(_Addenda._)
1526-1614.
After the death of Verrazzano, the French, for a time, made no attempt to
search along the coast of the new continent for a short and direct way to
Cathay. The losses sustained by the projectors of the expedition of 1526,
Ribaut says, gave “small courage to sende thither agayne, and was the
cause that this laudable enterprise was left of, vntill the yeere 1534,
at which time his Maiestie [Francis I.] (desiring alwayes to enlarge
his kingdome, countreys, and dominions, and the aduauncing the ease of
his subiectes), sent thither a Pilote of S. Mallowes, a Briton, named
James Cartier, well seene in the art and knowledge of Nauigation, and
especially of the North parts, commonly called the new land, led by some
hope to find passage that waies to the south seas.”[430]
The two ships commanded by Cartier sailed from the port of St. Malo, on
the twentieth of April, 1534. Reaching Newfoundland on the tenth of May,
Cartier began to search for a navigable channel to India. Three months
were passed in exploring the coast of Labrador and the Strait of Belle
Isle and a part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On the fifteenth of August,
Cartier set sail for France, and arrived in the port of St. Malo, on the
fifth of September. In the following year, Cartier sailed again to New
France and explored the St. Lawrence River to the island of Hochelaga,
the site of the city of Montreal. It is said that he was told by the
natives that from there it was only “a month’s sailing to go to a land
where cinnamon and cloves are gathered.”[431] Returning from this voyage,
Cartier reached St. Malo on the sixth of July, 1536.[432]
The first explorers of the new continent called its inhabitants by
different names. Columbus and his Spanish companions, imagining the field
of their discoveries to be in Eastern Asia, named the aborigines Indians
(_Indios_), believing them to be natives of India. Seven of the people of
Canada, carried to France, in 1509, were described by a contemporaneous
Latin writer as wood or wild men (_homines sylvestres_).[433] The French,
it appears, called the natives of New France _manants_ or _manans_, and
_paysans_, peasants, the former name being used in the middle ages as a
designation for unintelligent people or those of low condition. The name
_manants_ was likewise a designation for persons of this class living in
villages and on farms. _Manants_ properly speaking were the natives of a
place, and the _habitans_ were those who came to it to reside.[434] The
French appellation _manants_ or _manans_ not only fitly expressed the
low condition of the natives of New France, but it also gave prominence
to the fact that they dwelt in villages and were indigenous people. The
French, as late as the year 1677, called the old Indians, or rather the
descendants of the Senecas, _paisans_, peasants.[435] The Italians also
called the natives of North America peasants, _paesani_.[436]
The Manants living on the island on which the city of New York is built,
were very friendly to the French who came to the Grande River, in the
sixteenth century, to traffic for furs. The Hollanders, however, found
them to be quite hostile in the following century. De Laet, the Dutch
historian, describing the natives of the Groote River in 1625, remarks:
“On the east side, upon the main-land, dwell the Manhattans, a bad race
of savages, who have always been very obstinate and unfriendly toward
our countrymen.”[437] He also says that Hudson, in 1609, called the Great
River “Manhattes from the name of the people who dwelt at its mouth.”[438]
The wrong spelling of the French term _manant_ began with a misconception
of its proper pronunciation. The Dutch thinking that the _t_ was
sounded, pronounced the name _man-ant_, whence “_man-hat_,” “_man-ath_,”
“_man-ad_,” and other strange forms of the name. Wassenaer, the Dutch
historian, in 1624, speaking of the Indian tribes of New Netherland,
says: “The Manhates are situated at the mouth” of the Mauritius
River.[439] De Laet writes the name Manhattes, Manatthans, Manatthanes,
and Manhattans.[440] De Vries, the Dutch navigator, who could speak
French, spells the appellation Menates and Minates.[441] In the
deposition of Catelyn Trico, a French woman, who emigrated from Holland,
in 1624, to New Netherland, the term is written Mannantans.[442] Besides
these peculiar changes the name has many other anomalous forms.[443]
When the first French explorers sailed along that massive bulwark of
trap-rock, now called The Palisades, rising on the west side of the
Grande River to varying altitudes from two to five hundred feet above the
level of the stream, and ranging northward and southward a distance of
more than ten miles, they were peculiarly impressed with its grandeur,
and figuratively called it L’Anormée Berge, (The Grand Scarp.)
The adjective _anormée_ and the noun _berge_ definitely describe the
steep and extensive wall of stone which borders the noble river, now
bearing the name of a later explorer. _Anormé_, an obsolete form of the
adjective _énorme_, signifies that which is grand, vast, majestic.[444]
The noun _berge_, besides meaning an elevated border of a river, a scarp
of a fortification, a steep side of a moat or of a road, is a designation
for certain rocks elevated perpendicularly above the water.[445] In an
old French lexicon it is said: “They likewise call in marine phraseology
_bèrges_ or _barges_ those great rocks, rugged and perpendicularly
elevated, that is to say, uprightly and plumb, as the _bèrges_ or
_barges_ of Olone: such rocks as are Scylla and Charybdis, toward
Messina.”[446]
A more appropriate name could not have been selected to designate
geographically this part of New France than that of The Land of the Grand
Scarp (_La Terre d’Anormée Berge_), or, in more familiar phraseology,
The Land of the Palisades. The words, scarp and palisade, are terms of
fortification. The first designates the steep slope below the parapet of
a fortification, next to the ditch; the second an upright row of strong
stakes set firmly in the ground in front of the counter-scarp, on the
opposite side of the moat from the scarp.
The mispronunciation of the peculiar geographical name was evidently
the cause of its orthography being obscured so soon after it was used
as the designation for the elevated border of the Grande River. The
more frequent use thereafter of _énorme_ for _anormé_ made the term
more unfamiliar. It would seem also that when the name should have
been written _La Terre d’Énorme Berge_, that it was inscribed, _La
Terre de Normeberge_. The change of the qualifying term to a word of
two syllables, as _norom_, _norum_, _nurum_, and _norim_, rendered the
name more ambiguous. In like manner the noun _berge_ was corrupted,
being spelled _bergue_, _bega_, _berg_, and _bagra_. In this way the
territorial designation became _La Terre de Norumbega_, _La Terre de
Norembegue_, _La Terre de Noromberge_, and _La Terre de Norembergue_, and
its meaning and derivation incomprehensible to the descendants of its
originators.
Gerard Mercator, on a terrestrial globe, (_globus terrae_), made in 1541,
represents the Grande River as if its channel were filled with _anormée
bèrges_, which he designates with the misspelled name “Anorumbega.”[447]
On a map of the world, made about the year 1548, for King Henry II. of
France, the appellation “Anorobagra” designates the river of the Grand
Scarp.[448]
In the sixteenth century proper names less peculiar in construction
than the appellation L’Anormée Berge, were written very irregularly. It
is said by Disraeli that Leicester subscribed his name eight different
ways, and that Villers is spelled fourteen times differently in the
deeds of the family. Lower mentions that the name of Mainwaring, has the
remarkable number of one hundred and thirty-one variations in different
documents. Even in this age of dictionaries the spelling of uncommon
geographical names does not always conform to their orthography. A record
has been kept for a number of years of the different ways in which the
name of the city of Cohoes, in the state of New York, has been spelled on
letters addressed to that post-office, and the extraordinary number of
one hundred and ninety-seven changes in the form of the appellation has
been registered.
There seems to be but a single statement that might be used to support an
assertion that the natives of the country of New France originated the
name “Norumbega.” It is in Ramusio’s Italian translation of the French
sea-captain’s description of Francesca, in which it is said: “This region
is called by the peasants Norumbega.” René Goulaine de Laudonnière, a
well-informed French naval officer, who had command of a French fort in
Florida, in 1564, contradicts the assertion that the name was transferred
from an early map of the eastern coast of Asia, saying: “It is called by
the moderns Terre de Norumberge.” André Thevet, the French geographer,
who sailed along its coast in 1556, declares that his countrymen called
the Grande River “Norombègue,” and the Indians, “Aggoncy.”
One of the earliest accounts of the Land of the Grand Scarp extant is
in the discourse of the unnamed sea-captain of Dieppe, written in 1539.
Describing the country of Francesca, he says: “Beyond Cape Breton there
is a region contiguous to this cape, the coast of which extends west and
a quarter southwest as far as the region of Florida, and it stretches
full five hundred leagues, which coast was discovered fifteen years
ago, by Monsieur Giovanni da Verrazzano, in the name of King Francis
and of Madame, the regent, and this region is called by many the land
of the French (_la Francese_), and likewise by the Portuguese, and
its termination toward Florida is in 78° west longitude and 30° north
latitude.[449]
“The inhabitants of this domain are a tractable people, amiable and
agreeable. The country abounds with all kinds of fruit. Oranges
and almonds grow in wild forests, with many different varieties of
odoriferous trees. This region is called by the peasants (_paesani_)
Norumbega, and between it and Brazil there is a large gulf, extending
west as far as the ninety-second meridian.”[450]
In 1540 Jacques Cartier again sailed to New France and ascended the St.
Lawrence River. Jean François de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, was placed
in command of this expedition, and, by letters-patent, dated January
15, 1540, was commissioned viceroy and lieutenant-general of the new
lands belonging to France in the western hemisphere. Jean Alphonse, an
experienced navigator, a native of Saintonge, near the town of Cognac,
France, accompanied Sieur de Roberval as chief pilot.[451]
In the manuscript of the cosmography of Raulin Secalart, written about
the year 1545, preserved in the National library, in Paris, is a short
description of the coast and people of La Terre d’Anormée Berge.[452]
The writer, evidently Jean Alphonse, very faithfully describes Long
Island Sound, the eastern entrance to the Grande River, when he says:
“This river is wider than forty leagues of latitude at its mouth, and
within, the width is as much as thirty or forty leagues, and it is full
of islands, which extend ten or twelve leagues in the sea, and it is
very dangerous on account of rocks and swashings.” These observations
are remarkably consonant with those of a later writer: “Long Island
Sound, a Mediterranean Sea, separating the island from the main-land of
Connecticut, is connected with the ocean at each end of the island and
affords a sheltered line of navigation of about one hundred and twenty
miles in extent.... Opposite Harlem River is the noted pass or strait
called Hell-Gate, which is crooked, and from the numerous rocks, islands,
eddies, and currents, is somewhat difficult and dangerous.”[453]
The identity of the river called by the French writer “Norombègue,” now
the Hudson, is satisfactorily established by the statement that the water
of the river is salty to the height of forty leagues or eighty-eight
miles. This fact is incontrovertible. The Hudson is salty or brackish
beyond the city of Poughkeepsie, which is about ninety-three miles north
of Sand Hook.[454] The assertion could not be verified were it assumed
that the description applies to the Penobscot, or the Kennebec, or the
Merrimack, or the Connecticut River. It would seem that the writer speaks
of the Palisades bordering the west side of the river, opposite the
Indian village of “Norombègue,” when he says: “On the side toward the
west of the said town there are many rocks which extend to the sea, about
fifteen miles.”
[Illustration: Copy of the map of “Terre de la Franciscane” in the MS. of
the “Cosmographie de Jehan Allefonsce et Raulin Secalart,” 1545.]
“I say that the Cape of St. John, called Cape Breton, and the Cape of
the Franciscan, are northeast and southwest, and range a point from an
east and west course, and there are one hundred and forty leagues on the
course, and which makes one cape, called the Cape of Norombègue. The said
cape is in forty-one degrees of the height of the arctic pole. The said
coast [_i. e._ of Connecticut] is all sandy, ...[455] flat, without any
mountain. And along this coast there are many isles of sand and the coast
very dangerous on account of banks and rocks.
“The people of this coast and of Cape Breton are an ill-disposed race,
powerful, great arrow-makers, and live on fish and on flesh, and are not
talkative, and speak almost the same language as those of Canada, and are
a great people. And those of Cape Breton go to make war upon those of the
New Land when they are fishing, and not for any thing do they spare the
life of any one when they take him, unless it is a young boy or a young
girl; and they are so cruel that if they take a man having a beard, they
cut off his legs and arms and carry them to their wives and children, in
order to be avenged in that way. And there are among them many peltries
of all animals.
“Beyond the Cape of Norombègue, the river of the said Norombègue descends
about twenty-five leagues from the cape. The said river is wider than
forty leagues of latitude at its mouth [entrance of Long Island Sound],
and within, this width is as much as thirty or forty leagues, and it is
full of isles which stretch out ten or twelve leagues in the sea [or
Sound], and it is very dangerous on account of rocks and swashings. The
said river is in forty-two degrees of the height of the arctic pole.
“Up the said river, fifteen leagues, there is a town which is called
Norombègue, and there is in it a good people, and they have many
peltries of all kinds of animals. The inhabitants of the town are dressed
in skins, wearing mantles of martens. I think that the said river runs
into the river Hochelaga [the St. Lawrence], for it is salt for more than
forty leagues up, according to the statement of the people of the town.
The people use many words which resemble the Latin, and they worship the
sun, and are a handsome people, and large framed. The land of Norombègue
is high and good.
“Before and on this side of the said river, one hundred and fifty
leagues, there is an island called Vermonde [Bermuda?] which is in about
thirty-three degrees of the height of the arctic pole.[456] And on the
west side of the said town there are many rocks which extend to the sea,
about fifteen leagues, and north of it there is a bay, in which there
is a small island, which is often subject to tempests and cannot be
inhabited.”
[Illustration: A copy of the map of a part of North America, in the third
volume of Ramusio’s “Raccolta di Navigationi e Viaggi,” printed in 1556;
made by Giacomo de Gastaldi. (The original is about one-third larger.)]
While Jean Alphonse was exploring the coast of La Terre d’Anormée Berge
(which at this time geographically included all the country between the
Grande River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence), he ascended the Grande River
to the height of its navigation, from which point he inferred that the
stream extended to the St. Lawrence, as it is represented on the map
made by Giacomo de Gastaldi, a Piedmontese cartographer, about the year
1553.[457] “I have been at a bay as far as forty-two degrees, between
Norumbega and Florida, and I have not searched the end thereof, and I
know not whether it [the river] pass through.... I doubt not but [the
river] Norumbega entereth into the river of Canada, and unto the sea of
Saguenay.”[458]
This opinion, that the Hudson was an outlet of the St. Lawrence, was held
by the Dutch as late as the year 1625, for De Laet observes: “Judging
from appearances this river extends to the great river of St. Lawrence,
or Canada, since our skippers assure us that the natives come to the fort
[on the site of Albany] from that river.”[459]
René Goulaine de Laudonnière, a French officer, commanding Fort Caroline,
on the river May, in 1564, gives, in his notable history of Florida, a
short account of Verrazanno’s discoveries in 1524.[460] He says that
the French planted in the New Land “the ensigns and arms of the king of
France, so that the Spaniards themselves, who were there afterward, have
called this country French land (_nõmé ce païs terre Francesque_).... The
east part of it is named by the moderns Terre de Norumberge, which ends
at the Gulf of Gamas, which separates it from the island of Canada.”[461]
Not long after the discovery of Francesca by Verrazzano, French barques
were making voyages to its coast, some to obtain cod-fish and others
furs. As related by Jean Alphonse, the people of the village of L’Anormée
Berge had “many peltries of all kinds of animals.” The large quantities
of beaver, otter, and other skins obtained from the Manants, dwelling
at the mouth of the Grande River, induced the speculative Frenchmen
engaged in the traffic to erect at this point a small fort, where their
factors might reside and more advantageously enlarge their purchases of
furs. The Indian village, on the island on which the city of New York
is built, was picturesquely situated on the border of the deep, limpid
lake, then covering the sites of the plots of ground included between the
lines of Elm, Baxter, Worth, and Franklin streets. Near the south end of
the lake (which extended as far as the intersection of Centre and Duane
streets and emptied into the Hudson at Canal Street) was a small island.
Eligible, and opposite the tongue of land on which the Manants dwelt,
the French fur factors selected it as the site of the fortified trading
house which they erected and called Le Fort d’Anormée Berge (The Fort of
the Grand Scarp).[462]
[Illustration: Copy of a part of a map of the city of New York made by
James Lyne in 1728.]
The French geographer, André Thevet, who sailed along the coast of
La Terre d’Anormée Berge, in 1556, besides corroborating some of the
preceding statements respecting the discovery of New France, and
mentioning the fact that the Grande River was called by his countrymen
the river of “Norombègue,” and by the Indians “Aggoncy,” says[463]:
“Having left Florida on the left hand with a great number of islands,
islets, gulfs, and capes, a river presents itself, one of the beautiful
rivers that are in the world, which we named Norombègue, and the Indians
Aggoncy, and which is marked on some marine charts Grande river.[464]
Several other beautiful rivers enter this one, on which formerly the
French had built a small fort about ten or twelve leagues up it, which
fort was surrounded by fresh water that empties into the river, and this
place was called the fort of Norombègue.”[465]
The site of the fort of L’Anormée Berge is indicated by Gerard Mercator
on his celebrated map of the world, made at Duisburg, Germany, in 1569.
The famous cartographer not only designates the situation of the French
fort on the east side of the Grande River with a conventional sign used
by map-makers, but also inscribes the name “Norombega” immediately
over it. As is seen, he outlines the Grande River to the height of its
navigation, at the confluence of the Mohawk, as far as the French had
explored it.[466]
[Illustration: A part of Gerard Mercator’s map of the world, made in
Duisburg in 1569; copied from “Les monuments de la géographie recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales, publiés en fac-similé.” par
M. Jomard, Paris.]
It seems that the French fur merchants undertook to build, about the
year 1540, a _château_ or castle, at the height of the navigation of
the Grande River. As it appears, they selected a site for the building
on the long, low island lying in the bay, on the west side of the river,
near the present southern limits of the city of Albany. The walls of the
castle and its protecting earthworks were almost completed when a great
freshet inundated the island and damaged the structure so much that the
French abandoned the occupation of the island. Jean Alphonse evidently
refers to the abortive undertaking, when describing the situation of
the Indian village at the mouth of the Grande River, he says: “North of
it there is a bay, in which is a small island that is often subject to
storms, [those causing freshets,] and cannot be inhabited.” The island
bore the name of Castle Island for more than a century thereafter, but it
is now known as Van Rensselaer’s Island.
The fact that the French had ascended the Grande River to the height
of its navigation to trade with the Indians long before Henry Hudson
explored it, is corroborated by still stronger testimony than that
already presented. One of the earliest maps representing the territory
of Nieu Nederlandt (New Netherland), or that part of New France which
the French had called La Terre d’Anormée Berge, is the figurative chart
presented to their high mightinesses, the Lords States General of the
United Netherlands, on the eleventh of October, 1614, by a number of
Dutch merchants, praying for a special license to navigate and traffic
within the limits of this part of North America.[467] Upon this map, made
in 1614, are inscribed “curious notes and _memoranda_ concerning the
natives of the country,” which the well-informed discoverer of the chart
intimates were written by one of the Dutch companions of Henry Hudson,
who accompanied the English navigator, on the voyage of 1609.[468] One of
these explanatory notes contains the undeniable testimony that the French
were the discoverers of the Grande River, and that they had been trading
with the Mohawks long before the Half Moon sailed up the river. The
plain language of the inscription makes all explanation of its meaning
unnecessary: “But as far as one can understand by what the Maquaas
[Mohawks] _say and show_, the French come with sloops as high up as their
country to trade with them.”[469]
Among the things which were shown to the Dutch explorers by the friendly
Mohawks to confirm what they had said concerning the French, were the
conspicuous ruins of the unfinished castle. The sagacious Hollanders, not
unlikely thinking that the dilapidated building might be repaired with
little expense, and made useful to them as a trading house, should they
be licensed by the government of the Netherlands to return there to trade
for furs with the Indians, took measurements of its walls and outworks.
These _memoranda_ they also inscribed on the map of New Netherland. The
castle, as described on the chart, was fifty-eight feet wide between the
walls, and built in the form of a square, surrounded by a moat eighteen
feet wide. The interior building was thirty-six feet long and twenty-six
wide.[470]
Although the Dutch explorers never left any definite information that
they were personally the builders of the fortification on Castle Island,
yet by naming it Fort Nassau, in honor of the stadtholder, Maurice,
prince of Orange and of Nassau, they permitted historians to infer that
they had constructed it, even before they had been privileged by the
government of the Netherlands to occupy the country.
As late as the year 1680, the Dutch residents of Albany were
unenlightened respecting the nationality of the builders of the fort,
some supposing that the Spaniards had erected it. This assumption was not
generally credited, as there were no facts known that would verify the
presence of the Spaniards in this part of the country. The two Labadist
missionaries, Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, who visited Albany in
1680, thus speak of the fort on Castle Island, and of the conjecture
concerning the people who had built it: “In the afternoon [Sunday, April
28th] we took a walk to an island upon the end of which there is a fort
built, they say, by the Spaniards. That a fort had been there is evident
enough from the earth thrown up, but it is not to be supposed that the
Spaniards came so far inland to build forts when there are no monuments
of them to be seen on the sea-coasts, where, however, they have been
according to the tradition of the Indians.”[471]
FOOTNOTES
[1] The Hebrew for man is derived from the verb (אדם), _to be red_.
[2] Solon, one of the seven sages of Greece, was born about the year B.
C. 639, and died about the year B. C. 558.
Herodotus, the Greek historian, writing in the fifth century before the
Christian era, says: “When these were subdued, and Crœsus had joined
them to the Lydians, all the learned men at that time, especially those
of Greece, resorted to Sardis, which had then reached a high degree of
eminence. Among them was Solon, an Athenian, who, having made a code of
laws for the Athenians at their request, absented himself for ten years,
having sailed away under pretense of seeing the world, that he might not
be compelled to abrogate any of the laws he had established: for the
Athenians could not do it themselves, as they were bound by the most
solemn oaths to preserve inviolate, for ten years, the institutions of
Solon. Therefore, having gone abroad for these reasons, as well as to see
the world, Solon had visited Amasis, in Egypt, and went from there to
Crœsus, at Sardis.”—Herodotus: Clio xxix, xxx.
[3] Plutarch, the Greek biographer, says that Psenophis, the
Heliopolitan, and Senchis, the Saite, the most learned of the Egyptian
priests, were the persons who gave Solon this information.—Parallel
Lives: Solon.
[4] “If Solon ... had not considered the writing of poetry a recreation,
but had made it, as others do, an actual employment, and had completed
the history which he had brought from Egypt; and had not been forced to
relinquish it by seditions and many other troubles in which he found
his country involved, I do not think that either Hesiod, Homer, or any
other poet would have acquired more extensive fame.”—Plato: Timæus, or
Concerning Nature.
[5] Plato was born about the year B. C. 430 and died about the year B. C.
348. He traced his descent from Solon through his mother.
[6] “These very writings, indeed, were in the possession of my
grandfather, and are now in mine, having been made the subject of much
study during my boyhood.”—Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.
[7] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.
[8] The so-called Pillars of Hercules were the two mountains, Calpe and
Abyla, on the opposite sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.
“I wonder, therefore, at those,” says Herodotus, “who have described
the limits of and divided Libya, Asia, and Europe, for the difference
between them is trifling: for in length Europe extends along both of
them, but respecting width, it is evidently not to be compared. Libya
shows itself to be surrounded by water, except so much of it as borders
Asia.”—Herodotus: Melpomene xlii.
[9] Tyrrhenia or Umbria, in Italy, now Tuscany.
[10] Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.
[11] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.
[12] Genesis xvi. 7; xviii. 1-8, 16-33; xix. 1-22; xxxii. 1, 2.
[13] Herodotus: Euterpe cxlii, cxliv.
[14] Genesis vi. 1, 2, 4.
“SOC. Do you know that heroes are half-gods?
“HERM. What then?
“SOC. All of them were doubtless begotten either from a god falling in
love with a mortal woman, or from a mortal man [falling in love] with a
goddess.”
—Plato: Cratylus, or Concerning the Correct Use of Words.
[15] A stadium is equal to 600 Greek or 625 Roman feet, or to 606 feet 9
inches English measure.
[16] Respecting the names of the persons appearing in the narrative
Plato observes: “We must briefly warn you not to be surprised at hearing
Hellenic names given to the barbarians; the cause of this you shall now
hear. Solon, intending to make use of this narrative in his poetry, made
an investigation into the signification of the names, and found that
the early Egyptians who recorded these facts transferred these names
into their own language; and he again receiving the meaning of each name
transcribed it into our tongue.”
[17] “Πᾶσα ἡ νῆσος τότε πέλαγος ἐσχεν ἑπωνυμίαν, Ἀτλαντικὸν λεχθέν.”
[18] Gadeira, an ancient city built, it is said, by the Phœnicians,
fifteen centuries before the Christian era, on the site of Cadiz, Spain.
[19] Ὀρείχαλκος, ore of copper. From ὄρειος, mountain, and χαλκός, brass.
[20] The remains of mammoths or elephants, _elephas primigenus_, have
been exhumed in different parts of the continent of America.
[21] A plethron is equal to a hundred feet.
[22] A trireme, a large-sized boat with three rows or benches of oars on
its sides.
[23] “This agreement of the traditions of the most diverse peoples
manifests itself in a striking manner when compared with the number
assigned by the Bible to the antediluvian patriarchs. There are ten in
the account in Genesis, and a singular persistence reproduces this number
of ten in the legends of a very great number of nations, whose primitive
ancestors are still enveloped in the mist of fables.... The preserved
fragments of the celebrated historical papyrus of Turin, containing a
list of Egyptian dynasties traced in hieratic writing, seem clearly
to indicate that the editor of this canon gives ten gods, who in the
beginning ruled men.”—Les Origines de l’Histoire d’après la Bible et les
Traditions des Peuples Orientaux, par François Lenormant, professeur
d’archéologie près la Bibliothèque nationale. Deuxième édition, Paris,
1880. pp. 214, 215, 227.
[24] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.
[25] “These figures of the mythic Egyptian chronology are still
very imperfectly known to us—too little indeed to affirm any thing
satisfactorily concerning the principle of their construction.... We
must, therefore, wait for some new discovery, like that of a royal canon
similar to the one of Turin, in good condition, before we can make a
thorough examination of the principle of the cyclic periods with which
Egypt began her annals.”—Les Origines de l’Histoire. Lenormant. p. 287.
[26] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.
[27] Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.
[28] The ships of the ancients, in the time of Herodotus, were vessels
propelled by oars and sails. Describing those used by the Egyptians on
the Nile, he says: “Their ships in which they convey merchandise are made
of the acacia, which in shape is similar to the Cyrenæan lotus, and its
exudation is gum. From this acacia they cut planks about two cubits in
length, and join them together as they do bricks, building their ships
in the following manner: They fasten the planks of two cubits length
to stout and long ties; when they have thus built the hulls, they lay
rowing benches across them. They make no use of ribs, but caulk the
seams inside with byblus. They make only one rudder, and that is driven
through the keel. They use a mast of acacia, and sails of byblus. These
vessels cannot sail against the current of the stream unless a fair wind
prevails, but are towed from the shore. They are thus carried down the
stream: There is a hurdle made of tamarisk, wattled with a band of reeds,
and a stone bored through the middle, of about two talents in weight; of
these two, the hurdle is fastened to a cable, and let down at the prow
of the vessel to be carried on by the stream; and the stone by another
cable at the stern; and by this means the hurdle, by the stream bearing
hard upon it, moves quickly and draws along the ‘baris’, (for this is
the name given to these vessels,) but the stone, being dragged at the
stern, and sunk to the bottom, keeps the vessel in its course. They have
a great number of these vessels, and some of them carry many thousand
talents.”—Euterpe xcvi.
The vessels of the Phœnicians were of a better build, but they also were
fitted out with oars and sails.—Ezekiel xxvii. 3-9.
[29] Genesis vi. 5, 6, 7.
[30] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.
_Vide_ The Works of Plato. Bohn’s ed. London, 1849. vol. ii. Translated
by Henry Davis, pp. 413-429.
[31] The date of the accession of Seti I. or Sethos I. is variously
given. M. Champollion Figeac places it in 1473 B.C. Mure thinks it cannot
be earlier than 1410 nor later than 1400 B.C.
[32] Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology. t. iv. pp. 1-19.
[33] Les Origines de l’Histoire. Lenormant. pp. 448, 449.
[34] _Vide_ Historia Verdadera de la Conqvista de la Nueva-España.
Escrita por el Capitan Bernal Diaz del Castillo, vno de sus
Conquistadores. En Madrid, 1632.
Antiquities of Mexico: comprising fac-similes of ancient Mexican
paintings and hieroglyphics, preserved in the Royal libraries of Paris,
Berlin, and Dresden; in the Imperial library at Vienna; in the Vatican
library; in the Borgian museum at Rome; in the library of the Institute
at Bologna; and in the Bodleian library at Oxford. Together with the
monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix; with their respective scales of
measurements and accompanying descriptions. The whole illustrated by many
valuable inedited manuscripts, by Lord Kingsborough. In nine volumes.
London, 1831-1848.
[35] Now called the Shetland islands, but the name is printed on the
early maps Hetland; from Swedish _het_, hot, and _land_, land. The group
lies about 180 miles from Norway, between 59° 50´ and 60° 50´ north
latitude.
[36] The Fer öe or Far islands lie about 170 miles northwest of the
Shetland group, and are between 61° 20´ and 62° 25´ north latitude. The
name is derived from _fer_, far, (Swedish,) and _öe_, islands.
[37] Iceland lies between latitude 63° 24´ and 66° 33´ N. and longitude
13° 31´ and 24° 17´ W. It is one hundred and sixty miles east of
Greenland, six hundred west of Norway, and two hundred and fifty
northwest of the Fer öe, or Far islands.
[38] History of the Northmen, by Henry Wheaton. London, 1831. pp. 17, 18.
Iceland, or the journal of a residence in that island, during the years
1814 and 1815, by Ebenezer Henderson, vol. i. Intro. pp. xv. and 308.
[39] “Men of experience say, who have been born in Greenland, and
have recently come from Greenland, that from Stadt, in the north part
of Norway, to Horns, on the east coast of Iceland, is seven days’
sailing directly westward.”—Antiqvitates Americanæ, sive scriptores
septentrionales rerum Ante-Columbianarum in America. Edidit Societas
Regia Antiqvariorum Septentrionalium. Hafniæ, 1837. Ivar Bardsen’s
treatise. p. 302.
[40] “He who sails from Iceland [to Greenland] must steer his course
from Snefelsnes, which is twelve nautical miles (_tholldt soes_) farther
to the west than the mentioned Reychenes, and for a day and a night he
will sail due west, but then he must steer to the southwest to avoid the
ice that adheres to Gunnbjörn’s rocks. Then he must hold his course one
day and one night to the northwest, which will bring him straight to
that high land of Greenland called Hvarf, under which lie the mentioned
Herjulfsnes and Sand-haffn.”
“They who wish to sail direct from Bergen [in Norway] to Greenland
without touching Iceland, must sail due west until they find themselves
twelve nautical miles (_xii uger soes_) south of Reychenes, a promontory
on the south coast of Iceland, and by holding this course toward the west
they will come to the high land of Greenland called Hvarf.”—Antiq. Amer.
Ivar Bardsen’s treatise. pp. 304, 305; 303, 304.
[41] _Bygd_, inhabited land, a place of residence, an abode.
[42] _Ubygd_, an unpeopled tract, desert.
[43] “A day before you descry the said Hvarf you ought to see another
high mountain called Hvidserk. Under these two mountains—Hvard and
Hvidserk—is a promontory (_nes_) called Herjulfsnes, near which is a
harbor called Sand-haffn.... The inhabited part of Greenland lying
eastwardly, next to Herjulfsnes, is called Skagefjörd.”—Antiq. Amer. Ivar
Bardsen’s treatise. pp. 304, 305.
[44] Christianity, it is said, was introduced in Iceland in the year
1000.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 10, 11, 14, and note _b_. The discovery of America
by the Northmen. By North Ludlow Beamish. London, 1841. pp. 47, 48.
[45] The traditions of the voyages of Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, and
of Leif, the son of Eric the Red, are contained in a large folio of
manuscripts found in the seventeenth century, in a monastery on the
island called Flatö, north of Breidafjörd, in Iceland. This book of
Flatö was purchased, about the year 1660, by Bishop Brynjulf Sveinson
of Skalholt, in Iceland, and was sent by him as a gift to King Frederic
III. of Denmark, and is now in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. A part of
the inscription on the first page of the volume bears this translation:
“This book, Jónn, the son of Hakon, owns.... The priest, Jónn, the son
of Thord, wrote out the narrative concerning Eric, the traveller, and
the histories of each of the Olafs; and the priest, Magnus, the son of
Thorhall, wrote out that which follows, also that which precedes, and
illuminated the whole. God Almighty and the Holy Virgin Mary bless those
who wrote and him who dictated.”
It is supposed that these traditions, which are finely engrossed in
Icelandic on vellum, contained in the Codex Flateyensis, were compiled
between the years 1387 and 1395.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 1-4.
[46] _Thaettir af Eireki Rauda ok Graenlendingum._
[47] _Bjarni leitadi Graenlands._—Antiq. Amer. pp. 17-25. Discovery of
America. Beamish, pp. 47, 48.
[48] From _hella_, a flat stone.
Certain writers believe that Newfoundland was called Helluland by the
Northmen. The island lies about six hundred miles south of Greenland.
[49] Nova Scotia is supposed by some writers to be the region named
Markland by the Northmen. It is about four hundred miles southwest of
Newfoundland.
[50] _Hèr Hefr Graenlendinga Thátt._ Antiq. Amer. pp. 26-40. Discovery of
America. Beamish, pp. 59-70.
[51] Narrative of an expedition to the east coast of Greenland, sent by
order of the king of Denmark, in search of the lost colonies, under the
command of Captain W. A. Graah, of the Danish royal navy. Translated from
the Danish by the late G. Gordon Macdougall, F.R.S.N.A., for the Royal
Geographical Society of London. London, 1837. pp. 106, 107.
[52] “_Meira var thar jafndaegri enn á Graenlandi edr Íslandi, sól hafdi
thar eyktarstad ok dagmálastad um skamdegi._”
“Dag-mál, n. (_vide_ dagr), prop. ‘_day-meal_,’ one of the divisions
of the day, usually about eight or nine o’clock, A.M.; the Latin _hora
tertia_ is rendered by ‘er vér köllum dagmál,’ _which we call d._, Hom.
[Homiliu-bók], 142; enn er ekki lidit af dagmálum, Hom. (St.) 10. Acts
11, 15; in Glúm. [Viga-Glúms Saga], 342, we are told that the young Glúm
was very lazy, and lay in bed till day-meal every morning, cp. also 343;
Hrafn. [Hrafnkéls Saga] 28 and O. H. L. [Olafs Saga Helga Legendaria]
18—áeinum morni milli rismála ok dagmála—where distinction is made
between rismal (_rising time_) and dagmál, so as to make a separate
dagsmark (q. v.) of each of them; and again, a distinction is made
between ‘midday’ and dagmal, Ísl. [Islenzkar], 11, 334. The dagmal is
thus midway between ‘rising’ and ‘midday,’ which accords well with the
present use. The word is synonymous with dagver darmál, _breakfast-time_,
and denotes the hour when the ancient Icelanders used to take their
chief meal, opposed to náttmál, _night-meal_ or _supper-time_, Fms.
[Fornmanna Sögur], viii, 330; even the MSS. use dagmál and dagverdarmál
indiscriminately; cp. also Sturl. [Sturlunga Saga] 111, 4 C; Rb.
[Rimbegla], 452 says that at full moon the ebb takes place ‘at
dagmá-lum.’ To put the dagmál at 7:30 A.M., as Pál Vidalin does, seems
neither to accord with the present use nor the passage in Glúm or the
eccl. _hora tertia_, which was the nearest hour answering to the Icel.
calculation of the day. In Fb. [Flateyjar bók] 1,539, it is said that
the sun set at ‘eykd’ (_i. e._ half-past three o’clock), but rose at
‘dagmál,’ which puts the dagmal at 8:30 A.M. Compds. dagmála-stadr, m.
_the place of d. in the horizon_, Fb. [Flateyjar bók].”
“Eykt, eykd, f. _three or half-past three o’clock_, P.M.; many
commentaries have been written upon this word, as by Pál Vidalin Skyr,
Finn Johnson in H. E. [Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ] 1. 153 sqq. note
6, and in Horologium, etc. The time of eykd is clearly defined in K. Th.
K. [Kristinnrettr Thorláks ok Ketils], 92 as the time _when the sun has
past two parts of the_ ‘utsudr’ (q. v.) _and has one part left_, that
is to say, _half-past three o’clock_, P.M.: it thus nearly coincides
with the eccl. Lat. _nona_ (three o’clock, P.M.); and both eykt and nona
are therefore used indiscriminately in some passages. Sunset at the
time of ‘eykd’ is opposed to sunrise at the time of ‘dagmal,’ q. v. In
Norway ‘ykt’ means a luncheon taken about half-past three o’clock. But
the passage in Edda—that autumn ends and winter begins at sunset at the
time of eykt—confounded the commentators who believed it to refer to
the conventional Icel. winter, which (in the old style) begins with the
middle of October, and lasts six months. In the latitude of Reykholt—the
residence of Snorri—the sun at this time sets about half-past four.
Upon this statement the commentators have based their reasoning both in
regard to dagmál and eykt, placing the eykt at half-past four, P.M.,
and dagmal at half-past seven, A.M., although this contradicts the
definition of these terms in the law. The passage in Edda probably came
from a foreign source, and refers not to the Icel. winter but to the
astronomical winter, viz., the winter solstice or the shortest day; for
sunset at half-past three is suited not to Icel., but to the latitude
of Scotland and the southern parts of Scandinavia. The word is also
curious from its bearing upon the discovery of America by the ancients,
_vide_ Fb. [Flateyjar-bók] l. c. This sense (_half-past three_) is now
obsolete in Icel., but eykt is in freq. use in the sense of _trihorium_,
_a time of three hours_; whereas in the oldest sagas no passage has
been found bearing this sense,—the Bs. [Biskupa Sögur] 1, 385, 446, and
Hem. [Hemings-thattr] l. c., are of the 13th and 14th centuries. In
Norway ykt is freq. used metaph. of all the four meal times in the day,
morning-ykt, midday-ykt, afternoon-ykt (or ykt proper), and even-ykt. In
old MSS., Grág., K. Th. K. Hem. Heid. S. [Grágás, Kristinnrettr, Thorláks
ok Ketils, Hemings-thattr, Heidarviga Saga], this word is always spelt
eykd or eykth, shewing the root to be ‘auk’ with the fem. inflex. added;
it probably first meant the _eke_-meal, answering to Engl. _lunch_, and
thence came to mean the time of day at which this meal was taken. The
eccl. law dilates upon the word, as the Sabbath was to begin at ‘_hora
nona_’; hence the phrase, eykt helgr dagr....
“Eyktar-stadr. m. _the place of the sun at half-past three_, P.M.;
meira var, thar jafndaegri enn á Graenlandi edr Íslandi, sól hafdi thar
eyktar-stad ok dagmála-stad um skamdegi, Fb. [Flateyjar bók] 1, 539,—this
passage refers to the discovery of America; but in A. A. [Antiquitates
Americanæ], l. c., it is wrongly explained as denoting the shortest day
nine hours long, instead of seven; it follows that the latitude fixed by
the editors of A. A. [Antiquitates Americanæ] is too far to the south.”
“Dagr, m. ... a day, ... 5. the day is in Icel. divided according to the
position of the sun above the horizon; these fixed traditional marks
are called dags-mörk, _day-marks_, and are substitutes for the hours of
modern times, viz. ris-mál or midr-morgun, dag-mál, há-degi, mid-degi or
mid-mundi, nón, midr-aptan, nátt-mál.”
“Stadr, m., gen. stadar, dat. stad, and older stadi, pl. stadir: ... a
‘stead,’ place, abode.”—An Icelandic-English dictionary based on the
MS. collections of the late Richard Cleasby, enlarged and completed by
Gudbrand Vigfusson, M. A. Oxford, 1874.
[53] Thormod Torfason, or Torfæus, as his name is Latinized, in the
addenda of his History of Ancient Vinland (Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ),
printed at Copenhagen, in 1705, explains the meaning of the words, saying
that the sun in Vinland, on the shortest day, was six hours above the
horizon, which would imply that this land lay between the fifty-eighth
and sixty-first parallels of north latitude. “Torfæus confirms his
interpretation by the authority of Arngrim Jonas, a learned Icelander who
flourished at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth
century, and who was deemed a profound astronomer. In his ‘History of
Greenland,’ he thus renders the passage we are considering: ‘There is
in Vinland no winter, no cold, no frost as in Iceland or Greenland;
inasmuch as the sun, on the very day of the winter solstice (they had
no dials there), passes about six hours above the horizon.’ Having
cited this passage from Arngrim Jonas, Torfæus proceeds: ‘This meaning
I had long ago given this passage, first on the authority (if I rightly
understood him) of Bryniulf Sveinson, the most learned of all the bishops
of Skalkholt, to whom I was sent, while yet a youth, in the year 1662,
with royal letters from my gracious master, King Frederick the Third, for
the purpose of learning the genuine signification of the more difficult
ancient words and phrases; and, then, from the necessary correspondence
of the time of sunset with that of sunrise.’”—(The Discovery of America
by the Northmen. By E. Everett. North American Review. January, 1838.
vol. xlvi. pp. 179-188. _Vide_ Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ, seu partis
Americæ Septentrionalis. Per Thormodum Torfæum. Havniæ, 1705. Addenda.)
Professor Charles C. Rafn, secretary of the Royal Society of Northern
Antiquaries, gives this rendition of the passage: “When the day is
shortest the sun there has a place (is above the horizon) from half-past
seven before noon till half-past four in the afternoon.”—Antiq. Amer. p.
436. _Vide_ Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 64, 65. According to Prof.
Rafn, the Northmen built their winter-quarters on the shore of Mount Hope
bay, Rhode Island; the day, nine hours long, indicating the latitude of
41° 24´ 10´´.
[54] The saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne and Snorro Thorbrandson (_Saga
Thorfinns Karlsefnis ok Snorra Thorbrandssonar_). This legend is
written on vellum, and is one of the valuable Icelandic manuscripts
called the Arna-Magnœan collection, which is preserved in the library
of the university of Copenhagen. The manuscripts were bequeathed to
the university by Arne Magnussen, or, as his name is Latinized, Arnus
Magnœus, an Icelandic scholar. The saga of Thorfinn is supposed to have
been compiled in the fourteenth century.
[55] In the treatise of Ivar Bardsen, it is said that in Greenland “is
found the best of wheat, (_beste Hvede_).”—Antiq. Amer. pp. 302-318.
The wild wheat (_elymus arenarius_) growing on the sand flats of Iceland
is thus described: “This plant, the _melur_ of the natives, is a kind
of grass, with a spike or ear four or five inches long, and generally
appears in a sandy soil. The sea-shore and tracts of volcanic ashes
in the interior are equally favorable to its growth, though it is
principally from the latter that the seeds used for bread are obtained;
and the natives regard it as a great gift wherewith the wise Creator has
blessed those mournful wastes. The harvest is in August, when it becomes
white in the ear, but as it is seldom fully ripe, it requires to be dried
before grinding. It is cut with a sickle, made up in bundles, and carried
home on the backs of horses. It is then separated from the straw, and
ground in hand-mills cut out of a block of lava, into fine meal of a
grayish color.”—Historical and descriptive account of Iceland, Greenland,
and the Faroe islands. pp. 385, 386.
[56] From _hópa_ to recede. _Hóp_, a recess, haven, bay, inlet.
Certain writers assume this place Hóp to be the country around Mount Hope
bay, in Rhode Island.
[57] This statement does not agree with the one preceding it,—that “they
remained at this place a half-month.”
[58] Skraelingar, m. pl. Esquimaux.
[59] Antiq. Amer. pp. 136-163. Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 87-103.
[60] “_Præterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam
oceano, quæ dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum
optimum ferentes. Nam et fruges ibi non seminatas habundare, non fabulosa
opinione, sed certa comperimus relatione Danosum._”—M. Adamigesta
Hammenburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum. Edente M. Lappenburg. I. U. D.
Reipublicæ Hamburgensis tabulario. Monumenta Germaniæ historica. By
George Henry Pertz. Hannoveræ, 1846.
[61] This fragment of a geographical or historical work is supposed to
have been written before the time of Columbus.—Gripla C. Antiq. Amer. pp.
280, 281, 293, 296. Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 114, 115.
[62] The map marked Tab. ii. is contained in the historical work
entitled: Gronlandia Antiqva, seu veteris Gronlandiæ Descriptio....
Authore Thormodo Torfaeo. Havniæ, 1715. p. 21.
[63] If they were grapes, it does not follow that they were found on the
eastern coast of the present territory of the United States. The French
navigator, Jacques Cartier, in September, 1535, found “vines laden as
full of grapes as could be all along the riuer [St. Lawrence], which
rather seemed to haue bin planted by mans hand than otherwise.”—The third
and last volume of the voyages, navigations, traffiques, and discoueries
of the English nation. By Richard Hakluyt. London, 1600. p. 218.
[64] The rock writing, as interpreted by an Indian, is an account of
a battle fought by the people of two tribes, and was engraved by some
or one of the members of the victorious party.—Archives of aboriginal
knowledge. By Henry R. Schoolcraft. 1860. vol. i. pp. 112-124; vol. iv.
pp. 119. Antiq. Amer. pp. 373-403.
[65] Benedict Arnold, the first governor of Rhode Island, living at
Newport, in his will, dated December 20, 1677, directed that his body
should be buried at a certain spot, “being and lying in my land, in or
near the line or path from my dwelling-house leading to my stone-built
windmill, in the town of Newport.” Another mill of similar construction
is near Leamington, in the parish of Chesterton, in Warwickshire,
England, where Benedict Arnold lived when a boy. This mill was built
according to a plan first introduced into England by Inigo Jones.—History
of New England, by John Gorham Palfrey. Boston, 1859. vol. i. Note. pp.
57-59.
[66] History of Wales, written by Caradoc of Llancarvan, Glamorganshire,
in the British Language, translated into English by Humphry Llwyd, and
published by Dr. David Powel in the year 1584.
[67] “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, lately published by M. Dauid Powel Doctor of
Diuinity.... Madoc another of Owen Guyneth his sonnes left the land in
contention betwixt his brethren, & prepared certaine ships with men and
munition, and sought aduentures by Seas, sailing West, and leauing the
coast of Ireland so farre North, that he came vnto a land vnknowen, where
he saw many strange things....
“Of the voyage and returne of this Madoc there are many fables fained, as
the common people doe vse in distance of place and length of time rather
to augment then to diminish: but sure it is there he was. And after he
had returned home, and declared the pleasant and fruitfull countreys that
he had seene without inhabitants, and vpon the contrary part, for what
barren & wild ground his brethren and nephewes did murther one another,
he prepared a number of ships, and got with him such men and women as
were desirous to liue in quietnesse: and taking leaue of his friends,
tooke his journey thitherward againe.... This Madoc arriving in that
Western country, vnto his people there, and returning back for more of
his owne nation, acquaintance, & friends to inhabit that faire & large
countrey, went thither again with ten sailes, as I find noted by Gutyn
Owen.”—Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 1.
[68] Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 1.
[69] Kosmos: Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung. Alexander von
Humboldt. 1845-1858. Trans. by E. C. Otté. Bohn’s ed. vol. ii. pp. 608,
609.
[70] The history of the voyages of the Zeni brothers was first published
with another work entitled: Dei Commentarij del Viaggio in Persia.
Venezia, 1558.
[71] The name is evidently a designation for Iceland. _Frislanda_, the
cold or frozen land; Anglo-Saxon, _frysan_; Icelandic, _friosa_; Swedish,
_frysa_; Danish, _fryse_; and _land_, land.
[72] Estotiland seems to be an anomalous form of the name Scotland, from
Anglo-Saxon, _scot_; Spanish and Portuguese, _escote_; Italian, _scotto_.
[73] Dello Scoprimento dell’ Isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engronelanda,
Estotilanda, & Icaria, fatto per due fratelli Zeni, M. Nicolò il
Caualiere, & M. Antonio. Libro Vno, col disegno di dette Isole.
The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno to the
Northern Seas. By Richard Henry Major. London, 1873. Hakluyt Soc. pub.
pp. 1-24.
[74] In 1260, the two brothers, Nicolò and Maffeo Polo, departed from
Constantinople, on a trading expedition to the Euxine Sea; thence they
travelled through the western dominions of the Grand Khan of the Tartars.
In 1269 they returned home with letters from this sovereign to Pope
Clement IV. On their arrival in Venice, Nicolò found that his wife had
died in giving birth to his son, Marco, then a lad of fifteen years.
In 1271 the brothers (Maffeo being a bachelor) again left home for the
Orient, taking Marco with them. In 1295 the three returned to Venice
after an absence of twenty-four years.
[75] Giovanni Battista Ramusio was born at Tevisa in 1485. For a decade
of years he was secretary to the Venetian Council of Ten. His valuable
collection of voyages and travels, entitled “Raccolta di Navigationi e
Viaggi,” comprises three volumes. Volume I. was published in 1554, volume
II. in 1559, and volume III. in 1556. Ramusio died in 1557.
[76] China. “For about three centuries,” says Yule, “the Northern
provinces of China had been detached from native rule, and subject to
foreign dynasties; first to the _Khitau_, a people from the basin of the
Sungari River, and supposed (but doubtfully) to have been akin to the
Tunguses, whose rule subsisted for 200 years, and originated the name
_Khitai_, Khata, or Cathay, by which for nearly 1000 years China has been
known to the nations of Inner Asia, and to those whose acquaintance with
it was got by that channel.”—The book of Ser Marco Polo. By Henry Yule.
London, 1875. Introd. p. 11.
[77] Ramusio: Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. vol. ii. Prefatione.
[78] Concerning Marco Polo, Humboldt remarks: “Jacquet, who was unhappily
too early removed by a premature death from the investigation of Asiatic
languages, and who, like Klaproth and myself, was long occupied with
the work of the great Venetian traveller, wrote to me, as follows,
shortly before his decease: ‘I am as much struck as yourself by the
composition of the _Milione_. It is undoubtedly founded on the direct
and personal observation of the traveller, but he probably also made use
of documents either officially or privately communicated to him. Many
things appear to have been borrowed from Chinese and Mongolian works,
although it is difficult to determine their precise influence on the
composition of the _Milione_; owing to the successive translations from
which Polo took his extracts. Whilst our modern travellers are only too
well pleased to occupy their readers with their personal adventures,
Marco Polo takes pains to blend his own observations with the official
data communicated to him, of which, as Governor of the city of Yangui,
he was able to have a large number.’ (See my _Asie Centrale_, t. ii. p.
395.) The compiling method of the celebrated traveller likewise explains
the possibility of his being able to dictate his book at Genoa, in 1295,
to his fellow-prisoner and friend, Messer Rustizielo of Pisa, as if the
documents had been lying before him. (Compare Marsden, _Travels of Marco
Polo_, p. xxxiii).” Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 625. Note.
[79] Ser Marco Polo. Yule. Second ed. vol. i. pp. 103, 104.
[80] “I John Maundevylle, knight, alle be it I be not worthi, that was
born in England, in the Town of Seynt Albones, passed the See, in the
zeer of our Lord Jesu Crist mcccxxii, in the Day of Seynt Michelle; and
hidre to have ben long tyme over the See, and have seyn and gon thorghe
manye dyverse Londes, and many Provynces and Kingdomes and Iles, and have
passed thorghe Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye, the litylle and the grete;
thorghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope; thorghe Amazoyne,
Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many othere
Iles, that ben abouten Inde.... And zee schulle undirstonde, that I have
put this Boke out of Latyn into Frensche and translated it azen out of
Frensche into Englyssche, that every Man of my Nacioun may undirstonde
it.”—MS. in Cottonian library, marked Titus. c. xvi. The Voiage and
Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, Kt. By J. O. Halliwell. London, 1849.
Prologue. pp. 4, 5.
[81] Herodotus: Melpomene xlii.
[82] Caius Plinius Secundus, a Roman writer, born A. D. 23, and died A.
D. 79. Hanno’s expedition was undertaken about 570 B. C.
[83] Eudoxus of Cyzicus, a Greek navigator, lived about 130 B. C. Ptolemy
Lathyrus began his reign B. C. 117. Cornelius Nepos flourished in the
century before the Christian era.
[84] Supposed to have been in the year of the building of Rome, 691.
[85] Suevi, the ancient inhabitants of that part of Germany between the
Danube and the Baltic Sea.
[86] Historia Naturalis. lib. ii. cap. lxvii.
[87] “In Christian Europe the earliest mention of the use of the magnetic
needle occurs in the politico-satirical poem, called _La Bible_, by
Guyot, of Provence, in 1190, and in the description of Palestine by
Jacobus, of Vitry, Bishop of Ptolemais, between 1204 and 1215. Dante (in
his _Parad._ xii., 29) refers, in a simile, to the needle (_ago_) ‘which
points to the star.’”
“Navarrete, in his _Discurso histórico sobre los progresos del Arte de
Navegar en España_, 1802, p. 28, recalls a remarkable passage in the
Spanish _Leyes de las Partidas_ (II. tit. ix., ley 28), of the middle of
the thirteenth century: ‘The needle, which guides the seaman in the dark
night, and shows him, both in good and bad weather, how to direct his
course, is the intermediary agent (_medianera_) between the loadstone
(_la piedra_) and the north star.’ ... See the passage in _Las Siete
Partidas del sabio Rey Don Alonso el ix._ (according to the usually
adopted chronological order, Alonso the Xth). Madrid, 1829. t. i. p.
473.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 629, and note.
[88] “_La magnete piere laide et noire. Ob ete fer volenters se joint.
Lon touchet ob une aguilet. Et en festue lon fischie. Puis lon mette en
laigue et se tient desus. Et la point se torne contre lestoille. Quant la
nuit feit tenebrous et lon ne voie estoile ne lune, poet li mariner tenir
droite voie._”
[89] The Monthly Magazine, or British Register. London, 1802. vol. xiii.
part 1. p. 449. The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal. By Henry Major.
London, 1868. pp. 58, 59.
[90] “We are told by Antonio Beccadelli, surnamed Il Panormita from his
birthplace, Palermo, and who was a contemporary of Prince Henry, that
sailors were first indebted to Amalfi for the use of the magnet—‘_Prima
dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalphis_’; and ‘_Inventrix prœclara fuit
magnetis Amalphis_.’ ... The former of these lines is quoted from Il
Panormita by Henricus Brenemanus, in his Dissertatio de Republica
Amalfitana, and Klaproth has added the latter.” Life of Prince Henry of
Portugal. Major. p. 59.
[91] Dom Henrique was born at Oporto, March 4, 1394.
[92] “_Quem passar o Cabo de Nao, ou voltara ou nao._”
[93] Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guiné, escripta por
mandado de el Rey. D. Affonso V. sob a direcçao scientifica e secundo as
instrucçoes do illustre infante D. Henrique, pelo chronista Gomes Eannes
de Azurara, fielmente transladada do manuscrito original contemporaneo
que se conserva na Bibliotheca Real de Pariz. Edited by the Visconde da
Carreira, with introduction and notes by the Vicomte de Santarem. Paris,
1841. cap. viii.
[94] Antonio Galvano was born about the year 1502. In 1538 he was
appointed by the king of Portugal governor of the Moluccas or Spice
Islands. He was recalled about the year 1545, and died in 1557.
[95] Tratado, que compōs o nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão,
dos diuersos & desuayrados caminhos, por onde nos tempos passados a
pimenta & especearia veyo da India ás nossas partes, & assi de todos os
descobrimentos antigos & modernos, que são feitos ate a era de mil &
quinhentos & cincoenta.... Impressa em casa de Joam de Barreira impressor
del rey nosso senhor, na Rua de Sā Mameda. [Lisboa.]
_Vide_ The discoveries of the world, from their first original unto
the year of our Lord 1555, by Antonio Galvano, governor of Ternate.
Corrected, quoted, and published in England, by Richard Hakluyt,
(1610). Now reprinted, with the original Portuguese text, and edited by
Vice-admiral Bethune, C. B. London, 1862. Hakluyt Society publication.
[96] Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guiné. cap. ix.
[97] Historia Naturalis. lib. ii. cap. lxviii.
[98] The distance of a place, north or south of the equator, was
determined by ascertaining with the astrolabe the elevation of the pole
of the heavens above the plane of the horizon.
The distance of one place from another, east or west of a meridian,
was obtained by ascertaining the difference of time at the two points;
the difference of time being one hour to each space of fifteen degrees
of longitude. Although a navigator in the latter part of the fifteenth
century could determine with his astrolabe the time of the place where he
was in port, from the altitude of the sun or other heavenly bodies, the
want of an accurate chronometer made it impossible for him to know the
exact time of a place elsewhere. Pigafetta, who sailed round the world in
1519-1522, says in his treatise on navigation: “Pilots now are satisfied
with knowing the latitude, and are so presumptuous that they refuse to
hear longitude mentioned.”—MS. in Ambrosian Library, Milan.
To obtain a practical solution of the difficulties which perplexed seamen
in determining the longitude of places, the Spanish government offered
a thousand crowns, in 1598, for an accurate method of ascertaining the
time of distant places. Not long afterward the government of the United
Provinces of the Netherlands offered ten thousand florins for similar
information, and, in 1714, the parliament of Great Britain passed an act
proffering a gift of money to any person who should discover the best
means of ascertaining longitude.
[99] Joam II. of Portugal reigned from 1481 to 1495.
“Astrolabes designed for the determination of time and geographical
latitudes by meridian altitudes, and capable of being employed at
sea, underwent gradual improvement from the time that the astrolabium
of the Majorican pilots was in use, which is described by Raymond
Lully, in 1295, in his _Arte de navegar_, till the invention of the
instrument made by Martin Behaim, in 1484, at Lisbon, and which was,
perhaps, only a simplification of the meteoroscope of his friend
Regiomontanus.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. pp. 630, 631.
[100] Martin Behaim was born in Nuremberg about the year 1459. His
commercial business induced him to visit Portugal about the year
1480, where, it is said, he became a pupil of Johann Müller, known
as Regiomontanus. He accompanied Diogo Cam to the Congo, in 1484. He
afterward resided on the island of Fayal, one of the Azores, for a number
of years. His celebrated terrestrial globe was constructed by him, at
Nuremberg, about the year 1492. He died at Lisbon, on the twenty-ninth of
July, 1506.
[101] Asia de Joam de Barros dos fectos que os Portugueses fizeram no
descobrimento & conquista dos mares & terras do Oriente. Impressa per
Germao Galharde em Lixboa: a xxviij. de Junho anno de m. vᶜ. lij. dec. i.
lib. iv. cap. ii.
[102] Arte de nauegar. Por el maestro Pedro de Medina. Valladolid. 1545.
[103] “I find the first mention of the application of the log in a
passage of Pigafetta’s journal of Magellan’s voyage of circumnavigation,
which long lay buried among the manuscripts in the Ambrosian Library at
Milan. It is there said that in the month of January, 1521, when Magellan
had already arrived in the Pacific, ‘_Seconda la misura che facevamo
del viaggio colla catena a poppa noi percorrevamo da 60 in 70 leghe al
giorno_,’ [following the measure which we made of our progress with
the chain at the stern, we ran from sixty to seventy leagues a day].
(Amoretti. Primo Viaggio intorno al Globo terracqueo ossia Navigazione
fatta dal Cavaliere Antonio Pigafetta sulla squadra del Magaglianes,
1800. p. 46.) What can this arrangement of a chain at the hinder part
of the ship (_catena a poppa_), ‘which we used throughout the entire
voyage to measure the way,’ have been except an apparatus similar to our
log?”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 633.
[104] The Cape of Good Hope is in 34° 22´ south latitude.
It is said that Dias found by the astrolabe that the cape was in 45°
south latitude, and that it was 3,100 leagues distant from Lisbon. This
distance, it is related, Dias set down, league by league, on a marine
chart, which he presented to King John II. Historia General de las
Indias. Bartolomé de las Casas. lib. i. cap. vii.
[105] Cristoforo Colombo was born in the city of Genoa, about the year
1435. His father, Dominico Colombo, was a wool-comber. The navigator
married, in Lisbon, Doña Felipa, the daughter of Bartolomeo Moñis de
Perestrello, a distinguished mariner, who had been in the service of
Prince Henry of Portugal.
Ferdinand Columbus, in his history of the life and achievements of his
father, remarks: “So it is that some, who would cast a cloud upon his
fame, say he was of Nervi, others of Cugureo, and others of Bugiesco,
all small towns near the city of Genoa, and upon its coast. Others, who
wish to exalt him, say he was a native of Savona, others of Genoa, and
others, more vain, make him of Piacenza, in which city there are some
honorable persons of his family and tombs with the arms and inscriptions
of the family of Colombi, this being the common surname of his ancestors,
though he, complying with the customs of the country where he went to
live and begin a new condition of life, altered the word that it might be
like the old name, and designated the direct from the collateral line,
calling himself Colon.... And the surname of Colon which he revived was
appropriate, which in Greek signifies a member, and his Christian name
being Christopher, designate him as being a member of Christ, by whom
salvation was conveyed to those Indian people.”—Histoire del Signore Don
Fernando Colombo. cap. 1.
[106] Fernando Colombo, an illegitimate son of the admiral, was born in
Cordova about the year 1487. After his father’s discovery of the New
World, he was made page to Prince Juan, the son of King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella. He accompanied his father in his fourth voyage, in 1502,
and after the latter’s death, sailed twice to the West Indies. He was
excellently educated, and was the author of several works. His library,
it is said, contained more than twenty thousand books and manuscripts,
which, after his death, became the property of the cathedral of Seville.
The manuscript of his history of the life of his father was lost before
the work appeared in Spanish. It is said that Luis Colon, duke of
Veragua, a dissipated grandson of the navigator, went to Genoa about
the year 1568, taking Fernando’s manuscript with him, and placed it in
the hands of Baltano de Fornari, by whom it was transferred to Giorgio
Baptista Marini, who had it translated into Italian, after which it was
printed in Venice in this language, and also in Latin. Alfonso de Ulloa’s
Italian translation of it was published, in Venice, in 1571, entitled
Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; nelli quali s’ ha particolare, &
vera relatione della vita, & de’ fatti dell’ Ammiraglio D. Cristoforo
Colombo, suo padre. There are several English translations of Fernando
Colombo’s history. _Vide_ Collection of voyages and travels by [A. & J.]
Churchhill. London, 1732. vol. ii. pp. 499-628. Pinkerton’s Collection of
voyages and travels. London, 1819. vol. ii. pp. 1-155.
[107] Columbus, in his investigations, no doubt, became informed
concerning the arguments advanced by the Greek astronomer, Anaximander,
in the sixth century before the Christian era, respecting the globular
form of the earth. He evidently read what Aristotle wrote in the fifth
century of the Christian era: “As to the figure of the earth, it must
necessarily be spherical.... And, moreover, from the visible phenomena,
for if it were not so, the eclipses of the moon would not have such
sections as they have. For in the configurations in the course of a
month, the deficient part takes all different shapes; it is straight, and
concave, and convex; but in eclipses it always has the line of division
convex; wherefore, since the moon is eclipsed in consequence of the
interposition of the earth, the periphery of the earth must be the cause
of this by having a spherical form. And again, from the appearance of
the stars, it is clear not only that the earth is round, but that its
size is not very great; for when we go a little distance to the south or
to the north, the circle of the horizon becomes palpably different, so
that the stars overheard undergo a great change, and are not the same to
those that travel to the north and to the south. For some stars are seen
in Egypt and at Cyprus, but are not seen in the countries north of them;
and the stars that in the north are visible while they make a complete
circuit there [in Egypt and at Cyprus], undergo a setting. So that from
this it is manifest, not only that the form of the earth is round, but
also that it is not a very large sphere; for otherwise the difference
would not be so obvious to persons making so small a change of place.
Wherefore we may judge that those persons who connect the region in the
neighborhood of the Pillars of Hercules with that toward India, and
who assert that in this way the sea is one, do not assert things very
improbable. They confirm this conjecture, moreover, by elephants, which
are said to be of the same species toward each extreme of the earth, as
if this circumstance was a consequence of the conjunction of the extreme
parts. The mathematicians, who try to calculate the measure of the
circumference, make it amount to 400,000 stadia; whence we infer that the
earth is not only spherical, but that it is not large compared with the
magnitude of the other stars,”—De Cœlo. lib. ii. cap. xiv.
[108] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, cap. v.
[109] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, cap. iv.
[110] Iceland lies between 63° 24´ and 66° 33´ north latitude.
[111] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. iv.
[112] The Azores or Western Islands, about eight hundred miles west of
Portugal, lie in an oblique line, northwest and southeast, between 36°
50´ and 39° 50´ north latitude and 24° 30´ and 31° 20´ west longitude.
The Azores, frequently called Terceiras, were discovered in 1439 by Josua
van der Berg, a Flemish merchant, who was carried in his ship to them
in a storm. They were named Açores from the number of goshawks found on
them. They were not inhabited when discovered.
[113] The Cape Verd Islands, three hundred and twenty miles west of Cape
Verd on the west coast of Africa, lie between 14° 45´ and 17° 13´ north
latitude and between 22° 45´ and 25° 25’ west longitude.
[114] Claudius Ptolemæus, an Egyptian astronomer and geographer, lived,
in the second century at Alexandria. His System of Geography, (Γεωγραφική
Ἀφήγησις,) contained in eight books, was a standard work for fourteen
centuries. During the first part of the sixteenth century twenty-one
editions of the geography, with editions and emendations, were published.
According to Ptolemy, all the known part of the earth, from the first
meridian, or the Canary Islands, eastwardly, on the parallel of Rhodes,
measured seventy-two thousand stadia, or one hundred and eighty degrees,
which he deemed to be the half of the circumference of the globe. But
the extent he was acquainted with was really measured by one hundred and
twenty degrees, which made the circumference one third less than it is.
Marinus of Tyre, a Greek geographer, lived about 150 A.D. This
cosmographer supposed that the country of the Seres, or Sinae (China),
the farthest part of India known to the ancients, was fifteen hours, by
the course of the sun, or two hundred and twenty-five degrees east of the
first meridian passing through the Fortunate (Canary) Islands. According
to our present geographical measurements, the distance given by Marinus
was not more than one hundred and thirty degrees, leaving two hundred
and thirty the remaining distance from China eastwardly to the Canary
Islands. Following the deductions of Marinus, there were only one hundred
and thirty-five degrees of distance between China, going eastwardly, and
the Fortunate Islands.
[115] “Marinus, the Tyrian, misled by the length of time occupied in
the navigation from Myos Hormos to India, by the erroneously assumed
direction of the major axis of the Caspian from west to east, and by
the over-estimation of the length of the land route to the country of
the Seres, gave the old continent a breadth of 225°, instead of 129°.
The Chinese coast was thus advanced to the Sandwich Islands. Columbus
naturally preferred this result to that of Ptolemy, according to which
Quinsay should have been found in the meridian of the eastern part of the
archipelago of the Carolinas. Ptolemy, in the Almagest (ii. 1), places
the coast of Sinae at 180°, and in his Geography (lib. i. cap. 12) at
177¼°.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 645. Note.
[116] Alfraganius or Al Fergani, an Arabian astronomer, lived in the
earlier part of the ninth century.
[117] Medea, act. ii.
Lucius Annæus Seneca, a Stoic philosopher and tragic poet, was born at
Corduba, Spain, about 5 B.C., and died 65 A.D.
Tiphys was the name of the pilot of the ship of the Argonauts.
Thule, an island in the extreme part of Northern Europe, as known in the
time of Ptolemy. The island is supposed by some to have been the Shetland
Islands, by others the Faroe group, and by others Iceland.
[118] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. vi, vii.
[119] Porto Santo, a small island northeast of the island of Madeira.
[120] The island of Madeira (Wood) lies off the west coast of Africa,
between 32° 37´ and 32° 52´ north latitude and 16° 38´ and 17° 16´ west
longitude. It is thirty-four miles long. The island of Porto Santo is
twenty-five miles northeast of it.
[121] Various fictions were current in the middle ages respecting the
situation of the island of the Seven Cities, and a number of expeditions
went in search of it with unsuccessful results. Mercator, Ortelius, and
Locke place the island in 28° north latitude.
[122] Thucydides, a Greek historian, born B.C. 471.
[123] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, cap. ix, x.
[124] “Paolo Toscanelli was so greatly distinguished as an astronomer
that Behaim’s teacher, Regiomontanus, dedicated to him, in 1463, his
work, _De Quadratura Circuli_, directed against the Cardinal Nicolaus
de Cusa. He constructed the great gnomon in the church of Santa Maria
Novella at Florence, and died in 1482, at the age of eighty-five, without
having lived long enough to enjoy the pleasure of learning the discovery
of the Cape of Good Hope by Diaz, and of the tropical part of the new
continent by Columbus.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 644.
Note.
[125] Zacton, in China, is now called Tsiuenchau. “At this city” says
Marco Polo, “is the haven of Zayton, frequented by all of the ships from
India, ... and by all the merchants of Manzi, for hither is imported the
most astonishing quantity of goods and of precious stones and pearls....
For it is one of the two greatest havens in the world for commerce.”—Ser
Marco Polo. Yule. Second ed. vol. ii. p. 186. On Ruysch’s map of 1508,
Zaiton is placed on the east coast of China, west of the island of Cuba.
_Vide_ map.
[126] The city is now called Hangchau, and is in the province of
Chehkiang. As described by Marco Polo, the city was “the finest and the
noblest in the world.”—Ser Marco Polo. Yule. Second ed. vol. ii. p. 145.
Quinsai on Ruysch’s map of 1508, is northwest of Zaiton.
[127] Antonio Pigafetta, in his Treatise on navigation, written about
the year 1523, says: “The circumference of the earth is supposed to be
divided into three hundred and sixty degrees, and to each degree are
assigned seventeen leagues and a half; the circumference of the earth is
consequently six thousand three hundred leagues. The land league is three
miles, the sea league is four.”—MS. in Ambrosian library, Milan.
[128] Cipango (Japan), now called by the natives Dai Nippon or Dai
Nihon, is a group of islands lying between the twenty-third and fiftieth
parallels of north latitude and the one hundred and twenty-second and one
hundred and fifty-third meridians of east longitude.
[129] From Lisbon, Spain, in 38° 42´ north latitude and 9° 8´ west
longitude (first meridian at Greenwich), to Tokio, Japan, in 35° 40´
north latitude and 139° 40´ east longitude, the westward distance is
about eleven thousand six hundred statute miles; and from Lisbon to
Peking, China, in 39° 56´ north latitude and 116° 27´ east longitude,
about twelve thousand one hundred miles. From Liverpool, England, to New
York, on the sailing route, the distance is about three thousand and
twenty-three miles, and from New York to Canton, China, _via_ the Isthmus
of Panama and the Sandwich Islands, the distance is about ten thousand
six hundred miles.
“As the old continent, from the western extremity of the Iberian
peninsula [Portugal], to the coast of China, comprehends almost 130°
of longitude, there remain about 230° for the distance which Columbus
would have had to traverse if he wished to reach Cathai (China); but
less if he only desired to reach Zipangi (Japan). This difference of
230°, which I have indicated, depends on the position of the Portuguese
Cape St. Vincent (11° 20´ W. of Paris), and the far projecting part of
the Chinese coast, near the then celebrated port of Quinsay, so often
named by Columbus and Toscanelli (lat. 30° 28´, long. 117° 47´ E. of
Paris).... The distance of Cape St. Vincent from Zipangi (Niphon) is 22°
of longitude less than Quinsay, therefore about 209° instead of 230°
53´.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 264. Note.
[130] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. viii.
[131] Diego Ortiz de Cazadilla, bishop of Ceuta.
[132] This conclave of the learned men of Spain held its meetings in the
Dominican convent of St. Stephen, in Salamanca.
[133] “But as to the fable that there are antipodes—that is to say, men
on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to
us—men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground
credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned
by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground
that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that
it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other; hence they
say that the part which is beneath must be inhabited. But they do not
remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated
that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow
that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it
be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled. For Scripture,
which proves the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment
of its prophecies, gives no false information; and it is too absurd to
say that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide
ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that
thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from the
first man.”—Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi operum. Tomus
Septimus. Antwerpiæ. 1700. De Civitate Dei. lib. xvi. cap. ix. The works
of Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Trans. by the Rev. Marcus Dods.
Edinburgh. 1871.
Lactantius, another theologian, in the fourth century, argued in the same
way: “Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that the
plants and trees on the other side of the earth hang downward, and that
men there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of them how
they defend these monstrosities, how things do not fall away from the
earth on that side, they reply that the nature of things is such that
heavy bodies tend toward the centre, like the spokes of a wheel, while
light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the centre it toward the
heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to say of those who,
when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere in their folly and
defend one absurd opinion by another.”—Div. Institutiones. lib. iii.
[134] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xi, xii.
[135] In a letter, addressed to the king and queen describing his fourth
voyage, Columbus remarks: “For seven years I was at your royal court,
where every one to whom the enterprise was mentioned treated it as
ridiculous, but now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who
does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer.”—Coleccion de los
viages y descubrimientos, que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines
del siglo xv., por Don Martin Fernandez de Navarrete. Madrid, 1825. tom.
i. p. 311.
Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xiii, xiv, xv.
[136] “_Tengo propósito de hacer carta nueva de navegar, en la cual
situaré toda la mar y tierras del mar Océano en sus propios lugares
debajo su viento; y mas componer un libro, y poner todo por el semejante
por pintura, por latitud del equinocial y longitud del Occidente, y sobre
todo cumple mucho que yo olvide el sueño y tiente mucho el navegar porque
asi cumple, las cuales serán gran trabajo._”—Coleccion de los viages y
descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. i. pp. 1-3.
[137] Columbus, speaking of the progress of the ship, on the
twenty-fourth of October, remarks: “I carried all the sail of the ship,
the mainsail, and two bonnets, the foresail, and the spritsail, and
the mizzen and the main-top-sail. _Llevaba todas mis velas de la nao,
maestra, y dos bonetas, y trinquete, y cebadera, y mezana, y vela de
gavia._” A bonnet was a sail placed beneath the mainsail in fine weather
to increase the speed of a ship.
[138] On the pavement of the cathedral of Seville is inscribed: “_Con
tres galeras y 90 personas_,” with three galleys and ninety persons.
[139] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xvi, xvii.
[140] The island of Ferro is the most westerly of the Canary group. The
Canaries lie off the west coast of Africa, between 27° and 30° north
latitude and 13° and 19° west longitude. The principal islands are:
Teneriffe, Grand Canary, Palma, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gomera, and
Ferro. Through the last island the ancient geographers drew the first
meridian of longitude.
[141] According to Columbus’s statement, 56⅔ miles were equal to a
degree, and four miles to a marine league. It has been assumed that the
Italian mile used in measurements by Columbus equalled 4,842 English
feet, and the Italian marine league 19,368 English feet.—_Vide_ An
attempt to solve the problem of the first landing-place of Columbus in
the New World. By Captain G. V. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the United
States Navy. United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Appendix No. 18.
Report for 1880. Washington, 1882. pp. 58, 59.
[142] “On September 13, 1492, he had reached far enough to the westward
to come from a previously eastern declination within a region of westerly
declination, and that on September 17 it amounted to a whole point
(11¼°).” This constitutes his well-known discovery of a part of a line
of no-declination. “Two hundred and twenty-four leagues or, near enough
for our purpose, 672 nautical miles, west of the island of Gomera would
place him on September 13, in latitude 28° 06´ north, and in longitude
12° 42´ + 17° 08´ = 29° 50´, according to Bowditch, or if we take the
position of the harbor of Sebastian near the eastern point of Gomera
Island, according to admiralty chart No. 1873, viz.: latitude 28° 05´ 5
and longitude 17° 06´ 3 and considering that 11° 12´ correspond to 12°
42´ of difference of longitude in that latitude, we have for a point in
the line of no-declination the latitude of 28° 05´ and longitude 29° 48´.
In E. Walker’s treatise on Terrestrial and Cosmical Magnetism, Cambridge
(England), 1866, p. 300, we read: ‘The history of this line dates from
the 13th of September, 1492, when Columbus observed the needle pass
from the east to the west of the meridian, in latitude 28° N. longitude
28° W. (probably roughly adding 11° of difference of longitude to 17°
for longitude of Gomera). According to my computation of the daily
position of the Admiral’s flagship, and based upon his log-book, he was
on September 13 in latitude 28° 21´ longitude 29° 16´.... According to
my computation of the daily track, Columbus was on September 17, 1492,
in latitude 27° 38´ and in longitude 36° 30´, when he noted 11° west
declination.”—An inquiry into the variation of the compass off the Bahama
Islands, at the time of the landfall of Columbus in 1492. By Charles A.
Schott. United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Appendix No. 19. Report
for 1880. Washington, 1882. p. 5.
“Christopher Columbus has not only the merit of being the first to
discover _a line without magnetic_ variation, but also of having excited
a taste for the study of terrestrial magnetism in Europe, by means of
his observations on the progressive increase of western declination in
receding from that line.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 656.
[143] “Men also became acquainted with those great banks of sea-weed
(_Fucus natans_),—the oceanic meadows which presented the singular
spectacle of the accumulation of a social plant over an extent of space
almost seven times greater than the area of France. The _great Fucus
Bank_, the _Mar de Sargasso_, extends between 19° and 34° north latitude.
The major axis is situated about 7° west of the island of Corvo. The
_lesser Fucus Bank_ lies in a space between the Bermudas and the Bahamas.
Winds and partial currents variously affect, according to the character
of the season, the length and circumference of these Atlantic fucoid
meadows.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 663.
[144] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xviii, xix.
[145] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xx, xxii.
The discovery of land was made on Friday morning, the twelfth of October,
_old style_. According to the calendar of Julius Cæsar, every fourth
year had three hundred and sixty-six days; the others three hundred and
sixty-five. Pope Gregory XIII. changed this method of reckoning time by
dropping ten days in October, 1582, in order to bring back the day of the
vernal equinox to the same day, in the year 325, in which the council
of Nice was convened. By an act of the parliament of Great Britain, in
1751, eleven days, in September, 1752, were dropped, and the third day of
the month was reckoned the fourteenth of the _new style_. This mode of
reckoning time is called the _new style_.
[146] Bartolomé de las Casas was born at Seville, in 1474. In 1502 he
made his first voyage to the New World, and quitted its shores for the
last time in 1547. His history of the Indies,—Historia general de las
Indias,—written between the years 1527 and 1562, was not printed until
1875-’76, when it was issued, in five volumes, at Madrid. Before his
death, in 1566, he gave the manuscript of this work to the convent of
San Gregorio, at Valladolid, with the request that it should not be
published for forty years. A manuscript in Las Casas’s hand-writing,
apparently an abridgment of Columbus’s journal of his first voyage, which
the former evidently had made while obtaining material for his history
of the Indies, was found by Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, the Spanish
historian, in the archives of Spain, when making, about the year 1790,
researches for information respecting the marine history of Spain.
[147] This island is believed by Munoz to be Watling Island; by
Navarrete, Grand Turk Island; by Humboldt and Irving, Cat Island. The
Bahamas lie between the island of Hayti or San Domingo and the east coast
of Florida, or between 21° and 27° 30´ north latitude and 70° 30´ and
79° 5´ west longitude. The principal islands of the group are the Grand
Bahama, Great and Little Abaco, Andros, New Providence, San Salvador, Rum
Cay, Great Exuma, Watling, Long, Crooked, Atwood’s Key, Great and Little
Magua islands.
The identity of the island is discussed at some length by Captain G. V.
Fox, of the United States Navy, who remarks: “The study that I gave to
the subject in the winter of 1878-’79 in the Bahamas, which had been
familiar cruising-ground to me, has resulted in the selection of Samana
or Atwood Cay for the first landing-place. It is a little island, 8.8
miles east and west, 1.6 extreme breadth, and averaging 1.2 north and
south. It has 8.6 square miles. The east end is in latitude 23° 05´ N.;
longitude, 73° 37´ west of Greenwich.... Turk is smaller than Samana,
and Cat very much longer.”—An attempt to solve the problem of the first
landing-place of Columbus in the New World. By Captain G. V. Fox, United
States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Appendix No. 18. Report for 1880.
Washington, 1882. pp. 43, 44.
[148] F and Y: Fernando and Ysabel.
[149] The real position of this island, in respect to that of Ferro, is
E. 5° N. The port of Ferro is in latitude 27° 46´ 2´´ N. and longitude
17° 54´ 2´´ W.
[150] _Vide_ Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to
America. From a manuscript recently discovered in Spain. Translated from
the Spanish. [By Samuel Kettell.] Boston, 1827. pp. 33-38.
Historia general de las Indias. Por Bartolomé de las Casas. lib. 1. cap.
xxxix-xli. Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. 1.
[151] A coin of less value than a mill.
[152] From this point, says Humboldt, as related by Columbus’s friend,
the Cura de los Palacios, “he proposed, if he had provision enough ‘to
continue his course westward, and to return to Spain, either by water, by
way of Ceylon (Taprobane) _rodeando todo la tierra de los Negros_, or by
land, through Jerusalem and Jaffa.’ ... See the important manuscript of
Andres Bernaldez, Cura de la villa de los Palacios (Historia de los Reyes
Catolicos, cap. 123). This history comprises the years from 1488 to 1513.
Bernaldez had received Columbus into his house, in 1496, on his return
from his second voyage.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 640,
and note.
[153] The real distance is said to be eleven hundred and five
leagues.—_Vide_ Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to
America. [Kettell.] pp. 38-73.
[154] Historia general de las Indias. Las Casas. cap. xlvi. Coleccion de
los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. 1.
[155] An arroba is equal to twenty-five pounds.
[156] Las Casas remarks: “From what he here relates, it appears that had
he proceeded farther northerly he would undoubtedly, in two more days,
have discovered Florida.”—MS. of Las Casas. _Vide_ Personal narrative of
the first voyage of Columbus to America. [Kettell.] pp. 73-86.
[157] Letter of Columbus to Rafael (or Gabriel) Sanchez, dated Lisbon,
March 14, 1493.
[158] “Only 21° of latitude.”—Navarrete.
[159] A blank space in the original.
[160] The island of Cuba lies between 19° 50´ and 23° 10´ north latitude,
and 74° 7´ and 84° 58´ west longitude. Florida is about one hundred and
thirty miles north of Cuba.
[161] The argument of Las Casas concerning the heat at forty-two degrees
north latitude is invalidated by Columbus’s reasons for not sailing
farther to the north. In his letter to Rafael Sanchez he says: “Finding
myself proceeding toward the north, which I was desirous to avoid _on
account of the cold_, and, moreover, meeting with a contrary wind, I
determined to return to the south.” It would seem that Columbus was
unable to satisfy his own doubts respecting the latitude of the places
in the North to which he had sailed. If he had not mentioned that he was
in doubt respecting the working condition of his quadrant, the question
of his sailing as far north as the forty-second parallel would be an
important matter for geographical discussion. Navarrete says: “The
quadrants of that time measured the double altitude, and consequently the
forty-two degrees which Columbus says he was distant from the equator
are to be reduced to twenty-one north latitude, which is the parallel to
which he had sailed.”—_Vide_ Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos.
Navarrete, tom. i. pp. 44, 47, 62. Personal narrative of the first voyage
of Columbus to America. [Kettell.] p. 95.
[162] Ferdinand Columbus says the admiral called the island of Cuba,
Juana, in honor of Prince Juan, heir of Castile.—_Vide_ Histoire del S.
D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xxvi.
[163] The island of Española, which the natives called Haiti, lies
between 17° 36´ and 19° 59´ north latitude, and 68° 20´ and 74° 38´ west
longitude. It is about fifty miles east-southeast of Cuba and about
seventy-five west-northwest of Porto Rico. It is now called Hayti or San
Domingo.
[164] Apparently the original name of Jamaica. The island of Jamaica is
about eighty-five miles from Cuba.
[165] On the twenty-first of November, 1492, Martin Alonso Pinzon, in the
Pinta, had left the other vessels and remained away from them until the
sixth of January, 1493.
[166] MS. of Las Casas.—_Vide_ Personal narrative of the first voyage of
Columbus to America. [Kettell.] pp. 86-205.
[167] Columbus’s letter to Rafael Sanchez.
[168] Columbus’s letter to Rafael Sanchez.
[169] MS. of Las Casas.—_Vide_ Personal narrative of the first voyage of
Columbus to America. [Kettell.] pp. 215-222.
[170] Martin Alonso Pinzon had previously arrived in Galicia.
[171] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xli, xlii.
[172] Epistola Christofori Colom: cui etas nostra multu debit: de Insulis
Indie supra Gangem nuper inuētis. Ad quas perqrendas octauo antea mense
auspicies & ere invictissimor’ Fernãdi & Helisabet Hispaniar’ Regu
missus fuerat: ad magnificum dum Gabrielem Sanchis eorundē Serenissimor’
Regum Tesaurariu missa: quiā nobilis ac literatus vir Leander de Cosco
ab Hispano ideomate in latinum cōuertit tertio kal’s Maii m.cccc.xciii
Pontificatus Alexandri Sexti anno primo.
A letter of Christopher Columbus, to whom our age is greatly indebted,
respecting the islands of India lately found beyond the Ganges. In
search of which he was sent eight months ago under the auspices and at
the expense of the most invincible Ferdinand and Isabella, sovereigns of
Spain. Sent to the magnificent lord, Gabriel Sanchez, treasurer of the
same most serene king, and which the noble and learned man, Leander de
Cosco, translated from the Spanish idiom into Latin. The third day of the
calends of May, 1493. Pontificate of Alexander VI., first year.
[173] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xlii.
[174] Tratado, que compōs o nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão.
[175] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xlvi.
[176] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xlvi, xlvii.
[177] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. l.
[178] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. li.
[179] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. liii-lviii.
[180] “_Que esta tierra de Cuba fuesa la tierra firme al comienzo de
las Indias y fin á quien en estas partes quisiere venir de España por
tierra._”
[181] Informacion del escribano publico. Fernando Perez de Luna.
Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos de los Espagñoles. tom. ii. pp.
143, 149.
[182] In August, 1495, Peter Martyr, writing to Cardinal Bernardino,
says: “Columbus asserts that this region is the continent of the Ganges
of India,—_Indiæ Gangetidis continentem eam esse plagam contendit
Colonus_.”—Opvs, epistolaru Petri Martyris Anglerii Mediolanēsis
Protonotarij Aplici atque a cōsilijs reru Indicaru: nuc pmu et natu y
mediocri cura excursum: quod q dē preterstili venustatē, nostroru quoque
tēporum histori loco esse poterit. Cōpluti Anno dni MDXXX.
[183] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lviii-lxiv.
[184] Columbus writing from Española in October, 1498, says: “Each time
that I sail from Spain to India, as soon as I have proceeded about
a hundred nautical miles to the west of the Azores, I perceive an
extraordinary alteration in the movement of the heavenly bodies, in the
temperature of the air, and in the character of the sea. I have observed
these alterations with especial care, and I notice that the mariner’s
compass, whose declination had hitherto been northeast, was now changed
to northwest; and when I had crossed this line, as if in passing the
brow of a hill, I found the ocean covered with such a mass of sea-weed,
similar to small branches of pine covered with pistachio nuts, that we
were apprehensive that for want of a sufficiency of water our ships would
run upon a shoal. Before we reached the line of which I speak, there was
no trace of any such sea-weed. On the boundary line, one hundred miles
west of the Azores, the ocean is found still and calm, being scarcely
ever moved by a breeze. On my passage from the Canary Islands to the
parallel of Sierra Leone, we had to endure a frightful degree of heat,
but as soon as we had crossed the above-mentioned line, the climate
changed, the air became temperate, and the freshness increased the
farther we proceeded.”
“It is evident that the extract from the third voyage is but an
amplification of his first account, and expresses his conviction that
west of the Azores, where the declination was a little easterly, it
changed to the westward, being nearly zero at Corvo, and gradually
increasing to one point or 11° W., at a distance of 300 nautical miles
W. of the longitude of Corvo. The position of Rosario on the S.E. part
of the island of Corvo is, according to the _Carta Esferica de las Islas
Azores_, Madrid, 1855, in latitude 39° 41´ and longitude 24° 53´ west of
San Fernando, or in 31° 07´ west of Greenwich (according to the _Conn.
des Temps_), 100 leagues or 300 nautical miles west of this longitude
would correspond (in latitude 28°) to 5° 40´, and would bring the
Columbus line in longitude 36° 47´ W.”—An inquiry into the variation of
the compass off the Bahama Islands at the land fall of Columbus in 1492.
By Charles A. Schott. p. 51.
[185] Histoire del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxiv.
“The necessity for attaching a special and well-informed astronomer
to every great expedition was so generally felt that Queen Isabella
wrote to Columbus on the 5th of September, 1493, ‘that although he had
shown in his undertakings that he knew more than any other living being
(_que ninguno de los nacidos_), she counselled him, nevertheless, to
take with him Fray Antonio de Marchena, as being a learned and skillful
astronomer.’ Columbus writes in the narrative of his fourth voyage that
‘there was only one infallible method of taking a ship’s reckoning,
viz., that employed by astronomers. He who understands it may rest
satisfied; for that which it yields is like unto a prophetic vision
(_vision profetica_). Our ignorant pilots, when they have lost sight of
land for several days know not where they are. They would not be able
to find the countries again which I have discovered. To navigate a ship
requires the compass (_compas y arte_) and the knowledge or art of the
astronomer.’”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. pp. 671-673.
[186] “That any individual among our subjects and natives, that desires,
may go hereafter (according to our pleasure and will) to discover islands
and the mainland in the said part of the aforesaid Indies, either to
those already discovered or to any other, and to traffic in them,
provided it be not in the aforesaid island of Española. He may buy from
the Christians there or from those who may hereafter be there any article
and merchandise, provided it be not gold; and this he may and shall do
with any suitable ship, provided that at the time he leaves our kingdom
he depart from the city of Cadiz, and there present himself before our
officers. And they must carry thence in each of such vessels one or two
persons named by our officers.... And it is our will and pleasure that
of all which the said persons shall find in the aforesaid islands and
mainland they shall have for themselves nine parts, and the tenth shall
be our part.”—_Vide_ Memorials of Columbus; or a collection of authentic
documents of that celebrated navigator. London, 1823. pp. 88-95.
[187] Amerigo Vespucci, the third son of Anastasio Vespucci and
Elizabetta Mina, was born in Florence, March 9, 1451. In his boyhood he
attended the school taught by his uncle, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a monk
of the order of St. Mark. About the year 1493 Vespucci went to Seville,
and engaged in the business of furnishing and equipping vessels for
voyages of discovery. He died in Seville, February 22, 1512.—_Vide_ The
life and voyages of Americus Vepucius. By C. Edwards Lester and Andrew
Foster. New York, 1846. Amerigo Vespucci. Son caractère, ses écrits
(même les moins authentiques), sa vie, et ses navigations, par F. A. de
Varnhagen. Lima, 1865.
[188] _Vide_ Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima.—A description of works
relating to America published between the years 1492 and 1551. [By Henry
Harrisse.] New York, 1866. pp. 55-68.
[189] “_Electo per sua alteza che io fussi in essa flocta per adiutare a
discoprire._”
[190] “_Partimo del porto di Calis adi 10 maggio_, 1497.”
[191] Likely the double altitude, and therefore eight degrees of north
latitude, or near the mouths of the Orinoco River.
[192] “_Una terra, ch’ la giudica’mo essere terra ferma: la quale dista
dalle isole d’Canaria piu allo occidente a circha di mille leghe fuora
dello habitato d’ rento della torrida zona: perche trouva’mo el polo del
septentrione al zare fuora del suo orizonte 16. gradi, & piu occide’tale
che le isole di Canaria, seco’do che mostrouano e nostri instrumenti 75.
gradi._”
[193] “_Nauiga’mo per el maestrale, che cosi sicorreua la costa sempre a
uista di terra._”
In Italy the different points of the compass were designated by the
winds: North, _tramontana_; northeast, _greco_; east, _levante_;
southeast, _sirocco_; south, _ostro_; southwest, _libeccio_; west,
_ponente_; northwest, _maestro_ or _maestrale_.
[194] Evidently the Gulf of Coquibacoa, called shortly afterward by the
Spaniards the Gulf of Venezuela—the Gulf of Little Venice.—_Vide_ Juan de
la Cosa’s map in the cover-pocket.
[195] “_Questa terra sta dentro del la torrida zona giuntamente, o di
basso del paralello, che descriue el tropico di cancer: doue alza el polo
dello orizonte 23 gradi nel fine del secondo clyma._”
[196] “_Tanto che corremo dessa 870 leghe tutta uerso el maestrale._”
The end of the second climate was at 8° 25´ north latitude. Ptolemy,
the geographer, divided the surface of the globe, from the equator to
the sixty-sixth parallel, into zones, called climates, to represent the
successive increase of fifteen minutes in the length of a mid-summer day.
The first climate extended to 4° 15´, on the north side of the equator;
the second, from 4° 15´ to 8° 25´; and the third, to 12° 30´.
[197] “_Noi alsi facemo uela p, Spagna con 222 prigioni schiaui: &
giugnemo nel porto di Calis adi 15 doctobre 1498._”
[198] Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuouamente trouate in
quattro suoi viaggi. Primo viaggio.
_Vide_ Amerigo Vespucci. Varnhagen. pp. 34-48. Bibliotheca Americana
Vetustissima. [Harrisse.] pp. 55-68, 149, 150.
[199] _Vide_ Memorials of Columbus. pp. 96, 97.
[200] At this time, says Ferdinand Columbus, “in order that Don Diego, my
brother, and I, who had served as pages to Prince Juan, who was now dead,
might not suffer by his delays or be absent from court until the time of
his departure, he [the admiral] sent us, on the second of November, 1497,
from Seville, to serve as pages to her majesty, Queen Isabella.”
[201] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxv.
[202] Although, according to Ferdinand Columbus’s statement, his father
called the firm land (or rather an island) at the mouths of the Orinoco
River, Isla Santa (Holy Island), Columbus really called the continent, La
Tierra de Gracia (Land of Grace).
[203] Letter from the island of Española.—_Vide_ Select letters of
Christopher Columbus, with other original documents relating to his four
voyages to the New World. Translated and edited by R. H. Major. London,
1870. Second edition. Hakluyt Society pub.
[204] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxv-lxxiii.
[205] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxxiv-lxxxvii.
[206] Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci. Secundo viaggio.—_Vide_ Historie
del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxxxiv. Coleccion de los viages y
descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. iii. pp. 4-9; 543-545.
In December, 1499, Vincente Yañez Pinzon sailed from Palos, and came in
sight of the coast of Brazil at a point of land which he called Cabo
Santa Maria de la Consolacion. The same month Diego de Lepe sailed from
Palos and made discoveries south of this cape. Rodrigo de Bastidas sailed
from Cadiz in October, 1500, and explored the coast of Paria westward to
the isthmus of Darien.
[207] Nueva España (New Spain), was the name which the Spaniards gave to
Yucatan and Mexico when they first explored these countries.
[208] Mar del Sur, the early Spanish name for the Pacific Ocean.
[209] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxxxviii-xc.
[210] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xcii.
[211] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xciv-xcvi.
[212] _Vide_ Select letters of Christopher Columbus. Major.
[213] Columbus, in his letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, from
Jamaica, dated July 7, 1503, says: “This is the account I have to give of
my voyage. The men who accompanied me were a hundred and fifty in number,
among whom were many considered to be pilots and good sailors, but none
of them can explain whither I went nor whence I came. The explanation is
simply this: I sailed from a point above the port of Brazil, and while I
was in Española, a storm prevented me from following my intended route,
for I was compelled to go wherever the wind drove me. At the same time
I became very sick, and there was no one who had sailed in these parts
before. However, after some days the wind and sea became tranquil, but
there were rapid currents. I put into a harbor at the island called
Isla de las Bocas, and afterward steered for Tierra-firme. However, it
is impossible to give a correct account of all our movements, for I was
carried away by the current for many days without seeing land.
“I ascertained, notwithstanding, by the compass and by observation, that
I was running parallel with the coast of Tierra-firme. No one could tell
under what part of the heavens we were, nor at what time I changed my
course for the island of Española. The pilots thought we had arrived at
the island of St. John, whereas it was the land of Mango, four hundred
leagues westward of the place mentioned by them. Let them answer and say
if they know where Veragua is situated. I assert that they can give no
other information than that they went to lands where there was plenty of
gold, and this they can surely affirm; but they do not know the way to
return there for it. They would be obliged to go on a voyage of discovery
as if they had never been there before. There is a way of reckoning [the
course and distance sailed] derived from astronomy which is trustworthy
and safe, and a sufficient guide to any one who understands it. This
resembles prophetic vision.
“The vessels of India do not sail except with the wind abaft. This is
done, not because they are badly built or clumsy, but because the strong
currents in those parts, together with the wind, make it impracticable
for them to sail with the bowline (_con bolina_), for in one day they
would lose as much way as they might have made in seven. For a similar
reason I could not use caravels, even though they were Portuguese
lateens. This is the reason for their [the vessels of India] not
sailing except with a favorable wind, and they will sometimes remain
in port, waiting for one, seven or eight months at a time, nor is this
particularly strange, for the same occurs often in Spain.”—_Vide_ Select
letters of Christopher Columbus. Major.
[214] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xcvii-c.
[215] Letter from Jamaica, July 7, 1503.
[216] Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, commonly called Peter Martyr, a
descendant of an illustrious Milanese family originally from Anghiera,
on the eastern shore of Lake Maggiore, in upper Italy, was born in 1455
at Arona, on the western border of the lake. He was carried to the
baptismal font by a friar of the Dominican order and christened with the
name of Peter, that of the martyr of 1252, whose feast-day falls on the
twenty-ninth of April. In 1477, he went to Rome to fit himself for the
priesthood. There he became acquainted with the Castilian embassador, the
Count of Tendilla, and was induced to return with him to Spain, in 1487.
From King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella he received a number of honoring
commissions. He followed the royal standard through two campaigns. In
1501 he was sent to Egypt to conciliate the sultan. He returned to Spain
in August, 1502. The mission to Egypt furnished him with some of the
material for his Latin work, entitled: “P. Martyris Angli Mediolanensis
opera Legatio Babylonica, Oceani decas, poemata, epigrammata.” In 1505
he was made prior of the cathedral of Granada. Pope Leo X. honored him
with the office of apostolical prothonotary. As a royal counsellor
in the affairs of the Indies he acquired a very extensive range of
information respecting the early voyages of discovery made to the New
World. His work: “De Orbe Novo Petri Martyris ab Angleria Mediolanensis
protonotarij Cesaris senatoris decades,” contains valuable historical
matter. His letters, eight hundred and more, in the collection entitled
“Opus epistolarum,” the first dated January 1, 1488, the last May, 1525,
throw considerable light upon the numerous facts relating to the voyages
of Columbus and other navigators of his time. His “Legatio Babylonica”
was first printed at Seville (Hispalis) in 1511; his “De Orbe Novo” and
letters at Alcala (Complutum) in 1530. He died in 1525, and was entombed
in the cathedral of Grenada.
[217] “_Quanuis huius Christophori Coloni opinio, magnitudini sphaere
& opinion, veterum de subnauigabili orbe, videatur aduersari, psittaci
tamen inde absportatii atque alia multa, vel propinquitate vel natura
solum Indicum has insulas sapere indicant._”—De Orbe Novo decades. dec.
i. cap. i.
[218] “_Tengo propósito de hacer carta nueva de navegar, en la cual
situaré toda la mar y tierras del mar Océanus en sus propios lugares
debajo su viento._”—Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete.
tom. i. p. 3.
[219] _Vide_ Géographie du moyen âge, etudiée par Joachim Lelewel. Atlas.
Bruxelles, 1850. Orbis typus universalis, 1501-1504. Hydrographia charta
marina Portugalensium. Planche xliii. p. xiii.
[220] Claudii Ptolemei viri Alexandrini mathematicae disciplinae
philosophi doctissimi geographiae opus novissima traductione e Graecorum
archetypis castigatissime pressum: cæteris ante lucubratorum multo
praestantius.... Anno Christi Opt. Max. MDXIII. Marcii xii. Pressus hic
Ptolemæus Argentinae vigilantissima castigatione, industriaque Joannis
Schotti urbis indigenae.
[221] _Vide_ Map: Universalior cogniti orbis tabula ex recentibus
confecta observationibus: in cover-pocket.
The somewhat similar inscriptions on the maps of 1501-1504 and 1513:
“_Hec terra cum ad iacentib’ insulis inuenta est per Columbu ianuensem
ex mandato Regis Castelle._”—This land with the adjacent islands was
discovered by Columbus, a Genoese, by the command of the king of
Spain,—are authoritative declarations that the admiral was the discoverer
of the represented territory.
[222] Ruysch has printed on his map these words on a scroll, on the west
side of Cuba: “HVC VSQ NAVES FERDINADI REGIS HISPANIE PVENERVT,”—As far
as this place the ships of Ferdinand, king of Spain, come.
[223] Juan de la Cosa, in 1493, accompanied Columbus, on his second
voyage, as a cartographer. In 1499 he explored the coast of Paria with
Alonso de Hojeda and Amerigo Vespucci. In November, 1509, he again
sailed with Hojeda to South America, and heroically met his death while
defending himself, when surrounded by a party of assailing savages, in
the village of Yurbaco, in the province called Castilla del Oro by the
Spaniards.
[224] Examen critique de l’histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent
et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique aux quinzième et seizième
siècles. Par Alexandre de Humboldt. Paris, 1836. tome troisième. pp. 167,
174, 183.
[225] _Vide_ Notes on Columbus. [By Henry Harrisse.] New York, 1866. Jean
et Sébastien Cabot, leur origine et leurs voyages. Par Henri Harrisse.
Paris, 1881. pp. 52, 103, 156.
[226] _Vide_ Historical and geographical notes, 1453-1530. By Henry
Stevens. New Haven, 1869. p. 11.
[227] St. Christopher, it is said, after he was baptized by the bishop of
Antioch, took up his abode in a desert, near a rapid stream, over which
he carried travellers on his back. While bearing, one day, a child across
the swollen flood, he discovered that it was the Christ, hence his name
Christophorus, the Christ-bearer.
Speaking of his father’s name, Ferdinand Columbus remarks: “As St.
Christopher is reported to have received that name because he carried
Christ over the deep waters with great danger to himself, whence came
the name of Christopher, and as he conveyed over the people whom no
other could have carried, so Admiral Christophorus Colonus, imploring
the assistance of Christ in that dangerous voyage, went over safely
himself and his company, that those Indian nations might become citizens
and inhabitants of the church triumphant in heaven.”—Historie del S. D.
Fernando Colombo. cap. i.
[228] Abaco is one of the Bahama islands.
[229] La Cosa’s map, on three large sheets of paper, is contained in Les
monuments de la géographie ou recueil d’anciennes cartes européennes et
orientales ... publiés en fac-similé de la grandeur des originaux par
M. Jomard, membre de l’institut de France, Paris. Imprimerie de Beau, a
Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
[230] _Vide_ Section of La Cosa’s map in the cover-pocket.
[231] Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. i. fol. 374.
[232] Little is known concerning the early history of Giovanni Caboto. In
the archives of Venice is the record of his naturalization, dated March
28, 1476, which shows that he had lived in that city more than fifteen
years before the privilege of citizenship was granted to him. Archives of
Venice: Senato Terra 1473-1477. tom. vii. p. 109.
[233] An effaced part of the dispatch.
[234] Archives of Simancas. Capitulaciones con Inglaterra. Legajo ii.
fol. 16.
Calendar of letters, dispatches, and state papers relating to the
negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the archives of
Simancas and elsewhere. Edited by G. A. Bergenroth. London, 1862. vol. i.
p. 89.
[235] Public Records. Bill number 51.
[236] Hakluyt. vol. iii. pp. 4, 5. Rymer’s Foedera. London, 1727. fols.
595, 596.
[237] The history and antiquities of the city of Bristol. By William
Barrett. 1789. p. 172.
[238] In the privy-purse accounts of King Henry VII. is this entry: “Aug.
10, 1497. To hym that found the new Isle, 10 £.”
[239] Diarii di Marin Sanuto. tom. i. fol. 374. MS. in Marciana library,
Venice.
Calendar of state papers and manuscripts relating to English affairs in
the archives and collections of Venice and other libraries of northern
Italy. Edited by Rawdon Brown. London, 1864. vol. ii. p. 262.
[240] Sforza archives, Milan. Calendar of state papers. London, 1864.
vol. ii. p. 260.
[241] “_Esta tierra fue descubierta por Ioan Caboto Veneciano, y
Sebastian Caboto su hijo, anno del nascimierte de nuestro Saluador Iesu
Christo de m. cccc. xciiii. a ueinte y quatro de lunio por la mannana,
ala qual pusieron nobre prima tierra uista, y a una isla grade que
esta par de la dha tierra, le pusieron nombre sánt Ioan, por auer sido
descubierta el mismo dia._”—Tabla primera. No. 8.
The Latin inscription, which seems to be a translation of the Spanish
one, reads: “_Terram hanc olim nobis clausam, aperuit, Ioannes
Cabotus Venetus, necno Sebastianus Cabotus eius filius, anno ab orbe
redempto 1494. die uero 24. Iuly, hora 5. sub dilùculo, qua terra
primu uisam appellarut & Insula quanda magna ei opposita, Insula diui
Ioannis nominarut, quippe quæ solenni die festo diui Ioannis aperta
fuit._”—Tabula prima. No. 8.
“John Caboto, a Venetian, and also Sebastian Caboto, his son, made the
land accessible which formerly was closed to us, in the year of the
redemption of the world 1494 [1497?], on the twenty-fourth day of July
[June?] at five o’clock in the morning, which land he called the first
seen, _primum visam_, and a large island opposite to it, he named the
island of Saint John, because it was found on the day of the feast of
Saint John.”
[242] “_Sebastian Caboto capitan, y piloto mayor de la S. c. c. m. del
Imperador don Carlos quinto deste nombre, y Rey nuestro sennor hizo esta
figura extensa en plano, anno del nasciemᵒ de nro saluador Iesu Christo
de m.d. xliiii. annos, tirada por grados de latitud y longitud con sus
uientos como carta de marear, imitando en parte al Ptolomeo, y en parte
alos modernos descobridores, asi Espannoles como Portugueses, y parte por
su padre, y por el descubierto._”—Retulo del auctor.
[243] Archives of Milan. Annuario scientifico. Milan, 1866. p. 700.
[244] The thirteenth year of the reign of Henry VII. began on the
twenty-fifth of August, 1497.
[245] “Henry VII., 1498, March 22. To Lanslot Thirkill of London, upon a
Prest for his shipp going towards the new Ilande, £. 20.—Item delivered
to Launcelot Thirkill going towards the new Ile in Prest, £. 20.—April
1. Item to Thomas Bradley and Louncelot Thirkill going to the new Isle,
£. 30.—To John Carter going to the newe Ile in reward 40. s.”—Excerpta
historica. London, 1831. pp. 116, 117.
[246] Public Records. Bill number 6. Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 5. Memoir of
Sebastian Cabot. [Richard Biddle.] Phila. 1831. pp. 74, 75.
[247] Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish Ambassador, was sent to London in 1497.
[248] Bernardo Buil, a Benedictine monk, who accompanied Columbus on his
second voyage, in 1493, and returned to Spain in 1494.
[249] Archives of Simancas. Tratado con Inglaterra. Leg. ii. Calendar of
letters, dispatches, and state papers. London, 1862. vol. i. pp. 176, 177.
[250] The fourteenth year of the reign of Henry VII. began August 21,
1498, and ended August 21, 1499.
[251] The Chronicle of England, from Brute vnto this present yeare of
Christ 1580. By John Stow. London, 1580. p. 862.
Robert Fabian, from whose work Stow obtained the information concerning
Caboto’s voyage, was the author of the “Chronicle of England and France,”
or, as he called it, “The concordance of stories.” He was born in London
about the year 1450. Besides being an alderman of the city, he was one of
its sheriffs in 1493. He died in London in 1512, and was buried in St.
Michael’s, Cornhill.
[252] “_Quare coactus fuit, uti ait, vela vertere et occidentem isequ
tetenditque tamen ad meridiem, littore sese incurvante, ut Herculei freti
latitudine ferè gradus æquarit ad occidentemque profectus tantum est, ut
Cubam insulam à læua longitudine graduum penè parem habuerit._”
The Strait of Gibraltar (Strait of Hercules) is in 36° north latitude.
[253] Demorgorgon, the spirit of the earth.
[254] The name _bacallaos_, or _baccallaos_, is evidently derived from
the Greek word βάκὴλος, a large, lusty fellow. Names similar to this
appellation were used by the Greeks as early as the third century of the
Christian era. Athenæus, in his work entitled Δειπνοσοφισταί (the learned
men at supper), presents this information respecting certain fish: “They
say that they are usually caught in couples, and that one is always found
following at the tail of the other; and, therefore, from the fact of one
following close on the tail of the other, some ancients call men who are
intemperate and libidinous by the same name.... Euthydemus, in his work
on Cured Fish, says: ‘Some call this fish [the cod] the _bacchus_, and
some the _gelaria_, and some the hake.’”—The Deipnosophists or banquet
of the learned of Athenæus. Literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London,
1854. vol. ii. pp. 442, 496.
Great numbers of the common cod [_morrhua vulgaris_] are annually caught
on the fishing-banks off the coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. This
fish is very prolific. It is said that eight millions of eggs have been
counted in the roe of a female cod. Cod are sometimes caught that weigh
ninety pounds.
[255] De Orbe Novo decades. dec. iii. cap. vi.
[256] The birthplace of Sebastian Caboto’s is not definitely known.
Richard Eden, in his translation of the Decades of the New World of Peter
Martyr, says that Sebastiano Caboto told him that he was born at Bristol,
England; and Gasparo Contarini, the embassador of Charles V., avers that
he informed him that Venice was his birthplace. It is conjectured that
he was born about the year 1476. On the twentieth of October, 1512,
Sebastiano Caboto was appointed a sea-captain by King Ferdinand of Spain.
In the service of Charles V., he sailed on the fifth of April, 1526,
to search for a navigable strait along the coast of South America. On
this voyage, in 1527, he explored the Rio de la Plata. In July, 1530,
he returned to Spain. In 1548 he went to England, where he died some
time after the year 1557.—_Vide_ The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West
India. Translated into Englysshe by Richarde Eden. Londoni, 1555. f. 255.
Dispatch of Contarini from Valladolid, December 31, 1522. MS. Marciana
library, Venice. cod. 1019. cart. 281-283. Jean et Sébastien Cabot.
Harrisse. pp. 109-133.
[257] Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias con
todo el descubrimiento y cosas notables que han acaecido dende que se
ganaron ata et año de 1551. [Por Francisco Lopez de Gomara.] Çaragoça,
1552. primera parte. cap. de los Bacallaos.
Francisco Lopez de Gomara was born at Seville in 1510. Hernando Cortes,
on his return to Spain after the conquest of Mexico, made Gomara his
chaplain. Gomara’s General history of the Indies (La historia general
de las Indias), and the Conquest of Mexico and New Spain (La conquista
de Mexico, y de la Nueua España), were first published at Saragossa,
(Çaragoça), Spain, in 1552. Gomara died about the year 1560.
[258] Tratado, que compõs o nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão.
[259] _Terra de Lavrador_, Portuguese: Land of the Farmer.
[260] A Discovrse of a Discouerie for a new Passage to Cataia. Written by
Sir Hvmfrey Gilbert, Knight. Imprinted at London by Henry Middleton for
Richarde Ihones. 1576. sig. D iii.
[261] The eighteenth year of the reign of King Henry VII. began August
21, 1502, and ended August 21, 1503.
[262] Chronicle of England. Stow. p. 875.
[263] Cape Breton Island lies between 45° 27´ and 47° 41´ north latitude.
Its greatest length is one hundred miles, and its greatest breadth
eighty-five miles. The island is isolated from the mainland by the
Strait of Canso, which is twenty-one miles long, and from one mile to
one and a half in width. Cape North is about sixty miles from Cape Ray,
Newfoundland.
[264] The representation of the coast of Cape Breton Island and of Nova
Scotia as trending eastward and westward, as delineated on La Cosa’s
map, evidently exemplifies the incorrect conjecture made by Giovanni
Caboto respecting the situation of the first land seen by him. Columbus’s
delineation of the island of Cuba, as having an east coast that extended
far toward the north, was a similar personal assumption which afterward
was found to be false.
[265] “These regiōs are cauled Terra Florida and Regio Baccalearum or
Bacchallaos of the which you may reade sumwhat in this booke in the vyage
of the woorthy owlde man yet lyuing Sebastiane Cabote, in the vi. booke
of the thyrde Decade. But Cabote touched only in the north corner and
most barbarous parte hereof, from whense he was repulsed with Ise in
the moneth of July. Neuer the lesse, the west and south partes of these
regions haue sence byn better searched by other.”—The Decades of the Newe
Worlde or West India. Eden. The preface to the reader. ci.
[266] “_La gente della andan uestidos de pieles de animales, usan en sus
guèrras arcos, y flechas, lancas, y dardos, y unas porras de palo, y
hondas. Es tierra muy steril, ay en ella muchos orsos plancos, y cieruos
muy grandes como cauallos, y otras muchas animales, y semeiantemete ay
pescado infinito, sollos; salmoes lenguados, muy grandes de uara en largo
y otras muchas diuersidades de pescados, y la mayor multitud dellos se
dizen baccallaos, y asi mismo ay en la dha tierra Halcones prietos como
cueruos Aguillas, Perdices, Pardillas, y otras muchas aues de diuersas
maneras._”—Tabla primera. No. 8.
[267] William Worthington was joined to Sebastiano Caboto in the pension
given by Philip and Mary, May 29, 1557. Rymer. vol. xvi. p. 466. Divers
voyages touching the discouerie of America.
[268] Navigations, voyages, and discoveries, p. 6.