The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525

by Arthur James Weise

Among the motives influencing him to think that he could sail to Cathay by the way of the Atlantic Ocean were the statements of geographical writers. By them it was said “that a great part of the globe had already been travelled over, and there only remained to be discovered and made known the space lying between the eastern limits of India, known to Ptolemy and Marinus, and the West, where are the islands Azores[112] and those of Cape Verd,[113] the most western lands yet discovered.[114] ... He considered that this space, lying between the eastern limits [of India] known to Marinus and the islands of the Cape Verd group, could not be more than a third part of the great circumference of the globe, since Marinus had gone toward the East fifteen hours of the twenty-four into which the circumference of the earth is divided, and therefore to go [still farther eastwardly] to reach the Cape Verd Islands there were nine hours, [of the circumference to be passed over], as it is said that Marinus began his investigations in the West.... He conceived that since Marinus had given in his cosmography an account of fifteen hours or parts of the globe eastwardly, and had not reached the limits of the East, it followed that its bounds must be much beyond, and consequently the farther the land of the East extended eastwardly, the nearer this land was to the Cape Verd Islands in the West, and that if the space were chiefly water it might easily be sailed in a few days, and if it were mainly land it would sooner be discovered by sailing westward, because it would be nearer to the Cape Verd Islands.[115] ... The fifth reason, which induced him to believe that the distance this way was short, was the opinion of Alfragranus and his followers, who make the circumference of the globe much less than all other writers and cosmographers, allowing fifty-six miles and two-thirds to a degree.[116] Whence he inferred that as the entire circumference of the globe was of such an extent, the third part was small, which Marinus left unknown.... And Seneca, in his first book of nature, who considers the knowledge of this world as nothing when compared with that which is acquired in the next life, says a ship may sail in a few days with a fair wind from the coast of Spain to that of India. And if it be true, as some believe, that Seneca wrote tragedies, we may infer that he speaks of the same thing in the chorus of his Medea:

‘Venient annis

Saecula seris, quibus Oceanus

Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens

Pateat tellus, Typhysque novos

Detegat orbes, nec sit terris

Ultima Thule.’

“‘In the last years there will come an age in which Ocean shall loosen the bonds of things; and a great land will be accessible; and another Tiphys shall discover new worlds, and Thule shall no longer be the extremity of the earth.’[117] This prediction may be considered really fulfilled in the person of the admiral.... Marco Polo, the Venetian, and John Mandeville, in their travels say that they went much farther eastward than Ptolemy and Marinus mention, who, although they do not speak of the Eastern Sea, yet by the account they give of the East it may be assumed that India is not far distant from Africa and Spain.”[118]

Ferdinand Columbus further says that his father expected to find, “before he came to India, a very convenient island or continent, from which he might pursue with more advantage his main design. This hope was grounded upon the statements of many wise men and philosophers, who believed that the greatest part of this terraqueous globe was land, or that there was more land than water, which, if true, he assumed that between the coast of Spain and the limits of India then known, there were many islands and a considerable extent of main-land.... A pilot of the king of Portugal, named Martin Vicente, told him that, being at one time four hundred and fifty leagues westward of Cape St. Vincent, he found and picked up in the sea a piece of wood ingeniously carved, but not with iron, which led him to believe, as the wind had been blowing from the west for several days, that the piece of wood had drifted from some island lying toward the west. Then one Pedro Correa, who had married the sister of the admiral’s wife, told him that at the island of Porto Santo[119] he had seen another piece of wood, brought by the same winds, as nicely carved as the piece already mentioned, and that canes had been found there so thick that each joint would hold more than four quarts of wine, which reports he said he communicated to the king of Portugal while talking to him about these matters. The pieces of cane were shown to him. There being no place in our parts where such cane grew, he inferred it to be true that the wind had brought the cane from some neighboring islands or else from India. For Ptolemy, in the first book of his geography, in the seventeenth chapter, says there is such cane in the eastern parts of India. And some of the people living on the islands, particularly on the Azores, told him that when the west wind blew for a long time the sea drifted some pieces of pine-wood upon those islands, particularly on the islands Gratiosa and Fayal, there being no pine-wood in all those parts, and that the sea cast upon the island of Flores, another of the Azores, the bodies of two dead men, who were very broad-faced and different in appearance from Christians. At Cape Verd and thereabouts they said that they once saw some covered canoes or boats which the people believed were driven there by stress of weather while the persons in them were going from one island to another. Nor were these the only grounds he then had which seemed reasonable, for there were those who told him that they had seen some islands in the western ocean.... These persons he did not believe, because he discovered from their own words and statements that they had not sailed one hundred leagues to the westward, and that they had been deceived by some rocks, thinking them to be islands; or else, perhaps, they were some of those floating islands which are drifted about by the waves, and which the sailors call aguados....

“He says, moreover, that in the year 1484, a man came to Portugal from the island of Madera[120] to beg a caraval of the king to discover a country which he affirmed he saw every year, and always after the same manner, he agreeing with others who said they had seen the island from the Azores. On this account the Portuguese placed some islands thereabouts on the charts and maps made at that time; and also because Aristotle, in his book of wonderful things, affirms that it was reported that some Carthaginian merchants had sailed over the Atlantic Ocean to a most fruitful island.... This island the Portuguese inserted in their maps, calling it Antilla, and though they did not give it the same situation designated by Aristotle, yet none placed it more than two hundred leagues due west from the Canaries and the Azores. Some believe it to be the island of the Seven Cities peopled by the Portuguese at the time that Spain was conquered by the Moors, in 714, at which time, they say, seven bishops with their people embarked and sailed to this island, where each of them built a city; and in order that none of their people might think of returning to Spain, they burnt the ships, tackle, and all things necessary for sailing.[121] ... It was also said that in the time of Prince Henry of Portugal, a Portuguese ship was driven by stress of weather to this island of Antilla, where the men went on shore, and were conducted by the islanders to their church to learn whether or not they were Christians and acquainted with the Roman ceremonies. After perceiving that they were, the people of the island importuned them to remain till their king came, who was then absent, and who would be delighted to see them and would give them many presents.... But the master and the seamen were afraid of being detained, suspecting these people did not wish to be discovered and might for this reason burn their ship.