[613] Such, for instance, was Caleb Cushing’s opinion in his Reminiscences of Spain, ii. 234.
[614] Eng. tr., ii. 680.
[615] These chapters are reprinted in Sabin’s American Bibliopolist, 1870-1871.
[616] His theory was advanced in a paper on “The Origin of the Name America” in the Atlantic Monthly (March, 1875), xxxv. 291, and in “Sur l’origine du nom d’Amérique,” in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris, June, 1875. He again advanced his theory in the New York Nation, April 10, 1884, to which the editors replied that it was “fatally ingenious,”—a courteous rejoinder, quite in contrast with that of H. H. Bancroft in his Central America (i. 291), who charges the Professor with “seeking fame through foolishness” and his theory. Marcou’s argument in part depends upon the fact, as he claims, that Vespucius’ name was properly Albericus or Alberico, and he disputes the genuineness of autographs which make it Amerigo; but nothing was more common in those days than variety, for one cause or another, in the fashioning of names. We find the Florentine’s name variously written,—Amerigo, Merigo, Almerico, Alberico, Alberigo; and Vespucci, Vespucy, Vespuchi, Vespuchy, Vesputio, Vespulsius, Despuchi, Espuchi; or in Latin Vespucius, Vespuccius, and Vesputius.
[617] The Germans have written more or less to connect themselves with the name as with the naming,—deducing Amerigo or Americus from the Old German Emmerich. Cf. Von der Hagen, Jahrbuch der Berliner Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache, 1835; Notes and Queries, 1856; Historical Magazine, January, 1857, p. 24; Dr. Theodor Vetter in New York Nation, March 20, 1884; Humboldt, Examen critique, iv. 52.
[618] Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, ii. 352-368.
[619] [Cf. the section on the “Historical chorography of South America” in which the gradual development of the outline of that continent is traced.—Ed.]
[620] It should be remembered that Columbus on his fourth voyage had sailed along the coast from Cape Honduras to Nombre de Dios, and that Vicente Yañez Pinzon and Juan Diaz de Solis, coasting the shores of the Gulf of Honduras, had sailed within sight of Yucatan in 1506; and therefore that in 1508 the coast-line was well known from the Cabo de S. Augustin to Honduras.
[621] [This name in the early narratives and maps appears as Tarena, Tariene, or Darien, with a great variety of the latter form. Cf. Bancroft, Central America, i. 326.—Ed.]
[622] This Vasco Nuñez was a bankrupt farmer of Española who went with Bastidas on his voyage to the Gulf of Urabá and had been so carefully concealed aboard Enciso’s ship that the officers sent to apprehend absconding debtors had failed to discover him.