As it stands, this globe undoubtedly gives an original and unique representation of St. Brandan’s Island far west of the Cape Verde group and emphasizes it by showing Antillia independently in a more northern latitude and less western longitude and also of quite insignificant size and form. But Ravenstein, who made a very thorough study of the matter, tells us[67] that this globe has been twice retouched or renovated and that the only way to ascertain exactly what was originally delineated is to treat it as a palimpsest and remove the accretions. In particular, he relates the story of an expert geographer who found the draftsmen about to transpose St. Brandan’s Island and Antillia; but they yielded to his protest. Of course, it is impossible to be quite certain that these map figures are such and in such place as Behaim intended or that they bear the names he gave. The presumption favors the present showing, generally accepted as authentic. It gives the saint only one island, but this a very large one, set in mid-ocean between Africa and South America.
Possibly this location may be suggested by an undefined coast line shown by Bianco’s map of 1448, previously mentioned, and, like Behaim’s island, set opposite the Cape Verde group. In Venetian Italian it bears an obscure inscription, which calls it an “authentic island” and is variously interpreted as saying that this coast is fifteen hundred miles long or fifteen hundred miles distant. The map of Juan de la Cosa (1500)[68] exhibits off the coast of Brazil, and with an outline similar to Behaim’s, “the island which the Portuguese found.” His date is too late to have influenced Behaim, too early to have been prompted by Cabral’s accidental discovery of that very year. It is more likely that he and Behaim both were acquainted with Bianco’s work or that all three drew from the same report of discovery.
Later Maps
From this time on there is never more than one island for St. Brendan, but it indulges in wide wanderings. Especially as the attention of men was attracted to the more northern and western waters, the map-makers shifted the island thither. Thus the map of 1544, purporting to be the work of Sebastian Cabot and probably prepared more or less under his influence,[69] places the island San Brandan not far from the scene of his father’s explorations and his own. It lies well out to sea in about the latitude of the Straits of Belle Isle. The Ortelius map of 1570[70] ([Fig. 10]) repeats the showing with no great amount of change. In short, the final judgment of navigators and cartographers, before the island quite vanished from the maps, made choice of the waste of the North Atlantic as its most probable hiding place. Perhaps this westward tendency in rather high latitudes may be partly responsible for the hypotheses in recent times which have taken the explorer quite across to interior North America on a missionary errand. There is certainly nothing to prohibit any one from believing them, if he can and if it pleases him.
Conclusion
In general review it appears likely that St. Brendan in the sixth century wandered widely over the seas in quest of some warm island, concerning which wonderful accounts had been brought to him, and found several such isles, the Madeira group receiving his special approval, according to the prevailing opinion of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But this judgment of those centuries is the only item as to which we can speak with any positiveness and confidence.
CHAPTER IV
THE ISLAND OF BRAZIL
So far as we know, the first appearance of the island of Brazil in geography was on the map of Angellinus Dalorto,[71] of Genoa, made in the year 1325. There it appears as a disc of land of considerable area, set in the Atlantic Ocean in the latitude of southern Ireland ([Fig. 4]). But the name itself is far older. In seeking its derivation, one is free to choose either one of two independent lines.