Footnote 562: Compare the Fisherman's story of Drogio, above, pp. [246], [252].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 563: Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, cap. cxxv. Domesticated dogs were found generally in aboriginal America, but they were very paltry curs compared to these fierce hounds, one of which could handle an unarmed man as easily as a terrier handles a rat.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 564: As a Greek would have said, ἤπειρος, a continent.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 565: Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, cap. cxxvii, Mr. Irving, in citing these same incidents from Bernaldez, could not quite rid himself of the feeling that there was something strange or peculiar in the Admiral's method of interpreting such information: "Animated by one of the pleasing illusions of his ardent imagination, Columbus pursued his voyage, with a prosperous breeze, along the supposed continent of Asia." (Life of Columbus, vol. i. p. 493.) This lends a false colour to the picture, which the general reader is pretty sure to make still falser. To suppose the southern coast of Cuba to be the southern coast of Toscanelli's Mangi required no illusion of an "ardent imagination." It was simply a plain common-sense conclusion reached by sober reasoning from such data as were then accessible (i. e. the Toscanelli map, amended by information such as was understood to be given by the natives); it was more probable than any other theory of the situation likely to be devised from those data; and it seems fanciful to us to-day only because knowledge acquired since the time of Columbus has shown us how far from correct it was. Modern historians abound in unconscious turns of expression—as in this quotation from Irving—which project modern knowledge back into the past, and thus destroy the historical perspective. I shall mention several other instances from Irving, and the reader must not suppose that this is any indication of captiousness on my part toward a writer for whom my only feeling is that of sincerest love and veneration.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 566: These tropical birds are called soldados, or "soldiers," because their stately attitudes remind one of sentinels on duty. The whole town of Angostura, in Venezuela, was one day frightened out of its wits by the sudden appearance of a flock of these cranes on the summit of a neighbouring hill. They were mistaken for a war-party of Indians. Humboldt, Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, tom. ii. p. 314.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 567: See above, p. [287], note.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 568: For these events, see Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, cap. cxxiii.; F. Columbus, Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. lvi.; Muñoz, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, lib. v. § 16; Humboldt, Examen critique, tom. iv. pp. 237-263; Irving's Columbus, vol. i. pp. 491-504.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 569: That is to say, he thought he had passed the coast of Mangi (southern China) and reached the beginning of the coast of Champa (Cochin China; see Yule's Marco Polo, vol. ii. p. 213). The name Champa, coming to European writers through an Italian source, was written Ciampa and Ciamba. See its position on the Behaim and Toscanelli maps, and also on Ruysch's map, 1508, below, vol. ii. p. 114. Peter Martyr says that Columbus was sure that he had reached the coast of Gangetic (i. e. what we call Farther) India: "Indiæ Gangetidis continentem eam (Cubæ) plagam esse contendit Colonus." Epist. xciii. ad Bernardinum. Of course Columbus understood that this region, while agreeing well enough with Toscanelli's latitude, was far from agreeing with his longitude. But from the moment when he turned eastward on his first voyage he seems to have made up his mind that Toscanelli's longitudes needed serious amendment. Indeed he had always used different measurements from Toscanelli.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 570: For an account of Ptolemy's almost purely hypothetical and curiously distorted notions about southeastern Asia, see Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography, vol. ii. pp. 604-608.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 571: See below, vol. ii. pp. 200-210.[Back to Main Text]