Saintly Islands
Much farther south, on the lines followed by Columbus and his Latin successors and in the tracks of vessels plying between the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes and the West Indies, what may be considered as a contrary impulse—that of exultant religious enthusiasm—came into play in island naming. The Island of the Seven Cities (Ch. V) will be recalled but needs no further consideration here. St. Anne, La Catholique, St. X, and Incorporado (in the sense of Christ’s Incarnation) are among the more conspicuous instances. The second-named was always in low latitudes. It occurs in the latitude of the tip of Florida, in mid-Atlantic in the Desceliers map of 1546[301] ([Fig. 9]); also as “La Catolico” on Portuguese maps, with similar situation. Desceliers shows Encorporade (Incorporado) about east of Cape Hatteras and south of western Newfoundland; but he also has Encorporada Adonda not far from Nova Scotia. Thomas Hood (1592)[302] makes a wild and unenlightened transformation of Incorporado to “Emperadada” and puts it about opposite the site of Savannah, but not so far east as the considerable outjutting of the coast which must be meant for Cape Hatteras and its neighborhood. However, this location is not very different from that usually given it. Desceliers has two islands marked St. X, one being in the longitude of St. Michaels and latitude of Bermuda; the other in the longitude of eastern Newfoundland and latitude of the Hudson. In about the same latitude as the latter, and more than half way between it and the Azores, an island called St. Anne is shown. There seems nothing real to prompt the derivation of these religiously named islands. Perhaps they are merely the offspring of optical delusion, fancy, and fervor.