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[2] "La sphéricité de la terre étant reconnue, l'ètendue de la terre habitée en longitude déterminé, en même temps la largeur de l'Atlantique entre les côtes occidentales d'Europe et d'Afrique et les côtes orientales d'Asie par différens degrés de latitude. Eratosthène (Strabo, ii., p. 87, Cas.) évalue la circonférence de l'équateur à 252,000 stades, et la largeur de la chlamyde du Cap Sacrè (Cap Saint Vincent) à l'extrémité de la grande ceinture de Taurus, près de Thinæ à 70,000 stades. En prolongeant la distance vers le sud est jusque au cap des Coliaques qui, d'après les idées de Strabon sur la configuration de l'Asie, représente notre Cap Comorin, et avance plus à l'est que la côte de Thinæ, la combinaison des données d'Eratosthène offre 74,600 et même 78,000 stades. Or, en réduisant, par la différence de latitude, le périmètre equatorial au parallèle de Rhodes, des portes Caspiennes et de Thinæ c'est à dire, au parallèle de 36° 0' et non de 36° 21', on trouve 203,872 stades, et pour largeur de la terre habitée, par le parallèle de Rhodes, 67,500 stades. Strabon dit par conséquence avec justesse, dans le fameux passage où il semble prédire l'existence du Nouveau Continent, en parlant de deux terres habitées dans la même zone tempérée boréale que les terres occupent plus du tiers de la circonférence du parallèle qui passe par Thinæ. Par cette supposition la distance de l'Ibèrie aux Indes est au delà de 236° à peu près 240°. Ou peut être surpris de voir que le résultat le plus ancien est aussi le plus exact de tous ceux que nous trouvons en descendant d'Eratosthène par Posidonius aux temps de Marin de Tyr et de Ptolémée. La terre habitée offre effectivement, d'après nos connaissances actuelles, entre les 36° et 37° 130 degrés d'étendue en longitude; il y a par conséquent des côtes de la Chine au Cap Sacré à travers l'océan de l'est à l'ouest 230 degrés. L'accord que je nommerai accidentel de cette vraie distance et de l'évaluation d'Eratosthène atteint done dix degrés en longitude. Posidonius 'soupçonne (c'est l'expression de Strabon, lib. ii., p. 102, Cas.), que la longueur de la terre habitée laquelle est, selon lui, d'environ 70,000 stades, doit former la moitié du cercle entier sur lequel le mesure se prend, et qu' ainsi à partir de l'extrémité occidentale de cette même terre habitée, en naviguant avec un vent d'est continuel l'espace de 70,000 autres stades, ou arriverait dans l'Inde."—Humboldt's Géographie du Nouveau Continent.

[3] "La longueur de la terre habitée comprise entre les méridiens des îles Fortunées et de Sera étoit, d'après Marin de Tyr (Ptol., Geogr., lib. i., cap. 11) de 15 heures ou de 225°. C'étoit avancer les côtes de la Chine jusqu'au méridien des îles Sandwich, et réduire l'espace à parcourir des îles Canaries aux côtes orientales de l'Asie à 135°, erreur de 86° en longitude. La grande extension de 23–½° que les anciens donnoient à la mer Caspienne, contribuoit également beaucoup à augmenter la largeur de l'Asie. Ptolémée a laisse intacte, dans l'évaluation de la terre habitée, selon Posidonius, la distance des îles Fortunées au passage de l'Euphrate à Hiérapolis. Les reductions de Ptolémée ne portent que sur les distances de l'Euphrate à la Tour de Pierre et de cette tour à la métropole des Seres. Les 225° de Marin de Tyr deviennent, selon l'Almagest (lib. ii., p. 1) 180°, selon la Géographie de Ptolémée (lib. i., p. 12) 177–¼°. Les côtes des Sinæ[4] reculent donc du méridien des îles Sandwich vers celui des Carolines orientales, et l'espace à parcourir par mer en longitude n'étoit plus de 135°, mais de 180° à 182–¾°. Il étoit dans les intérêts de Christophe Colomb de préférer de beaucoup les calculs de Marin de Tyr à ceux de Ptolémée et a force de conjectures Colomb parvient à restreindre l'espace de l'Océan qui lui restait à traverser des îles du cap Vert au Cathay de l'Asie orientale à 128°" (Vida del Almirante).—Humboldt's Géographie du Nouveau Continent, vol. ii., p. 364.

[4] In opposition to the opinion of Malte Brun and M. de Josselin, Mr. Hugh Murray is considered to have satisfactorily proved the correctness of Ptolemy's assertion that the Seres or Sinæ are identical with the Chinese.—See Trans. of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. viii., p. 171.

[5] That the vast waters of the Atlantic were regarded with "awe and wonder, seeming to bound the world as with a chaos," needs no greater proof than the description given of it by Xerif al Edrizi, an eminent Arabian writer, whose countrymen were the boldest navigators of the Middle Ages, and possessed all that was then known of geography. "The ocean," he observes, "encircles the ultimate bounds of the inhabited earth, and all beyond it is unknown. No one has been able to verify any thing concerning it, on account of its difficult and perilous navigation, its great obscurity, its profound depth, and frequent tempests; through fear of its mighty fishes and its haughty winds; yet there are many islands in it, some peopled, others uninhabited. There is no mariner who dares to enter into its deep waters; or if any have done so, they have merely kept along its coasts, fearful of departing from them. The waves of this ocean, though they roll as high as mountains, yet maintain themselves without breaking; for if they broke it would be impossible for ship to plow them."—Description of Spain, by Xerif al Edrizi: Condé's Spanish translation. Madrid, 1799.—Quoted by Washington Irving.

[6] Aristotle, Strabo, Pliny, and Seneca arrived at this conclusion. The idea, however, of an intervening continent never appears to have suggested itself.—Humboldt's Cosmos.

[7] In the Atlantic Ocean, over against the Pillars of Hercules, lay an island larger than Asia and Africa taken together, and in its vicinity were other islands. The ocean in which these islands were situated was surrounded on every side by main-land; and the Mediterranean, compared with it, resembled a mere harbor or narrow entrance. Nine thousand years before the time of Plato this island of Atlantis was both thickly settled and very powerful. Its sway extended over Africa as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as the Tyrrhenian Sea. The further progress of its conquests, however, was checked by the Athenians, who, partly with the other Greeks, partly by themselves, succeeded in defeating these powerful invaders, the natives of Atlantis. After this a violent earthquake, which lasted for the space of a day and a night, and was accompanied with inundations of the sea, caused the islands to sink; and for a long period subsequent to this, the sea in that quarter was impassable by reason of the slime and shoals.—Plato, Tim., 24–29, 296; Crit., 108–110, 39, 43. The learned Gessner is of opinion that the Isle of Ceres, spoken of in a poem of very high antiquity, attributed to Orpheus, was a fragment of Atlantis. Kircher, in his "Mundus Subterraneus," and Beckman, in his "History of Islands," suppose the Atlantis to have been an island extending from the Canaries to the Azores; that it was really ingulfed in one of the convulsions of the globe, and that those small islands are mere fragments of it. Gosselin, in his able research into the voyages of the ancients, supposes the Atlantis of Plato to have been nothing more nor less than one of the nearest of the Canaries, viz, Fortaventura or Lancerote. Carli and many others find America in the Atlantis, and adduce many plausible arguments in support of their assertion.—Carli, Letters Amer.; Fr. transl., ii., 180. M. Bailly, in his "Letters sur l'Atlantide de Platon," maintains the existence of the Atlantides, and their island Atlantis, by the authorities of Homer, Sanchoniathon, and Diodorus Siculus, in addition to that of Plato. Manheim maintains very strenuously that Plato's Atlantis is Sweden and Norway. M. Bailly, after citing many ancient testimonies, which concur in placing this famous isle in the north, quotes that of Plutarch, who confirms these testimonies by a circumstantial description of the Isle of Ogygia, or the Atlantis, which he represents as situated in the north of Europe. The following is the theory of Buffon: after citing the passage relating to the Atlantis, from Plato's "Timæus," he adds, "This ancient tradition is not devoid of probability. The lands swallowed up by the waters were, perhaps, those which united Ireland to the Azores, and the Azores to the Continent of America; for in Ireland there are the same fossils, the same shells, and the same sea bodies as appear in America, and some of them are found in no other part of Europe."—Buffon's Nat. Hist., by Smellie, vol. i., p. 507.

[8] The first authentic description of the Mar di Sargasso of Aristotle is due to Columbus. It spreads out between the nineteenth and thirty-fourth degrees of north latitude. Its chief axis lies about seven degrees to the westward of the Island of Corvo. The smaller bank, on the other hand, lies between the Bermudas and Bahamas. The winds and partial currents in different years slightly affect the position and extent of these Atlantic "sea-weed meadows." No other sea in either hemisphere displays a similar extent of surface covered by plants collected in this way. These meadows of the ocean present the wonderful spectacle of a collection of plants covering a space nearly seven times as large as France.—Humboldt's Cosmos.

[9] See Appendix, No. II. (vol. II.)

[10] See Aristotle, De Mirab. Auscult., cap. lxxxiv., 84, p. 836, Bekk. This work, "A Collection of Wonderful Narratives," is attributed to Aristotle; the real compiler is unknown. According to Humboldt, it seems to have been written before the first Punic war.—Diodorus of Sicily, vol. xix. Aristotle attributes the discovery of the island to the Carthaginians; Diodorus to the Phœnicians. The occurrence is said to have taken place in the earliest times of the Tyrrhenian dominion of the sea, during the contest between the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi and the Phœnicians. The Island of the Seven Cities (see Appendix, No. II. (vol. II.)) was identified with the island mentioned by Aristotle as having been discovered by the Carthaginians, and was inserted in the early maps under the name of Antilla. Paul Toscanelli, the celebrated physician of Florence, thus writes to Columbus: "From the Island of Antilia, which you call the Seven Cities, and of which you have some knowledge," &c. In the Middle Ages conjectures were religiously inscribed upon the maps, as is proved by Antilia, St. Borondon (see Appendix (vol. II.)), the Hand of Satan, Green Island, Maida Island, and the exact form of vast southern regions. Humboldt refers the name of Antilia so far back as the fourteenth century. The earliest date given by Ferdinand Columbus is 1436. "Beyond the Azores, but at no great distance toward the west, occurs the Ysola de Antilia, which we may conclude, even allowing the date of the map to be genuine (in the library of St. Mark, at Venice, date 1436), to be a mere gratuitous or theoretic supposition, and to have received that strange name because the obvious and natural idea of antipodes has been anathematized by Catholic ignorance." He elsewhere says that "some Portuguese cosmographers have inserted the island described by Aristotle in maps under the name of Antilia."—Hist. of the Discovery of America, by Don Ferdinand Columbus, in Ker, vol. iii., p. 3–29.

The origin of the name Antilla, or Antilia, is still a matter of conjecture. Humboldt attributes to a "littérateur distingué" the solution of the enigma, from a passage in Aristotle's "De Mundo," which speaks of the probable existence of unknown lands opposite to the mass of continents which we inhabit. These countries, be they small or great, whose shores are opposed to ours, were marked out by the word porthornoi, which in the Middle Ages was translated by antinsulæ. Humboldt says that this translation is totally incorrect; however, the idea of the "littérateur distingué" is evidently the same as Ferdinand Columbus's. The following is the hypothesis favored by Humboldt: "Peut-être même le nom d'Antilia qui paraît pour la première fois sur une carte Vénitienne de 1436 n'est il qu'une forme Portuguaise donnée à un nom géographique des Arabes. L'étymologie que hasarde M. Buace me paraît très ingénieuse. … La syllabe initiale me paraît la corruption de l'article Arabe. D'al Tinnin et d'Al tin on aura fait peu à peu Antinna et Antilla, comme par un déplacement analogue de consonnes, les Espagnols ont fait de crocodilo, corcodilo et cocodrilo. Le Dragon est al Tin, et l'Antilia est peut-être, l'île des dragons marins."—Humboldt's Ex. Crit., vol. ii., 211.

Oviedo applies the relation of Aristotle to the Hesperian Islands, and asserts that they were the "India" discovered by Columbus. "Perchè egli (Colombo) conobbe come era in effetto che queste terre che egli ben ritrovava scritte, erano del tutto uscite dalla memoria degli uomin; e io per me non dubito che si sapissero, e possedessero anticamente dalli Rè de Spagna: e voglio qui dire quello che Aristotele in questo caso ne scrisse, &c … io tengo che queste Indie siano quelle autiche e famose Isole Hesperide cosè dette da Hespero 12 Re di Spagna. Or come la Spagna e l'Italia tolsero il nome da Hespero 12 Re di Spagna cosi anco da questo istesso ex torsero queste isole Hesperidi, che noi diciamo, onde senza alcun dubbio si de tenere, che in quel tempe questo isole sotto la signoria della Spagna stessero, e sotto un medesmo Re, che fu (come Beroso dice) 1658 anni prima che il nostro Salvatore nascesse. E perchè al presente siamo nel 1535 della salute nostra, ne segue che siano ora tre milo e cento novantatre anni che la Spagna e'l suo Re Hespero signoreggiavano queste Indie o Isole Hesperidi. E come cosa sua par che abbia la divina giustizia voluto ritornargliele."—Hist. Gen. dell' Indie de Gonzalo Fernando d'Oviedo, in Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 80.

[11] "It is very possible that in the same temperate zone, and almost in the same latitude as Thinæ (or Athens?), where it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, there are inhabited worlds, distinct from that in which we dwell."[12]—Strabo, lib. i., p. 65, and lib. ii., p. 118. It is surprising that this expression never attracted the attention of the Spanish authors, who, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, were searching every where in classical literature with the expectation of finding some traces of acquaintance with the New World.

[12] "The idea of such a locality in a continuation of the long axis of the Mediterranean was connected with a grand view of the earth by Eratosthenes (generally and extensively known among the ancients), according to which the entire ancient continent, in its widest expanse from west to east, in the parallel of about thirty-six degrees, presents an almost unbroken line of elevation."—Humboldt's Cosmos.

[13] "D'Anville a dit avec esprit que la plus grande des erreurs dans la géographie de Ptolémée a conduit les hommes à la plus grande découverte de terres nouvelles c'est, à dire la supposition que l'Asie s'étendait vers l'est, au delà du 180 degré de longitude."

Both Strabo and Aristotle speak of "the same sea bathing opposite shores," Strabo, lib. i., p. 103; lib. ii., p. 162. Aristotle, De Cælo, lib. ii., cap. 14, p. 297. The possibility of navigating from the extremity of Europe to the eastern shores of Asia is clearly asserted by the Stagirite, and in the two celebrated passages of Strabo. Aristotle does not suppose the distance to be very great, and draws an ingenious argument in favor of his supposition from the geography of animals. Strabo sees no obstacle to passing from Iberia to India, except the immense extent of the Atlantic Ocean. It is to be remembered that Strabo, as well as Eratosthenes, extend the appellation of Atlantic Sea to every part of the ocean.—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent.

[14] See Appendix, No. III. (vol. II.)

[15] "Au milieu de tant de discussions acerbes qu'une curieuse malignité et le goût d'une fausse érudition classique firent naître sur le mérite de Christophe Colomb, parmi ses contemporains, personne n'a pensé aux navigations des Normands comme précurseurs des Génois. Cette idée ne se presenta que soixante quatre ans après la mort du grand homme. On savait par ces propres récits 'qu'il étoit allé à Thulé' mais alors ce voyage vers le nord ne fit naître aucun soupçon sur la priorité, de la découverte. … Le mérite d'avoir reconnu la première découverte de l'Amérique septentrionale par les Normands appartient indubitablement au géographe Ortelius, qui annonça cette opinion des l'année 1570. 'Christophe Colomb, dit Ortelius, a seulement mis le Nouveau Monde en rapport durable de commerce et d'utilité avec l'Europe' (Theatr. Orbis Terr., on p. 5, 6). Ce jugement est beaucoup trop séverè."—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent.

[16] "Biorn first saw land in the Island of Nantucket, one degree south of Boston, then in New Scotland, and lastly in Newfoundland."—Carl Christian Rafn, Antiquitates Americanæ, 1845, p. 4, 421; Humboldt's Cosmos.

"The country called 'the good Vinland' (Vinland it goda) by Leif, included the shore between Boston and New York, and therefore parts of the present states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, between the parallels of latitude of Civita, Vecchia and Terracina, where, however, the average temperature of the year is between 46° and 52° (Fahr.). This was the chief settlement of the Normans. Their active and enterprising spirit is proved by the circumstance that, after they had settled in the south as far as 41° 30' north latitude, they erected three pillars to mark out the boundaries near the eastern coast of Baffin's Bay, in the latitude of 72° 55', upon one of the Women Islands northwest of the present most northern Danish colony of Upernavik. The Runic inscription upon the stone, discovered in the autumn of 1824, contains, according to Rask and Finn Magnusen, the date of the year 1135. From this eastern coast of Baffin's Bay, the colonists visited, with great regularity, on account of the fishery, Lancaster Sound and a part of Barrow's Straits, and this occurred more than six centuries before the bold undertakings of Parry and Ross. The locality of the fishery is very accurately described; and Greenland priests, from the diocese of Gardar, conducted the first voyage of discovery in 1266. These northwestern summer stations were called the Kroksjardar, heathen countries. Mention was early made of the Siberian wood, which was then collected, as well as of the numerous whales, seals, walrus, and polar bears."—Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 20, 274, 415–418, quoted by Humboldt.

[17] One of the objections brought forward by Robertson against the Norman discovery of America is, that the wild vine has never since been found so far north as Labrador; but modern travelers have ascertained that a species of wild vine grows even as far north as the shores of Hudson's Bay.[18] Since Robertson's time, however, the locality of the first Norman settlement has been moved further south, and into latitudes where the best species of wild vines are abundant.

[18] Sir A. Mackenzie's Travels in Iceland, 1812. Preliminary Dissertation by Dr. Holland, p. 46.

[19] Rafn, Antiq. Amer.

[20] The Esquimaux were at that time spread much further south than they are at present.—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 268.

[21] Eric Upsi, a native of Iceland, and the first Greenland bishop, undertook to go to Vinland as a Christian missionary in 1121.

[22] "The learned Grotius founds an argument for the colonization of America by the Norwegians on the similarity between the names of Norway and La Norimbègue, a district bordering on New England."—Grotius, De Origine Gentium Americanarum, in quarto, 1642. See, also, the Controversy between Grotius and Jean de Laët.

[23] Accurate information respecting the former intercourse of the Northmen with the Continent of America reaches only as far as the middle of the fourteenth century. In the year 1349 a ship was sent from Greenland to Markland (New Scotland) to collect timber and other necessaries. Upon their return from Markland, the ship was overtaken by storms, and compelled to land at Straumfjord, in the west of Iceland. This is the last account of the "Norman America," preserved for us in the ancient Scandinavian writings. The settlements upon the west coast of Greenland, which were in a very flourishing condition until the middle of the fourteenth century, gradually declined, from the fatal influence of monopoly of trade, by the invasion of the Esquimaux, by the black death which depopulated the north from the year 1347 to 1351, and also by the arrival of a hostile fleet, from what country is not known.

By means of the critical and most praiseworthy efforts of Christian Rafn, and the Royal Society for Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen, the traditions and ancient accounts of the voyage of the Normans to Helluland (Newfoundland), to Markland (the mouth of the River St. Lawrence at Nova Scotia), and at Winland (Massachusetts), have been separately printed and satisfactorily commented upon. The length of the voyage, the direction in which they sailed, the time of the rising and setting of the sun, are accurately laid down. The principal sources of information are the historical narrations of Erik the Red, Thorfinn Karlsefne, and Snorre Thorbrandson, probably written in Greenland itself, as early as the twelfth century, partly by descendants of the settlers born in Winland.—Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 7, 14, 16. The care with which the tables of their pedigrees was kept was so great, that the table of the family of Thorfinn Karlsefne, whose son, Snorre Thorbrandson, was born in America, was kept from the year 1007 to 1811.

The name of the colonized countries is found in the ancient national songs of the natives of the Färöe Islands.—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 268–452.

[24] See Appendix, No. IV. (vol. II.)

[25] See Appendix, No. V. (vol. II.)

[26] See Appendix, No. VI. (vol. II.)

[27] See Appendix, No. VII. (vol. II.)

[28] The numerous data which have come down to us from antiquity, and an acute examination of the local relations, especially the great vicinity of the settlements upon the African coast, which incontestably existed, lead me to believe that Phœnicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans, and probably even the Etruscans, were acquainted with the group of the Canary Islands.—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 414.

"Porro occidentalis navigatio, quantum etiam famâ assequi Plinius potuit, tantum ad Fortunatas Insulas cursum protendit, earumque præcipuam à multitudine canum Canariam vocatam refert."—Acosta, De Natura Novi Orbis, lib. i., cap. ii.

Respecting the probability of the Semitic origin of the name of the Canary Islands, Pliny, in his Latinizing etymological notions, considered them to be Dog Islands! (Vide Credner's Biblical Representation of Paradise, in Illgen's Journal for Historical Theology, 1836, vol. vi., p. 166–186.)—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 414.

The most fundamental, and, in a literary point of view, the most complete account of the Canary Islands, that was written in ancient times, down to the Middle Ages, was collected in a work of Joachim José da Costa de Macedo, with the title "Memoria cem que se pretende provar que os Arabes não connecerão as Canarias autes dos Portuguesques, 1844." (See, also, Viera y Clavigo, Notic. de la Hist. de Canaria.)—Humboldt's Cosmos.

[29] See Appendix, No. VIII. (vol. II.)

[30] "Jean de Bethancourt knew that before the expedition of Alvaro Beccara, that is to say, before the end of the fourteenth century, Norman adventurers had penetrated as far as Sierra Leone (lat. 8° 30'), and he sought to follow their traces. Before the Portuguese, however, no European nation appears to have crossed the equator."—Humboldt.

"Les Normands et les Arabes sont les seules nations qui, jusqu'au commencement du douzième siècle, aient partagé la gloire des grandes expéditions maritimes, le goût des aventures étranges, la passion du pillage et des conquêtes éphémères. Les Normands ont occupé successivement l'Islande et la Neustrie, ravagé les sanctuaires de l'Italie, ravagé la Pouille sur les Grecs, inscrit leurs caractères runiques jusque sur les flancs d'un des lions que Morosini enleva au Pirée d'Athènes pour en orner l'arsenal de Venise."—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent, vol. ii., p. 86.

[31] "No nation," says Southey, "has ever accomplished such great things in proportion to its means as the Portuguese." Its early maritime history does, indeed, present a striking picture of enterprise and restless energy, but the annals of Europe afford no similar instance of rapid degeneracy. There was an age when less than forty thousand armed Portuguese kept the whole coasts of the ocean in awe, from Morocco to China; when one hundred and fifty sovereign princes paid tribute to the treasury of Lisbon. But in all their enterprises they aimed at conquest, and not at colonization. The government at home exercised little control over the arms of its piratical mariners; the mother country derived no benefit from their achievements. To the age of conquest succeeded one of effeminacy and corruption.—Merivale's Lectures on Colonization, vol. i., p. 44.

[32] See Appendix, No. IX. (vol. II.)

[33] The zones were imaginary bands or circles in the heavens, producing an effect of climate on corresponding belts on the globe of the earth. The frigid zones, between the polar circles and the poles, were considered uninhabitable and unnavigable, on account of the extreme cold. The torrid zone, lying beneath the track of the sun, or rather the central part of it, immediately about the equator, was considered uninhabitable, unproductive, and impassable, on account of the excessive heat. The temperate zones, lying between the torrid and the frigid zones, were supposed to be the only parts of the globe suited to the purposes of life. Parmenides, according to Strabo, was the inventor of this theory of the five zones. Aristotle supported the same doctrine. He believed that there was habitable earth in the southern hemisphere, but that it was forever divided from the part of the world already known by the impassable zone of scorching heat at the equator. (Aristot., Met., ii., cap. v.) Pliny supported the opinion of Aristotle concerning the burning zones. (Pliny, lib. i., cap. lxvi.) Strabo (lib. ii.), in mentioning this theory, gives it likewise his support; and others of the ancient philosophers, as well as the poets, might be cited, to show the general prevalence of the belief.—Cicero, Somnium Scipionis, cap. vi.; Geminus, cap. xiii., p. 31; ap. Petavii Opus de Doctr. Tempor. in quo Uranologium sive Systemata var. Auctorum. Amst., 1705, vol. iii.

[34] See Appendix, No. X. (vol. II.)

[35] Barros, Dec. I., lib. iii., cap. iv., p. 190, says distinctly, "Bartholomeu Diaz, e os de sua compantica per causa dos perigos, e tormentas, que em o dobrar delle passáram che puyeram nome Tormentoso." The merit of the first circumnavigation, therefore, does not belong to Vasco de Gama, as is generally supposed. Diaz was at the Cape in May, 1487, and, therefore, almost at the same time that Pedro de Covilham and Alonzo de Payva of Barcelona commenced their expedition. As early as December, 1487, Diaz himself brought to Portugal the account of his important discovery. The mission of Pedro Covilham and Alonzo de Payva, in 1487, was set on foot by King John II., in order to search for "the African priest Johannes." Believing the accounts which he had obtained from Indian and Arabian pilots in Calicut, Goa, Aden, as well as in Sofala, on the eastern coast of Africa, Covilham informed King John II., by means of two Jews from Cairo, that if the Portuguese were to continue their voyages of discovery upon the western coast in a southerly direction, they would come to the end of Africa, whence a voyage to the Island of the Moon, to Zanzibar, and the gold country of Sofala, would be very easy. Accounts of the Indian and Arabian trading stations upon the east coast of Africa, and of the form of the southern extremity of the Continent, may have extended to Venice, through Egypt, Abyssinia, and Arabia. The triangular form of Africa was actually delineated upon the map of Sanuto, made in 1306, and discovered in the "Portulano della Mediceo-Laurenziana," by Count Baldelli in 1351, and also in the chart of the world by Fra Mauro.—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 290, 461.

[36] Faria y Sousa complains that "the admiral entered Lisbon with a vain-glorious exultation, in order to make Portugal feel, by displaying the tokens of his discovery, how much she had erred in not acceding to his propositions."—Europa Portuguesa, t. ii., p. 402, 403.

Ruy de Pina asserts that King John was much importuned to kill Columbus on the spot, since, with his death, the prosecution of the undertaking, as far as the sovereigns of Castile were concerned, would cease, from want of a suitable person to take charge of it; but the king had too much magnanimity to adopt the iniquitous measure proposed.—Vasconcellos, Vida del Rie Don Juan II., lib. vi,; Garcia de Resende, Vide da Dom Joam II.; Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i., cap. lxxiv.; MS. quoted by Prescott.

[37] See Appendix, No. XI. (vol. II.)

[38] "A Castilla y a Leon Nuevo Mumto dió Colon," was the inscription on the costly monument that was raised over the remains of Columbus in the Carthusian Monastery of La Cuevas at Seville. "The like of which," says his son Ferdinand, with as much truth as simplicity, "was never recorded of any man in ancient or modern times."—Hist. del Almirante, cap. cviii.

His ashes were finally removed to Cuba, where they now repose in the Cathedral church of its capital.—Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii.

"E dandogli il titol di Don volsero che egli aggiungesse presso all'armè di casa sua quattro altre, cioè quelle del Regno de Castiglio di Leon, e il Mar Oceano con tutte l'isole e quattro anchore per dimostrare l'ufficio d'Almirante, con un motto d'intorno che dicea, 'Per Castiglia e per Leon, Nuovo Mundo trovo Colon.'"—Ramusio, Discorio, tom. iii.

The heir of Columbus was always to bear the arms of the admiral, to seal with them, and in his signature never to use any other title than simply "the Admiral."

[39] See Appendix, No. XII.— (vol. II.) In the Middle Ages the prevalent opinion was that the sea covered but one seventh of the surface of the globe; an opinion which Cardinal d'Ailly (Imago Mundi, cap. viii.) founded on the apocryphal fourth book of Ezra. Columbus, who always derived much of his cosmological knowledge from the cardinal's work, was much interested in upholding this idea of the smallness of the sea, to which the misunderstood expression of "the ocean-stream" contributed not a little. He was also accustomed to cite Aristotle, and Seneca, and St. Augustine, in confirmation of this opinion.—Humboldt's Examen Critique de l'Hist. de la Géographie, tom. i., p. 186.

[40] See, especially, the details of the conference held at Salamanca (the great seat of learning in Spain), given in the fourth chapter of Washington Irving's "Columbus." One of the objections advanced was, that, admitting the earth to be spherical, and should a ship succeed in reaching in this way the extremity of India, she could never get back again; for the rotundity of the globe would present a kind of mountain, up which it would be impossible for her to sail with the most favorable wind.—Hist. del Almirante, cap. ii.; Hist. de Chiapa por Remesel, lib. ii., cap. 27.

[41] Columbus was required by King John II., of Portugal, to furnish a detailed plan of his proposed voyages, with the charts and other documents according to which he proposed to shape his course, for the alleged purpose of having them examined by the royal counselors. He readily complied; but while he remained in anxious suspense as to the decision of the council, a caravel was secretly dispatched with instructions to pursue the route designated in the papers of Columbus. This voyage had the ostensible pretext of carrying provisions to the Cape de Verde Islands; the private instructions given were carried into effect when the caravel departed thence. It stood westward for several days; but then the weather grew stormy, and the pilots having no zeal to stimulate them, and seeing nothing but an immeasurable waste of wild, trembling waves still extending before them, lost all courage to proceed. They put back to the Cape de Verde Islands, and thence to Lisbon, excusing their own want of resolution by ridiculing the project of Columbus. On discovering this act of treachery, Columbus instantly quitted Portugal.—Hist. del Almirante, cap. viii.; Herrera, Dec. I., lib. i., cap. vii.; Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo Mundo, lib. ii.—Quoted by Prescott.

[42] "Le Vendredi n'étant pas regardé dans la Chrétienté comme un jour de bon augure pour le commencement d'une entreprise, les historiens du 17^me siècle, qui gémissaient déjà sur les maux dont, selon eux, l'Europe a été accablé par la découverte de l'Amérique, on fait remarque que Colomb est parti pour la première expédition vendredi, 3 août 1492, et que la première terre d'Amérique a été découverte vendredi 12 Octobre de la même année. La réformation du calendrier appliquée au journal de Colomb, qui indique toujours à la fois, les jours de la semaine et la date du mois, feroit disparoître le pronostic du jour fatal."—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent, vol. iii., p. 160.

[43] His first landing in the New World partook of the same character as his departure from the Old.

"Christoforo Colombo—primo con una bandiera nella quale era figurato il nostro Signore Jesu Christo in croce, saltô in terra, e quella piantò, e poi tutti gli alti smontarono, e inginocchiati baciarono la terra, tre volti piangendo di allegrezza. Di poi Colombo alzate le mani al cielo lagrimando disse, Signor Dio Eterno, Signore omnipotente, tu creasti il cielo, e la terra, e il mare con la tua santa parola, sia benedetto e glorificato il nome tuo, sia ringraziata la tua Maestà, la quale si è degnata per mano d' uno umil suo servo far ch' el suo santo nome sia conosciuto e divulgato in questa altra parte del mondo."—Pietro Martire, Dell' Indie Occidentali, in Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 2; Oviedo, Hist. Gen. dell' India.

[44] Columbus not only has, incontestably, the merit of first discovering the line where there is no declination of the needle, but also of first inducing a study of terrestrial magnetism in Europe, by his observations concerning the increasing declination as he sailed in a westerly direction from that line. It had been already easily recognized in the Mediterranean, and in all places where, in the twelfth century, the declination was as much as eight or ten degrees, even though their instruments were so imperfect that the ends of a magnetic needle did not point exactly to the geographical north or south. It is improbable that the Arabs or Crusaders drew attention to the fact of the compass pointing to the northeast and northwest in different parts of the world, as to a phenomenon which had long been known. The merit which belongs to Columbus is, not for the first observance of the existence of the declination, which is given, for example, upon the map of Andrew Bianca, in 1436, but for the remark which he made on the 13th of September, 1492, that about two degrees and a half to the east of the Island of Corvo the magnetic variation changed, and that it passed over from northeast to northwest. This discovery of a magnetic line without any variation indicates a remarkable epoch in nautical astronomy. It was celebrated with just praise by Oviedo, Casas, and Herrera. If with Livio Sanuto we ascribe it to the renowned mariner Sebastian Cabot, we forget that his first voyage, which was undertaken at the expense of some merchants of Bristol, and which was crowned with success by his touching the main-land of America, falls five years later than the first expedition of Columbus.—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 318; Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i., cap. 6.

[45] "In sailing toward the West India Islands birds are often seen at the distance of two hundred leagues from the nearest coast."—Sloane's Nat. Hist. of Jamaica, vol. i., p. 30.

Captain Cook says, "No one yet knows to what distance any of the Oceanic birds go to sea; for my own part, I do not believe that there is any one of the whole tribe that can be relied on in pointing out the vicinity of land."—Voyage toward the South Pole, vol. i., p. 275.

The Portuguese, however, only keeping along the African coast and watching the flight of birds with attention, concluded that they did not venture to fly far from land. Columbus adopted this erroneous opinion from his early instructors in navigation.

[46] "Puesto que el amirante a los diez de la noche viò lumbre … y era como una candelilla de cera que se alzaba y levantaba, lo cual a pocos pareciera ser indicio de tierra. Pero el amirante tuvò por cierto estar junto a la tierra. Por lo qual quando dijeron la 'Salve' que acostumbran decir y cantar a su manera todos los marineros, y de hallan todos, vogo y amonestòlos el amirante que hiciesen buena guarda al castillo de proa, y mirasen bien por la tierra."—Diar. de Colon. Prem. Viag. 11 de Oct.

[47] "Let those who are disposed to faint under difficulties, in the prosecution of any great and worthy undertaking, remember that eighteen years elapsed after the time that Columbus conceived his enterprise before he was enabled to carry it into effect; that most of that time was passed in almost hopeless solicitation, amid poverty, neglect, and taunting ridicule; that the prime of his life had wasted away in the struggle, and that, when his perseverance was finally crowned with success, he was about in his fifty-sixth year. This example should encourage the enterprising never to despair."—Washington Irving's Life of Columbus, vol. i., p. 174.

[48] "While Columbus lay on a sick-bed by the River Belem, he was addressed in a dream by an unknown voice, distinctly uttering these words: 'Maravillósamente Dios hizo sonar tu nombre en la tierra; de los atamientos de la Mar Oceana, que estaban cerradas con cadenas tan fuertes, te dió las llaves.' (Letter to the Catholic monarch, July 7th, 1503.)"—Humboldt's Cosmos.

[49] See Appendix, No. XIII. (vol. II.)

[50] "The application to King Henry VII. was not made until 1488, as would appear from the inscription on a map which Bartholomew presented to the king. Las Casas intimates, from letters and writings of Bartholomew Columbus, in his possession, that the latter accompanied Bartholomew Diaz in his voyage from Lisbon, in 1486, along the coast of Africa, in the course of which he discovered the Cape of Good Hope."—Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i., cap. vii.

[51] "The American Continent was first discovered under the auspices of the English, and the coast of the United States by a native of England (Sebastian Cabot told me that he was born in Bristowe)."—History of the Travayles in the East and West Indies, by R. Eden and R. Willes, 1577. fol. 267. Posterity hardly remembered that they[52] (the Cabots) had reached the American Continent nearly four months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the main-land.—Bancroft's Hist. of the United States, vol. i., p. 11. Charlevoix's "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," and the "Fastes Chronologiques," endeavor to discredit the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot, but the testimonies of cotemporary authors are decisive. Unfortunately, no journal or relation remains of the voyages of the Cabots to North America, but several authors have handed down accounts of them, which they received from the lips of Sebastian Cabot himself. See Hakluyt, iii., 27; Galearius Butrigarius, in Ramusio, tom. ii.; Ramusio, Preface to tom. iii.; Peter Martyr ab Angleria, Dec. III., cap. vi.; Gomara, Gen. Hist. of the West Indies, b. ii., c. vi. In Fabian's Chronicle, the writer asserts that he saw, in the sixteenth year of Henry VII., two out of three men who had been brought from "Newfound Island" two years before. The grant made by Edward VI. to Sebastian Cabot of a pension equal to £1000 per annum of our money, attests that "the good and acceptable service" for which it was conferred was of a very important nature. The words of the grant are handed down to us by Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 31.—See Life of Henry VII., by Lord Bacon; Bacon's Works, vol. iii., p. 356, 357.

[52] "The only immediate fruit of Cabot's first enterprise is said to have been the importation from America of the first turkeys ever seen in Europe. Why this bird received the name it enjoys in England has never been satisfactorily explained. By the French it was called 'Coq d'Inde,' on account of its American original, America being then generally termed Western India."—Graham's Hist. of the United States, vol. i., p. 7.

[53] Baccalaos was the name given by the natives to the codfish with which these waters abounded. Pietro Martire, who calls Sebastian Cabot his "dear and familiar friend," speaks of Newfoundland as Baccalaos; also, Lopez de Gomara and Ramusio.

[54] Mr. Bancroft pronounces this "fact to be indisputable," though he acknowledges that "the testimony respecting this expedition is confused and difficult of explanation." Sebastian Cabot wrote "A Discourse of Navigation," in which the entrance of the strait leading into Hudson's Bay was laid down with great precision "on a card, drawn by his own hand."—Ortelius, Map of America in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; Eden and Willis, p. 223; Sir H. Gilbert, in Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 49, 50; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 12.

[55] The learned and ingenious author of the "Memoirs of Sebastian Cabot" has brought forward strong arguments against the discovery of the Continent of America by Jean Vas Cortereal in 1494.—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent, vol. i., p. 279; vol. ii., p. 25.

"The discoverer of the territory of our country was one of the most extraordinary men of his age. There is deep cause for regret that time has spared so few memorials of his career. He gave England a continent, and no one knows his burial-place."—Bancroft, vol. i., p. 14.

[56] Ramusio, vol. iii., p. 417. This discovery is also attributed to Jacques Cartier, who entered the gulf on the 10th of August, 1535, and gave it the name of the saint whose festival was celebrated on that day.—Charlevoix.

[57] In an old map published in 1508, the Labrador coast is called Terra Corterealis.

[58] It has been conjectured that the name Terra de Laborador was given to this coast by the Portuguese slave merchants, on account of the admirable qualities of the natives as laborers.—Picture of Quebec.

[59] It was an idea entertained by Columbus, that, as he extended his discoveries to climates more and more under the torrid influence of the sun, he should find the productions of nature sublimated by its rays to more perfect and precious qualities. He was strengthened in this belief by a letter written to him, at the command of the queen, by one Jayme Ferrer, an eminent and learned lapidary, who, in the course of his trading for precious stones and metals, had been in the Levant and in various parts of the East; had conversed with the merchants of the remote parts of Asia and Africa, and the natives of India, Arabia, and Ethiopia, and was considered deeply versed in geography generally, but especially in the nature of those countries from whence the valuable merchandise in which he dealt was procured. In this letter Ferrer assured Columbus that, according to his experience, the rarest objects of commerce, such as gold, precious stones, drugs, and spices, were chiefly to be found in the regions about the equinoctial line, where the inhabitants were black, or darkly colored, and that until the admiral should arrive among people of such complexions, he did not think he would find those articles in great abundance.—Navarrete, Coleccion, tom. ii., Document 68.

[60] Ramusio, vol. iii., p. 347; Charlevoix, vol. i., p. 36; see Osorio, History of the Portuguese, b. i.; Barrow's Voyages, p. 37–48; Herrera, Dec. 1., lib. vii., cap. ix.; Ensayo Chronologico para la Historia general de la Florida. En Madrid, 1723.—Quoted by Murray.

[61] "Les demandes ordinaires qu'on nous fait sont, 'Y a-t-il des trésors? Y a-t-il de l'or et de l'argent?' Et personne ne demande, 'Ces peuples là sont il disposés à entendre la doctrine Chrétienne?' Et quant aux mines, il y en a vraiment, mais il les faut fouiller avec industrie, labeur et patience. La plus belle mine que je sache, c'est du bled et du vin, avec la nourriture du bestial; qui a de ceci, il a de l'argent, et des mines, nous n'en vivons point."—Marc l'Escarbot.

[62] This bold stretch of papal authority, so often ridiculed as chimerical and absurd, was in a measure justified by the event, since it did, in fact, determine the principle on which the vast extent of unappropriated empire in the eastern and western hemispheres was ultimately divided between two petty states of Europe. Alexander had not even the excuse that he thought he was disposing of uncultivated and uninhabited regions, since he specifies in his donation both towns and castles: "Civitates et castra in perpetuum tenore præsentium donamus."

[63] "What," said Francis I., "shall the kings of Spain and Portugal divide all America between them, without suffering me to take a share as their brother? I would fain see the article in Adam's will that bequeaths that vast inheritance to them."—Encyclopedia, vol. iv., p. 695.

[64] "In the latter years of his life, Francis, by a strict economy of the public money, repaired the evils of his early extravagance, while, at the same time, he was enabled to spare sufficient for carrying on the magnificent public institutions he had undertaken, and for forwarding the progress of discovery, of the fine arts, and of literature."—Bacon's Life and Times of Francis I., p. 399–401.

[65] See Appendix, No. XIV. (vol. II.)

[66] "Navigò anche lungo la detta terra l'anno 1524 un gran capitano del Re Christianissimo Francesco, detto Giovanni da Verazzano, Fiorentino, e scorse tutta la costa fino alla Florida, come per una sua lettera scritta al detto Re, particolarmente si vedià la qual sola abbiamo potuto avere perciocchè l'altre si sono smarrite nelli travagli della povera città di Fiorenza e nell' ultimo viaggio che esso fece, avendo voluto smontar in terra con alcuni compagni, furono tutti morti da quei popoli, e in presentia di colóro che erano rimasi nelle navi, furono arrostiti e mangeati." (Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 416.) The Baron La Houtan and La Potherie give the same account of Verazzano's end; they are not, however, very trustworthy authorities. Le Beau repeats the same story; but Charlevoix's words are, "Je ne trouve aucun fondement à ce que quelques uns ont publié, qu'ayant mis pied à terre dans un endroit où il voulait bâtir un fort, les sauvages se jetèrent sur lui, le massacrèrent avec tous ses gens et le mangèrent." A Spanish historian has asserted, contrary to all probability, that Verazzano was taken by the Spaniards, and hung as a pirate.—D. Andrès Gonzalez de Barcia, Ensayo Chronologico para la Historia della Florida.

[67] Tiraboschi, Storia della Literatura Italiana, vol. vii., p. 261, 262.—Quoted in the Picture of Quebec, to which valuable work J.C. Fisher, Esq., president of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, largely contributed.

[68] Signifying "here is nothing." The insatiable thirst of the Spanish discoverers for gold is justified by the greatest of all discoverers, the disinterested Columbus himself, on high religious principles. When acquainting their Castilian majesties with the abundance of gold[69] to be procured in the newly-found countries, he thus speaks, "El oro es excelentisimo, del oro se hace tesoro; y con el quien lo tiene hace quanto quiere en el mundo, y elega a que echa las animas al paraiso." (Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages, vol. i., p. 309.) A passage which the modern editor of his papers affirms to be in conformity with many texts of Scripture.

[69] The historian Herrera, writing in the light of experience, makes use of the strong expression, that "mines were a lure devised by the evil spirit to draw the Spaniards on to destruction." "L'Espagne," says Montesquieu, "a fait comme ce roi insensé, qui demanda que tout ce qu'il toucheroit se convertit en or, et qui fut obligé de revenir aux Dieux, pour les prier de finir sa misère."—Esprit des Loix, lib. xxi., cap. 22.

"Les mines du Pérou et du Mexique ne valoient pas même pour l'Espagne ce qu'elle auroit tire du son propre fonds en los cultivant. Avec tant de trésors Philippe II. fit banqueroute."—Millot. "Pâturage et labourage," said the wise Sully, "valent mieux que tout l'or du Pérou."

[70] Father Hennepin asserts that the Spaniards were the first discoverers of Canada, and that, finding nothing there to gratify their extensive desires for gold, they bestowed upon it the appellation of El Capo di Nada, "Cape Nothing," whence, by corruption, its present name.—Nouvelle Description d'un très grand pays situé dans l'Amérique entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer Glaciale, depuis l'an 1667 jusqu' en 1670. Par le Père Louis Hennepin, Missionaire Recollet à Utrecht, 1697.

La Potherie gives the same derivation. Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale par M. de Bacqueville de la Potherie, à Paris, 1722. The opinion expressed in a note of Charlevoix (Histoire de la Nouvelle France, vol. i., p. 13), is that deserving most credit. "D'autres dérivent ce nom du mot Iroquois 'Kannata,' qui se prononce Cannada, et signifie un amas de cabanes." This derivation would reconcile the different assertions of the early discoverers, some of whom give the name of Canada to the whole valley of the St. Lawrence; others, equally worthy of credit, confine it to a small district in the neighborhood of Stadacona (now Quebec). Seconda Relatione di Jacques Cartier, in Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 442, 447. "Questo popolo (di Hochelaga) non partendo mai del lore paese, ne essendo vagabondi, come quelli di Canada e di Saguenay benchè dette di Canada sieno lor suggetti con otte o nove altri villaggi posti sopra detto fiume." Father du Creux, who arrived in Canada about the year 1625, in his "Historia Canadensis," gives the name of Canada to the whole valley of the St. Lawrence, confessing, however, his ignorance of the etymology: "Porro de Etymologiâ vocis Canada nihil satis certè potui comperire; priscam quidem esse, constat ex eo, quod illam ante annos prope sexaginta passim usurpari audiebam puer."

Duponçeau, in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, founds his conjecture of the Indian origin of the name of Canada upon the fact that, in the translation of the Gospel of St. Matthew into the Mohawk tongue, made by Brandt, the Indian chief, the word Canada is always used to signify a village. The mistake of the early discoverers, in taking the name of a part for that of the whole, is very pardonable in persons ignorant of the Indian language. It is highly improbable that at the period of its discovery the name of Canada was extended over this immense country. The migratory habits of the aborigines are alone conclusive against it. They distinguished themselves by their different tribes, not by the country over which they hunted and rode at will. They more probably gave names to localities than adopted their own from any fixed place of residence. The Iroquois and the Ottawas conferred their appellations on the rivers that ran through their hunting grounds, and the Huron tribe gave theirs to the vast lake now bearing their name. It has, however, never been pretended that any Indian tribe bore the name of Canada, and the natural conclusion therefore is, that the word "Canada" was a mere local appellation, without reference to the country; that each tribe had their own "Canada," or collection of huts, which shifted its position according to their migrations.

Dr. Douglas, in his "American History," pretends that Canada derives its name from Monsieur Kane or Cane, whom he advances to have been the first adventurer in the River St. Lawrence.—Knox's Historical Journal, vol. i., p. 303.