Chapter V: The Search for the Indies (2)

"Paul, the physicist, to Christopher Columbus greeting.[442] I have received your letters, with the things which you sent me, for which I thank you very much. I regard as noble and grand your project of sailing from east to west according to the indications furnished by the map which I sent you, and which would appear still more plainly upon a sphere. I am much pleased to see that I have been well understood, and that the voyage has become not only possible but certain,[443] fraught with honour as it must be, and inestimable gain, and most lofty fame among all Christian people. You cannot take in all that it means except by actual experience, or without such copious and accurate information as I have had from eminent and learned men who have come from those places to the Roman court, and from merchants who have traded a long time in those parts, persons whose word is to be believed (_persone di grande autorità_). When that voyage shall be accomplished, it will be a voyage to powerful kingdoms, and to cities and provinces most wealthy and noble, abounding in all sorts of things most desired by us; I mean, with all kinds of spices and jewels in great abundance. It will also be advantageous for those kings and princes who are eager to have dealings and make alliances with the Christians of our countries, and to learn from the erudite men of these parts,[444] as well in religion as in all other branches of knowledge. For these reasons, and many others that might be mentioned, I do not wonder that you, who are of great courage, and the whole Portuguese nation, which has always had men distinguished in all such enterprises, are now inflamed with desire[445] to execute the said voyage."

[Footnote 442: The original of this letter is not forthcoming.
I translate from _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. viii.]

[Footnote 443: Yet poor old Toscanelli did not live to see it
accomplished; he died in 1482, before Columbus left Portugal.]

[Footnote 444: That is, of Europe, and especially of Italy.
Toscanelli again refers to Kublai Khan's message to the pope
which--more or less mixed up with the vague notions about
Prester John--had evidently left a deep impression upon the
European mind. In translating the above sentence I have
somewhat retrenched its excessive verbiage without affecting
the meaning.]

[Footnote 445: In including the "whole Portuguese nation" as
feeling this desire, the good astronomer's enthusiasm again
runs away with him.]

[Sidenote: Who first suggested the feasibleness of a westward route? Was it Columbus?]

These letters are intensely interesting, especially the one to Martinez, which reveals the fact that as early as 1474 the notion that a westward route to the Indies would be shorter than the southward route had somehow been suggested to Alfonso V.; and had, moreover, sufficiently arrested his attention to lead him to make inquiries of the most eminent astronomer within reach. Who could have suggested this notion to the king of Portugal? Was it Columbus, the trained mariner and map-maker, who might lately have been pondering the theories of Ptolemy and Mela as affected by the voyage of Santarem and Escobar, and whose connection with the Moñiz and Perestrelo families would now doubtless facilitate his access to the court? On some accounts this may seem probable, especially if we bear in mind Columbus's own statement implying that his appeals to the crown dated almost from the beginning of his fourteen years in Portugal.

[Sidenote: Perhaps it was Toscanelli.]

All the circumstances, however, seem to be equally consistent with the hypothesis that the first suggestion of the westward route may have come from Toscanelli himself, through the medium of the canon Martinez, who had for so many years been a member of King Alfonso's household. The words at the beginning of the letter lend some probability to this view: "I have formerly spoken with you about a shorter route to the places of Spices by ocean navigation than that which you are pursuing by Guinea." It was accordingly earlier than 1474--how much earlier does not appear--that such discussions between Toscanelli and Martinez must probably have come to the ears of King Alfonso; and now, very likely owing to the voyage of Santarem and Escobar, that monarch began to think it worth while to seek for further information, "an exhibition to the eye," so that mariners not learned in astronomy like Toscanelli might "grasp and comprehend" the shorter route suggested. It is altogether probable that the Florentine astronomer, who was seventy-seven years old when he wrote this letter, had already for a long time entertained the idea of a westward route; and a man in whom the subject aroused so much enthusiasm could hardly have been reticent about it. It is not likely that Martinez was the only person to whom he descanted[446] upon the glory and riches to be found by sailing "straight to Cathay," and there were many channels through which Columbus might have got some inkling of his views, even before going to Portugal.

[Footnote 446: Luigi Pulci, in his famous romantic poem
published in 1481, has a couple of striking stanzas in which
Astarotte says to Rinaldo that the time is at hand when
Hercules shall blush to see how far beyond his Pillars the
ships shall soon go forth to find another hemisphere, for
although the earth is as round as a wheel, yet the water at any
given point is a plane, and inasmuch as all things tend to a
common centre so that by a divine mystery the earth is
suspended in equilibrium among the stars, just so there is an
antipodal world with cities and castles unknown to men of olden
time, and the sun in hastening westwards descends to shine upon
those peoples who are awaiting him below the horizon:--

Sappi che questa opinione è vana
Perchè più oltre navicar si puote,
Però che l' acqua in ogni parte è piana,
Benchè la terra abbi forma di ruote;
Era più grossa allor la gente umana,
Tal che potrebbe arrossirne le gote
Ercule ancor, d' aver posti que' segni,
Perchè più oltre passeranno i legni.
E puossi andar giù nell' altro emisperio,
Però che al centro ogni cosa reprime:
Sicchè la terra per divin misterio
Sospesa sta fra le stelle sublime,
E laggiù son città, castella, e imperio;
Ma nol cognobbon quelle gente prime.
Vedi che il sol di camminar s' affretta,
Dove io dico che laggiù s' aspetta.
Pulci, _Morgante Maggiore_, xxv. 229, 230.

This prophecy of western discovery combines with the
astronomical knowledge here shown, to remind us that the
Florentine Pulci was a fellow-townsman and most likely an
acquaintance of Toscanelli.]

[Sidenote: The idea was suggested by the globular form of the earth;]

[Sidenote: and was as old as Aristotle.]

[Sidenote: Opinions of ancient writers.]

However this may have been, the letter clearly proves that at that most interesting period, in or about 1474, Columbus was already meditating upon the westward route.[447] Whether he owed the idea to Toscanelli, or not, is a question of no great importance so far as concerns his own originality; for the idea was already in the air. The originality of Columbus did not consist in his conceiving the possibility of reaching the shores of Cathay by sailing west, but in his conceiving it in such distinct and practical shape as to be ready to make the adventure in his own person. As a matter of theory the possibility of such a voyage could not fail to be suggested by the globular form of the earth; and ever since the days of Aristotle that had been generally admitted by men learned in physical science. Aristotle proved, from the different altitudes of the pole-star in different places, that the earth must necessarily be a globe. Moreover, says Aristotle, "some stars are seen in Egypt or at Cyprus, but are not seen in the countries to the north of these; and the stars that in the north are visible while they make a complete circuit, there 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 part of 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 neighbourhood of the Pillars of Hercules with that towards India, and who assert that in this way the sea is_ ONE, do not assert things very improbable."[448] It thus appears that more than eighteen centuries before Columbus took counsel of Toscanelli, "those persons" to whom Aristotle alludes were discussing, as a matter of theory, this same subject. Eratosthenes held that it would be easy enough to sail from Spain to India on the same parallel were it not for the vast extent of the Atlantic ocean.[449] On the other hand, Seneca maintained that the distance was probably not so very great, and that with favouring winds a ship might make the voyage in a few days.[450] In one of his tragedies Seneca has a striking passage[451] which has been repeatedly quoted as referring to the discovery of America, and is certainly one of the most notable instances of prophecy on record. There will come a time, he says, in the later years, when Ocean shall loosen the bonds by which we have been confined, when an immense land shall lie revealed, and Tethys shall disclose new worlds, and Thule will no longer be the most remote of countries. In Strabo there is a passage, less commonly noticed, which hits the truth--as we know it to-day--even more closely. Having argued that the total length of the Inhabited World is only about a third part of the circumference of the earth in the temperate zone, he suggests it as possible, or even probable, that within this space there may be another Inhabited World, or even more than one; but such places would be inhabited by different races of men, with whom the geographer, whose task it is to describe the _known_ world, has no concern.[452] Nothing could better illustrate the philosophical character of Strabo's mind. In such speculations, so far as his means of verification went, he was situated somewhat as we are to-day with regard to the probable inhabitants of Venus or Mars.

[Footnote 447: It was formerly assumed, without hesitation,
that the letter from Toscanelli to Columbus was written and
sent in 1474. The reader will observe, however, that while the
enclosed letter to Martinez is dated June 25, 1474, the letter
to Columbus, in which it was enclosed, has no date. But
according to the text as given in _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap.
viii., this would make no difference, for the letter to
Columbus was sent only a few days later than the original
letter to Martinez: "I send you a copy of another letter, which
I wrote a few days ago (_alquanti giorni fa_) to a friend of
mine, a gentleman of the household of the king of Portugal
before the wars of Castile, in reply to another," etc. This
friend, Martinez, had evidently been a gentleman of the
household of Alfonso V. since before the civil wars of Castile,
which in 1474 had been going on intermittently for nine years
under the feeble Henry IV., who did not die until December 12,
1474. Toscanelli apparently means to say "a friend of mine who
has for ten years or more been a gentleman of the royal
household," etc.; only instead of mentioning the number of
years, he alludes less precisely (as most people, and perhaps
especially old people, are apt to do) to the most notable,
mentionable, and glaring fact in the history of the Peninsula
for that decade,--namely, the civil wars of Castile. As if an
American writer in 1864 had said, "a friend of mine, who has
been secretary to A. B. since before the war," instead of
saying "for four years or more." This is the only reasonable
interpretation of the phrase as it stands above, and it was
long ago suggested by Humboldt (_Examen critique_, tom. i. p.
225). Italian and Spanish writers of that day, however, were
lavish with their commas and sprinkled them in pretty much at
haphazard. In this case Ferdinand's translator, Ulloa,
sprinkled in one comma too many, and it fell just in front of
the clause "before the wars of Castile;" so that Toscanelli's
sentence was made to read as follows: "I send you a copy of
another letter, which I wrote a few days ago to a friend of
mine, a gentleman of the household of the king of Portugal,
before the wars of Castile, in reply to another," etc. Now this
unhappy comma, coming after the word "Portugal," has caused
ream after ream of good paper to be inked up in discussion, for
it has led some critics to understand the sentence as follows:
"I send you a copy of another letter, which I wrote a few days
ago, before the wars of Castile, to a friend of mine," etc.
This reading brought things to a pretty pass. Evidently a
letter dated June 25, 1474, could not have been written before
the civil wars of Castile, which began in 1465. It was
therefore assumed that the phrase must refer to the "War of
Succession" between Castile and Portugal (in some ways an
outgrowth from the civil wars of Castile) which began in May,
1475, and ended in September, 1479. M. d'Avezac thinks that the
letter to Columbus must have been written after the latter
date, or more than five years later than the enclosed letter.
M. Harrisse is somewhat less exacting, and is willing to admit
that it may have been written at any time after this war had
fairly begun,--say in the summer of 1475, not more than a year
or so later than the enclosed letter. Still he is disposed on
some accounts to put the date as late as 1482. The phrase
_alquanti giorni fa_ will not allow either of these
interpretations. It means "a few days ago," and cannot possibly
mean a year ago, still less five years ago. The Spanish
retranslator from Ulloa renders it exactly _algunos dias há_
(Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. ii. p. 7), and Humboldt (_loc.
cit._) has it _il y a quelques jours_. If we could be sure that
the expression is a correct rendering of the lost Latin
original, we might feel sure that the letter to Columbus must
have been written as early as the beginning of August, 1474.
But now the great work of Las Casas, after lying in manuscript
for 314 years, has at length been published in 1875. Las Casas
gives a Spanish version of the Toscanelli letters (_Historia de
las Indias_, tom. i. pp. 92-97), which is unquestionably older
than Ulloa's Italian version, though perhaps not necessarily
more accurate. The phrase in Las Casas is not _algunos dias
há_, but _há dias_, i. e. not "a few days ago," but "some time
ago." Just which expression Toscanelli used cannot be
determined unless somebody is fortunate enough to discover the
lost Latin original. The phrase in Las Casas admits much more
latitude of meaning than the other. I should suppose that _há
dias_ might refer to an event a year or two old, which would
admit of the interpretation considered admissible by M.
Harrisse. I should hardly suppose that it could refer to an
event five or six years old; if Toscanelli had been referring
in 1479 or 1480 to a letter written in 1474, his phrase would
probably have appeared in Spanish as _algunos años há_, i. e.
"a few years ago," not as _há dias_. M. d'Avezac's hypothesis
seems to me not only inconsistent with the phrase _há dias_,
but otherwise improbable. The frightful anarchy in Castile,
which began in 1465 with the attempt to depose Henry IV. and
alter the succession, was in great measure a series of ravaging
campaigns and raids, now more general, now more local, and can
hardly be said to have come to an end before Henry's death in
1474. The war which began with the invasion of Castile by
Alfonso V. of Portugal, in May, 1475, was simply a later phase
of the same series of conflicts, growing out of disputed claims
to the crown and rivalries among great barons, in many respects
similar to the contemporary anarchy in England called the Wars
of the Roses. It is not likely that Toscanelli, writing at any
time between 1475 and 1480, and speaking of the "wars of
Castile" in the plural, could have had 1474 in his mind as a
date previous to those wars; to his mind it would have rightly
appeared as a date in the midst of them. In any case,
therefore, his reference must be to a time before 1465, and
Humboldt's interpretation is in all probability correct. The
letter from Toscanelli to Columbus was probably written within
a year or two after June 25, 1474.

On account of the vast importance of the Toscanelli letters,
and because the early texts are found in books which the reader
is not likely to have at hand, I have given them entire in the
Appendix at the end of this work.]

[Footnote 448: [Greek: Hôste ta hyper tês kephalês astra
megalên echein tên metabolên, kai mê tauta phainesthai pros
arkton te kai mesêmbrian metabainousin; enioi gar en Aigyptô
men asteres horôntai, kai peri Kypron; en tois pros arkton de
chôrious ouch horôntai kai ta dia pantos en tois pros arkton
phainomena tôn astrôn, en ekeinois tois topois poieitai dysin.
Hôst' ou monon ek toutôn dêlon peripheres on to schêma tês gês,
alla kai sphairas ou megalês. Ou gar an houtô tachy epidêlon
epoiei methistemenois houtô brachy. Dio tous hypolambanontas
synaptein ton peri tas Hêrakleious stêlas topon tô peri tên
Indikên, kai touton ton tropon einai tên Thalattan mian, mê
lian hypolambanein apista dokein.] Aristotle, _De Coelo_, ii.
14. He goes on to say that "those persons" allege the existence
of elephants alike in Mauretania and in India in proof of their
theory.]

[Footnote 449: [Greek: Hôst' ei mê to megethos tou Atlantikou
pelagous ekôlye, kan plein hêmas ek tês Ibêrias eis tên Indikên
dia tou autou parallêlou.] Strabo, i. 4, § 6.]

[Footnote 450: "Quantum enim est, quod ab ultimis litoribus
Hispaniæ usque ad Indos jacet? Paucissimorum dierum spatium, si
navem suus ventus implevit." Seneca, _Nat. Quæst._, i. præf. §
11.]

[Footnote 451:

Venient annis sæcula seris,
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus,
Tethysque novos detegat orbes,
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.
Seneca, _Medea_, 376.

In the copy of Seneca's tragedies, published at Venice in
1510, bought at Valladolid by Ferdinand Columbus in March,
1518, for 4 reals (plus 2 reals for binding), and now to be
seen at the Biblioteca Colombina, there is a marginal note
attached to these verses: "hæc prophetia expleta [=e] per
patr[=e] meuz[=z] cristofor[=u] col[=o] almir[=a]t[=e] anno
1492."]

[Footnote 452: [Greek: Kaloumen gar oikoumenên hên oikoumen kai
gnôrizomen; endeketai de kai en tê autê eukratô zônê kai dyo
oikoumenas einai ê kai pleious.] Strabo, i. 4, § 6; [Greek: kai
gar ei houtôs echei, ouch hypo toutôn ge oikeitai tôn par'
hêmin; all' ekeinên allên oikoumenên theteon. hoper esti
pithanon. Hêmin de ta en autê tauta lekteon.] Id. ii. 5, § 13.
This has always seemed to me one of the most remarkable
anticipations of modern truth in all ancient literature. Mr.
Bunbury thinks it may have suggested the famous verses of
Seneca just quoted. _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. ii. p.
224.]

[Sidenote: Opinions of Christian writers.]

[Sidenote: Roger Bacon.]

[Sidenote: The "Imago Mundi" of Petrus Alliacus.]

Early in the Christian era we are told by an eminent Greek astronomer that the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was accepted by all competent persons except the Epicureans.[453] Among the Fathers of the Church there was some difference of opinion; while in general they denied the existence of human beings beyond the limits of their Oecumene, or Inhabited World, this denial did not necessarily involve disbelief in the globular figure of the earth.[454] The views of the great mass of people, and of the more ignorant of the clergy, down to the time of Columbus, were probably well represented in the book of Cosmas Indicopleustes already cited.[455] Nevertheless among the more enlightened clergy the views of the ancient astronomers were never quite forgotten, and in the great revival of intellectual life in the thirteenth century the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was again brought prominently into the foreground. We find Dante basing upon it the cosmical theory elaborated in his immortal poem.[456] In 1267 Roger Bacon--stimulated, no doubt, by the reports of the ocean east of Cathay--collected passages from ancient writers to prove that the distance from Spain to the eastern shores of Asia could not be very great. Bacon's argument and citations were copied in an extremely curious book, the "Imago Mundi," published in 1410 by the Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, better known by the Latinized form of his name as Petrus Alliacus. This treatise, which throughout the fifteenth century enjoyed a great reputation, was a favourite book with Columbus, and his copy of it, covered with marginal annotations in his own handwriting, is still preserved among the priceless treasures of the Biblioteca Colombina.[457] He found in it strong confirmation of his views, and it is not impossible that the reading of it may have first put such ideas into his head. Such a point, however, can hardly be determined. As I have already observed, these ideas were in the air. What Columbus did was not to originate them, but to incarnate them in facts and breathe into them the breath of life. It was one thing to suggest, as a theoretical possibility, that Cathay might be reached by sailing westward; and it was quite another thing to prove that the enterprise was feasible with the ships and instruments then at command.

[Footnote 453: [Greek: Hoi de hêmeteroi] [i. e. the Stoics]
[Greek: kai apo mathêmatôn pantes, kai hoi pleious tôn apo tou
Sôkratikou didaskaleiou sphairikon einai to schêma tês gês
diebebaiôsanto.] Cleomedes, i. 8; cf. Lucretius, _De Rerum
Nat._, i. 1052-1082; Stobæus, _Eclog._ i. 19; Plutarch, _De
facie in Orbe Luna_, cap. vii.]

[Footnote 454: See Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, xvi. 9;
Lactantius, _Inst. Div._, iii. 23; Jerome, _Comm. in Ezechiel_,
i. 6; Whewell's _History of the Inductive Sciences_, vol i. p.
196.]

[Footnote 455: See above, p. 266.]

[Footnote 456: For an account of the cosmography of the Divine
Comedy, illustrated with interesting diagrams, see Artaud de
Montor, _Histoire de Dante Alighieri_, Paris, 1841.]

[Footnote 457: It was first printed without indication of place
or date, but probably the place was Paris and the date
somewhere from 1483 to 1490. Manuscript copies were very
common, and Columbus probably knew the book long before that
time. There is a good account of it in Humboldt's _Examen
critique_, tom. i. pp. 61-76, 96-108. Humboldt thinks that such
knowledge as Columbus had of the opinions of ancient writers
was chiefly if not wholly obtained from Alliacus. It is
doubtful if Columbus had any direct acquaintance with the works
of Roger Bacon, but he knew the _Liber Cosmographicus_ of
Albertus Magnus and the _Speculum Naturale_ of Vincent de
Beauvais (both about 1250), and drew encouragement from them.
He also knew the book of Mandeville, first printed in French at
Lyons in 1480, and a Latin translation of Marco Polo, published
in 1485, a copy of which, with marginal MS. notes, is now in
the Colombina.]

[Sidenote: Ancient estimates of the size of the globe and the length of the Oecumene.]

The principal consideration, of course, was the distance to be traversed; and here Columbus was helped by an error which he shared with many geographers of his day. He somewhat underestimated the size of the earth, and at the same time greatly overestimated the length of Asia. The first astronomer to calculate, by scientific methods, the circumference of our planet at the equator was Eratosthenes (B. C. 276-196), and he came--all things considered--fairly near the truth; he made it 25,200 geographical miles (of ten stadia), or about one seventh too great. The true figure is 21,600 geographical miles, equivalent to 24,899 English statute miles.[458] Curiously enough, Posidonius, in revising this calculation a century later, reduced the figure to 18,000 miles, or about one seventh too small. The circumference in the latitude of Gibraltar he estimated at 14,000 miles; the length of the Oecumene, or Inhabited World, he called 7,000; the distance across the Atlantic from the Spanish strand to the eastern shores of Asia was the other 7,000. The error of Posidonius was partially rectified by Ptolemy, who made the equatorial circumference 20,400 geographical miles, and the length of a degree 56.6 miles.[459] This estimate, in which the error was less than one sixteenth, prevailed until modern times. Ptolemy also supposed the Inhabited World to extend over about half the circumference of the temperate zone, but the other half he imagined as consisting largely of bad lands, quagmires, and land-locked seas, instead of a vast and open ocean.[460]

[Footnote 458: See Herschel's _Outlines of Astronomy_, p. 140.
For an account of the method employed by Eratosthenes, see
Delambre, _Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne_, tom. i. pp.
86-91; Lewis, _Astronomy of the Ancients_, p. 198.]

[Footnote 459: See Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_,
vol. ii. pp. 95-97, 546-579; Müller and Donaldson, _History of
Greek Literature_, vol. iii. p. 268.]

[Footnote 460: Strabo, in arguing against this theory of bad
lands, etc., as obstacles to ocean navigation--a theory which
seems to be at least as old as Hipparchus--has a passage which
finely expresses the loneliness of the sea:--[Greek: Hoite gar
periplein epicheirêsantes, eita anastrepsantes, ouch hypo
êpeirou tinos antipiptousês kai kôlyousês, ton epekeina ploun
anakrousthênai phasin, alla hypo aporias kai erêmias, ouden
hêtton tês thalattês echousês ton poron] (lib. i. cap. i. § 8).
When one thinks of this [Greek: aporia] and [Greek: erêmia],
one fancies oneself far out on the Atlantic, alone in an open
boat on a cloudy night, bewildered and hopeless.]

[Sidenote: Toscanelli's calculation of the size of the earth,]

[Sidenote: and of the position of Cipango.]

Ptolemy's opinion as to the length of the Inhabited World was considerably modified in the minds of those writers who toward the end of the Middle Ages had been strongly impressed by the book of Marco Polo. Among these persons was Toscanelli. This excellent astronomer calculated the earth's equatorial circumference at almost exactly the true figure; his error was less than 124 English miles in excess. The circumference in the latitude of Lisbon he made 26 × 250 × 3 = 19,500 miles.[461] Two thirds of this figure, or 13,000 miles, he allowed for the length of the Oecumene, from Lisbon eastward to Quinsay (i. e. Hang-chow), leaving 6,500 for the westward voyage from Lisbon to Quinsay. Thus Toscanelli elongated Asia by nearly the whole width of the Pacific ocean. His Quinsay would come about 130° W., a few hundred miles west of the mouth of the Columbia river. Zaiton (i. e. Chang-chow), the easternmost city in Toscanelli's China, would come not far from the tip end of Lower California. Thus the eastern coast of Cipango, about a thousand miles east from Zaiton, would fall in the Gulf of Mexico somewhere near the ninety-third meridian, and that island, being over a thousand miles in length north and south, would fill up the space between the parallel of New Orleans and that of the city of Guatemala. The westward voyage from the Canaries to Cipango, according to Toscanelli, would be rather more than 3,250 miles, but at a third of the distance out he placed the imaginary island of "Antilia," with which he seems to have supposed Portuguese sailors to be familiar.[462] "So through the unknown parts of the route," said the venerable astronomer, "the stretches of sea to be traversed are not great,"--not much more than 2,000 English miles, not so long as the voyage from Lisbon to the Guinea coast.

[Sidenote: Columbus's opinion of the size of the globe, the length of the Oecumene, and the width of the Atlantic ocean.]

[Sidenote: The fourth book of Esdras.]

While Columbus attached great importance to these calculations and carried Toscanelli's map with him upon his first voyage, he improved somewhat upon the estimates of distance, and thus made his case still more hopeful. Columbus was not enough of an astronomer to adopt Toscanelli's improved measurement of the size of the earth. He accepted Ptolemy's figure of 20,400 geographical miles for the equatorial girth,[463] which would make the circumference in the latitude of the Canaries about 18,000; and Columbus, on the strength of sundry passages from ancient authors which he found in Alliacus (cribbed from Roger Bacon), concluded that six sevenths of this circumference must be occupied by the Oecumene, including Cipango, so that in order to reach that wonderful island he would only have to sail over one seventh, or not much more than 2,500 miles from the Canaries.[464] An authority upon which he placed great reliance in this connection was the fourth book of Esdras, which although not a canonical part of the Bible was approved by holy men, and which expressly asserted that six parts of the earth (i. e. of the length of the Oecumene, or north temperate zone) are inhabited and only the seventh part covered with water. From the general habit of Columbus's mind it may be inferred that it was chiefly upon this scriptural authority that he based his confident expectation of finding land soon after accomplishing seven hundred leagues from the Canaries. Was it not as good as written in the Bible that land was to be found there?

[Footnote 461: See above, p. 360. Toscanelli's mile was nearly
equivalent to the English statute mile. See the very important
note in Winsor, _Narr. and Crit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 51.]

[Footnote 462: The reader will also notice upon Toscanelli's
map the islands of Brazil and St. Brandan. For an account of
all these fabulous islands see Winsor, _Narr. and Crit. Hist._,
vol. i. pp. 46-51. The name of "Antilia" survives in the name
"Antilles," applied since about 1502 to the West India islands.
All the islands west of Toscanelli's ninetieth meridian belong
in the Pacific. He drew them from his understanding of the
descriptions of Marco Polo, Friar Odoric, and other travellers.
These were the islands supposed, rightly, though vaguely, to
abound in spices.]

[Footnote 463: Columbus was confirmed in this opinion by the
book of the Arabian astronomer Alfragan, written about A. D.
950, a Latin translation of which appeared in 1447. There is a
concise summary of it in Delambre, _Histoire de l'astronomie du
Moyen Âge_, pp. 63-73. Columbus proceeded throughout on the
assumption that the length of a degree at the equator is 56.6
geographical miles, instead of the correct figure 60. This
would oblige him to reduce all Toscanelli's figures by about
six per cent., to begin with. Upon this point we have the
highest authority, that of Columbus himself, in an autograph
marginal note in his copy of the _Imago Mundi_, where he
expresses himself most explicitly: "Nota quod sepius navigando
ex Ulixbona ad Austrum in Guineam, notavi cum diligentia viam,
ut solitum naucleris et malineriis, et preteria accepi
altitudinem solis cum quadrante et aliis instrumentis plures
vices, et inveni concordare cum Alfragano, videlicet respondere
quemlibet gradum milliariis 56-2/3. Quare ad hanc mensuram
fidem adhibendam. Tunc igitur possumus dicere quod circuitus
Terræ sub aræ equinoctiali est 20,400 milliariorum. Similiter
que id invenit magister Josephus phisicus et astrologus et alii
plures missi specialiter ad hoc per serenissimum regem
Portugaliæ," etc.; _anglicè_, "Observe that in sailing often
from Lisbon southward to Guinea, I carefully marked the course,
according to the custom of skippers and mariners, and moreover
I took the sun's altitude several times with a quadrant and
other instruments, and in agreement with Alfragan I found that
each degree [i. e. of longitude, measured on a great circle]
answers to 56-2/3 miles. So that one may rely upon this
measure. We may therefore say that the equatorial circumference
of the earth is 20,400 miles. A similar result was obtained by
Master Joseph, the physicist [or, perhaps, physician] and
astronomer, and several others sent for this special purpose by
the most gracious king of Portugal."--Master Joseph was
physician to John II. of Portugal, and was associated with
Martin Behaim in the invention of an improved astrolabe which
greatly facilitated ocean navigation.--The exact agreement with
Ptolemy's figures shows that by a mile Columbus meant a
geographical mile, equivalent to ten Greek stadia.]

[Footnote 464: One seventh of 18,000 is 2,571 geographical
miles, equivalent to 2,963 English miles. The actual length of
Columbus's first voyage, from last sight of land in the
Canaries to first sight of land in the Bahamas, was according
to his own dead reckoning about 3,230 geographical miles. See
his journal in Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. i. pp. 6-20.

I give here in parallel columns the passage from Bacon and the
one from Alliacus upon which Columbus placed so much reliance.
In the Middle Ages there was a generous tolerance of much that
we have since learned to stigmatize as plagiarism.

From Roger Bacon, _Opus From Petrus Alliacus, _De
Majus_ (A. D. 1267), London, imagine Mundi_ (A. D. 1410),
1733, ed. Jebb, p. 183:--"Sed Paris, cir. 1490, cap. viii. fol.
Aristoteles vult in fine secundi 13 b:--"Summus Aristoteles
Coeli et Mundi quod plus [terræ] dicit quod mare parvum est inter
habitetur quam quarta pars. Et finem Hispaniæ a parte occidentis
Averroes hoc confirmat. Dicit et inter principium Indiæ
Aristoteles quod mare parvum a parte orientis, et vult quod
est inter finem Hispaniæ a parte plus habitetur quam quarta
occidentis et inter principium pars, et Averroes hoc confirmat.
Indiæ a parte orientis. Et Seneca, Insuper Seneca libro
libro quinto Naturalium, quinto Naturalium, dicit quod
dicit quod mare hoc est navigabile mare est navigabile in paucis
in paucissimis diebus si diebus si ventus sit conveniens.
ventus sit conveniens. Et Plinius Et Plinius docet in Naturalibus,
docet in Naturalibus quod libro secundo, quod navigatum
navigatum est a sinu Arabico est a sinu Arabico usque ad
usque ad Gades: unde refert Gades Herculis non multum
quendam fugisse a rego suo magno tempore,
præ timore et intravit sinum
Maris Rubri ... qui circiter
spatium navigationis annualis
distat a Mari Indico: ... ex
quo patet principium Indiæ in
oriente multum a nobis distare
et ab Hispania, postquam tantum
distat a principio Arabiæ
versus Indiam. A fine Hispaniæ unde concludunt
sub terra tam parvum mare est aliqui, quod mare non est
quod non potest cooperire tres tantum quod possit cooperire
quartas terræ. Et hoc per tres quartas terræ. Accedit ad
auctoritatem alterius considerationis hoc auctoritas Esdræ libro suo
probatur. Nam Esdras quarto, dicentis quod sex partes
dicit quarto libro, quod sex
partes terræ sunt habitatæ et terrae sunt habitatæ et septima
septima est cooperta aquis. Et est cooperta aquis,
ne aliquis impediat hanc auctoritatem,
dicens quod liber ille
est apocryphus et ignotæ auctoritatis,
dicendum est quod cujus libri auctoritatem sancti
sancti habuerunt illum librum habuerunt in reverentia."
in usu et confirmant veritates
sacras per illum librum."

Columbus must either have carried the book of Alliacus with him
on his voyages, or else have read his favourite passages until
he knew them by heart, as may be seen from the following
passage of a letter, written from Hispaniola in 1498 to
Ferdinand and Isabella (Navarrete, tom i. p. 261):--"El
Aristotel dice que este mundo es pequeño y es el agua muy poca,
y que facilmente se puede pasar de España à las Indias, y esto
confirma el Avenryz [Averroes], y le alega el cardenal Pedro de
Aliaco, autorizando este decir y aquel de Seneca, el qual
conforma con estos.... À esto trac una autoridad de Esdras del
tercero libro suyo, adonde dice que de siete partes del mundo
las seis son descubiertas y la una es cubierta de agua, la cual
autoridad es aprobada por Santos, los cuales dan autoridad al
3^o é 4^o libro de Esdras, ansí come es S. Agustin é S.
Ambrosio en su _exámeron_," etc.--"Singular period," exclaims
Humboldt, "when a mixture of testimonies from Aristotle and
Averroes, Esdras and Seneca, on the small extent of the ocean
compared with the magnitude of continental land, afforded to
monarchs guarantees for the safety and expediency of costly
enterprises!" _Cosmos_, tr. Sabine, vol. ii. p. 250. The
passages cited in this note may be found in Humboldt, _Examen
critique_, tom. i. pp. 65-69. Another interesting passage from
_Imago Mundi_, cap. xv., is quoted on p. 78 of the same work.]

[Sidenote: Fortunate mixture of truth and error.]

[Sidenote: The whole point and purport of Columbus's scheme.]

Thus did Columbus arrive at his decisive conclusion, estimating the distance across the Sea of Darkness to Japan at something less than the figure which actually expresses the distance to the West Indies. Many a hopeful enterprise has been ruined by errors in figuring, but this wrong calculation was certainly a great help to Columbus. When we consider how difficult he found it to obtain men and ships for a voyage supposed to be not more than 2,500 miles in this new and untried direction, we must admit that his chances would have been poor indeed if he had proposed to sail westward on the Sea of Darkness for nearly 12,000 miles, the real distance from the Canaries to Japan. It was a case where the littleness of the knowledge was not a dangerous but a helpful thing. If instead of the somewhat faulty astronomy of Ptolemy and the very hazy notions prevalent about "the Indies," the correct astronomy of Toscanelli had prevailed and had been joined to an accurate knowledge of eastern Asia, Columbus would surely never have conceived his great scheme, and the discovery of America would probably have waited to be made by accident.[465] The whole point of his scheme lay in its promise of a shorter route to the Indies than that which the Portuguese were seeking by way of Guinea. Unless it was probable that it could furnish such a shorter route, there was no reason for such an extraordinary enterprise.

[Footnote 465: See below, vol. ii. p. 96.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Columbus's speculations on climate.]

[Sidenote: His voyage to Guinea.]

[Sidenote: His voyage into the Arctic ocean, 1477.]

The years between 1474 and 1480 were not favourable for new maritime ventures on the part of the Portuguese government. The war with Castile absorbed the energies of Alfonso V. as well as his money, and he was badly beaten into the bargain. About this time Columbus was writing a treatise on "the five habitable zones," intended to refute the old notions about regions so fiery or so frozen as to be inaccessible to man. As this book is lost we know little or nothing of its views and speculations, but it appears that in writing it Columbus utilized sundry observations made by himself in long voyages into the torrid and arctic zones. He spent some time at the fortress of San Jorge de la Mina, on the Gold Coast, and made a study of that equinoctial climate.[466] This could not have been earlier than 1482, the year in which the fortress was built. Five years before this he seems to have gone far in the opposite direction. In a fragment of a letter or diary, preserved by his son and by Las Casas, he says:--"In the month of February, 1477, I sailed a hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule, [to?] an island of which the south part is in latitude 73°, not 63°, as some say; and it [i. e. Thule] does not lie within Ptolemy's western boundary, but much farther west. And to this island, which is as big as England, the English go with their wares, especially from Bristol. When I was there the sea was not frozen. In some places the tide rose and fell twenty-six fathoms. It is true that the Thule mentioned by Ptolemy lies where he says it does, and this by the moderns is called Frislanda."[467]

[Footnote 466: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. iv.; Las Casas,
_Historia_, tom. i. p. 49.]

[Footnote 467: "Io navigai l' anno M CCCC LXXVII nel mese di
Febraio oltra Tile isola cento leghe, la cui parte Australe è
lontana dall' Equinottiale settantatrè gradi, e non
sessantatrè, come alcuni vogliono; nè giace dentro della linea,
che include l' Occidente di Tolomeo, ma è molto più
Occidentale. Et a questa isola, che è tanto grande, come
l'Inghilterra, vanno gl' Inglesi con le loro mercatantie,
specialmente quelli di Bristol. Et al tempo che io vi andai,
non era congelato il mare, quantunque vi fossero si grosse
maree, che in alcuni luoghi ascendeva ventisei braccia, e
discendeva altretanti in altezza. È bene il vero, che Tile,
quella, di cui Tolomeo fa mentione, giace dove egli dice; &
questa da' moderni è chiamata Frislanda." _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, cap. iv. In the original edition of 1571, there
are no quotation-marks; and in some modern editions, where
these are supplied, the quotation is wrongly made to end just
before the last sentence, so as to make it appear like a gloss
of Ferdinand's. This is, however, impossible. Ferdinand died in
1539, and the Zeno narrative of Frislanda was not published
till 1558, so that the only source from which that name could
have come into his book was his father's document. The
genuineness of the passage is proved by its recurrence, almost
word for word, in Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. i. p. 48.]

[Sidenote: He may have reached Jan Mayen island,]

[Sidenote: and stopped at Iceland.]

Taken as it stands this passage is so bewildering that we can hardly suppose it to have come in just this shape from the pen of Columbus. It looks as if it had been abridged from some diary of his by some person unfamiliar with the Arctic seas; and I have ventured to insert in brackets a little preposition which may perhaps help to straighten out the meaning. By Thule Columbus doubtless means Iceland, which lies between latitudes 64° and 67°, and it looks as if he meant to say that he ran beyond it as far as the little island, just a hundred leagues from Iceland and in latitude 71°, since discovered by Jan Mayen in 1611. The rest of the paragraph is more intelligible. It is true that Iceland lies thirty degrees farther west than Ptolemy placed Thule; and that for a century before the discovery of the Newfoundland fisheries the English did much fishing in the waters about Iceland, and carried wares thither, especially from Bristol.[468] There can be no doubt that by Frislanda Columbus means the Færoe islands,[469] which do lie in the latitude though not in the longitude mentioned by Ptolemy. As for the voyage into the Jan Mayen waters in February, it would be dangerous but by no means impossible.[470] In another letter Columbus mentions visiting England, apparently in connection with this voyage,[471] and it is highly probable that he went in an English ship from Bristol.

[Footnote 468: See Thorold Rogers, _The Economic Interpretation
of History_, London, 1888, pp. 103, 319.]

[Footnote 469: See above, p. 236.]

[Footnote 470: See the graphic description of a voyage in these
waters in March, 1882, in Nansen's _The First Crossing of
Greenland_, London, 1890, vol. i. pp. 149-152.]

[Footnote 471: "E vidi tutto il Levante, e tutto il Ponente,
che si dice per andare verso il Settentrione, cioè
l'Inghilterra, e ho camminato per la Guinea." _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, cap. iv.]

[Sidenote: The hypothesis that Columbus "must have" heard and understood the story of the Vinland voyages.]

The object of Columbus in making these long voyages to the equator and into the polar circle was, as he tells us, to gather observations upon climate. From the circumstance of his having made a stop at some point in Iceland, it was conjectured by Finn Magnusson that Columbus might have learned something about Vinland which served to guide him to his own enterprise or to encourage him in it. Starting from this suggestion, it has been argued[472] that Columbus must have read the geographical appendix to Adam of Bremen's "Ecclesiastical History;" that he must have understood, as we now do, the reference therein made to Vinland; that he made his voyage to Iceland in order to obtain further information; that he there not only heard about Vinland and other localities mentioned in the sagas, but also mentally placed them about where they were placed in 1837 by Professor Rafn; that, among other things, he thus obtained a correct knowledge of the width of the Atlantic ocean in latitude 28° N.; and that during fifteen subsequent years of weary endeavour to obtain ships and men for his westward voyage, he sedulously refrained from using the most convincing argument at his command,--namely that land of continental dimensions had actually been found (though by a very different route) in the direction which he indicated.

[Footnote 472: See Anderson's _America not discovered by
Columbus_, Chicago, 1874; 3d ed. enlarged, Chicago, 1883.]

[Sidenote: That hypothesis has no evidence in its favour.]

I have already given an explanation of the process by which Columbus arrived at the firm belief that by sailing not more than about 2,500 geographical miles due west from the Canaries he should reach the coast of Japan. Every step of that explanation is sustained by documentary evidence, and as his belief is thus completely accounted for, the hypothesis that he may have based it upon information obtained in Iceland is, to say the least, superfluous. We do not need it in order to explain his actions, and accordingly his actions do not afford a presumption in favour of it. There is otherwise no reason, of course, for refusing to admit that he might have obtained information in Iceland, were there any evidence that he did. But not a scrap of such evidence has ever been produced. Every step in the Scandinavian hypothesis is a pure assumption.

[Sidenote: It is not probable that Columbus knew of Adam of Bremen's allusion to Vinland,]

[Sidenote: or that he would have understood it if he had read it.]

First it is assumed that Columbus _must_ have read the appendix to Adam of Bremen's history. But really, while it is not impossible that he should have read that document, it is, on the whole, improbable. The appendix was first printed in Lindenbrog's edition, published at Leyden, in 1595. The eminent Norwegian historian, Gustav Storm, finds that in the sixteenth century just six MSS. of Adam's works can now be traced. Of these, two were preserved in Denmark, two in Hamburg, one had _perhaps_ already wandered southward to Leyden, and one as far as Vienna. Dr. Storm, therefore, feels sure that Columbus never saw Adam's mention of Vinland, and pithily adds that "had Columbus known it, it would not have been able to show him the way to the West Indies, but perhaps to the North Pole."[473] From the account of this mention and its context, which I have already given,[474] it is in the highest degree improbable that if Columbus had read the passage he could have understood it as bearing upon his own problem. There is, therefore, no ground for the assumption that Columbus went to Iceland in order to make inquiries about Vinland.

[Footnote 473: "Det er derfor sikkert, at Columbus ikke, som
nogle har formodet, kan have kjendt Adam af Bremens Beretning
on Vinland; vi kan gjerne tilføie, at havde Columbus kjendt
den, vilde den ikke have kunnet vise ham Vei til Vesten
(Indien), men kanske til Nordpolen." _Aarbøger for Nordisk
Oldkyndighed_, 1887, ii. 2, p. 301.]

[Footnote 474: See above, p. 210.]

[Sidenote: It is doubtful if Columbus would have stumbled upon the story in Iceland.]

It may be argued that even if he did not go for such a purpose, nevertheless when once there he could hardly have failed incidentally to get the information. This, however, is not at all clear. Observe that our sole authority for the journey to Iceland is the passage above quoted at second-hand from Columbus himself; and there is nothing in it to show whether he staid a few hours or several weeks ashore, or met with any one likely to be possessed of the knowledge in question. The absence of any reference to Vinland in the Zeno narrative is an indication that the memory of it had faded away before 1400, and it was not distinctly and generally revived until the time of Torfæus in 1705.[475]

[Footnote 475: In 1689 the Swedish writer, Ole Rudbeck, could
not understand Adam of Bremen's allusion to Vinland. The
passage is instructive. Rudbeck declares that in speaking of a
wine-growing country near to the Arctic ocean, Adam must have
been misled by some poetical or figurative phrase; he was
deceived either by his trust in the Danes, or by his own
credulity, for he manifestly refers to _Finland_, for which the
form _Vinland_ does not once occur in Sturleson, etc.:--"Ne
tamen poetis solis hoc loquendi genus in suis regionum
laudationibus familiare fuisse quis existimet, sacras adeat
literas quæ Palæstinæ fæcunditatem appellatione _fluentorum
lactis & mellis_ designant. Tale aliquid, sine omne dubio,
Adamo Bremensi quondam persuaserat insulam esse in ultimo
septentrione sitam, mari glaciali vicinam, vini feracem, & ea
propter fide tamen Danorum, _Vinlandiam_ dictam prout ipse ...
fateri non dubitat. Sed deceptum eum hae sive Danorum fide,
sive credulitate sua planum facit affine isti vocabulum
_Finlandiæ_ provinciæ ad Regnum nostrum pertinentis, pro quo
apud Snorronem & in Hist. Regum non semel occurrit _Vinlandiæ_
nomen, cujus promontorium ad ultimum septentrionem & usque ad
mare glaciale sese extendit." Rudbeck, _Atland eller Manheim_,
Upsala, cir. 1689, p. 291.]

[Sidenote: If he had heard it, he would probably have classed it with such tales as that of St. Brandan's isle.]

But to hear about Vinland was one thing, to be guided by it to Japan was quite another affair. It was not the mention of timber and peltries and Skrælings that would fire the imagination of Columbus; his dreams were of stately cities with busy wharves where ships were laden with silks and jewels, and of Oriental magnates decked out with "barbaric pearl and gold," dwelling in pavilions of marble and jasper amid flowery gardens in "a summer fanned with spice." The mention of Vinland was no more likely to excite Columbus's attention than that of St. Brandan's isle or other places supposed to lie in the western ocean. He was after higher game.

[Sidenote: He could not have obtained from such a source his opinion of the width of the ocean.]

To suppose that Columbus, even had he got hold of the Saga of Eric the Red and conned it from beginning to end, with a learned interpreter at his elbow, could have gained from it a knowledge of the width of the Atlantic ocean, is simply preposterous. It would be impossible to extract any such knowledge from that document to-day without the aid of our modern maps. The most diligent critical study of all the Icelandic sources of information, with all the resources of modern scholarship, enables us with some confidence to place Vinland somewhere between Cape Breton and Point Judith, that is to say, somewhere between two points distant from each other more than four degrees in latitude and more than eleven degrees in longitude! When we have got thus far, knowing as we do that the coast in question belongs to the same continental system as the West Indies, we can look at our map and pick up our pair of compasses and measure the width of the ocean at the twenty-eighth parallel. But it is not the mediæval document, but our modern map that guides us to this knowledge. And yet it is innocently assumed that Columbus, without any knowledge or suspicion of the existence of America, and from such vague data concerning voyages made five hundred years before his time, by men who had no means of reckoning latitude and longitude, could have obtained his figure of 2,500 miles for the voyage from the Canaries to Japan![476] The fallacy here is that which underlies the whole Scandinavian hypothesis and many other fanciful geographical speculations. It is the fallacy of projecting our present knowledge into the past.