Chapter XI: (Addenda.) (2)

[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.