CORVO, OUR NEAREST EUROPEAN NEIGHBOR
Far at sea from Portugal, straggling in a long northwestward line
toward America, lies the archipelago sometimes called the Islands of
the Sun or the Western Islands but now generally known as the Azores.
That line breaks into three divisions separated by wide gaps of sea:
the most easterly pair, St. Michael and St. Mary; the main cluster of
five islands, Pico being the loftiest and Terceira the most important;
and the northwesterly pair, Flores and Corvo. These last make a little
far-severed world of their own, sharing in none of the tremors and
upheavals which from time to time more or less transform parts of the
other two divisions. The remote origin of the pair was volcanic, and
Corvo is little more now than an old crater lifted about 300 feet above
the surface; but the fires have long been dead, and in historic times
the lower strata have never shifted suddenly to produce any great
earthquake. There have been changes, but they must be attributed for
the most part to gradual subsidence.
These two islands, though almost as near to Newfoundland as to any
point in Portugal, cannot be classed as American; yet Corvo in
particular seems to have impressed the imagination of ancient and
medieval explorers with a sense of some special relation to regions
beyond, though possibly only to the entangling Sargasso Sea of weeds,
which would lie next in order southwestward (Fig. 1), and the menacing
mysteries of the remoter wastes of the Atlantic. It may have been felt
as the last stepping stone for the leap into the great unknown.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME
Flores, the island of flowers, thus prettily renamed by the
Portuguese, is referred to as the rabbit island, Li Conigi, in the
fourteenth-century maps and records; but Corvo has always borne, in
substance, the same name, one of the oldest on the Atlantic. Probably
the very first instance of its use is in the Book of the Spanish
Friar,[267] written about 1350 (the author says he was born in 1305),
rather recently published in Spanish and since translated for the
Hakluyt Society publications by Sir Clements Markham. After relating
alleged visits to more accessible islands of the eastern Atlantic
archipelagoes, from Lanzarote and Tenerife of the Canaries to São Jorge
(St. George) of the Azores, he continues: “another, Conejos [doubtless
Li Conigi], another, Cuervo Marines [Corvo--the sea crow island], so
that altogether there are 25 islands.”
This account may not actually be later than the Atlante Mediceo
map,[268] attributed to 1351--may even have been suggested by it, as
some things seem to indicate. The Friar’s voyages are perhaps merely
imaginary, their variety and total extent being hardly believable.
This very important map has been best reproduced in the collection
by Theobald Fischer; on it the same name (Corvi Marinis) seems to
be applied to both islands collectively, the plural form “insule”
being used to introduce it. Both names appear on the Catalan map of
1375.[269] It is more than probable that they date at least from the
earlier half of the fourteenth century.
Possibly the name Corvo had been carried over by a somewhat free
translation from the older Moorish seamen and cartographers, who
dominated this part of the outer ocean from the eighth century to the
twelfth. Edrisi,[270] greatest of Arab geographers, writing for King
Roger of Sicily about the middle of the twelfth century, tells us,
among other items, of the eastern Atlantic:
Near this isle is that of Râca, which is “the isle of the
birds” (Djazîrato ’t-Toyour). It is reported that a species
of birds resembling eagles is found there, red and armed with
fangs; they hunt marine animals upon which they feed and never
leave these parts.
This statement recalls the cormorants, which are supposed to be meant
by the sea crows, “corvi marinis” of the later maps. They would
naturally flock about the submerged ledges and the wild shore of Corvo
and may be held to suggest either the crow or the eagle, though not
closely resembling either. Everywhere they are the scavengers of the
deep seas. Edrisi mentions a legendary expedition sent by the “King of
France” after these birds. It ended in disaster. The pictorial record
on the Pizigani map of 1367[271] (Fig. 2), of Breton ships in great
trouble with a dragon of the air and a kraken, or decapod, on the
extreme western border of navigation, may conceivably refer to this
experience.
ANCIENT MEMORIALS
But Corvo has even more ancient traditions and associations, Diodorus
Siculus,[272] in the first century before the Christian era, wrote of a
great Atlantic island, probably Madeira, which the Etrurians coveted
during their period of sea power; but the Carthaginians, its first
discoverers, prohibited them, wishing to keep it for their own uses. If
the Etrurians were thus well informed concerning one island of these
eastern Atlantic archipelagoes, it is a fair conjecture that they had
visited the others.
However this may be, it seems that the Carthaginians left memorials
on Corvo. At least this is the most reasonable explanation of
the extraordinary story repeated by Humboldt[273] in the “Examen
Critique,” apparently with full faith in its main feature at least,
notwithstanding the fascinating atmosphere of romance and wonder which
hangs about the details. In the month of November, 1749, it appears, a
violent storm shattered an edifice (presumably submerged) off the coast
of Corvo, and the surf washed out of a vault pertaining to the building
a broken vase still containing golden and copper coins. These were
taken to a convent or monastery (probably on some neighboring island).
Some of them were given away as curiosities, but nine were preserved
and sent to a Father Flores at Madrid, who gave them to M. Podolyn.
Some of them bore for design the full figure of a horse; others bore
horses’ heads. Reproductions of the designs were published in the
_Memoirs of the Gothenburg Royal Society_[274] and compared with those
on coins in the collection of the Prince Royal of Denmark. It seems to
be agreed that they were certainly Phoenician coins of North Africa,
partly Carthaginian.
It has been suggested[275] that they may have been left by Norman
or Arab seafarers, who certainly journeyed among the Azores in the
Middle Ages. But, as Humboldt points out, that these should have
left a hoard of exclusively Phoenician coins, so much more ancient
than their own, without even a single specimen of any other mintage,
appears very unlikely. On the other hand, it is true that Phoenician
vessels sailing northward in the tin or amber traffic would hardly
be likely to be storm-driven so far northwestward as Corvo; St.
Michael would have been a more natural involuntary landfall. This
objection does not apply, however, if we suppose the deposit to be
the work not of accident, but of full intention and deliberation, as
the alleged edifice and vault would certainly tend to show. If these
coins were deposited by Phoenicians who erected permanent buildings,
the remoteness of the island would be only an added reason for
commemoration. The coins might have been immured in the vault for safe
keeping or might have been enclosed in the corner stone, in accordance
with the general custom of placing coins and records in the corner
stones of notable structures.
Of course these details cannot be confidently accepted. As Humboldt
suggests, it is to be regretted that we are without information as to
the period or character of the edifice in question. But at least it
seems most probable that Phoenicians occupied or at any rate visited
this island and deposited coins of Carthage.
EQUESTRIAN STATUES
Furthermore, Corvo is one of several Atlantic islands reputed to have
been marked by monuments generally of one type. Edrisi[276] knows
of them in Al-Khalidat, the Fortunate Isles--bronze westward-facing
statues on tall columnar pedestals. There are said to have been six
such in all, the nearest being at Cadiz. Tradition places an equestrian
statue also on the island of Terceira, as repeated in a much more
modern work.[277] The Pizigani map of 1367, it will be remembered,
shows (Fig. 2) near where Corvo should be the colossal figure of a
saint warning mariners backward, with a confused inscription declaring
westward navigation impracticable beyond this point by reason of
obstructions and announcing that the statue is erected on the shore
of Atilie. But perhaps the best and most apposite account is that of
Manuel de Faria y Sousa in the “Historia del Reyno de Portugal:”
In the Azores, on the summit of a mountain which is called the
mountain of the Crow, they found the statue of a man mounted
on a horse without saddle, his head uncovered, the left hand
resting on the horse, the right extended toward the west. The
whole was mounted on a pedestal which was of the same kind of
stone as the statue. Underneath some unknown characters were
carved in the rock.[278]
Apparently the reference is to the first ascent of Corvo after its
rediscovery between 1449 and 1460. The mention of “characters” recalls
those found in a cave of St. Michael, also by rediscoverers, during
the same period, as related by Thevet[279] long afterward, most likely
from tradition. A man of Moorish-Jewish descent, who was one of the
party, thought he recognized the inscription as Hebrew, but could not
or did not read it. Some have supposed the characters to be Phoenician.
There is naturally much uncertainty about these stories of very early
observations by untrained men, recorded at last, as the result of a
long chain of transmissions: but they tend more or less to corroborate
the other evidences of Phoenician presence.
It may be possible that the persistent and widely distributed story
of westward-pointing equestrian statues marking important islands
may have grown out of the ancient mention of the pillars of Saturn,
afterward Hercules, and Strabo’s discussion[280] as to whether they
were natural or artificial in origin; but this puts a severe strain on
fancy. We know that the Carthaginians did set up commemorative columns;
and that the horse figured conspicuously in their coinage. Nothing in
the enterprising character of the Phoenician people is opposed to the
idea of incitement to exploration westward. It seems easier to believe
that they set up these statuary monuments on one island after another
than that the whole tradition has grown out of a misunderstanding.
Such statues might well vanish subsequently as completely as the great
silver “tabula” map of Edrisi and many other valuable things of olden
time.
Corvo has no statue now; but it is reputed to hold a statue’s
representative. Captain Boid (1834) relates:
Corvo is the smallest, and most northerly of the Azores,
being only six miles in length, and three in breadth, with a
population of nine hundred souls. It is rocky and mountainous;
and on being first descried, exhibits a sombre dark-blue
appearance, which circumstance gave rise to its present
name, whereby it was distinguished by the early Portuguese
navigators.... It is not known at what period this island was
first visited, though from a combination of circumstances,
it is supposed, about the year 1460. The inhabitants are
ignorant, superstitious, and bigoted, in the highest degree,
and relate innumerable ridiculous traditions respecting their
country. Amongst other absurdities they state, with the utmost
gravity, that to Corvo is owed the discovery of the western
world--which, they say, originated through the circumstance
of a large projecting promontory on the N. W. side of the
island, possessing somewhat of the form of a human being,
with an outstretched arm toward the west; and this, they have
been led to believe, was intended by Providence, to intimate
the existence of the new world. Columbus, they say, first
interpreted it thus; and was here inspired with the desire to
commence his great researches.[281]
Captain Boid was wrong in his derivation of the name Corvo, as we have
seen; wrong also, in another way, in despising the “superstitions” as
“absurd” and refusing them record, for they might embody some valuable
suggestion. Humboldt thought, however, that the story of the pointing
horseman might have grown out of this natural rock formed in human
semblance. No doubt this is possible; but it would not account for
like stories of the other islands nor the general similitude of their
figures. Perhaps an equally valid explanation might be found in the
former presence of such artificial figures, leaving a certain repute
behind them and causing popular fancy to point out resemblances which
would not have been noticed otherwise.
A more recent mention of this pointing rock occurs in “A Trip to the
Azores” by Borges de F. Henriques, a native of Flores. He says:
Another natural curiosity which has been defaced by the weather
and the bad taste of visitors is a rock resembling a horseman
with the right arm extended to the westward as if pointing the
way to the new world. Some insular writers deny the existence
of this rock.[282]
NEED OF EXPLORATION
There seems still a good deal of vagueness about the matter, and Corvo
might well be given a thorough overhauling for vestiges of ancient
times. This naturally should be extended to the submerged area close
to the shore, for the outlying reefs and ridges may mark the site of
lower lands where human work once went on and where its traces and
relics may remain. In expanse the island probably was not always what
we find it now, six miles in length by at most three in breadth (seven
square miles in all, as most accounts compute it) with fringes of rock
running off from the shore, “lifting themselves high above the water in
one place, blackening the surface in another, and again sinking to such
a depth that the waves only eddy and bubble over them.” Mr. Henriques
says elsewhere: “In many of the islands, but especially in Flores,
there are vestiges clearly indicating that formerly as well as lately
parts of the island have sunk or rather disappeared in the sea.” He
cites for instance a notable loss of land in the summer of 1847.
There is reason to believe that Corvo has dwindled in this way much
more, proportionately, than Flores. One striking indication is found
in the comparison of the present map with those of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. For convenience sketches of these are appended
(Fig. 23). The relative position of the islands is about the same in
all. The form of Corvo varies from the pear shape of the Laurenziano
map (1351),[283] and another shape[284] not much later slightly
resembling an indented segment of a circle, to the three-lobed or
clover-leaf form which was accepted as the final convention or standard
and first clearly appears in the great Catalan atlas[285] of 1375,
repeated by Beccario 1435[286], Benincasa 1482[287], and others; but
all agree in making Corvo the main island and Li Conigi (Flores)
a minor pendant. Corvo seems in every way to have commanded chief
attention, and in size the difference was conspicuous and decisive.
The difference certainly is great enough now, but conditions and
proportions are reversed. Corvo has but one-eighth the area of Flores
and less than one-tenth the population. In all ways it lacks advantages
and conveniences, taking rather the place of a poor dependent.
[Illustration: FIG. 23--Representation of Corvo on fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century maps as compared with its present outline. (The
sources may be identified from the text.)]
There is no good reason for discrediting so many of the old maps. Their
makers sometimes went wrong; but they tried to be accurate and would
hardly, through a century or two, persist in making the northern island
the greater one unless it was at first really so. Of course the most
natural solution of the difficulty is that Corvo’s border has sunk or
the sea has risen over it, completely drowning the territory which made
the lobes or curved outline of the island form in the medieval maps
and leaving only above water its rocky backbone, with the crater for a
nucleus. Apparently those lobes and their contents are just what might
be most profitably dredged for and dived after.
Perhaps the island has not greatly changed since Mr. Henriques wrote
his little sketch of it in the sixth decade of the last century:
The first part of the ride to it [the crater] is through steep
and narrow lanes walled in with stones. Over those walls you
can sometimes see the country right and left, which is divided
into small and well-cultivated compartments by low stone walls.
These small fields form narrow terraces, one above another,
looking from the sea like steps in the hills. An hour’s ride
brings you to an open mountain covered with heath where browse
flocks of sheep and hogs, and about an hour and a half more
to the crater on the summit, now a quiet green valley, with a
dark, still pond in the center....
The Corvoites, particularly the women, are a happy and
industrious people and have strong and healthy constitutions.
The men in trade evince a remarkable shrewdness, proverbial
among the other Azorians, but in private life their manners
are simple and unassuming.... They are like a large family of
little less than a thousand members, all living in the only
village on the island.[288]