The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525

by Arthur James Weise

FOOTNOTES

[1] The Hebrew for man is derived from the verb (‏‎אדם‏‎), to be red.

[2] Solon, one of the seven sages of Greece, was born about the year B. C. 639, and died about the year B. C. 558.

Herodotus, the Greek historian, writing in the fifth century before the Christian era, says: “When these were subdued, and Crœsus had joined them to the Lydians, all the learned men at that time, especially those of Greece, resorted to Sardis, which had then reached a high degree of eminence. Among them was Solon, an Athenian, who, having made a code of laws for the Athenians at their request, absented himself for ten years, having sailed away under pretense of seeing the world, that he might not be compelled to abrogate any of the laws he had established: for the Athenians could not do it themselves, as they were bound by the most solemn oaths to preserve inviolate, for ten years, the institutions of Solon. Therefore, having gone abroad for these reasons, as well as to see the world, Solon had visited Amasis, in Egypt, and went from there to Crœsus, at Sardis.”—Herodotus: Clio xxix, xxx.

[3] Plutarch, the Greek biographer, says that Psenophis, the Heliopolitan, and Senchis, the Saite, the most learned of the Egyptian priests, were the persons who gave Solon this information.—Parallel Lives: Solon.

[4] “If Solon ... had not considered the writing of poetry a recreation, but had made it, as others do, an actual employment, and had completed the history which he had brought from Egypt; and had not been forced to relinquish it by seditions and many other troubles in which he found his country involved, I do not think that either Hesiod, Homer, or any other poet would have acquired more extensive fame.”—Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.

[5] Plato was born about the year B. C. 430 and died about the year B. C. 348. He traced his descent from Solon through his mother.

[6] “These very writings, indeed, were in the possession of my grandfather, and are now in mine, having been made the subject of much study during my boyhood.”—Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[7] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[8] The so-called Pillars of Hercules were the two mountains, Calpe and Abyla, on the opposite sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.

“I wonder, therefore, at those,” says Herodotus, “who have described the limits of and divided Libya, Asia, and Europe, for the difference between them is trifling: for in length Europe extends along both of them, but respecting width, it is evidently not to be compared. Libya shows itself to be surrounded by water, except so much of it as borders Asia.”—Herodotus: Melpomene xlii.

[9] Tyrrhenia or Umbria, in Italy, now Tuscany.

[10] Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.

[11] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[12] Genesis xvi. 7; xviii. 1-8, 16-33; xix. 1-22; xxxii. 1, 2.

[13] Herodotus: Euterpe cxlii, cxliv.

[14] Genesis vi. 1, 2, 4.

“Soc. Do you know that heroes are half-gods?

“Herm. What then?

“Soc. All of them were doubtless begotten either from a god falling in love with a mortal woman, or from a mortal man [falling in love] with a goddess.”

—Plato: Cratylus, or Concerning the Correct Use of Words.

[15] A stadium is equal to 600 Greek or 625 Roman feet, or to 606 feet 9 inches English measure.

[16] Respecting the names of the persons appearing in the narrative Plato observes: “We must briefly warn you not to be surprised at hearing Hellenic names given to the barbarians; the cause of this you shall now hear. Solon, intending to make use of this narrative in his poetry, made an investigation into the signification of the names, and found that the early Egyptians who recorded these facts transferred these names into their own language; and he again receiving the meaning of each name transcribed it into our tongue.”

[17] “Πᾶσα ἡ νῆσος τότε πέλαγος ἐσχεν ἑπωνυμίαν, Ἀτλαντικὸν λεχθέν.”

[18] Gadeira, an ancient city built, it is said, by the Phœnicians, fifteen centuries before the Christian era, on the site of Cadiz, Spain.

[19] Ὀρείχαλκος, ore of copper. From ὄρειος, mountain, and χαλκός, brass.

[20] The remains of mammoths or elephants, elephas primigenus, have been exhumed in different parts of the continent of America.

[21] A plethron is equal to a hundred feet.

[22] A trireme, a large-sized boat with three rows or benches of oars on its sides.

[23] “This agreement of the traditions of the most diverse peoples manifests itself in a striking manner when compared with the number assigned by the Bible to the antediluvian patriarchs. There are ten in the account in Genesis, and a singular persistence reproduces this number of ten in the legends of a very great number of nations, whose primitive ancestors are still enveloped in the mist of fables.... The preserved fragments of the celebrated historical papyrus of Turin, containing a list of Egyptian dynasties traced in hieratic writing, seem clearly to indicate that the editor of this canon gives ten gods, who in the beginning ruled men.”—Les Origines de l’Histoire d’après la Bible et les Traditions des Peuples Orientaux, par François Lenormant, professeur d’archéologie près la Bibliothèque nationale. Deuxième édition, Paris, 1880. pp. 214, 215, 227.

[24] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[25] “These figures of the mythic Egyptian chronology are still very imperfectly known to us—too little indeed to affirm any thing satisfactorily concerning the principle of their construction.... We must, therefore, wait for some new discovery, like that of a royal canon similar to the one of Turin, in good condition, before we can make a thorough examination of the principle of the cyclic periods with which Egypt began her annals.”—Les Origines de l’Histoire. Lenormant. p. 287.

[26] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[27] Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.

[28] The ships of the ancients, in the time of Herodotus, were vessels propelled by oars and sails. Describing those used by the Egyptians on the Nile, he says: “Their ships in which they convey merchandise are made of the acacia, which in shape is similar to the Cyrenæan lotus, and its exudation is gum. From this acacia they cut planks about two cubits in length, and join them together as they do bricks, building their ships in the following manner: They fasten the planks of two cubits length to stout and long ties; when they have thus built the hulls, they lay rowing benches across them. They make no use of ribs, but caulk the seams inside with byblus. They make only one rudder, and that is driven through the keel. They use a mast of acacia, and sails of byblus. These vessels cannot sail against the current of the stream unless a fair wind prevails, but are towed from the shore. They are thus carried down the stream: There is a hurdle made of tamarisk, wattled with a band of reeds, and a stone bored through the middle, of about two talents in weight; of these two, the hurdle is fastened to a cable, and let down at the prow of the vessel to be carried on by the stream; and the stone by another cable at the stern; and by this means the hurdle, by the stream bearing hard upon it, moves quickly and draws along the ‘baris’, (for this is the name given to these vessels,) but the stone, being dragged at the stern, and sunk to the bottom, keeps the vessel in its course. They have a great number of these vessels, and some of them carry many thousand talents.”—Euterpe xcvi.

The vessels of the Phœnicians were of a better build, but they also were fitted out with oars and sails.—Ezekiel xxvii. 3-9.

[29] Genesis vi. 5, 6, 7.

[30] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

Vide The Works of Plato. Bohn’s ed. London, 1849. vol. ii. Translated by Henry Davis, pp. 413-429.

[31] The date of the accession of Seti I. or Sethos I. is variously given. M. Champollion Figeac places it in 1473 B.C. Mure thinks it cannot be earlier than 1410 nor later than 1400 B.C.

[32] Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology. t. iv. pp. 1-19.

[33] Les Origines de l’Histoire. Lenormant. pp. 448, 449.

[34] Vide Historia Verdadera de la Conqvista de la Nueva-España. Escrita por el Capitan Bernal Diaz del Castillo, vno de sus Conquistadores. En Madrid, 1632.

Antiquities of Mexico: comprising fac-similes of ancient Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics, preserved in the Royal libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; in the Imperial library at Vienna; in the Vatican library; in the Borgian museum at Rome; in the library of the Institute at Bologna; and in the Bodleian library at Oxford. Together with the monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix; with their respective scales of measurements and accompanying descriptions. The whole illustrated by many valuable inedited manuscripts, by Lord Kingsborough. In nine volumes. London, 1831-1848.

[35] Now called the Shetland islands, but the name is printed on the early maps Hetland; from Swedish het, hot, and land, land. The group lies about 180 miles from Norway, between 59° 50´ and 60° 50´ north latitude.

[36] The Fer öe or Far islands lie about 170 miles northwest of the Shetland group, and are between 61° 20´ and 62° 25´ north latitude. The name is derived from fer, far, (Swedish,) and öe, islands.

[37] Iceland lies between latitude 63° 24´ and 66° 33´ N. and longitude 13° 31´ and 24° 17´ W. It is one hundred and sixty miles east of Greenland, six hundred west of Norway, and two hundred and fifty northwest of the Fer öe, or Far islands.

[38] History of the Northmen, by Henry Wheaton. London, 1831. pp. 17, 18.

Iceland, or the journal of a residence in that island, during the years 1814 and 1815, by Ebenezer Henderson, vol. i. Intro. pp. xv. and 308.

[39] “Men of experience say, who have been born in Greenland, and have recently come from Greenland, that from Stadt, in the north part of Norway, to Horns, on the east coast of Iceland, is seven days’ sailing directly westward.”—Antiqvitates Americanæ, sive scriptores septentrionales rerum Ante-Columbianarum in America. Edidit Societas Regia Antiqvariorum Septentrionalium. Hafniæ, 1837. Ivar Bardsen’s treatise. p. 302.

[40] “He who sails from Iceland [to Greenland] must steer his course from Snefelsnes, which is twelve nautical miles (tholldt soes) farther to the west than the mentioned Reychenes, and for a day and a night he will sail due west, but then he must steer to the southwest to avoid the ice that adheres to Gunnbjörn’s rocks. Then he must hold his course one day and one night to the northwest, which will bring him straight to that high land of Greenland called Hvarf, under which lie the mentioned Herjulfsnes and Sand-haffn.”

“They who wish to sail direct from Bergen [in Norway] to Greenland without touching Iceland, must sail due west until they find themselves twelve nautical miles (xii uger soes) south of Reychenes, a promontory on the south coast of Iceland, and by holding this course toward the west they will come to the high land of Greenland called Hvarf.”—Antiq. Amer. Ivar Bardsen’s treatise. pp. 304, 305; 303, 304.

[41] Bygd, inhabited land, a place of residence, an abode.

[42] Ubygd, an unpeopled tract, desert.

[43] “A day before you descry the said Hvarf you ought to see another high mountain called Hvidserk. Under these two mountains—Hvard and Hvidserk—is a promontory (nes) called Herjulfsnes, near which is a harbor called Sand-haffn.... The inhabited part of Greenland lying eastwardly, next to Herjulfsnes, is called Skagefjörd.”—Antiq. Amer. Ivar Bardsen’s treatise. pp. 304, 305.

[44] Christianity, it is said, was introduced in Iceland in the year 1000.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 10, 11, 14, and note b. The discovery of America by the Northmen. By North Ludlow Beamish. London, 1841. pp. 47, 48.

[45] The traditions of the voyages of Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, and of Leif, the son of Eric the Red, are contained in a large folio of manuscripts found in the seventeenth century, in a monastery on the island called Flatö, north of Breidafjörd, in Iceland. This book of Flatö was purchased, about the year 1660, by Bishop Brynjulf Sveinson of Skalholt, in Iceland, and was sent by him as a gift to King Frederic III. of Denmark, and is now in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. A part of the inscription on the first page of the volume bears this translation: “This book, Jónn, the son of Hakon, owns.... The priest, Jónn, the son of Thord, wrote out the narrative concerning Eric, the traveller, and the histories of each of the Olafs; and the priest, Magnus, the son of Thorhall, wrote out that which follows, also that which precedes, and illuminated the whole. God Almighty and the Holy Virgin Mary bless those who wrote and him who dictated.”

It is supposed that these traditions, which are finely engrossed in Icelandic on vellum, contained in the Codex Flateyensis, were compiled between the years 1387 and 1395.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 1-4.

[46] Thaettir af Eireki Rauda ok Graenlendingum.

[47] Bjarni leitadi Graenlands.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 17-25. Discovery of America. Beamish, pp. 47, 48.

[48] From hella, a flat stone.

Certain writers believe that Newfoundland was called Helluland by the Northmen. The island lies about six hundred miles south of Greenland.

[49] Nova Scotia is supposed by some writers to be the region named Markland by the Northmen. It is about four hundred miles southwest of Newfoundland.

[50] Hèr Hefr Graenlendinga Thátt. Antiq. Amer. pp. 26-40. Discovery of America. Beamish, pp. 59-70.

[51] Narrative of an expedition to the east coast of Greenland, sent by order of the king of Denmark, in search of the lost colonies, under the command of Captain W. A. Graah, of the Danish royal navy. Translated from the Danish by the late G. Gordon Macdougall, F.R.S.N.A., for the Royal Geographical Society of London. London, 1837. pp. 106, 107.

[52] “Meira var thar jafndaegri enn á Graenlandi edr Íslandi, sól hafdi thar eyktarstad ok dagmálastad um skamdegi.”

“Dag-mál, n. (vide dagr), prop. ‘day-meal,’ one of the divisions of the day, usually about eight or nine o’clock, A.M.; the Latin hora tertia is rendered by ‘er vér köllum dagmál,’ which we call d., Hom. [Homiliu-bók], 142; enn er ekki lidit af dagmálum, Hom. (St.) 10. Acts 11, 15; in Glúm. [Viga-Glúms Saga], 342, we are told that the young Glúm was very lazy, and lay in bed till day-meal every morning, cp. also 343; Hrafn. [Hrafnkéls Saga] 28 and O. H. L. [Olafs Saga Helga Legendaria] 18—áeinum morni milli rismála ok dagmála—where distinction is made between rismal (rising time) and dagmál, so as to make a separate dagsmark (q. v.) of each of them; and again, a distinction is made between ‘midday’ and dagmal, Ísl. [Islenzkar], 11, 334. The dagmal is thus midway between ‘rising’ and ‘midday,’ which accords well with the present use. The word is synonymous with dagver darmál, breakfast-time, and denotes the hour when the ancient Icelanders used to take their chief meal, opposed to náttmál, night-meal or supper-time, Fms. [Fornmanna Sögur], viii, 330; even the MSS. use dagmál and dagverdarmál indiscriminately; cp. also Sturl. [Sturlunga Saga] 111, 4 C; Rb. [Rimbegla], 452 says that at full moon the ebb takes place ‘at dagmá-lum.’ To put the dagmál at 7:30 A.M., as Pál Vidalin does, seems neither to accord with the present use nor the passage in Glúm or the eccl. hora tertia, which was the nearest hour answering to the Icel. calculation of the day. In Fb. [Flateyjar bók] 1,539, it is said that the sun set at ‘eykd’ (i. e. half-past three o’clock), but rose at ‘dagmál,’ which puts the dagmal at 8:30 A.M. Compds. dagmála-stadr, m. the place of d. in the horizon, Fb. [Flateyjar bók].”

“Eykt, eykd, f. three or half-past three o’clock, P.M.; many commentaries have been written upon this word, as by Pál Vidalin Skyr, Finn Johnson in H. E. [Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ] 1. 153 sqq. note 6, and in Horologium, etc. The time of eykd is clearly defined in K. Th. K. [Kristinnrettr Thorláks ok Ketils], 92 as the time when the sun has past two parts of the ‘utsudr’ (q. v.) and has one part left, that is to say, half-past three o’clock, P.M.: it thus nearly coincides with the eccl. Lat. nona (three o’clock, P.M.); and both eykt and nona are therefore used indiscriminately in some passages. Sunset at the time of ‘eykd’ is opposed to sunrise at the time of ‘dagmal,’ q. v. In Norway ‘ykt’ means a luncheon taken about half-past three o’clock. But the passage in Edda—that autumn ends and winter begins at sunset at the time of eykt—confounded the commentators who believed it to refer to the conventional Icel. winter, which (in the old style) begins with the middle of October, and lasts six months. In the latitude of Reykholt—the residence of Snorri—the sun at this time sets about half-past four. Upon this statement the commentators have based their reasoning both in regard to dagmál and eykt, placing the eykt at half-past four, P.M., and dagmal at half-past seven, A.M., although this contradicts the definition of these terms in the law. The passage in Edda probably came from a foreign source, and refers not to the Icel. winter but to the astronomical winter, viz., the winter solstice or the shortest day; for sunset at half-past three is suited not to Icel., but to the latitude of Scotland and the southern parts of Scandinavia. The word is also curious from its bearing upon the discovery of America by the ancients, vide Fb. [Flateyjar-bók] l. c. This sense (half-past three) is now obsolete in Icel., but eykt is in freq. use in the sense of trihorium, a time of three hours; whereas in the oldest sagas no passage has been found bearing this sense,—the Bs. [Biskupa Sögur] 1, 385, 446, and Hem. [Hemings-thattr] l. c., are of the 13th and 14th centuries. In Norway ykt is freq. used metaph. of all the four meal times in the day, morning-ykt, midday-ykt, afternoon-ykt (or ykt proper), and even-ykt. In old MSS., Grág., K. Th. K. Hem. Heid. S. [Grágás, Kristinnrettr, Thorláks ok Ketils, Hemings-thattr, Heidarviga Saga], this word is always spelt eykd or eykth, shewing the root to be ‘auk’ with the fem. inflex. added; it probably first meant the eke-meal, answering to Engl. lunch, and thence came to mean the time of day at which this meal was taken. The eccl. law dilates upon the word, as the Sabbath was to begin at ‘hora nona’; hence the phrase, eykt helgr dagr....

“Eyktar-stadr. m. the place of the sun at half-past three, P.M.; meira var, thar jafndaegri enn á Graenlandi edr Íslandi, sól hafdi thar eyktar-stad ok dagmála-stad um skamdegi, Fb. [Flateyjar bók] 1, 539,—this passage refers to the discovery of America; but in A. A. [Antiquitates Americanæ], l. c., it is wrongly explained as denoting the shortest day nine hours long, instead of seven; it follows that the latitude fixed by the editors of A. A. [Antiquitates Americanæ] is too far to the south.”

“Dagr, m. ... a day, ... 5. the day is in Icel. divided according to the position of the sun above the horizon; these fixed traditional marks are called dags-mörk, day-marks, and are substitutes for the hours of modern times, viz. ris-mál or midr-morgun, dag-mál, há-degi, mid-degi or mid-mundi, nón, midr-aptan, nátt-mál.”

“Stadr, m., gen. stadar, dat. stad, and older stadi, pl. stadir: ... a ‘stead,’ place, abode.”—An Icelandic-English dictionary based on the MS. collections of the late Richard Cleasby, enlarged and completed by Gudbrand Vigfusson, M. A. Oxford, 1874.

[53] Thormod Torfason, or Torfæus, as his name is Latinized, in the addenda of his History of Ancient Vinland (Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ), printed at Copenhagen, in 1705, explains the meaning of the words, saying that the sun in Vinland, on the shortest day, was six hours above the horizon, which would imply that this land lay between the fifty-eighth and sixty-first parallels of north latitude. “Torfæus confirms his interpretation by the authority of Arngrim Jonas, a learned Icelander who flourished at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, and who was deemed a profound astronomer. In his ‘History of Greenland,’ he thus renders the passage we are considering: ‘There is in Vinland no winter, no cold, no frost as in Iceland or Greenland; inasmuch as the sun, on the very day of the winter solstice (they had no dials there), passes about six hours above the horizon.’ Having cited this passage from Arngrim Jonas, Torfæus proceeds: ‘This meaning I had long ago given this passage, first on the authority (if I rightly understood him) of Bryniulf Sveinson, the most learned of all the bishops of Skalkholt, to whom I was sent, while yet a youth, in the year 1662, with royal letters from my gracious master, King Frederick the Third, for the purpose of learning the genuine signification of the more difficult ancient words and phrases; and, then, from the necessary correspondence of the time of sunset with that of sunrise.’”—(The Discovery of America by the Northmen. By E. Everett. North American Review. January, 1838. vol. xlvi. pp. 179-188. Vide Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ, seu partis Americæ Septentrionalis. Per Thormodum Torfæum. Havniæ, 1705. Addenda.)

Professor Charles C. Rafn, secretary of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, gives this rendition of the passage: “When the day is shortest the sun there has a place (is above the horizon) from half-past seven before noon till half-past four in the afternoon.”—Antiq. Amer. p. 436. Vide Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 64, 65. According to Prof. Rafn, the Northmen built their winter-quarters on the shore of Mount Hope bay, Rhode Island; the day, nine hours long, indicating the latitude of 41° 24´ 10´´.

[54] The saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne and Snorro Thorbrandson (Saga Thorfinns Karlsefnis ok Snorra Thorbrandssonar). This legend is written on vellum, and is one of the valuable Icelandic manuscripts called the Arna-Magnœan collection, which is preserved in the library of the university of Copenhagen. The manuscripts were bequeathed to the university by Arne Magnussen, or, as his name is Latinized, Arnus Magnœus, an Icelandic scholar. The saga of Thorfinn is supposed to have been compiled in the fourteenth century.

[55] In the treatise of Ivar Bardsen, it is said that in Greenland “is found the best of wheat, (beste Hvede).”—Antiq. Amer. pp. 302-318.

The wild wheat (elymus arenarius) growing on the sand flats of Iceland is thus described: “This plant, the melur of the natives, is a kind of grass, with a spike or ear four or five inches long, and generally appears in a sandy soil. The sea-shore and tracts of volcanic ashes in the interior are equally favorable to its growth, though it is principally from the latter that the seeds used for bread are obtained; and the natives regard it as a great gift wherewith the wise Creator has blessed those mournful wastes. The harvest is in August, when it becomes white in the ear, but as it is seldom fully ripe, it requires to be dried before grinding. It is cut with a sickle, made up in bundles, and carried home on the backs of horses. It is then separated from the straw, and ground in hand-mills cut out of a block of lava, into fine meal of a grayish color.”—Historical and descriptive account of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe islands. pp. 385, 386.

[56] From hópa to recede. Hóp, a recess, haven, bay, inlet.

Certain writers assume this place Hóp to be the country around Mount Hope bay, in Rhode Island.

[57] This statement does not agree with the one preceding it,—that “they remained at this place a half-month.”

[58] Skraelingar, m. pl. Esquimaux.

[59] Antiq. Amer. pp. 136-163. Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 87-103.

[60] “Præterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam oceano, quæ dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum optimum ferentes. Nam et fruges ibi non seminatas habundare, non fabulosa opinione, sed certa comperimus relatione Danosum.”—M. Adamigesta Hammenburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum. Edente M. Lappenburg. I. U. D. Reipublicæ Hamburgensis tabulario. Monumenta Germaniæ historica. By George Henry Pertz. Hannoveræ, 1846.

[61] This fragment of a geographical or historical work is supposed to have been written before the time of Columbus.—Gripla C. Antiq. Amer. pp. 280, 281, 293, 296. Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 114, 115.

[62] The map marked Tab. ii. is contained in the historical work entitled: Gronlandia Antiqva, seu veteris Gronlandiæ Descriptio.... Authore Thormodo Torfaeo. Havniæ, 1715. p. 21.

[63] If they were grapes, it does not follow that they were found on the eastern coast of the present territory of the United States. The French navigator, Jacques Cartier, in September, 1535, found “vines laden as full of grapes as could be all along the riuer [St. Lawrence], which rather seemed to haue bin planted by mans hand than otherwise.”—The third and last volume of the voyages, navigations, traffiques, and discoueries of the English nation. By Richard Hakluyt. London, 1600. p. 218.

[64] The rock writing, as interpreted by an Indian, is an account of a battle fought by the people of two tribes, and was engraved by some or one of the members of the victorious party.—Archives of aboriginal knowledge. By Henry R. Schoolcraft. 1860. vol. i. pp. 112-124; vol. iv. pp. 119. Antiq. Amer. pp. 373-403.

[65] Benedict Arnold, the first governor of Rhode Island, living at Newport, in his will, dated December 20, 1677, directed that his body should be buried at a certain spot, “being and lying in my land, in or near the line or path from my dwelling-house leading to my stone-built windmill, in the town of Newport.” Another mill of similar construction is near Leamington, in the parish of Chesterton, in Warwickshire, England, where Benedict Arnold lived when a boy. This mill was built according to a plan first introduced into England by Inigo Jones.—History of New England, by John Gorham Palfrey. Boston, 1859. vol. i. Note. pp. 57-59.

[66] History of Wales, written by Caradoc of Llancarvan, Glamorganshire, in the British Language, translated into English by Humphry Llwyd, and published by Dr. David Powel in the year 1584.

[67] “The most ancient Discouery of the West Indies by Madoc, the sonne of Owen Guyneth Prince of North-wales, in the yeere 1170: taken out of the history of Wales, lately published by M. Dauid Powel Doctor of Diuinity.... Madoc another of Owen Guyneth his sonnes left the land in contention betwixt his brethren, & prepared certaine ships with men and munition, and sought aduentures by Seas, sailing West, and leauing the coast of Ireland so farre North, that he came vnto a land vnknowen, where he saw many strange things....

“Of the voyage and returne of this Madoc there are many fables fained, as the common people doe vse in distance of place and length of time rather to augment then to diminish: but sure it is there he was. And after he had returned home, and declared the pleasant and fruitfull countreys that he had seene without inhabitants, and vpon the contrary part, for what barren & wild ground his brethren and nephewes did murther one another, he prepared a number of ships, and got with him such men and women as were desirous to liue in quietnesse: and taking leaue of his friends, tooke his journey thitherward againe.... This Madoc arriving in that Western country, vnto his people there, and returning back for more of his owne nation, acquaintance, & friends to inhabit that faire & large countrey, went thither again with ten sailes, as I find noted by Gutyn Owen.”—Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 1.

[68] Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 1.

[69] Kosmos: Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung. Alexander von Humboldt. 1845-1858. Trans. by E. C. Otté. Bohn’s ed. vol. ii. pp. 608, 609.

[70] The history of the voyages of the Zeni brothers was first published with another work entitled: Dei Commentarij del Viaggio in Persia. Venezia, 1558.

[71] The name is evidently a designation for Iceland. Frislanda, the cold or frozen land; Anglo-Saxon, frysan; Icelandic, friosa; Swedish, frysa; Danish, fryse; and land, land.

[72] Estotiland seems to be an anomalous form of the name Scotland, from Anglo-Saxon, scot; Spanish and Portuguese, escote; Italian, scotto.

[73] Dello Scoprimento dell’ Isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engronelanda, Estotilanda, & Icaria, fatto per due fratelli Zeni, M. Nicolò il Caualiere, & M. Antonio. Libro Vno, col disegno di dette Isole.

The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno to the Northern Seas. By Richard Henry Major. London, 1873. Hakluyt Soc. pub. pp. 1-24.

[74] In 1260, the two brothers, Nicolò and Maffeo Polo, departed from Constantinople, on a trading expedition to the Euxine Sea; thence they travelled through the western dominions of the Grand Khan of the Tartars. In 1269 they returned home with letters from this sovereign to Pope Clement IV. On their arrival in Venice, Nicolò found that his wife had died in giving birth to his son, Marco, then a lad of fifteen years. In 1271 the brothers (Maffeo being a bachelor) again left home for the Orient, taking Marco with them. In 1295 the three returned to Venice after an absence of twenty-four years.

[75] Giovanni Battista Ramusio was born at Tevisa in 1485. For a decade of years he was secretary to the Venetian Council of Ten. His valuable collection of voyages and travels, entitled “Raccolta di Navigationi e Viaggi,” comprises three volumes. Volume I. was published in 1554, volume II. in 1559, and volume III. in 1556. Ramusio died in 1557.

[76] China. “For about three centuries,” says Yule, “the Northern provinces of China had been detached from native rule, and subject to foreign dynasties; first to the Khitau, a people from the basin of the Sungari River, and supposed (but doubtfully) to have been akin to the Tunguses, whose rule subsisted for 200 years, and originated the name Khitai, Khata, or Cathay, by which for nearly 1000 years China has been known to the nations of Inner Asia, and to those whose acquaintance with it was got by that channel.”—The book of Ser Marco Polo. By Henry Yule. London, 1875. Introd. p. 11.

[77] Ramusio: Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. vol. ii. Prefatione.

[78] Concerning Marco Polo, Humboldt remarks: “Jacquet, who was unhappily too early removed by a premature death from the investigation of Asiatic languages, and who, like Klaproth and myself, was long occupied with the work of the great Venetian traveller, wrote to me, as follows, shortly before his decease: ‘I am as much struck as yourself by the composition of the Milione. It is undoubtedly founded on the direct and personal observation of the traveller, but he probably also made use of documents either officially or privately communicated to him. Many things appear to have been borrowed from Chinese and Mongolian works, although it is difficult to determine their precise influence on the composition of the Milione; owing to the successive translations from which Polo took his extracts. Whilst our modern travellers are only too well pleased to occupy their readers with their personal adventures, Marco Polo takes pains to blend his own observations with the official data communicated to him, of which, as Governor of the city of Yangui, he was able to have a large number.’ (See my Asie Centrale, t. ii. p. 395.) The compiling method of the celebrated traveller likewise explains the possibility of his being able to dictate his book at Genoa, in 1295, to his fellow-prisoner and friend, Messer Rustizielo of Pisa, as if the documents had been lying before him. (Compare Marsden, Travels of Marco Polo, p. xxxiii).” Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 625. Note.

[79] Ser Marco Polo. Yule. Second ed. vol. i. pp. 103, 104.

[80] “I John Maundevylle, knight, alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in England, in the Town of Seynt Albones, passed the See, in the zeer of our Lord Jesu Crist mcccxxii, in the Day of Seynt Michelle; and hidre to have ben long tyme over the See, and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse Londes, and many Provynces and Kingdomes and Iles, and have passed thorghe Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye, the litylle and the grete; thorghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope; thorghe Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many othere Iles, that ben abouten Inde.... And zee schulle undirstonde, that I have put this Boke out of Latyn into Frensche and translated it azen out of Frensche into Englyssche, that every Man of my Nacioun may undirstonde it.”—MS. in Cottonian library, marked Titus. c. xvi. The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, Kt. By J. O. Halliwell. London, 1849. Prologue. pp. 4, 5.

[81] Herodotus: Melpomene xlii.

[82] Caius Plinius Secundus, a Roman writer, born A. D. 23, and died A. D. 79. Hanno’s expedition was undertaken about 570 B. C.

[83] Eudoxus of Cyzicus, a Greek navigator, lived about 130 B. C. Ptolemy Lathyrus began his reign B. C. 117. Cornelius Nepos flourished in the century before the Christian era.

[84] Supposed to have been in the year of the building of Rome, 691.

[85] Suevi, the ancient inhabitants of that part of Germany between the Danube and the Baltic Sea.

[86] Historia Naturalis. lib. ii. cap. lxvii.

[87] “In Christian Europe the earliest mention of the use of the magnetic needle occurs in the politico-satirical poem, called La Bible, by Guyot, of Provence, in 1190, and in the description of Palestine by Jacobus, of Vitry, Bishop of Ptolemais, between 1204 and 1215. Dante (in his Parad. xii., 29) refers, in a simile, to the needle (ago) ‘which points to the star.’”

“Navarrete, in his Discurso histórico sobre los progresos del Arte de Navegar en España, 1802, p. 28, recalls a remarkable passage in the Spanish Leyes de las Partidas (II. tit. ix., ley 28), of the middle of the thirteenth century: ‘The needle, which guides the seaman in the dark night, and shows him, both in good and bad weather, how to direct his course, is the intermediary agent (medianera) between the loadstone (la piedra) and the north star.’ ... See the passage in Las Siete Partidas del sabio Rey Don Alonso el ix. (according to the usually adopted chronological order, Alonso the Xth). Madrid, 1829. t. i. p. 473.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 629, and note.

[88] “La magnete piere laide et noire. Ob ete fer volenters se joint. Lon touchet ob une aguilet. Et en festue lon fischie. Puis lon mette en laigue et se tient desus. Et la point se torne contre lestoille. Quant la nuit feit tenebrous et lon ne voie estoile ne lune, poet li mariner tenir droite voie.”

[89] The Monthly Magazine, or British Register. London, 1802. vol. xiii. part 1. p. 449. The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal. By Henry Major. London, 1868. pp. 58, 59.

[90] “We are told by Antonio Beccadelli, surnamed Il Panormita from his birthplace, Palermo, and who was a contemporary of Prince Henry, that sailors were first indebted to Amalfi for the use of the magnet—‘Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalphis’; and ‘Inventrix prœclara fuit magnetis Amalphis.’ ... The former of these lines is quoted from Il Panormita by Henricus Brenemanus, in his Dissertatio de Republica Amalfitana, and Klaproth has added the latter.” Life of Prince Henry of Portugal. Major. p. 59.

[91] Dom Henrique was born at Oporto, March 4, 1394.

[92] “Quem passar o Cabo de Nao, ou voltara ou nao.”

[93] Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guiné, escripta por mandado de el Rey. D. Affonso V. sob a direcçao scientifica e secundo as instrucçoes do illustre infante D. Henrique, pelo chronista Gomes Eannes de Azurara, fielmente transladada do manuscrito original contemporaneo que se conserva na Bibliotheca Real de Pariz. Edited by the Visconde da Carreira, with introduction and notes by the Vicomte de Santarem. Paris, 1841. cap. viii.

[94] Antonio Galvano was born about the year 1502. In 1538 he was appointed by the king of Portugal governor of the Moluccas or Spice Islands. He was recalled about the year 1545, and died in 1557.

[95] Tratado, que compōs o nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão, dos diuersos & desuayrados caminhos, por onde nos tempos passados a pimenta & especearia veyo da India ás nossas partes, & assi de todos os descobrimentos antigos & modernos, que são feitos ate a era de mil & quinhentos & cincoenta.... Impressa em casa de Joam de Barreira impressor del rey nosso senhor, na Rua de Sā Mameda. [Lisboa.]

Vide The discoveries of the world, from their first original unto the year of our Lord 1555, by Antonio Galvano, governor of Ternate. Corrected, quoted, and published in England, by Richard Hakluyt, (1610). Now reprinted, with the original Portuguese text, and edited by Vice-admiral Bethune, C. B. London, 1862. Hakluyt Society publication.

[96] Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guiné. cap. ix.

[97] Historia Naturalis. lib. ii. cap. lxviii.

[98] The distance of a place, north or south of the equator, was determined by ascertaining with the astrolabe the elevation of the pole of the heavens above the plane of the horizon.

The distance of one place from another, east or west of a meridian, was obtained by ascertaining the difference of time at the two points; the difference of time being one hour to each space of fifteen degrees of longitude. Although a navigator in the latter part of the fifteenth century could determine with his astrolabe the time of the place where he was in port, from the altitude of the sun or other heavenly bodies, the want of an accurate chronometer made it impossible for him to know the exact time of a place elsewhere. Pigafetta, who sailed round the world in 1519-1522, says in his treatise on navigation: “Pilots now are satisfied with knowing the latitude, and are so presumptuous that they refuse to hear longitude mentioned.”—MS. in Ambrosian Library, Milan.

To obtain a practical solution of the difficulties which perplexed seamen in determining the longitude of places, the Spanish government offered a thousand crowns, in 1598, for an accurate method of ascertaining the time of distant places. Not long afterward the government of the United Provinces of the Netherlands offered ten thousand florins for similar information, and, in 1714, the parliament of Great Britain passed an act proffering a gift of money to any person who should discover the best means of ascertaining longitude.

[99] Joam II. of Portugal reigned from 1481 to 1495.

“Astrolabes designed for the determination of time and geographical latitudes by meridian altitudes, and capable of being employed at sea, underwent gradual improvement from the time that the astrolabium of the Majorican pilots was in use, which is described by Raymond Lully, in 1295, in his Arte de navegar, till the invention of the instrument made by Martin Behaim, in 1484, at Lisbon, and which was, perhaps, only a simplification of the meteoroscope of his friend Regiomontanus.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. pp. 630, 631.

[100] Martin Behaim was born in Nuremberg about the year 1459. His commercial business induced him to visit Portugal about the year 1480, where, it is said, he became a pupil of Johann Müller, known as Regiomontanus. He accompanied Diogo Cam to the Congo, in 1484. He afterward resided on the island of Fayal, one of the Azores, for a number of years. His celebrated terrestrial globe was constructed by him, at Nuremberg, about the year 1492. He died at Lisbon, on the twenty-ninth of July, 1506.

[101] Asia de Joam de Barros dos fectos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento & conquista dos mares & terras do Oriente. Impressa per Germao Galharde em Lixboa: a xxviij. de Junho anno de m. vᶜ. lij. dec. i. lib. iv. cap. ii.

[102] Arte de nauegar. Por el maestro Pedro de Medina. Valladolid. 1545.

[103] “I find the first mention of the application of the log in a passage of Pigafetta’s journal of Magellan’s voyage of circumnavigation, which long lay buried among the manuscripts in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It is there said that in the month of January, 1521, when Magellan had already arrived in the Pacific, ‘Seconda la misura che facevamo del viaggio colla catena a poppa noi percorrevamo da 60 in 70 leghe al giorno,’ [following the measure which we made of our progress with the chain at the stern, we ran from sixty to seventy leagues a day]. (Amoretti. Primo Viaggio intorno al Globo terracqueo ossia Navigazione fatta dal Cavaliere Antonio Pigafetta sulla squadra del Magaglianes, 1800. p. 46.) What can this arrangement of a chain at the hinder part of the ship (catena a poppa), ‘which we used throughout the entire voyage to measure the way,’ have been except an apparatus similar to our log?”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 633.

[104] The Cape of Good Hope is in 34° 22´ south latitude.

It is said that Dias found by the astrolabe that the cape was in 45° south latitude, and that it was 3,100 leagues distant from Lisbon. This distance, it is related, Dias set down, league by league, on a marine chart, which he presented to King John II. Historia General de las Indias. Bartolomé de las Casas. lib. i. cap. vii.

[105] Cristoforo Colombo was born in the city of Genoa, about the year 1435. His father, Dominico Colombo, was a wool-comber. The navigator married, in Lisbon, Doña Felipa, the daughter of Bartolomeo Moñis de Perestrello, a distinguished mariner, who had been in the service of Prince Henry of Portugal.

Ferdinand Columbus, in his history of the life and achievements of his father, remarks: “So it is that some, who would cast a cloud upon his fame, say he was of Nervi, others of Cugureo, and others of Bugiesco, all small towns near the city of Genoa, and upon its coast. Others, who wish to exalt him, say he was a native of Savona, others of Genoa, and others, more vain, make him of Piacenza, in which city there are some honorable persons of his family and tombs with the arms and inscriptions of the family of Colombi, this being the common surname of his ancestors, though he, complying with the customs of the country where he went to live and begin a new condition of life, altered the word that it might be like the old name, and designated the direct from the collateral line, calling himself Colon.... And the surname of Colon which he revived was appropriate, which in Greek signifies a member, and his Christian name being Christopher, designate him as being a member of Christ, by whom salvation was conveyed to those Indian people.”—Histoire del Signore Don Fernando Colombo. cap. 1.

[106] Fernando Colombo, an illegitimate son of the admiral, was born in Cordova about the year 1487. After his father’s discovery of the New World, he was made page to Prince Juan, the son of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He accompanied his father in his fourth voyage, in 1502, and after the latter’s death, sailed twice to the West Indies. He was excellently educated, and was the author of several works. His library, it is said, contained more than twenty thousand books and manuscripts, which, after his death, became the property of the cathedral of Seville. The manuscript of his history of the life of his father was lost before the work appeared in Spanish. It is said that Luis Colon, duke of Veragua, a dissipated grandson of the navigator, went to Genoa about the year 1568, taking Fernando’s manuscript with him, and placed it in the hands of Baltano de Fornari, by whom it was transferred to Giorgio Baptista Marini, who had it translated into Italian, after which it was printed in Venice in this language, and also in Latin. Alfonso de Ulloa’s Italian translation of it was published, in Venice, in 1571, entitled Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; nelli quali s’ ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de’ fatti dell’ Ammiraglio D. Cristoforo Colombo, suo padre. There are several English translations of Fernando Colombo’s history. Vide Collection of voyages and travels by [A. & J.] Churchhill. London, 1732. vol. ii. pp. 499-628. Pinkerton’s Collection of voyages and travels. London, 1819. vol. ii. pp. 1-155.

[107] Columbus, in his investigations, no doubt, became informed concerning the arguments advanced by the Greek astronomer, Anaximander, in the sixth century before the Christian era, respecting the globular form of the earth. He evidently read what Aristotle wrote in the fifth century of the Christian era: “As to the figure of the earth, it must necessarily be spherical.... And, moreover, from the visible phenomena, for if it were not so, the eclipses of the moon would not have such sections as they have. For in the configurations in the course of a month, the deficient part takes all different shapes; it is straight, and concave, and convex; but in eclipses it always has the line of division convex; wherefore, since the moon is eclipsed in consequence of the interposition of the earth, the periphery of the earth must be the cause of this by having a spherical form. And again, from the appearance of the stars, it is clear not only that the earth is round, but that its size is not very great; for when we go a little distance to the south or to the north, the circle of the horizon becomes palpably different, so that the stars overheard undergo a great change, and are not the same to those that travel to the north and to the south. For some stars are seen in Egypt and at Cyprus, but are not seen in the countries north of them; and the stars that in the north are visible while they make a complete circuit there [in Egypt and at Cyprus], undergo a setting. So that from this it is manifest, not only that the form of the earth is round, but also that it is not a very large sphere; for otherwise the difference would not be so obvious to persons making so small a change of place. Wherefore we may judge that those persons who connect the region in the neighborhood of the Pillars of Hercules with that toward India, and who assert that in this way the sea is one, do not assert things very improbable. They confirm this conjecture, moreover, by elephants, which are said to be of the same species toward each extreme of the earth, as if this circumstance was a consequence of the conjunction of the extreme parts. The mathematicians, who try to calculate the measure of the circumference, make it amount to 400,000 stadia; whence we infer that the earth is not only spherical, but that it is not large compared with the magnitude of the other stars,”—De Cœlo. lib. ii. cap. xiv.

[108] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, cap. v.

[109] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, cap. iv.

[110] Iceland lies between 63° 24´ and 66° 33´ north latitude.

[111] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. iv.

[112] The Azores or Western Islands, about eight hundred miles west of Portugal, lie in an oblique line, northwest and southeast, between 36° 50´ and 39° 50´ north latitude and 24° 30´ and 31° 20´ west longitude. The Azores, frequently called Terceiras, were discovered in 1439 by Josua van der Berg, a Flemish merchant, who was carried in his ship to them in a storm. They were named Açores from the number of goshawks found on them. They were not inhabited when discovered.

[113] The Cape Verd Islands, three hundred and twenty miles west of Cape Verd on the west coast of Africa, lie between 14° 45´ and 17° 13´ north latitude and between 22° 45´ and 25° 25’ west longitude.

[114] Claudius Ptolemæus, an Egyptian astronomer and geographer, lived, in the second century at Alexandria. His System of Geography, (Γεωγραφική Ἀφήγησις,) contained in eight books, was a standard work for fourteen centuries. During the first part of the sixteenth century twenty-one editions of the geography, with editions and emendations, were published. According to Ptolemy, all the known part of the earth, from the first meridian, or the Canary Islands, eastwardly, on the parallel of Rhodes, measured seventy-two thousand stadia, or one hundred and eighty degrees, which he deemed to be the half of the circumference of the globe. But the extent he was acquainted with was really measured by one hundred and twenty degrees, which made the circumference one third less than it is.

Marinus of Tyre, a Greek geographer, lived about 150 A.D. This cosmographer supposed that the country of the Seres, or Sinae (China), the farthest part of India known to the ancients, was fifteen hours, by the course of the sun, or two hundred and twenty-five degrees east of the first meridian passing through the Fortunate (Canary) Islands. According to our present geographical measurements, the distance given by Marinus was not more than one hundred and thirty degrees, leaving two hundred and thirty the remaining distance from China eastwardly to the Canary Islands. Following the deductions of Marinus, there were only one hundred and thirty-five degrees of distance between China, going eastwardly, and the Fortunate Islands.

[115] “Marinus, the Tyrian, misled by the length of time occupied in the navigation from Myos Hormos to India, by the erroneously assumed direction of the major axis of the Caspian from west to east, and by the over-estimation of the length of the land route to the country of the Seres, gave the old continent a breadth of 225°, instead of 129°. The Chinese coast was thus advanced to the Sandwich Islands. Columbus naturally preferred this result to that of Ptolemy, according to which Quinsay should have been found in the meridian of the eastern part of the archipelago of the Carolinas. Ptolemy, in the Almagest (ii. 1), places the coast of Sinae at 180°, and in his Geography (lib. i. cap. 12) at 177¼°.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 645. Note.

[116] Alfraganius or Al Fergani, an Arabian astronomer, lived in the earlier part of the ninth century.

[117] Medea, act. ii.

Lucius Annæus Seneca, a Stoic philosopher and tragic poet, was born at Corduba, Spain, about 5 B.C., and died 65 A.D.

Tiphys was the name of the pilot of the ship of the Argonauts.

Thule, an island in the extreme part of Northern Europe, as known in the time of Ptolemy. The island is supposed by some to have been the Shetland Islands, by others the Faroe group, and by others Iceland.

[118] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. vi, vii.

[119] Porto Santo, a small island northeast of the island of Madeira.

[120] The island of Madeira (Wood) lies off the west coast of Africa, between 32° 37´ and 32° 52´ north latitude and 16° 38´ and 17° 16´ west longitude. It is thirty-four miles long. The island of Porto Santo is twenty-five miles northeast of it.

[121] Various fictions were current in the middle ages respecting the situation of the island of the Seven Cities, and a number of expeditions went in search of it with unsuccessful results. Mercator, Ortelius, and Locke place the island in 28° north latitude.

[122] Thucydides, a Greek historian, born B.C. 471.

[123] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, cap. ix, x.

[124] “Paolo Toscanelli was so greatly distinguished as an astronomer that Behaim’s teacher, Regiomontanus, dedicated to him, in 1463, his work, De Quadratura Circuli, directed against the Cardinal Nicolaus de Cusa. He constructed the great gnomon in the church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, and died in 1482, at the age of eighty-five, without having lived long enough to enjoy the pleasure of learning the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Diaz, and of the tropical part of the new continent by Columbus.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 644. Note.

[125] Zacton, in China, is now called Tsiuenchau. “At this city” says Marco Polo, “is the haven of Zayton, frequented by all of the ships from India, ... and by all the merchants of Manzi, for hither is imported the most astonishing quantity of goods and of precious stones and pearls.... For it is one of the two greatest havens in the world for commerce.”—Ser Marco Polo. Yule. Second ed. vol. ii. p. 186. On Ruysch’s map of 1508, Zaiton is placed on the east coast of China, west of the island of Cuba. Vide map.

[126] The city is now called Hangchau, and is in the province of Chehkiang. As described by Marco Polo, the city was “the finest and the noblest in the world.”—Ser Marco Polo. Yule. Second ed. vol. ii. p. 145. Quinsai on Ruysch’s map of 1508, is northwest of Zaiton.

[127] Antonio Pigafetta, in his Treatise on navigation, written about the year 1523, says: “The circumference of the earth is supposed to be divided into three hundred and sixty degrees, and to each degree are assigned seventeen leagues and a half; the circumference of the earth is consequently six thousand three hundred leagues. The land league is three miles, the sea league is four.”—MS. in Ambrosian library, Milan.

[128] Cipango (Japan), now called by the natives Dai Nippon or Dai Nihon, is a group of islands lying between the twenty-third and fiftieth parallels of north latitude and the one hundred and twenty-second and one hundred and fifty-third meridians of east longitude.

[129] From Lisbon, Spain, in 38° 42´ north latitude and 9° 8´ west longitude (first meridian at Greenwich), to Tokio, Japan, in 35° 40´ north latitude and 139° 40´ east longitude, the westward distance is about eleven thousand six hundred statute miles; and from Lisbon to Peking, China, in 39° 56´ north latitude and 116° 27´ east longitude, about twelve thousand one hundred miles. From Liverpool, England, to New York, on the sailing route, the distance is about three thousand and twenty-three miles, and from New York to Canton, China, via the Isthmus of Panama and the Sandwich Islands, the distance is about ten thousand six hundred miles.

“As the old continent, from the western extremity of the Iberian peninsula [Portugal], to the coast of China, comprehends almost 130° of longitude, there remain about 230° for the distance which Columbus would have had to traverse if he wished to reach Cathai (China); but less if he only desired to reach Zipangi (Japan). This difference of 230°, which I have indicated, depends on the position of the Portuguese Cape St. Vincent (11° 20´ W. of Paris), and the far projecting part of the Chinese coast, near the then celebrated port of Quinsay, so often named by Columbus and Toscanelli (lat. 30° 28´, long. 117° 47´ E. of Paris).... The distance of Cape St. Vincent from Zipangi (Niphon) is 22° of longitude less than Quinsay, therefore about 209° instead of 230° 53´.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 264. Note.

[130] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. viii.

[131] Diego Ortiz de Cazadilla, bishop of Ceuta.

[132] This conclave of the learned men of Spain held its meetings in the Dominican convent of St. Stephen, in Salamanca.

[133] “But as to the fable that there are antipodes—that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us—men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other; hence they say that the part which is beneath must be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled. For Scripture, which proves the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, gives no false information; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from the first man.”—Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi operum. Tomus Septimus. Antwerpiæ. 1700. De Civitate Dei. lib. xvi. cap. ix. The works of Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Trans. by the Rev. Marcus Dods. Edinburgh. 1871.

Lactantius, another theologian, in the fourth century, argued in the same way: “Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that the plants and trees on the other side of the earth hang downward, and that men there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of them how they defend these monstrosities, how things do not fall away from the earth on that side, they reply that the nature of things is such that heavy bodies tend toward the centre, like the spokes of a wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the centre it toward the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere in their folly and defend one absurd opinion by another.”—Div. Institutiones. lib. iii.

[134] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xi, xii.

[135] In a letter, addressed to the king and queen describing his fourth voyage, Columbus remarks: “For seven years I was at your royal court, where every one to whom the enterprise was mentioned treated it as ridiculous, but now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer.”—Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos, que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del siglo xv., por Don Martin Fernandez de Navarrete. Madrid, 1825. tom. i. p. 311.

Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xiii, xiv, xv.

[136] “Tengo propósito de hacer carta nueva de navegar, en la cual situaré toda la mar y tierras del mar Océano en sus propios lugares debajo su viento; y mas componer un libro, y poner todo por el semejante por pintura, por latitud del equinocial y longitud del Occidente, y sobre todo cumple mucho que yo olvide el sueño y tiente mucho el navegar porque asi cumple, las cuales serán gran trabajo.”—Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. i. pp. 1-3.

[137] Columbus, speaking of the progress of the ship, on the twenty-fourth of October, remarks: “I carried all the sail of the ship, the mainsail, and two bonnets, the foresail, and the spritsail, and the mizzen and the main-top-sail. Llevaba todas mis velas de la nao, maestra, y dos bonetas, y trinquete, y cebadera, y mezana, y vela de gavia.” A bonnet was a sail placed beneath the mainsail in fine weather to increase the speed of a ship.

[138] On the pavement of the cathedral of Seville is inscribed: “Con tres galeras y 90 personas,” with three galleys and ninety persons.

[139] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xvi, xvii.

[140] The island of Ferro is the most westerly of the Canary group. The Canaries lie off the west coast of Africa, between 27° and 30° north latitude and 13° and 19° west longitude. The principal islands are: Teneriffe, Grand Canary, Palma, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gomera, and Ferro. Through the last island the ancient geographers drew the first meridian of longitude.

[141] According to Columbus’s statement, 56⅔ miles were equal to a degree, and four miles to a marine league. It has been assumed that the Italian mile used in measurements by Columbus equalled 4,842 English feet, and the Italian marine league 19,368 English feet.—Vide An attempt to solve the problem of the first landing-place of Columbus in the New World. By Captain G. V. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy. United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Appendix No. 18. Report for 1880. Washington, 1882. pp. 58, 59.

[142] “On September 13, 1492, he had reached far enough to the westward to come from a previously eastern declination within a region of westerly declination, and that on September 17 it amounted to a whole point (11¼°).” This constitutes his well-known discovery of a part of a line of no-declination. “Two hundred and twenty-four leagues or, near enough for our purpose, 672 nautical miles, west of the island of Gomera would place him on September 13, in latitude 28° 06´ north, and in longitude 12° 42´ + 17° 08´ = 29° 50´, according to Bowditch, or if we take the position of the harbor of Sebastian near the eastern point of Gomera Island, according to admiralty chart No. 1873, viz.: latitude 28° 05´ 5 and longitude 17° 06´ 3 and considering that 11° 12´ correspond to 12° 42´ of difference of longitude in that latitude, we have for a point in the line of no-declination the latitude of 28° 05´ and longitude 29° 48´. In E. Walker’s treatise on Terrestrial and Cosmical Magnetism, Cambridge (England), 1866, p. 300, we read: ‘The history of this line dates from the 13th of September, 1492, when Columbus observed the needle pass from the east to the west of the meridian, in latitude 28° N. longitude 28° W. (probably roughly adding 11° of difference of longitude to 17° for longitude of Gomera). According to my computation of the daily position of the Admiral’s flagship, and based upon his log-book, he was on September 13 in latitude 28° 21´ longitude 29° 16´.... According to my computation of the daily track, Columbus was on September 17, 1492, in latitude 27° 38´ and in longitude 36° 30´, when he noted 11° west declination.”—An inquiry into the variation of the compass off the Bahama Islands, at the time of the landfall of Columbus in 1492. By Charles A. Schott. United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Appendix No. 19. Report for 1880. Washington, 1882. p. 5.

“Christopher Columbus has not only the merit of being the first to discover a line without magnetic variation, but also of having excited a taste for the study of terrestrial magnetism in Europe, by means of his observations on the progressive increase of western declination in receding from that line.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 656.

[143] “Men also became acquainted with those great banks of sea-weed (Fucus natans),—the oceanic meadows which presented the singular spectacle of the accumulation of a social plant over an extent of space almost seven times greater than the area of France. The great Fucus Bank, the Mar de Sargasso, extends between 19° and 34° north latitude. The major axis is situated about 7° west of the island of Corvo. The lesser Fucus Bank lies in a space between the Bermudas and the Bahamas. Winds and partial currents variously affect, according to the character of the season, the length and circumference of these Atlantic fucoid meadows.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 663.

[144] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xviii, xix.

[145] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xx, xxii.

The discovery of land was made on Friday morning, the twelfth of October, old style. According to the calendar of Julius Cæsar, every fourth year had three hundred and sixty-six days; the others three hundred and sixty-five. Pope Gregory XIII. changed this method of reckoning time by dropping ten days in October, 1582, in order to bring back the day of the vernal equinox to the same day, in the year 325, in which the council of Nice was convened. By an act of the parliament of Great Britain, in 1751, eleven days, in September, 1752, were dropped, and the third day of the month was reckoned the fourteenth of the new style. This mode of reckoning time is called the new style.

[146] Bartolomé de las Casas was born at Seville, in 1474. In 1502 he made his first voyage to the New World, and quitted its shores for the last time in 1547. His history of the Indies,—Historia general de las Indias,—written between the years 1527 and 1562, was not printed until 1875-’76, when it was issued, in five volumes, at Madrid. Before his death, in 1566, he gave the manuscript of this work to the convent of San Gregorio, at Valladolid, with the request that it should not be published for forty years. A manuscript in Las Casas’s hand-writing, apparently an abridgment of Columbus’s journal of his first voyage, which the former evidently had made while obtaining material for his history of the Indies, was found by Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, the Spanish historian, in the archives of Spain, when making, about the year 1790, researches for information respecting the marine history of Spain.

[147] This island is believed by Munoz to be Watling Island; by Navarrete, Grand Turk Island; by Humboldt and Irving, Cat Island. The Bahamas lie between the island of Hayti or San Domingo and the east coast of Florida, or between 21° and 27° 30´ north latitude and 70° 30´ and 79° 5´ west longitude. The principal islands of the group are the Grand Bahama, Great and Little Abaco, Andros, New Providence, San Salvador, Rum Cay, Great Exuma, Watling, Long, Crooked, Atwood’s Key, Great and Little Magua islands.

The identity of the island is discussed at some length by Captain G. V. Fox, of the United States Navy, who remarks: “The study that I gave to the subject in the winter of 1878-’79 in the Bahamas, which had been familiar cruising-ground to me, has resulted in the selection of Samana or Atwood Cay for the first landing-place. It is a little island, 8.8 miles east and west, 1.6 extreme breadth, and averaging 1.2 north and south. It has 8.6 square miles. The east end is in latitude 23° 05´ N.; longitude, 73° 37´ west of Greenwich.... Turk is smaller than Samana, and Cat very much longer.”—An attempt to solve the problem of the first landing-place of Columbus in the New World. By Captain G. V. Fox, United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Appendix No. 18. Report for 1880. Washington, 1882. pp. 43, 44.

[148] F and Y: Fernando and Ysabel.

[149] The real position of this island, in respect to that of Ferro, is E. 5° N. The port of Ferro is in latitude 27° 46´ 2´´ N. and longitude 17° 54´ 2´´ W.

[150] Vide Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to America. From a manuscript recently discovered in Spain. Translated from the Spanish. [By Samuel Kettell.] Boston, 1827. pp. 33-38.

Historia general de las Indias. Por Bartolomé de las Casas. lib. 1. cap. xxxix-xli. Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. 1.

[151] A coin of less value than a mill.

[152] From this point, says Humboldt, as related by Columbus’s friend, the Cura de los Palacios, “he proposed, if he had provision enough ‘to continue his course westward, and to return to Spain, either by water, by way of Ceylon (Taprobane) rodeando todo la tierra de los Negros, or by land, through Jerusalem and Jaffa.’ ... See the important manuscript of Andres Bernaldez, Cura de la villa de los Palacios (Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, cap. 123). This history comprises the years from 1488 to 1513. Bernaldez had received Columbus into his house, in 1496, on his return from his second voyage.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 640, and note.

[153] The real distance is said to be eleven hundred and five leagues.—Vide Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to America. [Kettell.] pp. 38-73.

[154] Historia general de las Indias. Las Casas. cap. xlvi. Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. 1.

[155] An arroba is equal to twenty-five pounds.

[156] Las Casas remarks: “From what he here relates, it appears that had he proceeded farther northerly he would undoubtedly, in two more days, have discovered Florida.”—MS. of Las Casas. Vide Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to America. [Kettell.] pp. 73-86.

[157] Letter of Columbus to Rafael (or Gabriel) Sanchez, dated Lisbon, March 14, 1493.

[158] “Only 21° of latitude.”—Navarrete.

[159] A blank space in the original.

[160] The island of Cuba lies between 19° 50´ and 23° 10´ north latitude, and 74° 7´ and 84° 58´ west longitude. Florida is about one hundred and thirty miles north of Cuba.

[161] The argument of Las Casas concerning the heat at forty-two degrees north latitude is invalidated by Columbus’s reasons for not sailing farther to the north. In his letter to Rafael Sanchez he says: “Finding myself proceeding toward the north, which I was desirous to avoid on account of the cold, and, moreover, meeting with a contrary wind, I determined to return to the south.” It would seem that Columbus was unable to satisfy his own doubts respecting the latitude of the places in the North to which he had sailed. If he had not mentioned that he was in doubt respecting the working condition of his quadrant, the question of his sailing as far north as the forty-second parallel would be an important matter for geographical discussion. Navarrete says: “The quadrants of that time measured the double altitude, and consequently the forty-two degrees which Columbus says he was distant from the equator are to be reduced to twenty-one north latitude, which is the parallel to which he had sailed.”—Vide Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete, tom. i. pp. 44, 47, 62. Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to America. [Kettell.] p. 95.

[162] Ferdinand Columbus says the admiral called the island of Cuba, Juana, in honor of Prince Juan, heir of Castile.—Vide Histoire del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xxvi.

[163] The island of Española, which the natives called Haiti, lies between 17° 36´ and 19° 59´ north latitude, and 68° 20´ and 74° 38´ west longitude. It is about fifty miles east-southeast of Cuba and about seventy-five west-northwest of Porto Rico. It is now called Hayti or San Domingo.

[164] Apparently the original name of Jamaica. The island of Jamaica is about eighty-five miles from Cuba.

[165] On the twenty-first of November, 1492, Martin Alonso Pinzon, in the Pinta, had left the other vessels and remained away from them until the sixth of January, 1493.

[166] MS. of Las Casas.—Vide Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to America. [Kettell.] pp. 86-205.

[167] Columbus’s letter to Rafael Sanchez.

[168] Columbus’s letter to Rafael Sanchez.

[169] MS. of Las Casas.—Vide Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to America. [Kettell.] pp. 215-222.

[170] Martin Alonso Pinzon had previously arrived in Galicia.

[171] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xli, xlii.

[172] Epistola Christofori Colom: cui etas nostra multu debit: de Insulis Indie supra Gangem nuper inuētis. Ad quas perqrendas octauo antea mense auspicies & ere invictissimor’ Fernãdi & Helisabet Hispaniar’ Regu missus fuerat: ad magnificum dum Gabrielem Sanchis eorundē Serenissimor’ Regum Tesaurariu missa: quiā nobilis ac literatus vir Leander de Cosco ab Hispano ideomate in latinum cōuertit tertio kal’s Maii m.cccc.xciii Pontificatus Alexandri Sexti anno primo.

A letter of Christopher Columbus, to whom our age is greatly indebted, respecting the islands of India lately found beyond the Ganges. In search of which he was sent eight months ago under the auspices and at the expense of the most invincible Ferdinand and Isabella, sovereigns of Spain. Sent to the magnificent lord, Gabriel Sanchez, treasurer of the same most serene king, and which the noble and learned man, Leander de Cosco, translated from the Spanish idiom into Latin. The third day of the calends of May, 1493. Pontificate of Alexander VI., first year.

[173] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xlii.

[174] Tratado, que compōs o nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão.

[175] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xlvi.

[176] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xlvi, xlvii.

[177] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. l.

[178] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. li.

[179] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. liii-lviii.

[180] “Que esta tierra de Cuba fuesa la tierra firme al comienzo de las Indias y fin á quien en estas partes quisiere venir de España por tierra.”

[181] Informacion del escribano publico. Fernando Perez de Luna. Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos de los Espagñoles. tom. ii. pp. 143, 149.

[182] In August, 1495, Peter Martyr, writing to Cardinal Bernardino, says: “Columbus asserts that this region is the continent of the Ganges of India,—Indiæ Gangetidis continentem eam esse plagam contendit Colonus.”—Opvs, epistolaru Petri Martyris Anglerii Mediolanēsis Protonotarij Aplici atque a cōsilijs reru Indicaru: nuc pmu et natu y mediocri cura excursum: quod q dē preterstili venustatē, nostroru quoque tēporum histori loco esse poterit. Cōpluti Anno dni MDXXX.

[183] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lviii-lxiv.

[184] Columbus writing from Española in October, 1498, says: “Each time that I sail from Spain to India, as soon as I have proceeded about a hundred nautical miles to the west of the Azores, I perceive an extraordinary alteration in the movement of the heavenly bodies, in the temperature of the air, and in the character of the sea. I have observed these alterations with especial care, and I notice that the mariner’s compass, whose declination had hitherto been northeast, was now changed to northwest; and when I had crossed this line, as if in passing the brow of a hill, I found the ocean covered with such a mass of sea-weed, similar to small branches of pine covered with pistachio nuts, that we were apprehensive that for want of a sufficiency of water our ships would run upon a shoal. Before we reached the line of which I speak, there was no trace of any such sea-weed. On the boundary line, one hundred miles west of the Azores, the ocean is found still and calm, being scarcely ever moved by a breeze. On my passage from the Canary Islands to the parallel of Sierra Leone, we had to endure a frightful degree of heat, but as soon as we had crossed the above-mentioned line, the climate changed, the air became temperate, and the freshness increased the farther we proceeded.”

“It is evident that the extract from the third voyage is but an amplification of his first account, and expresses his conviction that west of the Azores, where the declination was a little easterly, it changed to the westward, being nearly zero at Corvo, and gradually increasing to one point or 11° W., at a distance of 300 nautical miles W. of the longitude of Corvo. The position of Rosario on the S.E. part of the island of Corvo is, according to the Carta Esferica de las Islas Azores, Madrid, 1855, in latitude 39° 41´ and longitude 24° 53´ west of San Fernando, or in 31° 07´ west of Greenwich (according to the Conn. des Temps), 100 leagues or 300 nautical miles west of this longitude would correspond (in latitude 28°) to 5° 40´, and would bring the Columbus line in longitude 36° 47´ W.”—An inquiry into the variation of the compass off the Bahama Islands at the land fall of Columbus in 1492. By Charles A. Schott. p. 51.

[185] Histoire del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxiv.

“The necessity for attaching a special and well-informed astronomer to every great expedition was so generally felt that Queen Isabella wrote to Columbus on the 5th of September, 1493, ‘that although he had shown in his undertakings that he knew more than any other living being (que ninguno de los nacidos), she counselled him, nevertheless, to take with him Fray Antonio de Marchena, as being a learned and skillful astronomer.’ Columbus writes in the narrative of his fourth voyage that ‘there was only one infallible method of taking a ship’s reckoning, viz., that employed by astronomers. He who understands it may rest satisfied; for that which it yields is like unto a prophetic vision (vision profetica). Our ignorant pilots, when they have lost sight of land for several days know not where they are. They would not be able to find the countries again which I have discovered. To navigate a ship requires the compass (compas y arte) and the knowledge or art of the astronomer.’”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. pp. 671-673.

[186] “That any individual among our subjects and natives, that desires, may go hereafter (according to our pleasure and will) to discover islands and the mainland in the said part of the aforesaid Indies, either to those already discovered or to any other, and to traffic in them, provided it be not in the aforesaid island of Española. He may buy from the Christians there or from those who may hereafter be there any article and merchandise, provided it be not gold; and this he may and shall do with any suitable ship, provided that at the time he leaves our kingdom he depart from the city of Cadiz, and there present himself before our officers. And they must carry thence in each of such vessels one or two persons named by our officers.... And it is our will and pleasure that of all which the said persons shall find in the aforesaid islands and mainland they shall have for themselves nine parts, and the tenth shall be our part.”—Vide Memorials of Columbus; or a collection of authentic documents of that celebrated navigator. London, 1823. pp. 88-95.

[187] Amerigo Vespucci, the third son of Anastasio Vespucci and Elizabetta Mina, was born in Florence, March 9, 1451. In his boyhood he attended the school taught by his uncle, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a monk of the order of St. Mark. About the year 1493 Vespucci went to Seville, and engaged in the business of furnishing and equipping vessels for voyages of discovery. He died in Seville, February 22, 1512.—Vide The life and voyages of Americus Vepucius. By C. Edwards Lester and Andrew Foster. New York, 1846. Amerigo Vespucci. Son caractère, ses écrits (même les moins authentiques), sa vie, et ses navigations, par F. A. de Varnhagen. Lima, 1865.

[188] Vide Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima.—A description of works relating to America published between the years 1492 and 1551. [By Henry Harrisse.] New York, 1866. pp. 55-68.

[189] “Electo per sua alteza che io fussi in essa flocta per adiutare a discoprire.”

[190] “Partimo del porto di Calis adi 10 maggio, 1497.”

[191] Likely the double altitude, and therefore eight degrees of north latitude, or near the mouths of the Orinoco River.

[192] “Una terra, ch’ la giudica’mo essere terra ferma: la quale dista dalle isole d’Canaria piu allo occidente a circha di mille leghe fuora dello habitato d’ rento della torrida zona: perche trouva’mo el polo del septentrione al zare fuora del suo orizonte 16. gradi, & piu occide’tale che le isole di Canaria, seco’do che mostrouano e nostri instrumenti 75. gradi.”

[193] “Nauiga’mo per el maestrale, che cosi sicorreua la costa sempre a uista di terra.”

In Italy the different points of the compass were designated by the winds: North, tramontana; northeast, greco; east, levante; southeast, sirocco; south, ostro; southwest, libeccio; west, ponente; northwest, maestro or maestrale.

[194] Evidently the Gulf of Coquibacoa, called shortly afterward by the Spaniards the Gulf of Venezuela—the Gulf of Little Venice.—Vide Juan de la Cosa’s map in the cover-pocket.

[195] “Questa terra sta dentro del la torrida zona giuntamente, o di basso del paralello, che descriue el tropico di cancer: doue alza el polo dello orizonte 23 gradi nel fine del secondo clyma.”

[196] “Tanto che corremo dessa 870 leghe tutta uerso el maestrale.”

The end of the second climate was at 8° 25´ north latitude. Ptolemy, the geographer, divided the surface of the globe, from the equator to the sixty-sixth parallel, into zones, called climates, to represent the successive increase of fifteen minutes in the length of a mid-summer day. The first climate extended to 4° 15´, on the north side of the equator; the second, from 4° 15´ to 8° 25´; and the third, to 12° 30´.

[197] “Noi alsi facemo uela p, Spagna con 222 prigioni schiaui: & giugnemo nel porto di Calis adi 15 doctobre 1498.”

[198] Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuouamente trouate in quattro suoi viaggi. Primo viaggio.

Vide Amerigo Vespucci. Varnhagen. pp. 34-48. Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima. [Harrisse.] pp. 55-68, 149, 150.

[199] Vide Memorials of Columbus. pp. 96, 97.

[200] At this time, says Ferdinand Columbus, “in order that Don Diego, my brother, and I, who had served as pages to Prince Juan, who was now dead, might not suffer by his delays or be absent from court until the time of his departure, he [the admiral] sent us, on the second of November, 1497, from Seville, to serve as pages to her majesty, Queen Isabella.”

[201] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxv.

[202] Although, according to Ferdinand Columbus’s statement, his father called the firm land (or rather an island) at the mouths of the Orinoco River, Isla Santa (Holy Island), Columbus really called the continent, La Tierra de Gracia (Land of Grace).

[203] Letter from the island of Española.—Vide Select letters of Christopher Columbus, with other original documents relating to his four voyages to the New World. Translated and edited by R. H. Major. London, 1870. Second edition. Hakluyt Society pub.

[204] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxv-lxxiii.

[205] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxxiv-lxxxvii.

[206] Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci. Secundo viaggio.—Vide Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxxxiv. Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. iii. pp. 4-9; 543-545.

In December, 1499, Vincente Yañez Pinzon sailed from Palos, and came in sight of the coast of Brazil at a point of land which he called Cabo Santa Maria de la Consolacion. The same month Diego de Lepe sailed from Palos and made discoveries south of this cape. Rodrigo de Bastidas sailed from Cadiz in October, 1500, and explored the coast of Paria westward to the isthmus of Darien.

[207] Nueva España (New Spain), was the name which the Spaniards gave to Yucatan and Mexico when they first explored these countries.

[208] Mar del Sur, the early Spanish name for the Pacific Ocean.

[209] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxxxviii-xc.

[210] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xcii.

[211] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xciv-xcvi.

[212] Vide Select letters of Christopher Columbus. Major.

[213] Columbus, in his letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, from Jamaica, dated July 7, 1503, says: “This is the account I have to give of my voyage. The men who accompanied me were a hundred and fifty in number, among whom were many considered to be pilots and good sailors, but none of them can explain whither I went nor whence I came. The explanation is simply this: I sailed from a point above the port of Brazil, and while I was in Española, a storm prevented me from following my intended route, for I was compelled to go wherever the wind drove me. At the same time I became very sick, and there was no one who had sailed in these parts before. However, after some days the wind and sea became tranquil, but there were rapid currents. I put into a harbor at the island called Isla de las Bocas, and afterward steered for Tierra-firme. However, it is impossible to give a correct account of all our movements, for I was carried away by the current for many days without seeing land.

“I ascertained, notwithstanding, by the compass and by observation, that I was running parallel with the coast of Tierra-firme. No one could tell under what part of the heavens we were, nor at what time I changed my course for the island of Española. The pilots thought we had arrived at the island of St. John, whereas it was the land of Mango, four hundred leagues westward of the place mentioned by them. Let them answer and say if they know where Veragua is situated. I assert that they can give no other information than that they went to lands where there was plenty of gold, and this they can surely affirm; but they do not know the way to return there for it. They would be obliged to go on a voyage of discovery as if they had never been there before. There is a way of reckoning [the course and distance sailed] derived from astronomy which is trustworthy and safe, and a sufficient guide to any one who understands it. This resembles prophetic vision.

“The vessels of India do not sail except with the wind abaft. This is done, not because they are badly built or clumsy, but because the strong currents in those parts, together with the wind, make it impracticable for them to sail with the bowline (con bolina), for in one day they would lose as much way as they might have made in seven. For a similar reason I could not use caravels, even though they were Portuguese lateens. This is the reason for their [the vessels of India] not sailing except with a favorable wind, and they will sometimes remain in port, waiting for one, seven or eight months at a time, nor is this particularly strange, for the same occurs often in Spain.”—Vide Select letters of Christopher Columbus. Major.

[214] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xcvii-c.

[215] Letter from Jamaica, July 7, 1503.

[216] Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, commonly called Peter Martyr, a descendant of an illustrious Milanese family originally from Anghiera, on the eastern shore of Lake Maggiore, in upper Italy, was born in 1455 at Arona, on the western border of the lake. He was carried to the baptismal font by a friar of the Dominican order and christened with the name of Peter, that of the martyr of 1252, whose feast-day falls on the twenty-ninth of April. In 1477, he went to Rome to fit himself for the priesthood. There he became acquainted with the Castilian embassador, the Count of Tendilla, and was induced to return with him to Spain, in 1487. From King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella he received a number of honoring commissions. He followed the royal standard through two campaigns. In 1501 he was sent to Egypt to conciliate the sultan. He returned to Spain in August, 1502. The mission to Egypt furnished him with some of the material for his Latin work, entitled: “P. Martyris Angli Mediolanensis opera Legatio Babylonica, Oceani decas, poemata, epigrammata.” In 1505 he was made prior of the cathedral of Granada. Pope Leo X. honored him with the office of apostolical prothonotary. As a royal counsellor in the affairs of the Indies he acquired a very extensive range of information respecting the early voyages of discovery made to the New World. His work: “De Orbe Novo Petri Martyris ab Angleria Mediolanensis protonotarij Cesaris senatoris decades,” contains valuable historical matter. His letters, eight hundred and more, in the collection entitled “Opus epistolarum,” the first dated January 1, 1488, the last May, 1525, throw considerable light upon the numerous facts relating to the voyages of Columbus and other navigators of his time. His “Legatio Babylonica” was first printed at Seville (Hispalis) in 1511; his “De Orbe Novo” and letters at Alcala (Complutum) in 1530. He died in 1525, and was entombed in the cathedral of Grenada.

[217] “Quanuis huius Christophori Coloni opinio, magnitudini sphaere & opinion, veterum de subnauigabili orbe, videatur aduersari, psittaci tamen inde absportatii atque alia multa, vel propinquitate vel natura solum Indicum has insulas sapere indicant.”—De Orbe Novo decades. dec. i. cap. i.

[218] “Tengo propósito de hacer carta nueva de navegar, en la cual situaré toda la mar y tierras del mar Océanus en sus propios lugares debajo su viento.”—Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. i. p. 3.

[219] Vide Géographie du moyen âge, etudiée par Joachim Lelewel. Atlas. Bruxelles, 1850. Orbis typus universalis, 1501-1504. Hydrographia charta marina Portugalensium. Planche xliii. p. xiii.

[220] Claudii Ptolemei viri Alexandrini mathematicae disciplinae philosophi doctissimi geographiae opus novissima traductione e Graecorum archetypis castigatissime pressum: cæteris ante lucubratorum multo praestantius.... Anno Christi Opt. Max. MDXIII. Marcii xii. Pressus hic Ptolemæus Argentinae vigilantissima castigatione, industriaque Joannis Schotti urbis indigenae.

[221] Vide Map: Universalior cogniti orbis tabula ex recentibus confecta observationibus: in cover-pocket.

The somewhat similar inscriptions on the maps of 1501-1504 and 1513: “Hec terra cum ad iacentib’ insulis inuenta est per Columbu ianuensem ex mandato Regis Castelle.”—This land with the adjacent islands was discovered by Columbus, a Genoese, by the command of the king of Spain,—are authoritative declarations that the admiral was the discoverer of the represented territory.

[222] Ruysch has printed on his map these words on a scroll, on the west side of Cuba: “HVC VSQ NAVES FERDINADI REGIS HISPANIE PVENERVT,”—As far as this place the ships of Ferdinand, king of Spain, come.

[223] Juan de la Cosa, in 1493, accompanied Columbus, on his second voyage, as a cartographer. In 1499 he explored the coast of Paria with Alonso de Hojeda and Amerigo Vespucci. In November, 1509, he again sailed with Hojeda to South America, and heroically met his death while defending himself, when surrounded by a party of assailing savages, in the village of Yurbaco, in the province called Castilla del Oro by the Spaniards.

[224] Examen critique de l’histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique aux quinzième et seizième siècles. Par Alexandre de Humboldt. Paris, 1836. tome troisième. pp. 167, 174, 183.

[225] Vide Notes on Columbus. [By Henry Harrisse.] New York, 1866. Jean et Sébastien Cabot, leur origine et leurs voyages. Par Henri Harrisse. Paris, 1881. pp. 52, 103, 156.

[226] Vide Historical and geographical notes, 1453-1530. By Henry Stevens. New Haven, 1869. p. 11.

[227] St. Christopher, it is said, after he was baptized by the bishop of Antioch, took up his abode in a desert, near a rapid stream, over which he carried travellers on his back. While bearing, one day, a child across the swollen flood, he discovered that it was the Christ, hence his name Christophorus, the Christ-bearer.

Speaking of his father’s name, Ferdinand Columbus remarks: “As St. Christopher is reported to have received that name because he carried Christ over the deep waters with great danger to himself, whence came the name of Christopher, and as he conveyed over the people whom no other could have carried, so Admiral Christophorus Colonus, imploring the assistance of Christ in that dangerous voyage, went over safely himself and his company, that those Indian nations might become citizens and inhabitants of the church triumphant in heaven.”—Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. i.

[228] Abaco is one of the Bahama islands.

[229] La Cosa’s map, on three large sheets of paper, is contained in Les monuments de la géographie ou recueil d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ... publiés en fac-similé de la grandeur des originaux par M. Jomard, membre de l’institut de France, Paris. Imprimerie de Beau, a Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

[230] Vide Section of La Cosa’s map in the cover-pocket.

[231] Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. i. fol. 374.

[232] Little is known concerning the early history of Giovanni Caboto. In the archives of Venice is the record of his naturalization, dated March 28, 1476, which shows that he had lived in that city more than fifteen years before the privilege of citizenship was granted to him. Archives of Venice: Senato Terra 1473-1477. tom. vii. p. 109.

[233] An effaced part of the dispatch.

[234] Archives of Simancas. Capitulaciones con Inglaterra. Legajo ii. fol. 16.

Calendar of letters, dispatches, and state papers relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the archives of Simancas and elsewhere. Edited by G. A. Bergenroth. London, 1862. vol. i. p. 89.

[235] Public Records. Bill number 51.

[236] Hakluyt. vol. iii. pp. 4, 5. Rymer’s Foedera. London, 1727. fols. 595, 596.

[237] The history and antiquities of the city of Bristol. By William Barrett. 1789. p. 172.

[238] In the privy-purse accounts of King Henry VII. is this entry: “Aug. 10, 1497. To hym that found the new Isle, 10 £.”

[239] Diarii di Marin Sanuto. tom. i. fol. 374. MS. in Marciana library, Venice.

Calendar of state papers and manuscripts relating to English affairs in the archives and collections of Venice and other libraries of northern Italy. Edited by Rawdon Brown. London, 1864. vol. ii. p. 262.

[240] Sforza archives, Milan. Calendar of state papers. London, 1864. vol. ii. p. 260.

[241] “Esta tierra fue descubierta por Ioan Caboto Veneciano, y Sebastian Caboto su hijo, anno del nascimierte de nuestro Saluador Iesu Christo de m. cccc. xciiii. a ueinte y quatro de lunio por la mannana, ala qual pusieron nobre prima tierra uista, y a una isla grade que esta par de la dha tierra, le pusieron nombre sánt Ioan, por auer sido descubierta el mismo dia.”—Tabla primera. No. 8.

The Latin inscription, which seems to be a translation of the Spanish one, reads: “Terram hanc olim nobis clausam, aperuit, Ioannes Cabotus Venetus, necno Sebastianus Cabotus eius filius, anno ab orbe redempto 1494. die uero 24. Iuly, hora 5. sub dilùculo, qua terra primu uisam appellarut & Insula quanda magna ei opposita, Insula diui Ioannis nominarut, quippe quæ solenni die festo diui Ioannis aperta fuit.”—Tabula prima. No. 8.

“John Caboto, a Venetian, and also Sebastian Caboto, his son, made the land accessible which formerly was closed to us, in the year of the redemption of the world 1494 [1497?], on the twenty-fourth day of July [June?] at five o’clock in the morning, which land he called the first seen, primum visam, and a large island opposite to it, he named the island of Saint John, because it was found on the day of the feast of Saint John.”

[242] “Sebastian Caboto capitan, y piloto mayor de la S. c. c. m. del Imperador don Carlos quinto deste nombre, y Rey nuestro sennor hizo esta figura extensa en plano, anno del nasciemᵒ de nro saluador Iesu Christo de m.d. xliiii. annos, tirada por grados de latitud y longitud con sus uientos como carta de marear, imitando en parte al Ptolomeo, y en parte alos modernos descobridores, asi Espannoles como Portugueses, y parte por su padre, y por el descubierto.”—Retulo del auctor.

[243] Archives of Milan. Annuario scientifico. Milan, 1866. p. 700.

[244] The thirteenth year of the reign of Henry VII. began on the twenty-fifth of August, 1497.

[245] “Henry VII., 1498, March 22. To Lanslot Thirkill of London, upon a Prest for his shipp going towards the new Ilande, £. 20.—Item delivered to Launcelot Thirkill going towards the new Ile in Prest, £. 20.—April 1. Item to Thomas Bradley and Louncelot Thirkill going to the new Isle, £. 30.—To John Carter going to the newe Ile in reward 40. s.”—Excerpta historica. London, 1831. pp. 116, 117.

[246] Public Records. Bill number 6. Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 5. Memoir of Sebastian Cabot. [Richard Biddle.] Phila. 1831. pp. 74, 75.

[247] Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish Ambassador, was sent to London in 1497.

[248] Bernardo Buil, a Benedictine monk, who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, in 1493, and returned to Spain in 1494.

[249] Archives of Simancas. Tratado con Inglaterra. Leg. ii. Calendar of letters, dispatches, and state papers. London, 1862. vol. i. pp. 176, 177.

[250] The fourteenth year of the reign of Henry VII. began August 21, 1498, and ended August 21, 1499.

[251] The Chronicle of England, from Brute vnto this present yeare of Christ 1580. By John Stow. London, 1580. p. 862.

Robert Fabian, from whose work Stow obtained the information concerning Caboto’s voyage, was the author of the “Chronicle of England and France,” or, as he called it, “The concordance of stories.” He was born in London about the year 1450. Besides being an alderman of the city, he was one of its sheriffs in 1493. He died in London in 1512, and was buried in St. Michael’s, Cornhill.

[252] “Quare coactus fuit, uti ait, vela vertere et occidentem isequ tetenditque tamen ad meridiem, littore sese incurvante, ut Herculei freti latitudine ferè gradus æquarit ad occidentemque profectus tantum est, ut Cubam insulam à læua longitudine graduum penè parem habuerit.”

The Strait of Gibraltar (Strait of Hercules) is in 36° north latitude.

[253] Demorgorgon, the spirit of the earth.

[254] The name bacallaos, or baccallaos, is evidently derived from the Greek word βάκὴλος, a large, lusty fellow. Names similar to this appellation were used by the Greeks as early as the third century of the Christian era. Athenæus, in his work entitled Δειπνοσοφισταί (the learned men at supper), presents this information respecting certain fish: “They say that they are usually caught in couples, and that one is always found following at the tail of the other; and, therefore, from the fact of one following close on the tail of the other, some ancients call men who are intemperate and libidinous by the same name.... Euthydemus, in his work on Cured Fish, says: ‘Some call this fish [the cod] the bacchus, and some the gelaria, and some the hake.’”—The Deipnosophists or banquet of the learned of Athenæus. Literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London, 1854. vol. ii. pp. 442, 496.

Great numbers of the common cod [morrhua vulgaris] are annually caught on the fishing-banks off the coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. This fish is very prolific. It is said that eight millions of eggs have been counted in the roe of a female cod. Cod are sometimes caught that weigh ninety pounds.

[255] De Orbe Novo decades. dec. iii. cap. vi.

[256] The birthplace of Sebastian Caboto’s is not definitely known. Richard Eden, in his translation of the Decades of the New World of Peter Martyr, says that Sebastiano Caboto told him that he was born at Bristol, England; and Gasparo Contarini, the embassador of Charles V., avers that he informed him that Venice was his birthplace. It is conjectured that he was born about the year 1476. On the twentieth of October, 1512, Sebastiano Caboto was appointed a sea-captain by King Ferdinand of Spain. In the service of Charles V., he sailed on the fifth of April, 1526, to search for a navigable strait along the coast of South America. On this voyage, in 1527, he explored the Rio de la Plata. In July, 1530, he returned to Spain. In 1548 he went to England, where he died some time after the year 1557.—Vide The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India. Translated into Englysshe by Richarde Eden. Londoni, 1555. f. 255. Dispatch of Contarini from Valladolid, December 31, 1522. MS. Marciana library, Venice. cod. 1019. cart. 281-283. Jean et Sébastien Cabot. Harrisse. pp. 109-133.

[257] Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias con todo el descubrimiento y cosas notables que han acaecido dende que se ganaron ata et año de 1551. [Por Francisco Lopez de Gomara.] Çaragoça, 1552. primera parte. cap. de los Bacallaos.

Francisco Lopez de Gomara was born at Seville in 1510. Hernando Cortes, on his return to Spain after the conquest of Mexico, made Gomara his chaplain. Gomara’s General history of the Indies (La historia general de las Indias), and the Conquest of Mexico and New Spain (La conquista de Mexico, y de la Nueua España), were first published at Saragossa, (Çaragoça), Spain, in 1552. Gomara died about the year 1560.

[258] Tratado, que compõs o nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão.

[259] Terra de Lavrador, Portuguese: Land of the Farmer.

[260] A Discovrse of a Discouerie for a new Passage to Cataia. Written by Sir Hvmfrey Gilbert, Knight. Imprinted at London by Henry Middleton for Richarde Ihones. 1576. sig. D iii.

[261] The eighteenth year of the reign of King Henry VII. began August 21, 1502, and ended August 21, 1503.

[262] Chronicle of England. Stow. p. 875.

[263] Cape Breton Island lies between 45° 27´ and 47° 41´ north latitude. Its greatest length is one hundred miles, and its greatest breadth eighty-five miles. The island is isolated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso, which is twenty-one miles long, and from one mile to one and a half in width. Cape North is about sixty miles from Cape Ray, Newfoundland.

[264] The representation of the coast of Cape Breton Island and of Nova Scotia as trending eastward and westward, as delineated on La Cosa’s map, evidently exemplifies the incorrect conjecture made by Giovanni Caboto respecting the situation of the first land seen by him. Columbus’s delineation of the island of Cuba, as having an east coast that extended far toward the north, was a similar personal assumption which afterward was found to be false.

[265] “These regiōs are cauled Terra Florida and Regio Baccalearum or Bacchallaos of the which you may reade sumwhat in this booke in the vyage of the woorthy owlde man yet lyuing Sebastiane Cabote, in the vi. booke of the thyrde Decade. But Cabote touched only in the north corner and most barbarous parte hereof, from whense he was repulsed with Ise in the moneth of July. Neuer the lesse, the west and south partes of these regions haue sence byn better searched by other.”—The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India. Eden. The preface to the reader. ci.

[266] “La gente della andan uestidos de pieles de animales, usan en sus guèrras arcos, y flechas, lancas, y dardos, y unas porras de palo, y hondas. Es tierra muy steril, ay en ella muchos orsos plancos, y cieruos muy grandes como cauallos, y otras muchas animales, y semeiantemete ay pescado infinito, sollos; salmoes lenguados, muy grandes de uara en largo y otras muchas diuersidades de pescados, y la mayor multitud dellos se dizen baccallaos, y asi mismo ay en la dha tierra Halcones prietos como cueruos Aguillas, Perdices, Pardillas, y otras muchas aues de diuersas maneras.”—Tabla primera. No. 8.

[267] William Worthington was joined to Sebastiano Caboto in the pension given by Philip and Mary, May 29, 1557. Rymer. vol. xvi. p. 466. Divers voyages touching the discouerie of America.

[268] Navigations, voyages, and discoveries, p. 6.

[269] Richard Hakluyt was born at Yatton, England, in 1553. He took a remarkable interest in geography and navigation, and for a time held a professor’s chair of these branches at Oxford. In 1582 his “Divers voyages touching the discouerie of America and Ilands adiacent vnto the same,” was published in London. He was also the author of “A particular discourse concerninge the greate necessitie and manifolde comodyties that are like to growe to this Realme of England by the Westerne discoueries lately attempted, written in the year 1584.” In 1589, he published his celebrated work, entitled: The principal navigations, voiages, and discoveries of the English nation, made by sea or ouer Land, to the most remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth at any time within the compasse of these 1500 yeeres. Deuided into three Seuerall parts, according to the positions of the Regions whereunto they were directed. This work was further enlarged in 1599 and 1600. He was appointed prebendary of Westminster in 1605. He died October 23, 1616, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

[270] Calicut is on the west coast of India, in 11° 15´ north latitude, and 75° 50´ east longitude.

Paesi nouamente retrouati. Et Nouo Mondo da Alberico Vesputio Florentino intitulato. Stampato in Vicentia cu la impressa de Mgrō Henrico Vicentino: & diligente cura & industria de Zamaria suo fiol nel mcccccvii. a di iii de Nouember. lib. ii. cap. li-lx. The three voyages of Vasco da Gama. From the Lendas da India of Gaspar Corvea. Translated from the Portuguese by Henry E. J. Stanley. London, 1879. Hakluyt. Soc. pub.

[271] Vide Ruysch’s map of 1508.

[272] Paesi Nouamente retrouati. lib. iii. cap. lxi-lxxxiiii. Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. i. fol. 132-139. Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. iii. pp. 94, 101.

[273] Gaspar Cortereal was the son of João Vaz Cortereal, who, it is said, had previously made a voyage to the Land of Bacalhão (Terra de Bacalhão).

[274] Tratado, que compõs o-nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão.

[275] “Huma terra que por ser muito fresca e de grandes aruoredos como o sao todas as que jazem pera aquella banda lhe pos nome terra verde.”—Chronica do felicissimo rei Dom Emanuel. Lisboa, 1566. tomo i. fol. 65.

[276] Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. iii. fol. 346.

[277] It seems that the writer was ignorant of the fields of the discoveries of the English in 1497 and 1498. Giovanni Caboto, the Venetian navigator, no doubt had made the presents found in the possession of the inhabitants.

[278] Paesi nouamente retrouati. lib. vi. cap. cxxvi.—Vide Letter of Alberto Cantino. Archives of Modena. Cancelleria ducale. Dispacci dalla Spagna. Jean et Sébastien Cabot. Harrisse. pp. 262-264.

[279] “Che fu tenuta a male la mia uenuta da quanti miconosceuano: perche miparti di Castiglia, doue mi era facto honore, & il re miteneua i’ buona possessione.”

[280] “Sta q’sto cauo 8. gradi fuori della linea equinoctiale uerso laustro.”

[281] “Tanto fumo uerso laustro, che gia stauamo fuora del tropico di capricorno: a donde el polo del Meridione salzaua sopra lo Orizonte 32. gradi: et di gia hauamo perduio del tucto lorsa minore, & la maggiore chi staua molto bassa, & quasi cisimonstraua al fine delle orizonte.”

[282] André Gonçalves, it is said, had command of the fleet.—Vide O Brazil no seculo xvi. Estudos de Capistrano de Abreu. Rio de Janeiro, 1880. pp. 9-23.

[283] Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci. Terzo viaggio.—Vide Tratado, que compõs o nobre & notauel Capitão Antonio Galuão.

[284] Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci. Quarto viaggio.—Vide Chronica do felicissimo rei Dom Emanuel. Damião de Góes. tomo i. fol. 65.

[285] Ferdinand Columbus gives 1508 as the date of the voyage.

[286] Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas tierra firme del mar oceano escrita por Antonio de Herrera. Madrid, 1601-1615. dec. i. lib. vi. cap. xvii. Historia del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. lxxxix. Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. iii. p. 46.

Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas was born in Cuellar, in Spain, in 1549, and died in 1625. His General history of the acts of the Spaniards on the islands and continent of the ocean-sea, is divided into eight decades, from 1492 to 1554, contained in four volumes, the first one of which was published in Madrid, in 1601.

[287] Claudius Ptolemy. In hoc opere haec continentvr geographiae Cl. Ptolemiæi a plurima uiris utriusque linguae doctiss. emēdata: & cu archetypo graeco ab ipsis collata. Schemata cu demostrationibus suis correcta a Marco Beneuentano monacho coelestino, & Ioanne Cotta Veronensis iuris mathematicis consultissimis ... Noua & universalior orbis cogniti tabula Ioā Ruysch Germano elaborata.... Anno Virginei Partvs MDVIII. Rome.

The map is twenty-two by sixteen inches. The copy of one half of the fan-shaped map in the cover-pocket is a reduced fac-simile of the original section.

[288] The names inscribed along the coast of Terra Nova are: C. Glaciato (Ice cape), Baia de Rockas (Bay of Rocks), R. Grado, In. Baccalavras (Codfish island), C. de Portogesi (Cape of the Portuguese), Barbatos In., and Biggety In.

[289] The voyage of Nicholas de Lynna, a Franciscan monk, to the regions near the north pole.—Vide Hakluyt. vol. i. pp. 121, 122. Inscription on Mercator’s map of the world of 1569.

[290] Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuoumente trouate in quattro suoi viaggi.—Vide Amerigo Vespucci. Varnhagen. pp. 33-64. Bibliotheca Americana vetustissima. [Harrisse.] pp. 149, 150.

[291] Cosmographiae introdvctio cvm qvibvsdam geometriae ac astronomiae principiis ad eam rem necessariis. Insuper quatuor Americi Vespuccij nauigationes Vniversalis cbosmographiae descriptio tam in solido qzplano eis etiam insertis quæ Ptholomeo ignota a nuperis reperta sunt.... Finitu. vij. kl’ Maij. Anno supra sesqui Millesium. vij.

[292] Baron von Humboldt furnishes the information that Martin Waldseemüller of Freiburg, diocese of Constantius, was a student under the rectorship of Conrad Knoll of Grüningen, the seventh of December, 1490, and had established a bookstore at St. Dié, shortly before 1507.—Examen critique de l’histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent. Humboldt. vol. iv. pp. 104-106.

[293] Hylacomylus, the forest-lake miller.

[294] “Nūc vo & he partes sunt latius lustratae & alia quarta pars per Americū Vesputiū (vt in sequentibus audietur) inuenta est quā non video cur quis iūre vetet ab Americo inuentore sagacis ingenij viro Amerigen quasi Americi terra siue Americam dicendā: cū & Europa & Asia a mulieribus sua sortita sint nomina.”

Herodotus, speaking of the designations of the other divisions of the earth, says: “Nor can I conjecture for what reason these different names have been given to the earth, which is one, and those derived from the names of women.... Nor can I learn the names of those who made this division, nor whence they derived the appellations. Libya [Africa] is said by most of the Greeks to take its name from a native woman of the name of Libya; and Asia, from the wife of Prometheus. But the Lydians claim this name, saying that Asia was called after Asius, son of Cotys, son of Manes, and not after Asia, the wife of Prometheus; from whom also a tribe of Sardis is called the Asian tribe. Whether Europe, then, is surrounded by water is known by no man, nor is it clear whence it received this name, nor who gave it, unless we will say that the region received the name from the Tyrian Europa, and that it was previously without a name like other regions, for she evidently belonged to Asia, and never came into the country which is now called Europe by the Grecians, and only passed from Phœnicia to Crete, and from Crete to Lycia.”—Herodotus: Melpomene xlv.

[295] Until recently the map made by Petrus Apianus (Peter Benewitz), in the Polyhistor of C. Julius Solinus, printed in Vienna, in 1520, was supposed to be the earliest on which the name of America was engraved. However, the discovery, in France, in 1880, of a copy of the “Cosmographiae introductio,” printed by Jean de la Place, without a title or colophon-date, containing a map of the world, supposed to have been made by Ludovicus Boulenger, between the years 1514 and 1520, disentitled the former to its celebrity. The map is divided into twelve sections or gores which can be cut and pasted on a globe. The represented territory of North and South America is shown in two divisions, separated by a large body of water, between the tenth and twentieth parallels of north latitude. The word “Nova” appears on the northern division; and on the southern, “America noviter reperta.” A similar inscription it is said is on a cartographic representation of the world, in Vienna, made in 1509: “Une semblable appellation se lit sur la projection, également imprimée en fuseaux, d’un globe terrestre à la date de 1509 qui fait partie de la collectione de M. le général de Hauslab à Vienne.”—Jean et Sébastien Cabot. Harrisse. p. 182. Note.

[296] “Americus Vesputius maritima loca Indiæ superioris ex Hispaniis navigio ad occidentem perlustrans, eam partem quæ superioris Indiæ est credidit esse Insulam quam a suo nomine vocari instituit.”—Ioannis Schoneri Carolostadii opvscvlvm geographicvm ex diversorum libris ac cartis. [Nuremberg, 1533.]

[297] Schoner’s globe is still preserved in the library of Nuremberg.

[298] Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas tierra firme del mar oceano. Herrera. dec. i. lib. iv. cap. i, ii. Amerigo Vespucci. Varnhagen. pp. 33-64. Bibliotheca Americana. [Harrisse.] pp. 62-68, 149, 150, 304, 305. O Brazil no seculo xvi. Capistrano de Abreu. pp. 1-39. Descobrimento do Brasil e seu deseuvolvimento no seculo xvi. Capistrano de Abreu. Rio de Janeiro, 1883. pp. 17-66.

[299] De Orbo Novo decades. dec. ii. cap. x.

[300] The map is found on the reverse page of the forty-fifth leaf of Peter Martyr’s rare book, entitled: P. Martyris Angli Mediolanensis opera Legatio Babylonica, Oceani decas, poemata, epigrammata. Impressum Hispali cu summa diligencia Jacobu Corumberger, Alemanu. Anno Millesimo quingentissimo. xi. meso vero Aprili. The chart measures seven and a half by eleven inches.

[301] Juan Ponce was born at Leon, Spain, about 1460.

[302] Historia general. Herrera. dec. i. lib. ix. cap. x.

[303] The Indians called this region Cautio. Historia general. Herrera. dec. i. lib. ix. cap. x.

[304] The Gulf Stream, which at this point is quite deep and narrow, has a velocity varying from four to five miles an hour.

[305] “On Sunday, the eighth of May, they doubled the Cape of Florida, giving it the name of the Cape of the Currents (Cabo de Corrientes), because they are stronger there than the wind, and came to an anchorage near a town called Abaiòa. All this coast, from the Point of Reefs (Punta de Arracifes) to the Cape of the Currents, trending north and south one point to the eastward, is clean, and has six fathoms water, the cape lying in twenty-eight degrees fifteen minutes. They sailed on till they met with two islands to the southward, in twenty-seven degrees, one of which, being a league in compass, they named Santa Marta, and took in water there.

“On Friday, the thirteenth of May, they sailed along a shoal and a row of islands as far as the island which they called Pola, lying in twenty-six degrees and a half. Between the shoal and the row of islands and the continent is a spacious sea, like a bay.

“On Sunday, the day of the Feast of the Holy Spirit, the fifteenth of May, they coasted ten leagues along a row of small islands as far as two white ones, and they called them all the Martyrs, (las Martires), because the high rocks, at a distance, look like men suffering, and the name has suited them well on account of the large number of persons who have since been lost there. The rocks lie in twenty-six degrees fifteen minutes. The ships held on, sometimes north and sometimes northeast, until the twenty-third of May; and on the twenty-fourth they ran along the coast to the southward as far as some small islands which lay out at sea, and still they did not perceive that it was the main-land.”

[306] Historia general. Herrera. dec. i. lib. ix. cap. x, xii.

[307] Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias. Gomara. cap. x.

[308] Ten years before this, says Humboldt, “Columbus distinctly learned, when he was coasting along the eastern shores of Veragua, that to the west of this land there was a sea ‘which in less than nine days’ sail would bear ships to the Chersonesus aurea of Ptolemy and to the mouth of the Ganges.’ In the same Carta rarissima, which contains the beautiful and poetic narration of a dream, the admiral says that ‘the opposite coasts of Veragua, near the Rio de Belen, are situated relatively to another, as Tortosa on the Mediterranean and Fuenterabia in Biscay, or as Venice and Pisa.’ The great ocean, the South Pacific, was even at that time regarded as merely a continuation of the Sinus magnus (μέγας κόλπος) of Ptolemy, situated before the golden Chersonesus, whilst Cattigara and the land of the Sines (Thinae) were supposed to constitute its eastern boundary.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. pp. 642, 643.

[309] Historia general. Herrera. dec. i. lib. x. cap. i, ii, iv. dec. ii. lib. i. cap. iv, xi. De Orbe Novo decades. Martire. dec. iii. cap. ii, iii, vi, x. dec. iv. cap. vi. dec. vii. cap. x.

[310] Historia general. Herrera. dec. ii. lib. i. cap. vii.

[311] Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a native of Medina del Campo, Spain, came to the New World, in 1514, with Pedro Arias de Avila, who had been appointed governor of Terra Firma. He sailed with Cordoba and Grijalva on their expeditions of discovery, and was with Cortes in his Mexican campaign, and participated in more than a hundred engagements. He was regidor of the city of Guatemala, where, on the twenty-sixth day of February, 1568, he completed his True history of the conquest of New Spain.

[312] Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Escrita por el Capitan Bernal Diaz del Castillo, vno de sus conquistadores. En Madrid, 1632. cap. i-vi.

Vide The memoirs of the conquistador, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, written by himself, containing a true and full account of the discovery and conquest of Mexico and New Spain. Translated from the original Spanish by John Ingrim Lockhart. London, 1844. vol. i. chap. i-vi.

[313] “The dollar of exchange (peso de plata) is worth 8 reals of old plate, or 15 reals 2 maravedis vellon.... The value of the peso of plate, or dollar of exchange, in English silver coin, is 39½d.” [about seventy-four cents United States money].—The universal cambist and commercial instructor. By Patrick Kelly. London, 1811. vol. i. pp. 388, 389.

[314] Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Diaz. cap. viii-xvi.—Vide The memoirs of the conquistador. Lockhart. chap. viii-xvi.

[315] “He said, though still in broken Spanish, that his name was Geronimo de Aguilar, and was a native of Ecija. About eight years ago he had been shipwrecked with fifteen men and two women, on a voyage between Darien and the island of St. Domingo.... The ship struck against a rock, and they had not been able to get her off again. The whole of the crew then got into the boat, with the hope of reaching the island of Cuba or Jamaica, but were driven on the coast of Yucatan, where the Calachionies had taken them prisoners and distributed them among the people. The most of his unfortunate companions had been sacrificed to their gods. Some had died of grief and the women had pined away, being worn out by the hard labor of grinding which they had forced them to do. He had been doomed to be sacrificed to their idols, but had made his escape at night, and fled to the cacique, with whom he had been living.... He had tried to induce Gonzalo Guerrero to leave the Indians, but had failed.”

[316] The name is spelled by Diaz “Monteçuma.”

[317] An Indian woman presented to Cortes by the cacique of Tabasco. She had readily learned to speak in Spanish, and being conversant with the language of the Mexicans, was of great value to Cortes, who made her his secretary and then his mistress.

[318] Charles V. ascended the Spanish throne in 1516.

[319] Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Diaz. cap. xix-xxxix.—Vide The memoirs of the conquistador. Lockhart. chap. xxx-xxxix.

[320] “The Castilian mark weighs 3557 English troy grains.”—The universal cambist. Kelly. vol. i. pp. 391, 292.

[321] Primera parte de los veinte īvn lībros rituales ī monarchia Indiana compuesto por Juan de Torquemada. En Madrid, 1723. lib. iv. cap. xvii. fol. 389, 390.

“The ducat of exchange (ducado de plata) is worth 11 reals, maravedi of old plate, or 20 reals 25¹⁵⁄₁₇ maravedis vellon.... The value of the ducat of plate in English silver coin is 4s. 6½d. [or one dollar and one cent in United States money].”—The universal cambist. Kelly. vol. i. pp. 388-392.

Diaz gives this description of the presents: “The first was a disk about the size of a carriage-wheel, representing the sun, the entire plate being of the finest gold and of the most beautiful workmanship,—a most extraordinary work of art, which, according to the account of those who weighed it, was worth more than twenty thousand pesos de oro. The second was a disk, even larger than the former, of massive silver, representing the moon, with rays and figures on it, and of great value. The third was a casque, filled with grains of pure gold as they were found in the mine, worth about three thousand pesos, which gold was of more importance to us than if it had been ten times this value, for we were now assured that there were rich gold-mines in the country. Among the other presents there were thirty golden ducks in every way resembling the living fowl, very elaborately made. Besides, there were figures of lions, tigers, dogs, and monkeys. There were also ten chains with lockets, all of gold, and of the most costly workmanship; a bow with the string and twelve arrows; two staffs like those used by justices, five palms in length; all of which were made of the purest gold. They also brought small cases containing the most beautiful green feathers, interwoven with gold and silver, and fans similarly made, and figures of all kinds of game made of gold.”

Peter Martyr, who had inspected the presents, says: “Si quid unquam honoris humana ingenia in huiuscemodi artibus sunt adepta, principatum iure merito ista consequentur. Aurum, gemmasque non admiror quidem, qua industria, quove studio superet opus materiam, stupeo. Mille figuras et facies mille prospexi quæ scribera nequeo. Quid oculos hominum sua pulchritudine aeque possit allicere meo iudicio vidi nunquam.—De Orbe Novo decades. dec. i. cap. xi.

[322] Teules, according to Diaz, meant gods or celestial beings.

[323] From Villa Rica de Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico the distance was about one hundred and seventy-five miles. By the route of the Mexican railroad the distance from the present city of Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico is two hundred and sixty-three miles.

[324] A stone of a light green color.

[325] Paper made from the leaves of the maguey or agave-plant.

[326] Cortes conjectured the city contained twenty thousand houses. The temple of Quetzalcoatl was built on a terraced mound about two hundred feet high, and was reached by ascending one hundred and twenty steps.

[327] The name of the city is written Tenustitlan Mexico by Diaz. It is spelled Tenuchtitlan Mexico by some Spanish writers.

“In the spelling of the names of Indian chiefs, the townships, and of the provinces, we have mostly followed Torquemada, who is considered more correct on this point, for he lived fifty years in New Spain.”—The memoirs of the conquistador. Lockhart. Preface. vol. i. p. vi.

[328] This name, says Diaz, was given to Cortes “because our interpreter, Doña Marina, was always near him, particularly when embassadors arrived, and in our negotiations with the different caciques she interpreted for both parties. They therefore called him the captain of Marina, and contracted that appellation into the word Malinche.”

[329] It is said that the slimy substance mentioned by Diaz was called tecuitlatl, the excrement of stone. It was variously fashioned, and dried in the sun.

[330] Xiquipiles, according to Torquemada, expressed the number of 8,000 of any thing.

[331] Cacao-beans were used by the Mexicans in lieu of small coin.

[332] Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Diaz. cap. xxxix-clix.—Vide The memoirs of the conquistador. Lockhart. chap. xxxix-clix.

[333] Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Diaz. cap. lx, clxii.—Vide The memoirs of the conquistador. Lockhart. chap. lx, clxii.

[334] Tratado, que compõs e nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão.

[335] In June, 1523, Francisco de Garay sailed with a fleet and a large number of troops from Jamaica to take possession of the province of Panuco, of which he had been appointed governor. He failed to accomplish his purpose, and died in the city of Mexico, at the end of December, 1523. Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. cap. cxxxiii, clxii. Vide The memoirs of the conquistador. Lockhart. chap. cxxxiii, clxii.

[336] Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. iii. pp. 64-69; 147-153.

[337] The situation of certain places along the coast of the present states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, is thus described by Gomara: “From Santa Elena to Rio Seco, in 31°, are other forty leagues, and thence to La Cruz are twenty, and thence to Cañaveral, forty; and from Punta Cañaveral, in 28°, are other forty to Punta de la Florida (the peninsula of Florida).... This is in 25°, which is twenty leagues in length, and from it are a hundred or more leagues to Ancon bajo, which is fifty leagues from Rio Seco, from east to west, across Florida. From Ancon bajo they estimate it to be a hundred leagues to Rio de Nieves, and thence to that of Flores more than twenty, from which river it is seventy leagues to the Bay of the Holy Spirit (Baya del Espiritu Sancto), called by another name, La Culata (the breech of a gun), which river flows out into the ocean thirty leagues, and is in 29°, and thence it is more than seventy to Rio de Pescadores. From Rio de Pescadores, in 28° 30´, are a hundred leagues to Rio de las Palmas, near which crosses the tropic of Cancer; thence to Rio Panuco are more than thirty leagues; and thence to Villa Rica or Vera Cruz, seventy leagues.”—Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias. Gomara. cap. xii.

[338] Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, a native of Toledo, Spain, was one of the licentiates appointed by King Ferdinand to act as auditors of the royal court of appeal (audiencia), afterward sitting in San Domingo. In March, 1520, Ayllon went with Pamfilo de Narvaez to New Spain, who was sent there by Diego Velasquez to administer the affairs of that country. When Ayllon landed in Mexico he became so inimical to the purposes of Velasquez that Narvaez put him under arrest and sent him back to Cuba, where he arrived in August, 1520.

[339] “So designated,” says Herrera, “because Jordan was the name of one of the captains or masters of the ships.”

Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias. Gomara. cap. vii.

[340] Ayllon, in 1523, was made governor (adelantado) of the provinces and islands of Suache, Chicora, Xapira, Tatancal, Anicatiye, Cocayo, Guacaya, Xoxi, Sona, Pasqui, Arambe, Xamunambe, Huag, Tanzaca, Yenyohol, Paor, Yamiscaron, Carixagusignanin and Anoxa, that were said to lie between the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh parallels of north latitude. In 1524 it is said that he sent two ships to some of these places. In July, 1526, he sailed himself from Española, with six vessels, having on board five hundred men and ninety horses. Diego Miruelo, the pilot of this fleet, it is said, failed to find the coast of Chicora, which he had visited in 1520. The natives, where the Spaniards landed, manifested toward them the greatest friendliness, and so deceived Ayllon with their unbounded hospitality that he sent two hundred of his men into the interior on an exploring expedition. While they were sleeping the savages fell upon them and murdered them to a man. They then attacked those near the ships, who, being outnumbered, fled before their assailants. One hundred and fifty escaped, and in a suffering condition returned to San Domingo. It is further related that Ayllon died on the eighteenth of October, 1526.—Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. iii. pp. 69-74; 153-160.

[341] De Orbe Novo decades. dec. ii. cap. vii.

[342] “Thence to Puerto del Principe are more than a hundred leagues, and from it to the Rio Jordan, seventy, and thence to Cabo de Santa Elena, which is in 32°, there are forty leagues.”—Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias. Gomara. cap. xii.

[343] Pigafetta writes the name “Magaglianes,” the Portuguese “Magalhaens,” the Spaniards “Magallanes,” and the French “Magellan.” The English follow the French spelling.

[344] Fernam de Magalhaens was born at Oporto, about the year 1470. After entering the Portuguese navy, he sailed to the East Indies and served under Affonso d’Albuquerque. He returned to Spain about the year 1517.

[345] Before Brazil was discovered, red wood was brought to Europe from Asia and Africa.

[346] In the edition of Ptolemy’s geography, printed at Rome in 1508, it is said: “The Land of the Holy Cross diminishes all the way to south latitude 37°; although, according to navigators who have explored it, it is said all the way to south latitude 50°; of which remaining part no description is found.—Terra Sanctæ Crucis decrescit usque ad latitudinem 37° aust.; quamquam ad Archiploi usque ad 50° austr., navigarint, ut ferunt; quam reliquam portionem descriptam non reperi.” cap. xiv.

[347] The eastern entrance to the strait lies between the Cape of the Virgins, on the north, and the Cape of the Holy Spirit, on the south, and is about twenty miles wide. The strait is three hundred and fifteen miles long.

[348] On the Maiollo map of 1527, the following inscription is placed near the delineated strait: “Streito doute pasas Magaianes Portogese per andare in le isole de Maluchi de le spesarie de Re de Spania,” the strait passed by Magaianes, a Portuguese, to go to the Molucca Islands for spices for the king of Spain.

[349] “Il capitano-generale, che sapeva de dover fare la sua navegazione per uno streto molto ascoso, como vite ne la thesararia del re de Portugal in una carta fata per quello excellentissimo huomo Martino di Boemia.”

The chart was evidently one drafted to exhibit the field of the explorations of Cabral and other Portuguese navigators along the eastern coast of Brazil.

[350] The fifth vessel, the Santiago, while exploring the coast, when the other ships were at anchor in the harbor of St. Julian, was wrecked.

[351] Gomez, after deserting the squadron with the San Antonio, returned to the port of St. Julian, and there took on board Gaspar de Casada and the priest whom Magalhaens had put on shore. On Gomez’s return to Spain, the sixth of May, 1521, he told “the emperor that Magalhaens was crazy and had lied to his majesty, for he did not know where Banda was nor the Moluccas.”—Letter of Transylvanus and Castanheda.

[352] Spanish, Las Islas Desdichados.

[353] “Seconda la misura che facevamo del viaggio colla catena a poppa, noi percorrevamo da 60 in 70 leghe algiorno.”

[354] Sir Francis Drake followed Magalhaens a half century later. The former departed from England on the thirteenth of December, 1577, and returned there on the third of November, 1580.

[355] Cape Cattigara was, according to Ptolemy, in one hundred and eighty degrees of longitude from the Canaries and south of the equator. It is now known as Cape Comorin, being the southern extremity of Hindostan, in north latitude 8° 5´, and in east longitude 77° 30´.

[356] Spanish, de los Ladrones. The Ladrone Islands, about twenty in number, lie between 13° and 21° north latitude, and 144° and 146° east longitude.

[357] The Moluccas or Spice Islands, more than two hundred in number, lie between 3° north and 9° south latitude, and 122° and 133° east longitude.

[358] Juan Sebastian del Cano was honored for the notable part he took in this famous voyage by being permitted to display, as his coat of arms, the figure of a globe, on which was inscribed: “Primus circumdedisti me.”

[359] Primo viaggio intorno al globo terracqueo ossia ragguaglio della navigazione alle indie orientali per la via d’occidente fatta dal cavaliere Antonio Pigafetta patrizio Vicentino sulla squadra del Capit. Magaglianes negli anni 1519-1522 ora publicato per la prima volta, tratto da un codice MS. della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano e corredota di note da Carlo Amoretti. In Milano, 1800.—Vide The first voyage round the world by Magellan, translated from the accounts of Pigafetta and other contemporary writers. By Lord Stanley of Alderley. London, 1874. Hakluyt Soc. pub. Vide Pinkerton’s voyages and travels. vol. i. pp. 288-381.

[360] Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias. Gomara. cap. x.

[361] According to Jacques Cartier’s statement, the Cape of Buona Vista was in 48° 30´ north latitude.

[362] Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. iii. fol. 359.

[363] “Les Dieppois continuoient leur commerce dans les Indes Orientales, lorsqu’ils apprirent les découvertes que les Espagnols avoient faites en Amérique: leur émulation s’en trouva piquée, & ils armèrent deux vaisseaux, pour connoître si cette partie du monde ne s’étendoit pas du côte du Nord; ils en confièrent le commandement à deux de leurs plus habiles Capitaines, nommés Thomas Aubert & Jean Vérassen. Ces deux navires partirent de Dieppe au commencement de 1508, & découvrirent, la même année, le Fleuve Saint-Laurent, auquei ils donnérent ce nom, parce que ce fut ce jour-là qu’ils commencèrent à le remonter; ce qu’ils firent jusqu’ à plus de quatre-vingt lieues, trouvant des habitants affables, avec lesquels ils firent des èchanges les plus avantageux en pelleteries.”—Mémoires chronologiques pour servir à l’historie de Dieppe et à celle de la navigation Françoise. Jean Antoine Desmarquets. À Paris, 1785. tom. i. pp. 99, 100.

[364] “One of thirty regions or zones of the earth, parallel to the equator, corresponding to the successive increase of a quarter of an hour in the length of the midsummer day.”

[365] West coast of Ireland.

[366] Eusebii Caesariensis episcopi chronicon.... In alma Parisiorū academia. Millesimo quingentesimo duodecimo Idibus vero Iunij. fol. 172.

[367] Giovanni da Verrazzano, the son of Pier Andrea da Verrazzano, was born at Florence about the year 1480.

[368] Henry Hudson, the navigator. By G. M. Asher. London, 1860. Hakluyt Society pub. Introduction. p. 79.

[369] The voyage of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, in 1500.

[370] Cronica do muyto alto e muyto poderoso rey destes regnos de Portugal Dom João o III. deste nome. Francisco d’Andrada. Lisboa, 1613. part. i. cap. 13, 14.

[371] Letter of João da Silveyra to Dom João III. Archivo de Torre de Tombo. Corp. Chron. part. i. ma. 29. doc. 54.

[372] The ship La Dauphine is spoken of in the Italian text of Verrazzano’s letter as “la nave Dalfina.” Dalfina is the feminine form of the Italian word dalfino, a dolphin.

[373] A manuscript containing the Italian text of Verrazzano’s letter was found in 1837, by G. W. Greene, consul from the United States at Rome, in the Magliabecchian library of Florence, in a volume of miscellanies, marked “Class xiii. Cod. 89. Verraz.” With this letter was another written by Fernando Carli to his father, dated Lyons, August 4, 1524. As Carli remarks in his communication that it inclosed a copy of Verrazzano’s letter to Francis I., it is believed that the transcript he speaks of is the copy found in the Magliabecchian library.—Vide Life and voyages of Verrazzano, by G. W. Greene. North American Review. vol. xlv. October, 1837.

Ramusio placed in the third volume of his collection of voyages and travels a condensed form of Verrazzano’s letter, entitled “The relation of Giovanni da Verrazzano, Florentine, to the most Christian king of France, Francis I., of the land by him discovered in the name of his majesty; written at Dieppe, July 8, 1524.—Al Christianissimo Re Di Francia Francesco Primo, Relatione di Giovanni da Verrazano Fiorentino della terra per lui scoperta in nome di sua Maesta scritta in Dieppa, adi 8. Luglio M.D.XXIIII.”—Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. iii. fol. 350.

[374] The copy of Verrazzano’s letter has this superscription: “Il Capitano Giovanni da Verrazzano, fiorentino di Normandie, al la serenissima corona di Francia, dice”:—Captain Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine, from Normandy, to the most serene crown of France, says.

[375] Hakluyt’s translation of the letter published by Ramusio, in 1556, begins with these words.

“I wrote not to your Maiesty, most Christian King, since the time we suffered the Tempest in the North partes, of the successe of the foure shippes, which your Maiestie sent forth to discouer new lands by the Ocean, thinking your Maiestie had bene already duely enformed thereof. Now by these presents I will give your Maiestie to understand how by the violence of the Windes we were forced with the two shippes, the Norman and the Dolphin (in such euill case as they were), to land in Britaine. Where after wee had repayred them in all poynts as was needful, and armed them very well, we took our course along the coast of Spaine, which your Maiestie shall understand by the profite that we receiued thereby. Afterwards with the Dolphin alone we determined to make discouerie of new Countries, to prosecute the Nauigation we had already begun, which I purpose at the present to recount unto to your Maiestie, to make manifest the whole proceeding of the matter.

“The 17 of January, the yeere 1524, by the Grace of God, we departed from the dishabited rocke by the isle of Madeira (Alli, 17. Genaro, 1524. Dio gratia partimmo dallo scoglio dishabitato), appertaining to the king of Portugal, with 50 men, with victuals, weapons, and other ship-munition very well prouided and furnished for eight months; and sailing Westward with a faire Easterly winde (per Ponente nauigando con vento di Leuante assai piaceuole), in 25 dayes we ran 500 leagues, and the 20 of Februarie (alli 20 Febraro), we were ouertaken with as sharpe and terrible a tempest as euer any saylers suffered, whereof with the diuine helpe and mercifull assistance of Almighty God, and the goodnesse of our shippe, accompanied with the good happe of her fortunate name we were delivered.”—Vide Voyages. London, 1600. vol. ii. p. 295.

[376] One of three islands lying in a row from north to south, southeast of the island of Madeira, in north latitude 32° 30´, off the west coast of Africa. The islands are called Ilhas Dezertas, and are only inhabited by sea-fowl.

[377] In Verrazzano’s geographical explanation of the voyage, he assigns 62½ miles to a degree and 4 miles to a marine league. According to this data, 15⅝ marine leagues equal a degree. On Thevet’s map of the fourth part of the world, printed in 1575, is a scale of leagues which shows that a marine league was double the length of a French league. With this information it is easy to ascertain the length of a degree in French leagues of Verrazzano’s day; 31¼, according to his explanation, equalling a degree. Columbus made 56⅔ miles equal an equinoctial degree and 60 miles equal to 15 leagues. Pigafetta assigned 17½ leagues to a degree. “The land-league is three miles,” he says, “the sea-league is four.” The modern nautical league is one-twentieth of a degree, or three equatorial miles or 3.45785 statute miles. A sea-mile, according to the United States standard, is equal to 1.152664 common statute or land-miles. One degree of longitude at the equator is equal to 69.160 land-miles. A French geographical league, according to Verrazzano’s reckoning, equals 2⅕ land-miles of the United States standard.

[378] Cape Fear is in 33° 48´ north latitude.

[379] The translation of Verrazzano’s letter by Joseph G. Cogswell, contained in the New York Historical Society’s collections, second series, vol. i. pp. 37-54, will be followed hereafter, except when a better rendering may be presented.

[380] Vide section of Maiollo map in the cover-pocket. The scale of latitudes on the margin of this part of the map has been appended to indicate the position given to places by Visconte de Maiollo. A similar scale is engraved on another part of the rare map.

[381] Palmetto trees.

[382] It was not until 1728 that this conception of the navigator was disproved. Then Vitus Behring discovered the strait which divides the two continents. The distance between East Cape in Asia and Cape Prince of Wales on the continent of America is forty-five miles.

[383] “Nè pensiamo participando dello oriente per la circumferenza sieno senza qualche drogheria o liquore aromatico, et altre divitie oro ed altro del quale colore la terra tutta tende.”

[384] Historical collections of South Carolina. By B. R. Carroll. vol. i. p. xxi.

[385] In Ramusio’s text the word is oriente, east. Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. ii. fol. 350.

It was the custom of the aborigines to set fire to the underbrush in spring to enable them to hunt and to inclose game within the limits of the burning wood.

[386] The harbor of Beaufort was too far inland to be seen by Verrazzano.

[387] In Hakluyt’s translation of the text of Ramusio’s condensed copy of Verrazzano’s letter is the following respecting the vines of Virginia: “We saw in this country many vines growing naturally, which, growing up, took holde of the trees as they doe in Lombardie, which if by husbandmen they were dressed in good order, without all doubt they would yeeld excellent wines; for hauing oftentimes seene the fruit thereof dryed; which was sweete and pleasant, and not differing from ours, we thinke that they doe esteeme the same, because in euery place where they growe, they take away the under branches growing round about, that the fruit thereof may ripen the better.”—Voyages. Hakluyt. vol. ii. p. 297.

[388] Chesapeake Bay “extends 190 miles from its mouth, into the States of Virginia and Maryland; it is from 7 to twenty miles broad, and generally 9 fathoms deep.”

The peninsula is “about 60 miles long, and from 10 to 15 wide, and bounded toward the sea by a string of low sandy islets. The waters of the Chesapeake enter the sea between Cape Charles and Cape Henry, forming a strait of fifteen miles in width.”—Gazetteer of Virginia and the District of Columbia. By Joseph Martin. 1835. pp. 23, 18.

[389] Vide Maiollo map of 1527 in the cover-pocket.

[390] “Epistle dedicatorie” to Hakluyt’s Divers voyages, 1582.

[391] “Da questo mare orientale si vede il mare occidentale; sono 6 miglia di terra infra l’uno a l’altro.”

[392] Hakluyt’s Particular discourse, 1584.

The English collector illustrates his Divers voyages with Locke’s map, which the English cartographer dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney.

[393] Sandy Hook light-house is in 40° 27´ 39´´ north latitude.

[394] At Sandy Hook, a low, sandy point of land, eighteen miles from the city of New York, are two ship-channels through which vessels of the heaviest tonnage can pass. Immediately north of Sandy Hook is the spacious roadstead called the Lower Bay. Between Staten Island, north of it, and Long Island is the Narrows, a channel about one mile and a half long by one wide. North of it is the Upper Bay or harbor of New York.

[395] The Upper Bay or harbor of New York, about eight miles long by five wide, lies between the mouth of the Hudson River on the north and the Narrows on the south. From the bay, vessels can pass into the East River and thence to Long Island Sound, between Long Island and the main-land. Westward is Newark Bay, through which vessels can pass from the Upper Bay of New York, thence into Staten Island Sound, thence into Raritan Bay and the Lower Bay. The rise and fall of the tide in the harbor of New York is about four and a half feet.

[396] Belgische ofte Nederlandsche oorlogen ende geschiedenissen beginnende van ’t jaer 1595 tot 1611.—Door Emanuel van Meteren. 1611. Boek xxx. fol. 327.

[397] Purchas his Pilgrimes. vol. iii. p. 595.

[398] “De groote noordt rievier van Nieuw-Nederlandt wordt by eenighe ghenoemt de Manhattes rieviere naer volckeren die by naer aen’t begin ofte de mout van de rieviere woonen; by andere oock Rio de Montaigne; doch by de ouse wordt meest genoemt de groote rieviere.”—Nieuwe Wereldt. Door Johannes de Laet. Tot Leyden, 1625. Boeck iii. cap. ix.

[399] Vide map entitled: ’t Noorder deel van West-Indien, contained in the rare work in Dutch: West-Indische Spieghel. Door Athanasium Inga, Peruen, van Cusco. Amsterdam, 1624. The map-maker’s name, A. Goos, is inscribed on the chart.

[400] Angoulême, a town on the Charente River, in France, sixty-six miles northeast of Bordeaux. Angoulême, with the territory of Angoumois, was governed from the ninth to the fourteenth century by counts. Francis I., before he became king of France, was Comte d’Angoulême.

[401] The island of Rhodes, lying off the southwest coast of Asia Minor, between 35° 50´ and 36° 30´ north latitude, has an area of about 452 square miles.

[402] Blank space in the original copy.

[403] Newport is in 41° 29´, and the city of Providence in 41° 49´ 22´´ north latitude.

[404] Vide Gastaldi’s map.

[405] As described by a late writer: “Narragansett Bay is one of the most beautiful sheets of water in the United States; it is unrivalled for its navigable advantages, affording at all times a safe and ready communication with the ocean; and its shores, which are indented with innumerable bays and inlets containing many excellent harbors. This bay ... extends more than thirty miles into the interior of the state, and for this distance affords superior advantages for ship-navigation. The whole extent of the bay and river, from Point Judith to Providence, is about thirty-six miles. The average breadth of the lower section of the bay is nearly ten miles; but the upper part is narrow. Exclusive of the islands, of which there are about fifteen in number, and some of considerable extent, the waters of the bay comprise an area of about one hundred and thirty square miles.”—Gazetteer of Connecticut and Rhode Island. 1819. pp. 302, 303, 349, 359.

[406] See note, page 293.

[407] The distance given by the Spanish historian, Francisco Lopez de Gomara, in 1552, from the Point of Baccalaos, in 48° 30´ to Cape St. Helen, in 32° north latitude, is more than seven hundred and sixty Spanish leagues, measured as the coast trended: “From the Point of Baccallaos are set down eight hundred and seventy leagues to Florida, counting as follows: From the Point of Baccallaos which is in 48° 30´ are seventy leagues of coast to La Baya del Rio, which is in more than 45°. Thence are seventy to another bay called Isleos which is in less than 44°. From Baya Isleos to Rio Fonda are seventy leagues, and thence to Rio de las Gamas, are other seventy, both rivers being in 43°. From Rio de los Gamas are fifty leagues to Cabo Bajo, and thence to Rio de San Anton, they reckon more than a hundred leagues. From Rio de San Anton are eighty leagues along the shore of a gulf to Cabo de Arenas, which is in nearly 39°, thence to Puerto del Principe are more than a hundred leagues, and from it to Rio Jordan seventy, and thence to Cabo de Santa Elena, which is in 32°, there are forty leagues. From Santa Elena to Rio Seco, which is in 31°, are forty leagues.”—La historia general de las Indias. Gomara. cap. xii.

[408] The name Francesca is used on the Maiollo map of 1527. Hieronymus da Verrazzano called the region “Verrazana seu Gallia nova,”—Verrazana or New Gaul. By some French writers it was denominated in the sixteenth century, “Terre Francesque.”

[409] “This distance,” he remarks, “calculated geometrically upon the ratio that three and one seventh times the diameter of a circle is equal to its circumference, gives 92⁵⁴¹⁶⁴⁄₄₇₂₇₃₃ degrees. For if we take 114⁶⁄₁₁ degrees as the chord of an arc of a great circle, we have by the same ratio 95²⁴⁸³⁄₄₉₅₀ degrees as the chord of an arc on the parallel of 34°, being that on which we first made land, and 300²³³⁄₁₅₇₅ degrees as the circumference of the whole circle, passing through this plane. Allowing then, as actual observations show, that 62½ terrestrial miles correspond to a celestial degree, we find the whole circumference of 300²³³⁄₁₅₇₅ degrees, as just given, to be 18,759³¹⁄₁₂₆ miles, which, divided by 360, makes the length of a degree of longitude on the parallel of 34° to be 52⁹⁸⁹⁄₉₀₇₂ miles, and that is the true measure. Therefore, by a right line to the said rock which stands in 32°, we have to calculate the distance, the said 1,200 leagues which we have found, from the thirty-fourth parallel, from west to east, hence I should have run 92⁵⁴¹⁶⁴⁄₄₇₂₇₃₃ degrees, and this many therefore we have sailed to the West, which was not known to the ancients.”

114⁶⁄₁₁ × 3¹⁄₇ = 360. 300²³³⁄₁₅₇₅ × 7 ÷ 22 = 95²⁴⁸³⁄₄₉₅₀. 300²³³⁄₁₅₇₅ × 62½ = 18,759³¹⁄₁₂₆. 18,759³¹⁄₁₂₆ ÷ 560 = 52⁹⁸⁹⁄₉₀₇₂. 4,800 by 52⁹⁸⁹⁄₉₀₇₂ = 92⁵⁴¹⁶⁴⁄₄₇₂₇₃₃.

[410] “The Spaniards have sailed south beyond the equator, on a meridian 20³²⁰⁶⁰/₄₇₂₈₁ degrees west of the Fortunate Islands to the latitude of 54° and there still found land. Turning about they steered northward on the same meridian and along the coast to the eighth parallel, and then along the coast more to the west, and north to the latitude of 21° [31°?], without finding a termination to the continent. They estimated the distance run as 89²⁹⁷⁰⁹/₄₆₇₈₁ which added to the 20³²⁰⁶⁰/₄₇₂₈₁ first run make 110¹⁴⁴⁸⁸/₄₆₇₈₁, but this may vary somewhat from the truth. We did not make this voyage, and therefore cannot speak from experience. We calculated it geometrically from the observations furnished by many navigators, who have made the voyage and affirm the distance to be 1600 leagues, due allowance being made for the deviations of the ship from a straight course by reason of contrary winds. I hope that we shall now obtain accurate information on these points, by new voyages to be made on the same coasts.”—Vide Maiollo map of 1527.

[411] Verrazzano’s argument is based upon the supposition that the extent of the land of the new continent was greater than it really was, for at this time the Pacific coast of the New Land had not been explored. Verrazzano believed that the New World extended much farther westward than it does.

[412] Tierra del Fuego, south of the Strait of Magellan, had not yet been explored, and it was not known how far it extended, or in what direction.

[413] The number of tons is not mentioned.

[414] According to Carli’s statement, Verrazzano at first attempted to sail to the west by going through the North Sea. Here, as Verrazzano relates, his vessels were disabled, and he proceeded southward toward the desert-rock, whence he steered toward the west in quest of new lands.

[415] Carli evidently was not well informed concerning Magellan’s expedition, for although he speaks of the five ships of the fleet, and of the return of the one commanded by Del Cano, he appears to be ignorant of the death of Magellan, and of the arrival of Estevan Gomez, in 1521, with the ship San Antonio.

[416] King Francis wrote to his parliament, on the second of July, 1524, saying: “I am going to Lyons to prevent the enemy from entering the kingdom, and I can assure you that Charles de Bourbon is not yet in France.”—Historie de François Premier. Gaillard. Paris, 1769. tom. iii. p. 172.

[417] Lettera di Fernando Carli a suo padre. Archivo storico Italiano ossia raccolta di opere e documenti fiuora inediti o divenuti rarissimi risguardanti la storia d’Italia. Appendice. tomo ix. Firenze. Gio. Pietro Vieusseux, direttore-editore al suo gabinetto scientifico letterario. 1853.

[418] Philippe Chabot, Sieur de Brion, admiral of France, was given command of the French marine, March 23, 1526.

[419] Ango & Son was a noted firm of ship-builders in Dieppe.

[420] Twenty thousand pounds, Tours currency, were to be advanced to meet the expenses of the undertaking. The admiral of France contributed four thousand pounds, Guillaume Preudhomme, general of Normandy, two thousand; Pierre Despinolles, one thousand; Jean Ango, two thousand; Jacques Boursier, two thousand; and Verrazzano (Jehan de Varesam, as his name is written in the agreement), chief pilot, two thousand pounds. Verrazzano, having agreed to provide competent pilots for the other two vessels, was to receive one sixth of all the goods which should be brought back, and one tenth of any booty taken at sea from the Moors, or other enemies of France. Foutette collection. xxx. 770. fol. 60. Bibliothèque nationale. Paris.

[421] Zanobus de Rousselay, a merchant of Rouen, in a legal instrument, dated September 30, 1526, gave bonds that “Messire Jehan de Verrassane” was entitled “to defend a certain clameur de haro, obtained against him by Guillaume Eynoult, called Cornete, living in Dieppe.” The bonds were placed in the hands of Fremyn Poree and Robert Tassel, sergeant royal, at Rouen, until the matter could be legally settled. MS. in archives of Rouen.

[422] Foutette collection. xxx. 770. fol. 60. Bibliothèque nationale. Paris.

[423] Hakluyt’s Divers voyages, 1582.

[424] “Epistle dedicatorie” to Divers voyages.

[425] Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. Discorso sopra la nuova Francia. vol. iii. fol. 438.

[426] Hakluyt’s Particular discourse, 1584.

[427] In the cover-pocket is a copy of the part of the Maiollo map representing the continent in the western hemisphere.

[428] The inscription on the chart contains this information: “Verrazana seu Gallia nova quale discopri 5 anni fa Giovanni di Verrazzano fiorentino per ordine et comandamēto del Chrystiannissimo Re di Francia” (Verrazana or New Gaul, which Giovanni di Verrazano, a Florentine, discovered five years ago, by the order and commandment of the most Christian king of France).

[429] The value of the map made by Hieronymus da Verrazzano is fully discussed in Notes on Giovanni da Verrazano, and on a planisphere of 1529 illustrating his American voyage in 1524, with a reduced copy of the map, by James Carson Brevoort. New York, 1874.

Vide Voyage of Verrazzano: A chapter in the early history of maritime discovery in America. By Henry C. Murphy. New York, 1873.

Vide Verrazano, the Explorer: being a vindication of his letter and voyage, with an examination of the map of Hieronimo da Verrazano and a dissertation upon the globe of Vlpius. By B. F. De Costa. New York, 1880.

[430] The true and last discouerie of Florida made by Captain John Ribault in the yeere 1562. Dedicated to a great noble man of Fraunce, and translated into Englishe by one Thomas Hackit. Hakluyt’s Divers voyages. 1582.

The whole and true discoverye of Terra Florida (Englished, the Florishing Land) conteyning as well the wonderful straunge Natures and Maners of the People, with the mervylous Commodities and Treasures of the Country; as also the pleasaunt Portes and Havens, and Wayes thereunto never found out before the last year, 1562. Written in French by Captain Ribauld, the fyrst that whollye discovered the same, and now newly set forthe in Englishe, the xxx. of May, 1563.

[431] Voyages. Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 232.

[432] Brief recit, and succincte narration de la nauigation faicte es ysles de Canada, Hochelage, and Saguenay & autres, auec particulieres meurs, langaige & cerimonies des habitans d’icelles: fort delectable à veoir. Auec priuilege. On les uend à Paris au second pillier en la grand salle du Palais, & en la rue neufue Nostre dame à l’enseigne de lescu de Frāce, par Ponce Roffet dict Fanchuer & Anthoine le Clerc frères. 1545.

[433] “Septem hoies syluestres ex ea isula (que terra noua dicit) Rothomagu adducti sunt.”—Eusebii Caesariensis episcopi chronicon. Paris. 1512. p. 172.

[434] “Manant, s. m. Paysan habitant en un village ou en une metairie à la campagne. Indigena, incola rusticus.... On appelle proprement manans, ceux qui sont originaires du lieu; & habitans, ceux qui y sont venus demeurer.”—Dictionnaire Trevoux. Nancy, 1740.

“Manant (ma-nan), s. m. 1° Terme d’ancienne pratique. Habitant d’un bourg ou d’un village.... 2° Absolument, dans le langage ordinaire, mais archaïque, un paysan.... 3° Aujourd’hui, par extension, homme grossier, mal élevé.”—Dictionnaire de la langue Française. Par É. Littré, de l’académie Française. Paris, 1874.

[435] “The French call the Maques, les Aniuez, the Oneydes, les Onoyants, the Onondagas, les Montagneurs, ... the Caiougas, les Petuneurs, the Senegues, les Paisans.”—Observations of Wenworth Greenhalgh in a journey from Albany to ye Indyans westward. 1677. London documents in the office of the Secretary of State, Albany, N. Y. vol. iii. p. 167.

[436] “This region is called by the peasants (paesani) Norumbega.”—Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. iii. fol. 353.

“Quando per sua buona uentura intese da paesani, che erano giunto alla marina alcuni nauiglia.” “Here by good luck he heard from the natives that some boats had arrived off the coast.”—Dello Scoprimento dell’ Isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engronelanda, Estotilanda, & Icaria, fatto per due fratelli Zeni.—Vide Voyages of the Venetian brothers. Major. p. 24.

[437] Nieuwe Wereldt. Door Johannes de Laet. Tot Leyden. 1625. boek. iii. cap. ix.

[438] Novus Orbis, seu descriptionis Indiæ Occidentalis, autore Joanne de Laet. Antuerpiensi, 1633. lib. iii. cap. vii.

When the island in 1625 was purchased from the Manants by the agents of the Dutch West India Company, the transaction is spoken of in a letter addressed to their high mightinesses, the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, as follows: “Our people have bought the island Manhattes from the Wilden (wild men) for the value of sixty guilders [about twenty-four dollars].”—Holland documents, in the office of the Secretary of State, Albany, N. Y. vol. i. p. 155.

[439] Historische Verhael door Nicolaes à Wassenaer. Amsterdam. 1621-1632. deel vi. fol. 144.

[440] Nieuwe Wereldt. boeck. iii. cap. ix. Novus Orbis. lib. iii. cap. ix.

[441] Korte historial ende journals. Door David Pietersz. de Vries. Hoorn, 1655. pp. 146, 151.

[442] New York Colonial MSS. xxxv.

Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer, describing in 1632 the coast of America in the vicinity of St. John’s River, New Brunswick, writes: “I was at four islands near the river St. John.... Farther west there are other islands, one of which extends six leagues, which is called by the savages, Menane.” Opposite this word, Champlain writes on the marginal space, “L’isle de Manthane,” adding a t and an h to the second syllable of the words.—Les voyages de la Nouvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada, faits par le Sr. de Champlain, Sanctongeois. Paris, 1632. chap. ii. p. 58.

[443] In different historical works and documents the following modes of spelling the word appear: Manatans, Manates, Manate, Manath, Manathans, Manathe, Manathes, Manatte, Manetto, Menates, Minates, Manhates, Manhatas, Manna-hatta, Manhattes, Manahattes, Manahatta, Mahates, Manahatas, Manahatans, Manahata, Manhatens, Manhathans, Manhatoes, Manhatoos, Manhatos, Manhattans, Manhatten, Manhattoes, Manhattons, Manhattos, Manhuttons, Manahactas, Manchatas, Manades, Manadoes, Manados, Menade, Monhatous, Munhaddon, and Manhattan.—Vide General index to documents relating to the colonial history of the State of New York.

[444] “Anormé, ée, & anormal, adj. Ces mots ne sont plus en usage. Borel dit qu’ils signifient qui est contre la régle commune, & qu’ énorme vient de ces mots.... Énorme, adj. m & f. Prodigieux, éxcessif. Immanis, immensus.”—Dictionnaire Trevoux.

“Par extension de la signification morale à la signification physique, extraordinaire par sa grosseur ou par sa grandeur. Un énorme bloc de granit.... Rem. Quand énorme signifie excessif en grandeur ou en grosseur, il se met avant ou après son substantif.”—Dictionnaire de la langue Française. Littré.

[445] “Berge (bèr-j’). s. f. 1°. Bord relevé, escarpé, d’une rivière, d’un fossé, d’un chemin. 2°. Terme de marine. Certains rochers élevés à pic sur l’eau....

“Etym. Espagn. et ital. barga. Diez ne veut pas qu’ il soit d’origine germanique, et il en rapproche le kymri bargodi, surplomber, bargod, bord. Cependant le bas-latin berga, garde, défense (qui vient de l’allemand bergen, défendre, protéger), n’ aurait-il pas pu donner, par une série de sens, défense, fortification, meule, et finalement bord escarpé?”—Dictionnaire de la langue Française. Littré.

[446] “On appelle aussi en tèrme de Mèr, bèrges, ou barges, les grands rochers, âpres & rélevez à pic; c’est-à-dire, droitement & à plomb, comme les bèrges ou barges d’Olone: telles sont Sylla & Carybde vers Messine.”—Dictionnaire Trevoux.

[447] Gerard Mercator was born at Rupelmonde, in East Flanders, on the fifth of March, 1512. Mercator is the Latinized form of his German name, Kremer, a tradesman, merchant. After studying at Bois-le-Duc, in Brabant, he entered the university of Louvain. He selected for his profession the manufacture of mathematical instruments and the art of drawing and engraving. His cartographic fame began with the engraving of a map of Palestine, in 1537. Next followed a map of Flanders, in 1540. Then in 1541, a large terrestrial globe, which he dedicated to the “Illustriss Dno Nicolao Perrenoto, Domino à Granuella”; the original drawings of which are preserved in the Royal library of Belgium, in Brussels. In 1552, Mercator removed from Louvain to Duisburg, where, in 1569, he made his famous map of the world. He died in December, 1594.

[448] The original map is now in the possession of the count of Crawford and Balcarres, Scotland.

[449] The edict of Francis I., appointing his mother, Louise of Savoy, regent, is dated October, 17, 1524, but before this time she had virtually assumed in part the direction of the government.

[450] The large gulf is that which is now called the Gulf of Mexico.

“A discourse of a great French sea-captain of the town of Dieppe concerning the voyages made to the New World of the West Indies called New France, from the fortieth to the forty-seventh parallel under the arctic pole, and concerning the country of Brazil, Guinea, Isle of St. Lawrence and that of Sumatra as far as the French caravels and ships have sailed.”—Discorso d’vn gran capitano di mare Francese del Lvogno di Dieppa. Raccolta di navigationi et viaggi. Ramusio. vol. iii. fol. 353.

[451] Les voyages auantureaux dv capitaine Ian Alfonce, Sainctongeois. Auec Priuilege du Roy. A Poitiers, au Pelican par Ian de Marnef.

Jean Alphonse died about the year 1548.

[452] The two first leaves of the manuscript are lost and with them the title of the work. Inasmuch as the subject of the work is defined in what may be said is the preface, and as the manuscript at the beginning and at the end bears the names of “Jehan Allefonsce” and “Raulin Secalart, cosemographe de Honnefleur, 1545,” the title of the work maybe reconstructed and written: Cosmographie de Jehan Allefonsce et Raulin Secalart. 1545. The manuscript is a folio of one hundred and ninety-four leaves. It is designated MS. No. 676.

[453] History of Long Island by Benjamin F. Thompson. 1843. p. 26.

[454] The tide flows up the Hudson as far as the city of Troy, about one hundred and seventy-four miles from the ocean.

[455] An undeciphered word in the manuscript.

“Je ditz que le cap de Saint Jehan, dict Cap à Breton, et le cap de la Franciscane, sont nord-est et sud-ouest et prennent un quart de est à ouest, et y a en la route cent quarante lieues et icy faict ung cap appelé le cap de Norombègue. Le dict cap est par quarante et ung degrez de la haulteur du polle artique. La dicte coste est toute sableuse ... basse, sans nulle montaigne. Et au long laquelle coste y a plusieurs isles de sable et coste fort dangereuse de bancs et rochiers.

“Les gens de ceste coste et de Cap à Breton sont maulvaises gens, puissans, grandz fleschiers, et sont gens qui vivent de poissons et de chair, et ont aulcun motz et parlent quasi le mesme langaige de ceux de Canada et sont grand peuple. Et ceux de Cap à Breton vont donner la guerre à ceulx de la Terre neufve quand ils peschent et pour nulle chose ne saulveroyent la vie à ung homme quand ilz le prennent, si n’est jeune enfant ou jeune fille et sont si cruels que si prennent ung homme portant barbe, ilz luy couppent les membres et les portent à leurs femmes et enffans, affin d’estre vengez en cela. Et y a entre eux force pelleteries de toustes bestes.

“Audela du cap de Norombègue descend la rivière dudict Norombègue, environ vingt et cinq lieues du cap. La dicte rivière est large de plus de quarante lieues de latitude en son entrée et ceste largeur au dedans bien trente ou quarante lieues el est toute pleine d’isles qui entrent bien dix ou douze lieues en la mer et est fort dangereuse de rochers et baptures. La dicte rivière est par quarante et deux degrez de la haulteur du polle artique.

“Audedans de la dicte rivière quinze lieues y a une ville qui s’ appelle Norombègue et y a en elle de bonnes gens et y a force pelleteries de toutes bestes. Les gens de la ville sont vestuz de pelleteries, portans manteaulx de martres. Je me doubte que la dicte rivière va entrer en la rivière de Hochelaga, car elle est sallée plus de quarante lieues en dedans selon la dict des gens de la ville. Les gens parlent beaucoup de motz qui approuchent du latin et adorent le soleil et sont belles gens et grandz hommes. La terre de Norombègue est haulte et bonne.

“En avant et audeça de la dicte rivière cent cinquante lieues y a une isle qui s’ appelle la Vermonde qui est par les trente et trois degrez de la haulteur du polle artique. Et du couste devers louest de la dicte ville, y a forces rochiers qui s’ avancent dans la mer bien quinze lieues, et du coste vers le nort y a une anse en laquelle y a une petite isle laquelle est fort subjecte a tempester et n’ y peut habiter.”—Cosmographie de Jehan Allefonsce et Raulin Secarlart. 1545. fol. 184-189.

[456] The Bermudas or Somers’s islands lie between 32° 14´ and 32° 25´ north latitude, and 64° 38´ and 64° 52´ west longitude. In 1522, Juan Bermudez, a Spaniard, while on a voyage from Spain to Cuba, was wrecked on them. In 1609 Sir George Somers, sailing to Virginia, met with a similar misfortune among them. They are said to number three hundred and sixty-five, and are formed by coral reefs. The principal islands are Bermuda or Long Island, St. George’s, Ireland, Somerset, and St. David’s Island.

[457] The map is contained in the third volume of Ramusio’s Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi.

[458] Voyages. Hakluyt. vol. iii. pp. 239, 240.

[459] Nieuwe Wereldt. boek iii. cap. ix.

[460] In the dedication of Laudonnière’s notable history to Sir Walter Raleigh, dated March 1, 1586, the delayed publication of the work is thus adverted to: “It having been suppressed and forgotten for nearly twenty years, I have, with the diligence of Mr. Hakluyt, a gentleman well-versed in geographical history and in various languages and sciences, disinterred it, as it were, from the tomb, where it has lain so long in useless repose, and brought it before the world.” M. Basanier, the publisher, says he followed the text of the manuscript literatim, without any emendation or changes.

[461] “That which is toward the arctic or north pole is called New France insomuch as in the the year 1524, Jean Verrazano, a Florentine, was sent by King Francis I. and Madame, the regent, his mother, to the new countries, on which he landed and explored the whole coast extending from the tropic of Cancer, namely, from the twenty-eighth to the fiftieth degree, and still more toward the north.

“He planted at this place the ensigns and arms of the king of France, so that the Spaniards themselves, who were there afterward, have called this country French land. It extends in latitude from the twenty-fifth to the fifty-fourth degree toward the north; and in longitude, from the two hundred and tenth to the three hundred and thirtieth degree. The east part of it is called by the moderns the land of Norumberge, which ends at the Gulf of Gamas, which separates it from the island of Canada.”

“Celle qui est vers le pole Arctique ou Septentrion, est nommee la nouuelle France, pour autant que l’an mil cinq ces vingt quatre, Jean Verrazano Florentin fut enuoyé par le Roy François premier, & par Madame la Regente sa mere aux terres neuues, ausquelles il prit terre & descouurit toute la coste qui est depuis le Tropique de Cancer, à scauoir depuis le vingt-huictiesme degrè iusques au cinquantiesme: & encore plus deuers le North. Il planta en ce païs les enseignes, & armoiries du Roy de Frāce: de sorte que les Espagnols mesmes qui y furent depuis ont nomé ce païs terre Francesque.... La partie Orientale d’ icelle est nommee par les modernes terre de Norumberge, laquelle abortit au Golphe de Gamas, qui la separe d’auec l’Isle de Canada.”—L’historie notable de la Florida sitvee es Indes Occidentales. Par le Capitaine Laudonnière. Mise en lumiere par M. Basanier. Paris, 1586. pp. 1, 2.

[462] The Dutch, when they took possession of Manants Island, in the seventeenth century, called the lake het Versch water (the Fresh water). The island on which the French built the fort was, in 1728, selected as the site of a powder-house, which was erected there to isolate it from common intruders. John Fitch, in the summer of 1796, navigated his small steamboat on the Fresh water lake.—Vide History of the city of New York. By David T. Valentine. 1853. pp. 11, 282-284. History of the city of New York. By Mrs. Martha J. Lamb. New York and Chicago, 1877-1880. vol. ii. pp. 423, 424, 565, 736. Documentary history of New York. vol. ii. p. 603.

[463] André Thevet was born at Angoulême, France, about the second year of the sixteenth century. He visited Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, and on his return to France, in 1554, published an account of his travels. In July, 1555, he accompanied Chevalier Villegagnon to Brazil to plant a colony there of French Protestants. When Thevet arrived at Rio Janeiro in November, he was taken sick, and to hasten his recovery he embarked for France on the last day of January, 1556. The vessel sailed on the home voyage northward along the coast of North America as far as Newfoundland. Thevet died in Paris, November 23, 1590. He was the author of the following works: “Cosmographie du Levant,” Lyons, 1554; “Les singulairités de la France antarctique, autrement nommée Amérique, et de plusieurs autres terres et îles découvertes de notre temps,” Paris, 1556; “Discours de la bataille de Dreux,” Paris, 1563; “Cosmographie universelle, illustrée de diverses figures des choses les plus remarquables vues par l’auteur,” Paris, 1571; and “Les vrais portraits et vies des hommes illustres, grecs, latins, et païens, recueillés de leurs tableaux, livres, médailles, antiques et modernes,” Paris, 1584.

[464] Aggoncy or Aggonzi signified the head. Voyages. Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 231.

[465] “Ayant laissé la Florida à main gaulche, auec grand nombre d’Isles, Islettes, Goulphes, & Promontoires, se presente l’vne des belles riuieres qui soit en toute la terre, nómee de nous Norombègue, & des Barbares Aggoncy, & marquee en quelques Cartes marines riuiere grande. Il entre plusieurs autres belles riuieres dans ceste cy, & sur laquelle iades les François feirent bastir vn petit fort, quelque dix ou douze lieuës en icelle, lequel estoit enuironé d’eau doulce, qui se va desgorger das icelle: & fut nommee ceste place le fort de Norombègue.”—La cosmographie vniverselle. D’André Thevet. A Paris, 1575. tom. ii. chap. iii. fol. 1008, b.

[466] The copy of Mercator’s map preserved in the National library, in Paris, which is entitled “Nova et aucta orbis terrae descriptio at usum navigantium emendeté accommodata,” measures seventy-eight and a half inches by fifty inches. On this map is represented the earth in plano, the meridians being paralleled and the parallels of latitude straight lines, according to those principles of projection known as Mercator’s projection. Respecting the latter, he says, in an inscription on the chart: “On account of which considerations, we have increased gradually the length of the degrees of latitude toward each pole proportionate to the increase of the parallels beyond the length which they have on the globe, relatively to the equator:—“Quibus consideratis, gradus latitudinum versus utrumque polum paulatim auximus pro incremento parallelorum supra rationem quam habint ad acquinoctialem.” Abraham Ortelius, the eminent cartographer, speaks of this map of Mercator’s as “his never-enough-praised universal chart,—Sua nunquam satis laudata universalis tabula.”

[467] A copy of this chart in the general library of the State of New York, at Albany, is entitled: “The Original Carte Figurative, of which the above is an accurate fac-simile, was found on the 26th of June, 1841, in the Locket-kas, of the States General, in the Royal archives at the Hague.”

[468] “This map,” says John Romeyn Brodhead, the historian, “is undoubtedly one of the most interesting memorials we have. It is about three feet long, and shows, very minutely, the course of the Hudson River from Manhattan to above Albany, as well as a portion of the sea-coast; and contains, likewise, curious notes and memoranda about the neighboring Indians,—the work, perhaps, of one of the companions of Hudson ... and made within five years of the discovery of our river, its fidelity of delineation is scarcely less remarkable than its high antiquity.”—Address of J. Romeyn Brodhead, November 20, 1844. Coll. New York Historical Soc. 1845. p. 16.

[469] “Ma so vele men heeft connen verstaen uyt i seggen ende beduyen van de Maquaas so comen de Françoysen met sloupen tot bovem aen haer land met haerluy handelen.”

[470] “Fort van Nassoureen is binnen de wallen 58 voeten wydt in ’t viercant de gracht is wydt 18 voeten.” Fort Nassau is 58 feet wide between the walls and built as a square; the moat is 18 feet wide. “’t hujs is 36 voeten lanch en 26 wyt in t fort.” The house in the fort is 36 feet long and 26 wide.

[471] Journal of a voyage to New York and a tour in several of the American colonies in 1679 and 1680, by Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter of Wiewerd in Friesland. Translated from the original MSS. in the Dutch for the Long Island Historical Society by Henry C. Murphy. Memoirs of Long Island Hist. Soc. 1867. vol. i. p. 318.