perhaps the most discernible
difference is a very slight northwestern trend given to Antillia,
instead of the equally slight northeastern inclination in Beccario’s
case.
THE BIANCO MAP OF 1436
The Bianco map of 1436[258] (Fig. 25) was the first of the Antillia
maps to attract attention in quite modern times but has suffered far
worse than Roselli’s in the matter of limitation. The border of the
material cuts off all but Antillia and the lower end of Salvagio, to
which Bianco has given the strange name of La Man (or Mao) Satanaxio,
generally translated “The Hand of Satan” but believed by Nordenskiöld
to be rather a corruption of a saint’s name, perhaps that of St.
Anastasio. It remains a mystery, though one hypothesis connects it with
a grisly Far Eastern tale of a demon hand. The initial “S” is all that
Satanaxio has in common with the names for this island on the other
maps that show it; and, as nearly all of these present very slight
changes from Salvagio, easily to be accounted for by carelessness or
errors in copying, the latter name is fairly to be regarded as the
legitimate one, while Satanaxio remains unique and grimly fanciful,
perhaps to be explained another day. The most that can be said for its
generally accepted meaning is that it corroborates Salvagio in so far
as it intensifies savagery to diabolism. One is tempted to speculate
as to whether any very cruel treatment from the natives had formed
part of the experience of the visitors along that shore; but there is
no known fact or assertion upon which to base such an idea. As to the
delineation of the islands, it is quite evident that Bianco showed the
same group as Beccario and Roselli so far as circumstances permitted;
and there is no reason to believe that the islands for which he had no
room would have differed from theirs in his showing, if admissible, any
more than his Antillia differs; that is to say, hardly at all.
Humboldt was so impressed by this map of Bianco that he took the pains
of measuring upon it the distance of Antillia from Portugal, making
this about two hundred and forty leagues: an unreliable test, one would
say, for the distances over the western waste of waters probably were
not drawn to scale nor supposed to approach exactness. For that matter,
the interval between Portugal and the Azores, as shown on maps for
nearly a hundred years, was greatly underestimated, and the discrepancy
becomes more glaring as the islands lie farther westward, Flores and
Corvo being conspicuous examples. We should naturally expect to find
the West Indies reported much nearer than they really are by anyone
mapping a record of them. Perhaps the explanation lies in a disposition
of cartographers to expect and allow for a great deal of nautical
exaggeration in the mariners’ yarns that reached them. A careful man
might come at last to believe in the existence of an island but doubt
if it were really so very far away.
THE PARETO MAP OF 1455
Pareto, 1455, has a very interesting and elaborate map[259] (Fig.
21) showing Antillia, Reylla, and I in Mar (the latter without name)
in the orthodox size, shape, and position, but with a great gap
between Antillia and I in Mar where Salvagio should be. Very likely
it was there once. Perhaps this is another case of fading away. One
doubts whether the loss might not still be retrieved by more powerful
magnifying glasses and close study of the significant interval. Pareto
is unmistakably disclosing the same series of islands as the others.
It may be that from him Roselli borrowed the inaccurate “roella” for
Reylla, since Pareto is earlier in using a similar form (Roillo).
[Illustration: FIG. 21--Section of the Pareto map of 1455 showing
the Antilles, St. Brendan’s Islands, Daculi, and others. (After
Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.)]
THE BENINCASA MAP OF 1482
Benincasa’s map of 1482[260] (Fig. 22) presents Salvagio as Saluaga,
and I in Mar without name, but omits Reylla, both name and figure.
The islands shown are in their accepted form and arrangement, except
that Saluaga has but two bays on the western side, and his map adds
a novelty in a series of names applied to the several bays, or the
regions adjoining them, of the two larger islands. These names (Fig.
22) are twelve in number and seem like the fanciful work of some
Portuguese who was haunted by a few Arabic sounds in addition to those
of his native tongue. Several of them, like Antillia, begin with
“An,” perhaps another illustration of the law of the line of least
resistance. I cannot think that there is any significance in these bits
of antiquated ingenuity, though, as we have seen in Chapter V, some
have believed they found in them a relic of the Seven Cities legend.
THE WEIMAR MAP (AFTER 1481)
The Weimar map,[261] though long carefully housed, has suffered
blurring and fading with some other damage in its earlier history.
It is evidently a late representative of the tradition and begins to
wander slightly from the accepted standard. It has been curtailed also
from the beginning, like Bianco’s map of 1436, by the limitations of
the border, which in this instance cuts off the lower part of Antillia,
though the name is nearly intact; but enough remains to indicate a
reduced relative size and a greater slant to the northeastward than on
Beccario’s map. There is, of course, no room for Reylla, and there is
none for I in Mar; but
Salvagio is given plainly and fully, with the letter S quite
conspicuous. I cannot read more of the name on the photograph; but
the Weimar librarian reads San on the original, being uncertain as
to the rest. This map bears traces of local names arranged in places
like those of Benincasa but fragmentary and illegible. Perhaps these
names tend to show that the maps belong not only to the same period,
but to the same general school of development. The other differences
between this map and its predecessors are trivial. The general idea
of the island series is the same so far as it is disclosed, and it is
hardly to be doubted that all elements of the islands of Antillia would
have been presented in the main on this map as they are by Roselli and
Beccario, if there had been room to do so.
[Illustration: FIG. 22--Section of the Benincasa map of 1482 showing
the Antilles, St. Brendan’s Islands, and others. (After Kretschmer’s
hand-copied reproduction.)]
THE LAON GLOBE OF 1493
The Laon globe,[262] 1493, though mainly older, certainly had room
enough, but it appears to have formed part of some mechanism and to
have had only a secondary or incidental, and in part rather careless,
application to geography. It shows two elongated islands, Antela and
Salirosa, undoubtedly meant for Antillia and Salvagio. Perhaps the
globe maker had at command only a somewhat defaced specimen of a map
like Bianco’s or that of Weimar, showing perforce only two islands, and
merely copied them, guessing at the dim names and outlines, without
thinking or caring whether anything more were implied or making
any farther search. This is apparently the last instance in which
the larger two islands of the old group or series, marked by their
traditional names or what are meant for such, appear together.
OTHER MAPS
It may seem strange that certain other notable maps, for example
Giraldi 1426,[263] Valsequa 1439,[264] and Fra Mauro 1459,[265] show
nothing of Antillia and its neighbors. Perhaps the makers were not
interested in these far western parts of the ocean, or the narratives
on which Beccario and the rest based their maps had not reached them;
more likely they were skeptical and unwilling to commit themselves.
It is also true that the Antillia of Beccario and others is made to
extend nearly north and south instead of east and west; that I in Mar
is placed north of its greater neighbor instead of east; and that
the whole chain of islands is moved into considerably more northern
latitudes than the group which we suppose them to represent. Thus the
eastern, or lower, end of Cuba is actually in the latitude of the
lower part of the Sahara, and a point above the upper end of Florida
would be in the latitude of the upper part of Morocco; whereas in the
maps discussed the average location of the chain from the lower end
of Antillia to the most northerly island, I in Mar, would run from
the latitude of northern Morocco to that of southern France. There
are slight individual differences in this matter of extension, but I
believe Antillia always begins below Gibraltar and ends above northern
Spain and a little below Bordeaux. But some dislocation, of course, is
to be looked for in mapping exploration in an unscientific period. The
changes of direction and extension are not greater than in the American
coast line of Juan de la Cosa’s very important map of 1500,[266] not to
mention even more extravagant instances of later date; and the shifting
of latitudes may partly be accounted for by ignorance of the southward
dip of the isothermal lines in crossing the Atlantic westward. Thus a
Portuguese sailor on reaching a far western island or shore having what
seemed to him the climate and conditions of Gascony would be likely to
suppose that it was really opposite Gascony, though in fact it might be
more nearly opposite the Canaries; and the same cause of error would
apply all down the line. Cuba is not really directly opposite Portugal
but may easily have been believed so.
IDENTITY OF ANTILLIA WITH THE ANTILLES
A more difficult question is raised by the absence of Haiti and Porto
Rico from these maps, with all the more eastward Antilles. But it is
possible that they may not have been visited or even seen. We can
imagine an expedition that would touch Great Abaco, coast along
Florida and Cuba, and visit Jamaica, returning out of sight, or with
little notice, of the Haitian coast and barely passing an islet or two
of the Bahamas, which, if not sufficiently commemorated in a general
way by Insula in Mar, might well be disregarded. A report of such an
expedition, adding that Antillia was directly opposite Portugal and of
about equal size, would account fairly for the map which for half a
century was faithfully repeated even in details by many different hands
and evidently confidently believed in.
Unless we accept this explanation, we must assume an uncanny, almost
an inspired, gift of conjecture in some one who, without basis, could
imagine and depict the only array of great islands in the Atlantic.
Certainly the outlines of Cuba, Jamaica, Florida, and one of the
Bahamas will very well bear comparison with Scandinavia or the Hebrides
and the Orkneys as given on maps of equal or even later date. Some
glaring errors are to be expected in such work, as notoriously occurred
in the sixteenth-century treatment of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Applying the same tests and canons and making the same allowances as
in these cases of distortion of undoubtedly actual lands, we may be
reasonably confident that the Antillia of 1435 was really, as now, the
Queen of the Antilles.