[543] Watson’s bibliog. in Anderson, p. 158.
A Biscayan merchant, a subject of Navarre, is also said to have discovered the western lands in 1444. Cf. André Favyn, Hist. de Navarre, p. 564; and G. de Henao’s Averignaciones de las Antigüedades? de Cantabria, p. 25.
Galvano (Hakluyt Soc. ed., p. 72) recounts the story of a Portuguese ship in 1447 being driven westward from the Straits of Gibraltar to an island with seven cities, where they found the people speaking Portuguese; who said they had deserted their country on the death of King Roderigo. “All these reasons seem to agree,” adds Galvano, “that this should be that country which is called Nova Spagna.”
It was the year (1491) before Columbus’ voyage that the English began to send out from Bristol expeditions to discover these islands of the seven cities, and others having the same legendary existence. Cf. Ayala, the Spanish ambassador to England, in Spanish State Papers, i. 177. Cf. also Irving’s Columbus, app. xxiv., and Gaffarel’s Etude sur la rapports, etc., p. 185.
[544] See Vol. II. p. 34.
[545] See Vol. II. p. 34, where is a list of references, which may be increased as follows: Bachiller y Morales, Antigüedades Americanas (Havana, 1845). E. de Freville’s Mémoire sur le Commerce maritime de Rouen (1857), i. 328, and his La Cosmographie du moyen age, et les découvertes maritimes des Normands (Paris, 1860), taken from the Revue des Sociétés Savantes. Gabriel Gravier’s Les Normands sur la route des Indes, (Rouen, 1880). Cf. Congrès des Américanistes in Compte Rendu (1875), i. 397.
[546] “Ethnography and Philology of America,” in H. W. Bates, Central America, West Indies, and South America (Lond., 1882). This was the opinion of Prescott (Mexico, Kirk’s ed., iii. 398), and he based his judgment on the investigations of Waldeck, Voyage dans la Yucatan, and Dupaix, Antiquités Méxicaines. Stephens (Central America) holds similar views. Cf. Wilson, Prehistoric Man, i. 327; ii. 43. Dall (Third Rep. Bur. Ethnol., 146) says: “There can be no doubt that America was populated in some way by people of an extremely low grade of culture at a period even geologically remote. There is no reason for supposing, however, that immigration ceased with these original people.”
[547] Cf. references in H. H. Bancroft’s Native Races, v. 39; Amerika’s Nordwest Küste; Neueste Ergebnisse ethnologischer Reisen (Berlin, 1883), and the English version, The Northwest Coast of America. Being Results of Recent Ethnological Researches from the collections of the Royal Museums at Berlin. Published by the Directors of the Ethnological Department (New York, 1883).
[548] Cf. his Observations on some remains of antiquity (1796).
[549] Different shades of belief are abundant: F. Xavier de Orrio’s Solucion del gran problema (Mexico, 1763); Fischer’s Conjecture sur l’origine des Américaines; Adair’s Amer. Indians; G. A. Thompson’s New theory of the two hemispheres (London, 1815); Adam Hodgson’s Letters from No. Amer. (Lond., 1824); J. H. McCulloh’s Researches (Balt., 1829), ch. 10; D. B. Warden’s “Recherches sur les Antiquités de l’Amérique” in the Antiquités Méxicaines (Paris, 1834), vol. ii.; E. G. Squier’s Serpent Symbol (N. Y., 1851); Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Hist. des Nations Civilisées, i. 7; José Perez in Revue Orientale et Américaine (Paris, 1862), vol. viii.; Bancroft’s Native Races, v. 30, 31, with references; Winchell’s Preadamites, 397; a paper on Asiatic tribes in North America, in Canadian Institute Proceedings (1881), i. 171. Dabry de Thiersant, in his Origine des Indiens du nouv. monde (Paris, 1883), reopens the question, and Quatrefages even brings the story of Moncacht-Ape (see post, Vol. V. p. 77) to support a theory of frequent Asiatic communication. Tylor (Early Hist. Mankind, 209) says that the Asiatics must have taught the Mexicans to make bronze and smelt iron; and (p. 339) he finds additional testimony in the correspondence of myths, but Max Müller (Chips, ii. 168) demurs. Nadaillac, in his L’Amérique préhistorique, discussed this with the other supposable connections of the American people, and generally disbelieved in them; but Dall, in the English translation, summarily dismisses all consideration of them as unworthy a scientific mind; but points out what the early Indian traditions are (p. 526).