Slowly rattles along the dim present, well-nigh buried in its own dust; it is only the past that is well-defined and clear to history.
Summary of Geographical Knowledge and Discovery from the Earliest Records to the Year 1540.
Before entering upon the narration of events composing this history, it seems to me important, in order as well properly to appreciate the foregoing Introduction as to gain from succeeding chapters something more than gratified curiosity, that an exposition of Early Voyages should be given,—acting powerfully as they did on evolving thought and material development, giving breadth and vigor to intellect, enthusiasm to enterprise, and in elevating and stimulating that commercial spirit which was eventually to depose kings, exalt the people, strip from science its superstitions, from religion its cabalistic forms, and by its associations, its negotiations, its adventurous daring, its wars, its alliances, and its humanizing polities, to break the barriers of ancient enmity and bring together in common brotherhood all the nations of the earth.
Therefore, I now propose to give a chronological statement of every authentic voyage of discovery made beyond the Mediterranean prior to 1540, while doubtful and disputed voyages will be discussed according to their relative importance. I shall notice, moreover, such books and charts relating to America as were produced during this period, with fac-similes of the more important maps, to illustrate, at different dates, the progress of discovery. It is my purpose, so far as possible, in the very limited space allowed, to state fairly the conclusions of the best writers on every important point.
One word as to the authorities consulted in the preparation of this Summary. Of books relating to America, published prior to 1540, there are in all about sixty-five; only twenty-five, however, contain original information; twenty-three are general cosmographical works with brief sections on America compiled from the original twenty-five; while seventeen merely mention the New World or its discoveries, and are therefore of no value in this connection. Of the forty-eight containing matter more or less important, there are over two hundred editions, the earliest of which only, in most instances, will be mentioned, and that without extensive bibliographical notes. These books and charts I notice in chronological order under dates of their successive appearance.
The subject of Early Voyages has been so frequently and so thoroughly discussed by able modern writers that it is unnecessary, and indeed impracticable in so condensed an essay, to refer to ancient authorities alone, and prove everything from the beginning. I shall therefore, besides the Spanish historians Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Las Casas, Gomara, Herrera, and the standard collections of Ramusio, Grynæus, Purchas, and Hakluyt, freely use the works of later writers according to their relative worth. And of these last mentioned I epitomize the following. Historia del Nuevo-Mundo, escribíala D. Juan Baut. Muñoz, tom. i.—all ever published—En Madrid, 1793, contains a clear well-written prologo, or essay, on the first three voyages of Columbus with minor mention of contemporary discoveries. An account is also given of the author's labors in beginning the large and invaluable collection of documents completed and published by Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del siglo XV., 5 vols. 4to, Madrid, 1825-37. This collection of Navarrete's is without doubt the most valuable work on the subject of early American voyages, and the foundation of all that followed; containing as it does the original Spanish, Latin, and Portuguese texts of the more important Spanish and Portuguese expeditions from 1393 to 1540—the Latin and Portuguese done into Spanish—together with over five hundred original documents from the Spanish archives, with extensive and generally impartial notes by the editor. For a biographical sketch of this author see [chapter iii. of this volume]. Washington Irving's Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus and his Companions, published in London, 1828-31 (edition used, that of New York, 1869, 3 vols.), is an able and elegant abridged translation of Navarrete, and of La Historia de el Almirante D. Christoval Colon, by his son Fernando Colon, in Barcia, Historiadores Primitivos, tom. i., Madrid, 1749. Alexander von Humboldt's Examen critique de l'histoire de la Géographie du nouveau continent, et des progrès de l'astronomie nautique aux 15ème et 16ème Siècles, 5 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1836-9, is a most exhaustive digest of materials furnished by Navarrete and the older historians, illustrated with the results of the author's personal investigations. The work embraces two treatises; first, the causes which led to the discovery of America; second, facts relating to Columbus and Vespucci, with the dates of geographic discoveries. Humboldt's Abhandlung über die ältesten Karten, printed as an introduction to Ghillany, Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim, Nuremberg, 1853, of which I have only a manuscript English translation, is an essay as well on the naming of America as on early maps. Another important treatise is that of J. G. Kohl, Die beiden ältesten General-Karten von America, Weimar, 1860, of nearly two hundred large folio pages on the earliest manuscript and printed maps, two of the former, dated 1527 and 1529, accompanying the work, reproduced in chromo-lithographic fac-simile. The same author has produced other works on the subject, the most important being A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North America, published in Collections of the Maine Historical Society, 2d series, vol. i., Portland, 1869. This contains reduced copies of twenty-three early maps, and is perhaps the most complete work existing, so far as the northern coasts are concerned, giving comparatively little attention to more southern voyages. Kunstmann, Die Entdeckung Amerikas, Munich, 1859, is a careful compilation of ninety-six imperial quarto pages, with copious notes and references, written to accompany a collection of thirteen large chromo-lithographic reproductions of manuscript maps preserved in the Academy of Sciences at Munich, and generally known as the Munich Atlas. Herr Kunstmann treats chiefly of the Atlantic islands, with special reference to the connection between the discoveries of Spaniards and Northmen. Major's Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, London, 1868, is the best authority for Portuguese voyages as well as for the revival of maritime enterprise in the fifteenth century. Stevens' Historical and Geographical Notes on the Earliest Discoveries in America, 1453-1530, New Haven, 1869, was written originally as an introduction to a book by the author's brother on his proposed interoceanic communication via Tehuantepec. It is a concise statement of the whole matter, presenting some of its phases in a practically new light. Varnhagen, Le Premier Voyage de Amerigo Vespucci, Vienna, 1869, must not be omitted as the chief support of a theory on Vespucci's voyages which nearly concerns the first discovery of our Pacific States territory proper. Rafn, Antiquitates Americanæ, Hafniæ, 1837, is the source of nearly all our knowledge of the discoveries of the Northmen in America in the tenth and following centuries; and De Costa, The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America, Albany, 1868, presents an English translation of the same Icelandic sagas in which the enterprises of the Northmen are recorded. The Cartografía Mexicana of Orozco y Berra, published by the Mexican Geographical Society, contains, as its title indicates, a mention of early maps in chronologic order; and the Mapoteca Colombiana of Urricœchea, London, 1860, is another important contribution of similar nature. There should be mentioned the excellent review given in the first volume of Bryant's History of the United States, which has appeared since this Summary was written; and I might present quite a list of papers read before the various learned societies of Europe and America on different topics connected with this subject in late years, none of them I believe materially affecting my conclusions.
The above form but a small portion of the works devoted wholly or in part to the subject, but they are believed to contain all the material necessary for even a more detailed statement than my purpose demands.
ADVENTURES OF THE ANCIENTS.
Of the voyages of the ancients, properly so called, that is, of such as preceded the fall of the Roman Empire at the end of the fourth century, I shall here say little. These maritime expeditions, confined for the most part to the Mediterranean, though extending for some distance along the coasts of the Indian and Atlantic oceans, with occasional voyages designedly or accidentally prolonged to more distant islands, and it may be continents, come down to us through antique histories, cosmographies, and poems, so mixed with vague hypothetical and mythological conceptions, that the most searching investigation is often unable to separate fact from fable. There are multitudes of classic and mediæval legends adopted by Tasso, Pulci, and other Italian poets, such, for example, as that which makes the Greek wanderer Ulysses the pioneer of western adventure, which in a sober treatise are scarcely worthy of mention. Turning to the dawn his vessel's poop, this son of Laertes, it is said, passed Gibraltar, the bound ordained by Hercules not to be overstepped by man, and, as Dante tells us, sailed for the Happy Isles of the unknown Atlantic, unrestrained by son, or father, or even Penelope's ever-weaving web of love.
A little journey was a wonderful exploit before the time of Christ—instance the immortal fame achieved by Hanno, the Carthaginian, in visiting the west coast of Africa, b. c. 570; by Herodotus, in making the excursion of Egypt and India, b. c. 464-456; by Pytheas, in his voyage to the British Isles, b. c. 340; by Nearchus, in descending the Indus, b. c. 326; by Eudoxus, in his attempt to sail round Africa, b. c. 130; by Cæsar, in undertaking the conquest of Gaul, b. c. 58; by Strabo, in penetrating Asia some thirty or forty years later. After the Christian era Pausanias, a Roman, in 175 wrote a guide-book of Greece; Fa Hian, a Chinese monk, went westward into India in the year 400 or thereabout; Cosmas Indicopleustes travelled in India a century and a half later and wrote a book to prove the world square, and the universe an oblong coffer; Arculphe wrote of the Holy Land about 650; an Englishman, Willibald, made the tour of southern Europe and Palestine, setting out from Southampton in 721; in 851 went Soliman from Persia to the China sea. So it has been said.