Chapter 1

The philosophers of remote antiquity acquired the important knowledge of the earth's spherical form; to their bold genius we are indebted for the outline of the geographical system now universally adopted. With a vigorous conception, but imperfect execution, they traced out the scheme of denoting localities by longitude and latitude: according to their teaching, the imaginary equatorial line, encompassing the earth, was divided into hours and degrees.

Even at that distant period hardy adventurers had penetrated far away into the land of the rising sun, and many a wondrous tale was told of that mysterious empire, where one third of our fellow-men still stand apart from the brotherhood of nations. Among the various and astounding exaggerations induced by the vanity of the narrators, and the ignorance of their audience, none was more ready than that of distance. The journey, the labor of a life; each league of travel a new scene; the day crowded with incident, the night a dream of terror or admiration. Then, as the fickle will of the wanderer suggested, as the difficulties or encouragement of nature, and the hostility or aid of man impelled, the devious course bent to the north or south, was hastened, hindered, or retraced.

By such vague and shadowy measurement as the speculations of these wanderers supplied, the sages of the past traced out the ideal limits of the dry land which, at the word of God, appeared from out the gathering together of the waters.[2]

The most eminent geographer before the time of Ptolemy places the confines of Seres--the China of to-day--at nearly two thirds of the distance round the world, from the first meridian.[3] Ptolemy reduces the proportion to one half. Allowing for the supposed vast extent of this unknown country to the eastward, it was evident that its remotest shores approached our Western World. But, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the dark and stormy waters of the Atlantic[5] forbade adventure. The giant minds of those days saw, even through the mists of ignorance and error, that the readiest course to reach this distant land must lie toward the setting sun, across the western ocean.[6] From over this vast watery solitude no traveler had ever brought back the story of his wanderings. The dim light of traditionary memory gave no guiding ray, the faint voice of rumor breathed not its mysterious secrets. Then poetic imagination filled the void; vast islands were conjured up out of the deep, covered with unheard-of luxuriance of vegetation, rich in mines of incalculable value, populous with a race of conquering warriors. But this magnificent vision was only created to be destroyed; a violent earthquake rent asunder in a day and a night the foundations of Atlantis, and the waters of the Western Ocean swept over the ruins of this once mighty empire.[7] In after ages we are told, that some Phoenician vessels, impelled by a strong east wind, were driven for thirty days across the Atlantic: there they found a part of the sea where the surface was covered with rushes and sea-weed, somewhat resembling a vast inundated meadow.[8] The voyagers ascribed these strange appearances to some cause connected with the submerged Atlantis, and even in later years they were held by many as confirmation of Plato's marvelous story.[9]

In the Carthaginian annals is found the mention of a fertile and beautiful island of the distant Atlantic. Many adventurous men of that maritime people were attracted thither by the delightful climate and the riches of the soil; it was deemed of such value and importance that they proposed to transfer the seat of their republic to its shores in case of any irreparable disaster at home. But at length the Senate, fearing the evils of a divided state, denounced the distant colony, and decreed the punishment of death to those who sought it for a home. If there be any truth in this ancient tale, it is probable that one of the Canary Islands was its subject.[10]

Although the New World in the West was unknown to the ancients, there is no doubt that they entertained a suspicion of its existence;[11] the romance of Plato--the prophecy of Seneca, were but the offsprings of this vague idea. Many writers tell us it was conjectured that, by sailing from the coast of Spain, the eastern shores of India might be reached;[13] the length of the voyage, or the wonders that might lie in its course, imagination alone could measure or describe. Whatever might have been the suspicion or belief[14] of ancient time, we may feel assured that none then ventured to seek these distant lands, nor have we reason to suppose that any of the civilized European races gave inhabitants to the New World before the close of the fifteenth century.

To the barbarous hordes of Northeastern Asia America must have long been known as the land where many of their wanderers found a home. It is not surprising that from them no information was obtained; but it is strange that the bold and adventurous Northmen should have visited it nearly five hundred years before the great Genoese, and have suffered their wonderful discovery to remain hidden from the world, and to become almost forgotten among themselves.[15]

In the year 1001 the Icelanders touched upon the American coast, and for nearly two centuries subsequent visits were repeatedly made by them and the Norwegians, for the purpose of commerce or for the gratification of curiosity. Biorn Heriolson, an Icelander, was the first discoverer: steering for Greenland, he was driven to the south by tempestuous and unfavorable winds, and saw different parts of America, without, however, touching at any of them. Attracted by the report of this voyage, Leif, son of Eric, the discoverer of Greenland, fitted out a vessel to pursue the same adventure. He passed the coast visited by Biorn, and steered southwest till he reached a strait between a large island and the main land. Finding the country fertile and pleasant, he passed the winter near this place, and gave it the name of Vinland,[16] from the wild vine which grew there in great abundance.[17] The winter days were longer in this new country than in Greenland, and the weather was more temperate.

Leif returned to Greenland in the spring; his brother Thorvald succeeded him, and remained two winters in Vinland exploring much of the coast and country.[19] In the course of the third summer the natives, now called Esquimaux, were first seen; on account of their diminutive stature the adventurers gave them the name of _Skraelingar_.[20] These poor savages, irritated by an act of barbarous cruelty, attacked the Northmen with darts and arrows, and Thorvald fell a victim to their vengeance. A wealthy Icelander, named Thorfinn, established a regular colony in Vinland soon after this event; the settlers increased rapidly in numbers, and traded with the natives for furs and skins to great advantage. After three years the adventurers returned to Iceland enriched by the expedition, and reported favorably upon the new country. Little is known of this settlement after Thorfinn's departure till early in the twelfth century, when a bishop of Greenland[21] went there to promulgate the Christian faith among the colonists; beyond that time scarcely a notice of its existence occurs, and the name and situation of the ancient Vinland soon passed away from the knowledge of man. Whether the adventurous colonists ever returned, or became blended with the natives,[22] or perished by their hands, no record remains to tell.[23]

Discoveries such as these by the ancient Scandinavians--fruitless to the world and almost buried in oblivion--can not dim the glory of that transcendant genius to whom we owe the knowledge of a New World.

The claim of the Welsh to the first discovery of America seems to rest upon no better original authority than that of Meridith-ap-Rees, a bard who died in the year 1477. His verses only relate that Prince Madoc, wearied with dissensions at home, searched the ocean for a new kingdom. The tale of this adventurer's voyages and colonization was written one hundred years subsequent to the early Spanish discoveries, and seems to be merely a fanciful completion of his history: he probably perished in the unknown seas. It is certain that neither the ancient principality nor the world reaped any benefit from these alleged discoveries.[24]

In the middle of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, the Venetian Marco Polo[25] and the Englishman Mandeville[26] awakened the curiosity of Europe with respect to the remote parts of the earth. Wise and discerning men selected the more valuable portions of their observations; ideas were enlarged, and a desire for more perfect information excited a thirst for discovery. While this spirit was gaining strength in Europe, the wonderful powers of the magnet were revealed to the Western World.[27] The invention of the mariner's compass aided and extended navigation more than all the experience and adventure of preceding ages: the light of the stars, the guidance of the sea-coast, were no longer necessary; trusting to the mysterious powers of his new friend, the sailor steered out fearlessly into the ocean, through the bewildering mists or the darkness of night.

The Spaniards were the first to profit by the bolder spirit and improved science of navigation. About the beginning of the fourteenth century, they were led to the accidental discovery of the Canary Islands,[28] and made repeated voyages thither, plundering the wretched inhabitants, and carrying them off as slaves.[29] Pope Clement VI. conferred these countries as a kingdom upon Louis de la Cerda, of the royal race of Castile; he, however, was powerless to avail himself of the gift, and it passed to the stronger hand of John de Bethancourt, a Norman baron.[30] The countrymen of this bold adventurer explored the seas far to the south of the Canary Islands, and acquired some knowledge of the coast of Africa.

The glory of leading the career of systematic exploration belongs to the Portuguese:[31] their attempts were not only attended with considerable success, but gave encouragement and energy to those efforts that were crowned by the discovery of a world: among them the great Genoese was trained, and their steps in advance matured the idea, and aided the execution of his design. The nations of Europe had now begun to cast aside the errors and prejudices of their ancestors. The works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were eagerly searched for information, and former discoveries brought to light.[32] The science of the Arabians was introduced and cultivated by the Moors and Jews, and geometry, astronomy, and geography were studied as essential to the art of navigation.

In the year 1412, the Portuguese doubled Cape Non, the limit of ancient enterprise. For upward of seventy years afterward they pursued their explorations, with more or less of vigor and success, along the African coast, and among the adjacent islands. By intercourse with the people of these countries they gradually acquired some knowledge of lands yet unvisited. Experience proved that the torrid zone was not closed to the enterprise of man.[33] They found that the form of the continent contracted as it stretched southward, and that it tended toward the east. Then they brought to mind the accounts of the ancient Phoenician voyagers round Africa,[34] long deemed fabulous, and the hope arose that they might pursue the same career, and win for themselves the magnificent prize of Indian commerce. In the year 1486 the adventurous Bartholomew Diaz[35] first reached the Cape of Good Hope; soon afterward the information gained by Pedro de Covilham, in his overland journey, confirmed the consequent sanguine expectations of success. The attention of Europe was now fully aroused, and the progress of the Portuguese was watched with admiration and suspense. But during this interval, while all eyes were turned with anxious interest toward the East, a little bark, leaky and tempest-tossed, sought shelter in the Tagus.[36] It had come from the Far West--over that stormy sea where, from the creation until then, had brooded an impenetrable mystery. It bore the richest freight[37] that ever lay upon the bosom of the deep--the tidings of a New World.[38]

It would be but tedious to repeat here all the well-known story of Christopher Columbus;[39] his early dangers and adventures, his numerous voyages, his industry, acquirements, and speculations, and how at length the great idea arose in his mind, and matured itself into a conviction; then how conviction led to action, checked and interrupted, but not weakened, by the doubts of pedantic ignorance,[40] and the treachery,[41] coolness, or contempt of courts. On Friday,[42] the 3d of August, 1492, a squadron of three small, crazy ships, bearing ninety men, sailed from the port of Palos, in Andalusia. Columbus, the commander and pilot, was deeply impressed with sentiments of religion; and, as the spread of Christianity was one great object of the expedition, he and his followers before their departure had implored the blessing of Heaven[43] upon the voyage, from which they might never return.

They steered at first for the Canaries, over a well-known course; but on the 6th of September they sailed from Gomera, the most distant of those islands, and, leaving the usual track of navigation, stretched westward into the unknown sea. And still ever westward for six-and-thirty days they bent their course through the dreary desert of waters; terrified by the changeless wind that wafted them hour after hour further into the awful solitude, and seemed to forbid the prospect of return; bewildered by the altered hours of day and night, and more than all by the mysterious variation of their only guide, for the magnetic needle no longer pointed to the pole.[44] Then strange appearances in the sea aroused new fears: vast quantities of weeds covered the surface, retarding the motion of the vessels; the sailors imagined that they had reached the utmost boundary of the navigable ocean, and that they were rushing blindly into the rocks and quicksands of some submerged continent.

The master mind turned all these strange novelties into omens of success. The changeless wind was the favoring breath of the Omnipotent; the day lengthened as they followed the sun's course; an ingenious fiction explained the inconstancy of the needle; the vast fields of sea-weed bespoke a neighboring shore; and the flight of unknown birds[45] was hailed with happy promise. But as time passed on, and brought no fulfillment of their hopes, the spirits of the timid began to fail; the flattering appearances of land had repeatedly deceived them; they were now very far beyond the limit of any former voyage. From the timid and ignorant these doubts spread upward, and by degrees the contagion extended from ship to ship: secret murmurs rose to conspiracies, complaints, and mutiny. They affirmed that they had already performed their duty in so long pursuing an unknown and hopeless course, and that they would no more follow a desperate adventurer to destruction. Some even proposed to cast their leader into the sea.

The menaces and persuasions that had so often enabled Columbus to overcome the turbulence and fears of his followers now ceased to be of any avail. He gave way to an irresistible necessity, and promised that he would return to Spain, if unsuccessful in their search for three days more. To this brief delay the mutineers consented. The signs of land now brought almost certainty to the mind of the great leader. The sounding-line brought up such soil as is only found near the shore: birds were seen of a kind supposed never to venture on a long flight. A piece of newly-cut cane floated past, and a branch of a tree bearing fresh berries was taken up by the sailors. The clouds around the setting sun wore a new aspect, and the breeze became warm and variable. On the evening of the 11th of October every sail was furled, and strict watch kept, lest the ships might drift ashore during the night.

On board the admiral's vessel all hands were invariably assembled for the evening hymn; on this occasion a public prayer for success was added, and with those holy sounds Columbus hailed the appearance of that small, shifting light,[46] which crowned with certainty his long-cherished hope,[47] turned his faith into realization,[48] and stamped his name forever upon the memory of man.[49]

It was by accident only that England had been deprived of the glory of these great discoveries. Columbus, when repulsed by the courts of Portugal and Spain, sent his brother Bartholomew to London,[50] to lay his projects before Henry VII., and seek assistance for their execution. The king, although the most penurious of European princes, saw the vast advantage of the offer, and at once invited the great Genoese to his court. Bartholomew was, however, captured by pirates on his return voyage, and detained till too late, for in the mean while Isabella of Castile had adopted the project of Columbus, and supplied the means for the expedition.

Henry VII. was not discouraged by this disappointment: two years after the discoveries of Columbus became known in England, the king entered into an arrangement with John Cabot, an adventurous Venetian merchant, resident at Bristol, and, on the 5th of March, 1495, granted him letters patent for conquest and discovery. Henry stipulated that one fifth of the gains in this enterprise was to be retained for the crown, and that the vessels engaged in it should return to the port of Bristol. On the 24th of June, 1497, Cabot discovered the coast of Labrador, and gave it the name of _Primavista_. This was, without doubt, the first visit of Europeans to the Continent of North America,[51] since the time of the Scandinavian voyages. A large island lay opposite to this shore: from the vast quantity of fish frequenting the neighboring waters, the sailors called it _Bacallaos_.[53] Cabot gave this country the name of St. John's, having landed there on St. John's day. Newfoundland has long since superseded both appellations. John Cabot returned to England in August of the same year, and was knighted and otherwise rewarded by the king; he survived but a very short time in the enjoyment of his fame, and his son Sebastian Cabot, although only twenty-three years of age, succeeded him in the command of an expedition destined to seek a northwest passage to the South Seas.

Sebastian Cabot sailed in the summer of 1498: he soon reached Newfoundland, and thence proceeded north as far as the fifty-eighth degree. Having failed in discovering the hoped-for passage, he returned toward the south, examining the coast as far as the southern boundary of Maryland, and perhaps Virginia. After a long interval, the enterprising mariner again, in 1517, sailed for America, and entered the bay[54] which, a century afterward, received the name of Hudson. If prior discovery confer a right of possession, there is no doubt that the whole eastern coast of the North American Continent may be justly claimed by the English race.[55]

Gaspar Cortereal was the next voyager in the succession of discoverers: he had been brought up in the household of the King of Portugal, but nourished an ardent spirit of enterprise and thirst for glory, despite the enervating influences of a court. He sailed early in the year 1500, and pursued the track of John Cabot as far as the northern point of Newfoundland; to him is due the discovery of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,[56] and he also pushed on northward, by the coast of Labrador,[57] almost to the entrance of Hudson's Bay. The adventurer returned to Lisbon in October of the same year. This expedition was undertaken more for mercantile advantage than for the advancement of knowledge; timber and slaves seem to have been the objects; no less than fifty-seven of the natives were brought back to Portugal, and doomed to bondage. These unhappy savages proved so robust and useful, that great benefits were anticipated from trading on their servitude;[58] the dreary and distant land of their birth, covered with snow for half the year, was despised by the Portuguese, whose thoughts and hopes were ever turned to the fertile plains, the sunny skies, and the inexhaustible treasures of the East.[59]

But disaster and destruction soon fell upon these bold and merciless adventurers. In a second voyage, the ensuing year, Cortereal and all his followers were lost at sea: when some time had elapsed without tidings of their fate, his brother sailed to seek them; but he too, probably, perished in the stormy waters of the North Atlantic, for none of them were ever heard of more. The King of Portugal, feeling a deep interest in these brothers, fitted out three armed vessels and sent them to the northwest. Inquiries were made along the wild shores which Cortereal had first explored, without trace or tidings being found of the bold mariner, and the ocean was searched for many months, but the deep still keeps it secret.

Florida was discovered in 1512 by Ponce de Leon, one of the most eminent among the followers of Columbus. The Indians had told him wonderful tales of a fountain called Bimini, in an island of these seas; the fountain possessed the power, they said, of restoring instantly youth and vigor to those who bathed in its waters. He sailed for months in search of this miraculous spring, landing at every point, entering each port, however shallow or dangerous, still ever hoping; but in the weak and presumptuous effort to grasp at a new life, he wasted away his strength and energy, and prematurely brought on those ills of age he had vainly hoped to shun. Nevertheless, this wild adventure bore its wholesome fruits, for Ponce de Leon then first brought to the notice of Europe that beautiful land which, from its wonderful fertility and the splendor of its flowers, obtained the name of Florida.[60]

The first attempt made by the French to share in the advantages of these discoveries was in the year 1504. Some Basque and Breton fishermen at that time began to ply their calling on the Great Bank of Newfoundland, and along the adjacent shores. From them the Island of Cape Breton received its name. In 1506, Jean Denys, a man of Harfleur, drew a map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Two years afterward, a pilot of Dieppe, named Thomas Aubert, excited great curiosity in France by bringing over some of the savage natives from the New World: there is no record whence they were taken, but it is supposed from Cape Breton. The reports borne back to France by these hardy fishermen and adventurers were not such as to raise sanguine hopes of riches from the bleak northern regions they had visited: no teeming fertility or genial climate tempted the settler, no mines of gold or silver excited the avarice of the soldier;[61] and for many years the French altogether neglected to profit by their discoveries.

In the mean time, Pope Alexander VI. issued a bull bestowing the whole of the New World upon the kings of Spain and Portugal.[62] Neither England nor France allowed the right of conferring this magnificent and undefined gift; it did not throw the slightest obstacle in the path of British enterprise and discovery, and the high-spirited Francis I. of France refused to acknowledge the papal decree.[63]

In the year 1523, Francis I. fitted out a squadron of four ships to pursue discovery[64] in the west; the command was intrusted to Giovanni Verazzano, of Florence, a navigator of great skill and experience, then residing in France: he was about thirty-eight years of age, nobly born, and liberally educated; the causes that induced him to leave his own country and take service in France are not known. It has often been remarked as strange that three Italians should have directed the discoveries of Spain, England, and France, and thus become the instruments of dividing the dominions of the New World among alien powers, while their own classic land reaped neither glory nor advantage from the genius and courage of her sons. Of this first voyage the only record remaining is a letter from Verazzano to Francis I., dated 8th of July, 1524, merely stating that he had returned in safety to Dieppe.

At the beginning of the following year Verazzano fitted out and armed a vessel called the Dauphine, manned with a crew of thirty hands, and provisioned for eight months. He first directed his course to Madeira; having reached that island in safety, he left it on the 17th of January and steered for the west. After a narrow escape from the violence of a tempest, and having proceeded for about nine hundred leagues, a long, low line of coast rose to view, never before seen by ancient or modern navigators. This country appeared thickly peopled by a vigorous race, of tall stature and athletic form; fearing to risk a landing at first with his weak force, the adventurer contented himself with admiring at a distance the grandeur and beauty of the scenery, and enjoying the delightful mildness of the climate. From this place he followed the coast for about fifty leagues to the south, without discovering any harbor or inlet where he might shelter his vessel; he then retraced his course and steered to the north. After some time Verazzano ventured to send a small boat on shore to examine the country more closely: numbers of savages came to the water's edge to meet the strangers, and gazed on them with mingled feelings of surprise, admiration, joy, and fear. He again resumed his northward course, till, driven by want of water, he armed the small boat and sent it once more toward the land to seek a supply; the waves and surf, however, were so great that it could not reach the shore. The natives assembled on the beach, by their signs and gestures, eagerly invited the French to approach: one young sailor, a bold swimmer, threw himself into the water, bearing some presents for the savages, but his heart failed him on a nearer approach, and he turned to regain the boat; his strength was exhausted, however, and a heavy sea washed him, almost insensible, up upon the beach. The Indians treated him with great kindness, and, when he had sufficiently recovered, sent him back in safety to the ship.[65]

Verazzano pursued his examination of the coast with untiring zeal, narrowly searching every inlet for a passage through to the westward, until he reached the great island known to the Breton fishermen--Newfoundland. In this important voyage he surveyed more than two thousand miles of coast, nearly all that of the present United States, and a great portion of British North America.

A short time after Verazzano's return to Europe, he fitted out another expedition, with the sanction of Francis I., for the establishment of a colony in the newly-discovered countries. Nothing certain is known of the fate of this enterprise, but the bold navigator returned to France no more; the dread inspired by his supposed fate[66] deterred the French king and people from any further adventure across the Atlantic during many succeeding years. In later times it has come to light that Verazzano was alive thirteen years after this period:[67] those best informed on the subject are of opinion that the enterprise fell to the ground in consequence of Francis I. having been captured by the Emperor Charles V., and that the adventurer withdrew himself from the service of France, having lost his patron's support.

The year after the failure of Verazzano's last enterprise, 1525, Stefano Gomez sailed from Spain for Cuba and Florida; thence he steered northward in search of the long-hoped-for passage to India, till he reached Cape Race, on the south-eastern extremity of Newfoundland. The further details of his voyage remain unknown, but there is reason to suppose that he entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and traded upon its shores. An ancient Castilian tradition existed that the Spaniards visited these coasts before the French, and having perceived no appearance of mines or riches, they exclaimed frequently, "Aca nada;"[68] the natives caught up the sound, and when other Europeans arrived, repeated it to them. The strangers concluded that these words were a designation, and from that time this magnificent country bore the name of CANADA.[70]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: "La sphericite de la terre etant reconnue, l'etendue de la terre habitee en longitude determine, en meme temps la largeur de l'Atlantique entre les cotes occidentales d'Europe et d'Afrique et les cotes orientales d'Asie par differens degres de latitude. Eratosthene (Strabo, ii., p. 87, Cas.) evalue la circonference de l'equateur a 252,000 stades, et la largeur de la _chlamyde_ du Cap Sacre (Cap Saint Vincent) a l'extremite de la grande ceinture de Taurus, pres de Thinae a 70,000 stades. En prolongeant la distance vers le sud est jusque au cap des Coliaques qui, d'apres les idees de Strabon sur la configuration de l'Asie, represente notre Cap Comorin, et avance plus a l'est que la cote de Thinae, la combinaison des donnees d'Eratosthene offre 74,600 et meme 78,000 stades. Or, en reduisant, par la difference de latitude, le perimetre equatorial au parallele de Rhodes, des portes Caspiennes et de Thinae c'est a dire, au parallele de 36 deg. 0' et non de 36 deg. 21', on trouve 203,872 stades, et pour largeur de la terre habitee, par le parallele de Rhodes, 67,500 stades. Strabon dit par consequence avec justesse, dans le fameux passage ou il semble predire l'existence du Nouveau Continent, en parlant de deux terres habitees dans la meme zone temperee boreale que les terres occupent plus du tiers de la circonference du parallele qui passe par Thinae. Par cette supposition la distance de l'Iberie aux Indes est au dela de 236 deg. a peu pres 240 deg.. Ou peut etre surpris de voir que le resultat le plus ancien est aussi le plus exact de tous ceux que nous trouvons en descendant d'Eratosthene par Posidonius aux temps de Marin de Tyr et de Ptolemee. La terre habitee offre effectivement, d'apres nos connaissances actuelles, entre les 36 deg. et 37 deg. 130 degres d'etendue en longitude; il y a par consequent des cotes de la Chine au Cap Sacre a travers l'ocean de l'est a l'ouest 230 degres. L'accord que je nommerai accidentel de cette vraie distance et de l'evaluation d'Eratosthene atteint done dix degres en longitude. Posidonius 'soupconne (c'est l'expression de Strabon, lib. ii., p. 102, Cas.), que la longueur de la terre habitee laquelle est, selon lui, d'environ 70,000 stades, doit former la moitie du cercle entier sur lequel le mesure se prend, et qu' ainsi a partir de l'extremite occidentale de cette meme terre habitee, en naviguant avec un vent d'est continuel l'espace de 70,000 autres stades, ou arriverait dans l'Inde."--Humboldt's _Geographie du Nouveau Continent_.]

[Footnote 3: "La longueur de la terre habitee comprise entre les meridiens des iles Fortunees et de Sera etoit, d'apres Marin de Tyr (Ptol., Geogr., lib. i., cap. 11) de 15 heures ou de 225 deg.. C'etoit avancer les cotes de la Chine jusqu'au meridien des iles Sandwich, et reduire l'espace a parcourir des iles Canaries aux cotes orientales de l'Asie a 135 deg., erreur de 86 deg. en longitude. La grande extension de 23-1/2 deg. que les anciens donnoient a la mer Caspienne, contribuoit egalement beaucoup a augmenter la largeur de l'Asie. Ptolemee a laisse intacte, dans l'evaluation de la terre habitee, selon Posidonius, la distance des iles Fortunees au passage de l'Euphrate a Hierapolis. Les reductions de Ptolemee ne portent que sur les distances de l'Euphrate a _la Tour de Pierre_ et de cette tour a la metropole des Seres. Les 225 deg. de Marin de Tyr deviennent, selon l'Almagest (lib. ii., p. 1) 180 deg., selon la Geographie de Ptolemee (lib. i., p. 12) 177-1/4 deg.. Les cotes des Sinae[4] reculent donc du meridien des iles Sandwich vers celui des Carolines orientales, et l'espace a parcourir par mer en longitude n'etoit plus de 135 deg., mais de 180 deg. a 182-3/4 deg.. Il etoit dans les interets de Christophe Colomb de preferer de beaucoup les calculs de Marin de Tyr a ceux de Ptolemee et a force de conjectures Colomb parvient a restreindre l'espace de l'Ocean qui lui restait a traverser des iles du cap Vert au Cathay de l'Asie orientale a 128 deg." (_Vida del Almirante_).--Humboldt's _Geographie du Nouveau Continent_, vol. ii., p. 364.]

[Footnote 4: In opposition to the opinion of Malte Brun and M. de Josselin, Mr. Hugh Murray is considered to have satisfactorily proved the correctness of Ptolemy's assertion that the Seres or Sinae are identical with the Chinese.--See _Trans. of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_, vol. viii., p. 171.]

[Footnote 5: That the vast waters of the Atlantic were regarded with "awe and wonder, seeming to bound the world as with a chaos," needs no greater proof than the description given of it by Xerif al Edrizi, an eminent Arabian writer, whose countrymen were the boldest navigators of the Middle Ages, and possessed all that was then known of geography. "The ocean," he observes, "encircles the ultimate bounds of the inhabited earth, and all beyond it is unknown. No one has been able to verify any thing concerning it, on account of its difficult and perilous navigation, its great obscurity, its profound depth, and frequent tempests; through fear of its mighty fishes and its haughty winds; yet there are many islands in it, some peopled, others uninhabited. There is no mariner who dares to enter into its deep waters; or if any have done so, they have merely kept along its coasts, fearful of departing from them. The waves of this ocean, though they roll as high as mountains, yet maintain themselves without breaking; for if they broke it would be impossible for ship to plow them."--_Description of Spain_, by Xerif al Edrizi: Conde's Spanish translation. Madrid, 1799.--Quoted by Washington Irving.]

[Footnote 6: Aristotle, Strabo, Pliny, and Seneca arrived at this conclusion. The idea, however, of an intervening continent never appears to have suggested itself.--Humboldt's _Cosmos_.]

[Footnote 7: In the Atlantic Ocean, over against the Pillars of Hercules, lay an island larger than Asia and Africa taken together, and in its vicinity were other islands. The ocean in which these islands were situated was surrounded on every side by main-land; and the Mediterranean, compared with it, resembled a mere harbor or narrow entrance. Nine thousand years before the time of Plato this island of Atlantis was both thickly settled and very powerful. Its sway extended over Africa as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as the Tyrrhenian Sea. The further progress of its conquests, however, was checked by the Athenians, who, partly with the other Greeks, partly by themselves, succeeded in defeating these powerful invaders, the natives of Atlantis. After this a violent earthquake, which lasted for the space of a day and a night, and was accompanied with inundations of the sea, caused the islands to sink; and for a long period subsequent to this, the sea in that quarter was impassable by reason of the slime and shoals.--Plato, _Tim._, 24-29, 296; _Crit._, 108-110, 39, 43. The learned Gessner is of opinion that the Isle of Ceres, spoken of in a poem of very high antiquity, attributed to Orpheus, was a fragment of Atlantis. Kircher, in his "Mundus Subterraneus," and Beckman, in his "History of Islands," suppose the Atlantis to have been an island extending from the Canaries to the Azores; that it was really ingulfed in one of the convulsions of the globe, and that those small islands are mere fragments of it. Gosselin, in his able research into the voyages of the ancients, supposes the Atlantis of Plato to have been nothing more nor less than one of the nearest of the Canaries, viz, Fortaventura or Lancerote. Carli and many others find America in the Atlantis, and adduce many plausible arguments in support of their assertion.--Carli, _Letters Amer._; Fr. transl., ii., 180. M. Bailly, in his "Letters sur l'Atlantide de Platon," maintains the existence of the Atlantides, and their island Atlantis, by the authorities of Homer, Sanchoniathon, and Diodorus Siculus, in addition to that of Plato. Manheim maintains very strenuously that Plato's Atlantis is Sweden and Norway. M. Bailly, after citing many ancient testimonies, which concur in placing this famous isle in the north, quotes that of Plutarch, who confirms these testimonies by a circumstantial description of the Isle of Ogygia, or the Atlantis, which he represents as situated in the north of Europe. The following is the theory of Buffon: after citing the passage relating to the Atlantis, from Plato's "Timaeus," he adds, "This ancient tradition is not devoid of probability. The lands swallowed up by the waters were, perhaps, those which united Ireland to the Azores, and the Azores to the Continent of America; for in Ireland there are the same fossils, the same shells, and the same sea bodies as appear in America, and some of them are found in no other part of Europe."--Buffon's _Nat. Hist._, by Smellie, vol. i., p. 507.]

[Footnote 8: The first authentic description of the Mar di Sargasso of Aristotle is due to Columbus. It spreads out between the nineteenth and thirty-fourth degrees of north latitude. Its chief axis lies about seven degrees to the westward of the Island of Corvo. The smaller bank, on the other hand, lies between the Bermudas and Bahamas. The winds and partial currents in different years slightly affect the position and extent of these Atlantic "sea-weed meadows." No other sea in either hemisphere displays a similar extent of surface covered by plants collected in this way. These meadows of the ocean present the wonderful spectacle of a collection of plants covering a space nearly seven times as large as France.--Humboldt's _Cosmos_.]

[Footnote 9: See Appendix, No. II. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 10: See Aristotle, _De Mirab. Auscult._, cap. lxxxiv., 84, p. 836, Bekk. This work, "A Collection of Wonderful Narratives," is attributed to Aristotle; the real compiler is unknown. According to Humboldt, it seems to have been written before the first Punic war.--Diodorus of Sicily, vol. xix. Aristotle attributes the discovery of the island to the Carthaginians; Diodorus to the Phoenicians. The occurrence is said to have taken place in the earliest times of the Tyrrhenian dominion of the sea, during the contest between the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi and the Phoenicians. The Island of the Seven Cities (see Appendix, No. II.) was identified with the island mentioned by Aristotle as having been discovered by the Carthaginians, and was inserted in the early maps under the name of Antilla. Paul Toscanelli, the celebrated physician of Florence, thus writes to Columbus: "From the Island of Antilia, which you call the Seven Cities, and of which you have some knowledge," &c. In the Middle Ages conjectures were religiously inscribed upon the maps, as is proved by Antilia, St. Borondon (see Appendix), the Hand of Satan, Green Island, Maida Island, and the exact form of vast southern regions. Humboldt refers the name of Antilia so far back as the fourteenth century. The earliest date given by Ferdinand Columbus is 1436. "Beyond the Azores, but at no great distance toward the west, occurs the Ysola de Antilia, which we may conclude, even allowing the date of the map to be genuine (in the library of St. Mark, at Venice, date 1436), to be a mere gratuitous or theoretic supposition, and to have received that strange name because the obvious and natural idea of antipodes has been anathematized by Catholic ignorance." He elsewhere says that "some Portuguese cosmographers have inserted the island described by Aristotle in maps under the name of Antilia."--_Hist. of the Discovery of America_, by Don Ferdinand Columbus, in Ker, vol. iii., p. 3-29.

The origin of the name Antilla, or Antilia, is still a matter of conjecture. Humboldt attributes to a "litterateur distingue" the solution of the enigma, from a passage in Aristotle's "De Mundo," which speaks of the probable existence of unknown lands opposite to the mass of continents which we inhabit. These countries, be they small or great, whose shores are opposed to ours, were marked out by the word _porthornoi_, which in the Middle Ages was translated by _antinsulae_. Humboldt says that this translation is totally incorrect; however, the idea of the "litterateur distingue" is evidently the same as Ferdinand Columbus's. The following is the hypothesis favored by Humboldt: "Peut-etre meme le nom d'Antilia qui parait pour la premiere fois sur une carte Venitienne de 1436 n'est il qu'une forme Portuguaise donnee a un nom geographique des Arabes. L'etymologie que hasarde M. Buace me parait tres ingenieuse.... La syllabe initiale me parait la corruption de l'article Arabe. D'al Tinnin et d'Al tin on aura fait peu a peu Antinna et Antilla, comme par un deplacement analogue de consonnes, les Espagnols ont fait de crocodilo, corcodilo et cocodrilo. Le Dragon est _al Tin_, et l'Antilia est peut-etre, l'ile des dragons marins."--Humboldt's _Ex. Crit._, vol. ii., 211.

Oviedo applies the relation of Aristotle to the Hesperian Islands, and asserts that they were the "India" discovered by Columbus. "Perche egli (Colombo) conobbe come era in effetto che queste terre che egli ben ritrovava scritte, erano del tutto uscite dalla memoria degli uomin; e io per me non dubito che si sapissero, e possedessero anticamente dalli Re de Spagna: e voglio qui dire quello che Aristotele in questo caso ne scrisse, &c.... io tengo che queste Indie siano quelle autiche e famose Isole Hesperide cose dette da Hespero 12 Re di Spagna. Or come la Spagna e l'Italia tolsero il nome da Hespero 12 Re di Spagna cosi anco da questo istesso ex torsero queste isole Hesperidi, che noi diciamo, _onde senza_ alcun dubbio si de tenere, che in quel tempe questo isole sotto la signoria della Spagna stessero, e sotto un medesmo Re, che fu (come Beroso dice) 1658 anni prima che il nostro Salvatore nascesse. E perche al presente siamo nel 1535 della salute nostra, ne segue che siano ora tre milo e cento novantatre anni che la Spagna e'l suo Re Hespero signoreggiavano queste Indie o Isole Hesperidi. E come cosa sua par che abbia la divina giustizia voluto ritornargliele."--_Hist. Gen. dell' Indie de Gonzalo Fernando d'Oviedo_, in Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 80.]

[Footnote 11: "It is very possible that in the same temperate zone, and almost in the same latitude as Thinae (or Athens?), where it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, there are inhabited worlds, distinct from that in which we dwell."[12]--Strabo, lib. i., p. 65, and lib. ii., p. 118. It is surprising that this expression never attracted the attention of the Spanish authors, who, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, were searching every where in classical literature with the expectation of finding some traces of acquaintance with the New World.]

[Footnote 12: "The idea of such a locality in a continuation of the long axis of the Mediterranean was connected with a grand view of the earth by Eratosthenes (generally and extensively known among the ancients), according to which the entire ancient continent, in its widest expanse from west to east, in the parallel of about thirty-six degrees, presents an almost unbroken line of elevation."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_.]

[Footnote 13: "D'Anville a dit avec esprit que la plus grande des erreurs dans la geographie de Ptolemee a conduit les hommes a la plus grande decouverte de terres nouvelles c'est, a dire la supposition que l'Asie s'etendait vers l'est, au dela du 180 degre de longitude."

Both Strabo and Aristotle speak of "the same sea bathing opposite shores," Strabo, lib. i., p. 103; lib. ii., p. 162. Aristotle, _De Caelo_, lib. ii., cap. 14, p. 297. The possibility of navigating from the extremity of Europe to the eastern shores of Asia is clearly asserted by the Stagirite, and in the two celebrated passages of Strabo. Aristotle does not suppose the distance to be very great, and draws an ingenious argument in favor of his supposition from the geography of animals. Strabo sees no obstacle to passing from Iberia to India, except the immense extent of the Atlantic Ocean. It is to be remembered that Strabo, as well as Eratosthenes, extend the appellation of Atlantic Sea to every part of the ocean.--Humboldt's _Geog. du Nouveau Continent_.]

[Footnote 14: See Appendix, No. III. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 15: "Au milieu de tant de discussions acerbes qu'une curieuse malignite et le gout d'une fausse erudition classique firent naitre sur le merite de Christophe Colomb, parmi ses contemporains, personne n'a pense aux navigations des Normands comme precurseurs des Genois. Cette idee ne se presenta que soixante quatre ans apres la mort du grand homme. On savait par ces propres recits 'qu'il etoit alle a Thule' mais alors ce voyage vers le nord ne fit naitre aucun soupcon sur la priorite, de la decouverte.... Le merite d'avoir reconnu la premiere decouverte de l'Amerique septentrionale par les Normands appartient indubitablement au geographe Ortelius, qui annonca cette opinion des l'annee 1570. 'Christophe Colomb, dit Ortelius, a seulement mis le Nouveau Monde en rapport durable de commerce et d'utilite avec l'Europe' (_Theatr. Orbis Terr._, on p. 5, 6). Ce jugement est beaucoup trop severe."--Humboldt's _Geog. du Nouveau Continent_.]

[Footnote 16: "Biorn first saw land in the Island of Nantucket, one degree south of Boston, then in New Scotland, and lastly in Newfoundland."--Carl Christian Rafn, _Antiquitates Americanae_, 1845, p. 4, 421; Humboldt's _Cosmos_.

"The country called 'the good Vinland' (Vinland it goda) by Leif, included the shore between Boston and New York, and therefore parts of the present states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, between the parallels of latitude of Civita, Vecchia and Terracina, where, however, the average temperature of the year is between 46 deg. and 52 deg. (Fahr.). This was the chief settlement of the Normans. Their active and enterprising spirit is proved by the circumstance that, after they had settled in the south as far as 41 deg. 30' north latitude, they erected three pillars to mark out the boundaries near the eastern coast of Baffin's Bay, in the latitude of 72 deg. 55', upon one of the Women Islands northwest of the present most northern Danish colony of Upernavik. The Runic inscription upon the stone, discovered in the autumn of 1824, contains, according to Rask and Finn Magnusen, the date of the year 1135. From this eastern coast of Baffin's Bay, the colonists visited, with great regularity, on account of the fishery, Lancaster Sound and a part of Barrow's Straits, and this occurred more than six centuries before the bold undertakings of Parry and Ross. The locality of the fishery is very accurately described; and Greenland priests, from the diocese of Gardar, conducted the first voyage of discovery in 1266. These northwestern summer stations were called the Kroksjardar, heathen countries. Mention was early made of the Siberian wood, which was then collected, as well as of the numerous whales, seals, walrus, and polar bears."--Rafn, _Antiq. Amer._, p. 20, 274, 415-418, quoted by Humboldt.]

[Footnote 17: One of the objections brought forward by Robertson against the Norman discovery of America is, that the wild vine has never since been found so far north as Labrador; but modern travelers have ascertained that a species of wild vine grows even as far north as the shores of Hudson's Bay.[18] Since Robertson's time, however, the locality of the first Norman settlement has been moved further south, and into latitudes where the best species of wild vines are abundant.]

[Footnote 18: Sir A. Mackenzie's Travels in Iceland, 1812. Preliminary Dissertation by Dr Holland, p. 46.]

[Footnote 19: Rafn, _Antiq. Amer._]

[Footnote 20: The Esquimaux were at that time spread much further south than they are at present.--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 268.]

[Footnote 21: Eric Upsi, a native of Iceland, and the first Greenland bishop, undertook to go to Vinland as a Christian missionary in 1121.]

[Footnote 22: "The learned Grotius founds an argument for the colonization of America by the Norwegians on the similarity between the names of Norway and La Norimbegue, a district bordering on New England."--Grotius, _De Origine Gentium Americanarum_, in quarto, 1642. See, also, the Controversy between Grotius and Jean de Laet.]

[Footnote 23: Accurate information respecting the former intercourse of the Northmen with the Continent of America reaches only as far as the middle of the fourteenth century. In the year 1349 a ship was sent from Greenland to Markland (New Scotland) to collect timber and other necessaries. Upon their return from Markland, the ship was overtaken by storms, and compelled to land at Straumfjord, in the west of Iceland. This is the last account of the "Norman America," preserved for us in the ancient Scandinavian writings. The settlements upon the west coast of Greenland, which were in a very flourishing condition until the middle of the fourteenth century, gradually declined, from the fatal influence of monopoly of trade, by the invasion of the Esquimaux, by the black death which depopulated the north from the year 1347 to 1351, and also by the arrival of a hostile fleet, from what country is not known.

By means of the critical and most praiseworthy efforts of Christian Rafn, and the Royal Society for Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen, the traditions and ancient accounts of the voyage of the Normans to Helluland (Newfoundland), to Markland (the mouth of the River St. Lawrence at Nova Scotia), and at Winland (Massachusetts), have been separately printed and satisfactorily commented upon. The length of the voyage, the direction in which they sailed, the time of the rising and setting of the sun, are accurately laid down. The principal sources of information are the historical narrations of Erik the Red, Thorfinn Karlsefne, and Snorre Thorbrandson, probably written in Greenland itself, as early as the twelfth century, partly by descendants of the settlers born in Winland.--Rafn, _Antiq. Amer._, p. 7, 14, 16. The care with which the tables of their pedigrees was kept was so great, that the table of the family of Thorfinn Karlsefne, whose son, Snorre Thorbrandson, was born in America, was kept from the year 1007 to 1811.

The name of the colonized countries is found in the ancient national songs of the natives of the Faroe Islands.--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 268-452.]

[Footnote 24: See Appendix, No. IV. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 25: See Appendix, No. V. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 26: See Appendix, No. VI. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 27: See Appendix, No. VII. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 28: The numerous data which have come down to us from antiquity, and an acute examination of the local relations, especially the great vicinity of the settlements upon the African coast, which incontestably existed, lead me to believe that Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans, and probably even the Etruscans, were acquainted with the group of the Canary Islands.--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 414.

"Porro occidentalis navigatio, quantum etiam fama assequi Plinius potuit, tantum ad Fortunatas Insulas cursum protendit, earumque praecipuam a multitudine canum Canariam vocatam refert."--Acosta, _De Natura Novi Orbis_, lib. i., cap. ii.

Respecting the probability of the Semitic origin of the name of the Canary Islands, Pliny, in his Latinizing etymological notions, considered them to be _Dog Islands_! (Vide Credner's Biblical Representation of Paradise, in Illgen's Journal for Historical Theology, 1836, vol. vi., p. 166-186.)--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 414.

The most fundamental, and, in a literary point of view, the most complete account of the Canary Islands, that was written in ancient times, down to the Middle Ages, was collected in a work of Joachim Jose da Costa de Macedo, with the title "Memoria cem que se pretende provar que os Arabes nao connecerao as Canarias autes dos Portuguesques, 1844." (See, also, Viera y Clavigo, _Notic. de la Hist. de Canaria_.)--Humboldt's _Cosmos_.]

[Footnote 29: See Appendix, No. VIII. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 30: "Jean de Bethancourt knew that before the expedition of Alvaro Beccara, that is to say, before the end of the fourteenth century, Norman adventurers had penetrated as far as Sierra Leone (lat. 8 deg. 30'), and he sought to follow their traces. Before the Portuguese, however, no European nation appears to have crossed the equator."--Humboldt.

"Les Normands et les Arabes sont les seules nations qui, jusqu'au commencement du douzieme siecle, aient partage la gloire des grandes expeditions maritimes, le gout des aventures etranges, la passion du pillage et des conquetes ephemeres. Les Normands ont occupe successivement l'Islande et la Neustrie, ravage les sanctuaires de l'Italie, ravage la Pouille sur les Grecs, inscrit leurs caracteres runiques jusque sur les flancs d'un des lions que Morosini enleva au Piree d'Athenes pour en orner l'arsenal de Venise."--Humboldt's _Geog. du Nouveau Continent_, vol. ii., p. 86.]

[Footnote 31: "No nation," says Southey, "has ever accomplished such great things in proportion to its means as the Portuguese." Its early maritime history does, indeed, present a striking picture of enterprise and restless energy, but the annals of Europe afford no similar instance of rapid degeneracy. There was an age when less than forty thousand armed Portuguese kept the whole coasts of the ocean in awe, from Morocco to China; when one hundred and fifty sovereign princes paid tribute to the treasury of Lisbon. But in all their enterprises they aimed at conquest, and not at colonization. The government at home exercised little control over the arms of its piratical mariners; the mother country derived no benefit from their achievements. To the age of conquest succeeded one of effeminacy and corruption.--Merivale's _Lectures on Colonization_, vol. i., p. 44.]

[Footnote 32: See Appendix, No. IX. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 33: The zones were imaginary bands or circles in the heavens, producing an effect of climate on corresponding belts on the globe of the earth. The frigid zones, between the polar circles and the poles, were considered uninhabitable and unnavigable, on account of the extreme cold. The torrid zone, lying beneath the track of the sun, or rather the central part of it, immediately about the equator, was considered uninhabitable, unproductive, and impassable, on account of the excessive heat. The temperate zones, lying between the torrid and the frigid zones, were supposed to be the only parts of the globe suited to the purposes of life. Parmenides, according to Strabo, was the inventor of this theory of the five zones. Aristotle supported the same doctrine. He believed that there was habitable earth in the southern hemisphere, but that it was forever divided from the part of the world already known by the impassable zone of scorching heat at the equator. (Aristot., Met., ii., cap. v.) Pliny supported the opinion of Aristotle concerning the burning zones. (Pliny, lib. i., cap. lxvi.) Strabo (lib. ii.), in mentioning this theory, gives it likewise his support; and others of the ancient philosophers, as well as the poets, might be cited, to show the general prevalence of the belief.--Cicero, _Somnium Scipionis_, cap. vi.; Geminus, cap. xiii., p. 31; ap. Petavii Opus de Doctr. Tempor. in quo Uranologium sive Systemata var. Auctorum. Amst., 1705, vol. iii.]

[Footnote 34: See Appendix, No. X. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 35: Barros, Dec. I., lib. iii., cap. iv., p. 190, says distinctly, "Bartholomeu Diaz, e os de sua compantica per causa dos perigos, e tormentas, que em o dobrar delle passaram che puyeram nome Tormentoso." The merit of the first circumnavigation, therefore, does not belong to Vasco de Gama, as is generally supposed. Diaz was at the Cape in May, 1487, and, therefore, almost at the same time that Pedro de Covilham and Alonzo de Payva of Barcelona commenced their expedition. As early as December, 1487, Diaz himself brought to Portugal the account of his important discovery. The mission of Pedro Covilham and Alonzo de Payva, in 1487, was set on foot by King John II., in order to search for "the African priest Johannes." Believing the accounts which he had obtained from Indian and Arabian pilots in Calicut, Goa, Aden, as well as in Sofala, on the eastern coast of Africa, Covilham informed King John II., by means of two Jews from Cairo, that if the Portuguese were to continue their voyages of discovery upon the western coast in a southerly direction, they would come to the end of Africa, whence a voyage to the _Island of the Moon_, to Zanzibar, and the gold country of Sofala, would be very easy. Accounts of the Indian and Arabian trading stations upon the east coast of Africa, and of the form of the southern extremity of the Continent, may have extended to Venice, through Egypt, Abyssinia, and Arabia. The triangular form of Africa was actually delineated upon the map of Sanuto, made in 1306, and discovered in the "Portulano della Mediceo-Laurenziana," by Count Baldelli in 1351, and also in the chart of the world by Fra Mauro.--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 290, 461.]

[Footnote 36: Faria y Sousa complains that "the admiral entered Lisbon with a vain-glorious exultation, in order to make Portugal feel, by displaying the tokens of his discovery, how much she had erred in not acceding to his propositions."--_Europa Portuguesa_, t. ii., p. 402, 403.

Ruy de Pina asserts that King John was much importuned to kill Columbus on the spot, since, with his death, the prosecution of the undertaking, as far as the sovereigns of Castile were concerned, would cease, from want of a suitable person to take charge of it; but the king had too much magnanimity to adopt the iniquitous measure proposed.--Vasconcellos, _Vida del Rie Don Juan II._, lib. vi,; Garcia de Resende, _Vide da Dom Joam II._; Las Casas, _Hist. Ind._, lib. i., cap. lxxiv.; MS. quoted by Prescott.]

[Footnote 37: See Appendix, No. XI. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 38: "A Castilla y a Leon Nuevo Mumto dio Colon," was the inscription on the costly monument that was raised over the remains of Columbus in the Carthusian Monastery of La Cuevas at Seville. "The like of which," says his son Ferdinand, with as much truth as simplicity, "was never recorded of any man in ancient or modern times."--_Hist. del Almirante_, cap. cviii.

His ashes were finally removed to Cuba, where they now repose in the Cathedral church of its capital.--Navarrete, _Coleccion de Viages_, tom. ii.

"E dandogli il titol di Don volsero che egli aggiungesse presso all'arme di casa sua quattro altre, cioe quelle del Regno de Castiglio di Leon, e il Mar Oceano con tutte l'isole e quattro anchore per dimostrare l'ufficio d'Almirante, con un motto d'intorno che dicea, 'Per Castiglia e per Leon, Nuovo Mundo trovo Colon.'"--Ramusio, _Discorio_, tom. iii.

The heir of Columbus was always to bear the arms of the admiral, to seal with them, and in his signature never to use any other title than simply "the Admiral."]

[Footnote 39: See Appendix, No. XII. (see Vol II)--In the Middle Ages the prevalent opinion was that the sea covered but one seventh of the surface of the globe; an opinion which Cardinal d'Ailly (Imago Mundi, cap. viii.) founded on the apocryphal fourth book of Ezra. Columbus, who always derived much of his cosmological knowledge from the cardinal's work, was much interested in upholding this idea of the smallness of the sea, to which the misunderstood expression of "the ocean-stream" contributed not a little. He was also accustomed to cite Aristotle, and Seneca, and St. Augustine, in confirmation of this opinion.--Humboldt's _Examen Critique de l'Hist. de la Geographie_, tom. i., p. 186.]

[Footnote 40: See, especially, the details of the conference held at Salamanca (the great seat of learning in Spain), given in the fourth chapter of Washington Irving's "Columbus." One of the objections advanced was, that, admitting the earth to be spherical, and should a ship succeed in reaching in this way the extremity of India, she could never get back again; for the rotundity of the globe would present a kind of mountain, up which it would be impossible for her to sail with the most favorable wind.--_Hist. del Almirante_, cap. ii.; _Hist. de Chiapa por Remesel_, lib. ii., cap. 27.]

[Footnote 41: Columbus was required by King John II., of Portugal, to furnish a detailed plan of his proposed voyages, with the charts and other documents according to which he proposed to shape his course, for the alleged purpose of having them examined by the royal counselors. He readily complied; but while he remained in anxious suspense as to the decision of the council, a caravel was secretly dispatched with instructions to pursue the route designated in the papers of Columbus. This voyage had the ostensible pretext of carrying provisions to the Cape de Verde Islands; the private instructions given were carried into effect when the caravel departed thence. It stood westward for several days; but then the weather grew stormy, and the pilots having no zeal to stimulate them, and seeing nothing but an immeasurable waste of wild, trembling waves still extending before them, lost all courage to proceed. They put back to the Cape de Verde Islands, and thence to Lisbon, excusing their own want of resolution by ridiculing the project of Columbus. On discovering this act of treachery, Columbus instantly quitted Portugal.--_Hist. del Almirante_, cap. viii.; Herrera, Dec. I., lib. i., cap. vii.; Munoz, _Hist. del Nuevo Mundo_, lib. ii.--Quoted by Prescott.]

[Footnote 42: "Le Vendredi n'etant pas regarde dans la Chretiente comme un jour de bon augure pour le commencement d'une entreprise, les historiens du 17[me] siecle, qui gemissaient deja sur les maux dont, selon eux, l'Europe a ete accable par la decouverte de l'Amerique, on fait remarque que Colomb est parti pour la premiere expedition _vendredi_, 3 aout 1492, et que la premiere terre d'Amerique a ete decouverte _vendredi_ 12 Octobre de la meme annee. La reformation du calendrier appliquee au journal de Colomb, qui indique toujours a la fois, les jours de la semaine et la date du mois, feroit disparoitre le pronostic du jour fatal."--Humboldt's _Geog. du Nouveau Continent_, vol. iii., p. 160.]

[Footnote 43: His first landing in the New World partook of the same character as his departure from the Old.

"Christoforo Colombo--primo con una bandiera nella quale era figurato il nostro Signore Jesu Christo in croce, salto in terra, e quella pianto, e poi tutti gli alti smontarono, e inginocchiati baciarono la terra, tre volti piangendo di allegrezza. Di poi Colombo alzate le mani al cielo lagrimando disse, Signor Dio Eterno, Signore omnipotente, tu creasti il cielo, e la terra, e il mare con la tua santa parola, sia benedetto e glorificato il nome tuo, sia ringraziata la tua Maesta, la quale si e degnata per mano d' uno umil suo servo far ch' el suo santo nome sia conosciuto e divulgato in questa altra parte del mondo."--Pietro Martire, _Dell' Indie Occidentali_, in Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 2; Oviedo, _Hist. Gen. dell' India_.]

[Footnote 44: Columbus not only has, incontestably, the merit of first discovering the line where there is no declination of the needle, but also of first inducing a study of terrestrial magnetism in Europe, by his observations concerning the increasing declination as he sailed in a westerly direction from that line. It had been already easily recognized in the Mediterranean, and in all places where, in the twelfth century, the declination was as much as eight or ten degrees, even though their instruments were so imperfect that the ends of a magnetic needle did not point exactly to the geographical north or south. It is improbable that the Arabs or Crusaders drew attention to the fact of the compass pointing to the northeast and northwest in different parts of the world, as to a phenomenon which had long been known. The merit which belongs to Columbus is, not for the first observance of the existence of the declination, which is given, for example, upon the map of Andrew Bianca, in 1436, but for the remark which he made on the 13th of September, 1492, that about two degrees and a half to the east of the Island of Corvo the magnetic variation changed, and that it passed over from northeast to northwest. This discovery of a magnetic line without any variation indicates a remarkable epoch in nautical astronomy. It was celebrated with just praise by Oviedo, Casas, and Herrera. If with Livio Sanuto we ascribe it to the renowned mariner Sebastian Cabot, we forget that his first voyage, which was undertaken at the expense of some merchants of Bristol, and which was crowned with success by his touching the main-land of America, falls five years later than the first expedition of Columbus.--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 318; Las Casas, _Hist. Ind._, lib. i., cap. 6.]

[Footnote 45: "In sailing toward the West India Islands birds are often seen at the distance of two hundred leagues from the nearest coast."--Sloane's _Nat. Hist. of Jamaica_, vol. i., p. 30.

Captain Cook says, "No one yet knows to what distance any of the Oceanic birds go to sea; for my own part, I do not believe that there is any one of the whole tribe that can be relied on in pointing out the vicinity of land."--_Voyage toward the South Pole_, vol. i., p. 275.

The Portuguese, however, only keeping along the African coast and watching the flight of birds with attention, concluded that they did not venture to fly far from land. Columbus adopted this erroneous opinion from his early instructors in navigation.]

[Footnote 46: "Puesto que el amirante a los diez de la noche vio lumbre ... y era como una candelilla de cera que se alzaba y levantaba, lo cual a pocos pareciera ser indicio de tierra. Pero el amirante tuvo por cierto estar junto a la tierra. Por lo qual quando dijeron la 'Salve' que acostumbran decir y cantar a su manera todos los marineros, y de hallan todos, vogo y amonestolos el amirante que hiciesen buena guarda al castillo de proa, y mirasen bien por la tierra."--_Diar. de Colon. Prem. Viag. 11 de Oct._]

[Footnote 47: "Let those who are disposed to faint under difficulties, in the prosecution of any great and worthy undertaking, remember that eighteen years elapsed after the time that Columbus conceived his enterprise before he was enabled to carry it into effect; that most of that time was passed in almost hopeless solicitation, amid poverty, neglect, and taunting ridicule; that the prime of his life had wasted away in the struggle, and that, when his perseverance was finally crowned with success, he was about in his fifty-sixth year. This example should encourage the enterprising never to despair."--Washington Irving's _Life of Columbus_, vol. i., p. 174.]

[Footnote 48: "While Columbus lay on a sick-bed by the River Belem, he was addressed in a dream by an unknown voice, distinctly uttering these words: 'Maravillosamente Dios hizo sonar tu nombre en la tierra; de los atamientos de la Mar Oceana, que estaban cerradas con cadenas tan fuertes, te dio las llaves.' (Letter to the Catholic monarch, July 7th, 1503.)"--Humboldt's _Cosmos_.]

[Footnote 49: See Appendix, No. XIII. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 50: "The application to King Henry VII. was not made until 1488, as would appear from the inscription on a map which Bartholomew presented to the king. Las Casas intimates, from letters and writings of Bartholomew Columbus, in his possession, that the latter accompanied Bartholomew Diaz in his voyage from Lisbon, in 1486, along the coast of Africa, in the course of which he discovered the Cape of Good Hope."--Las Casas, _Hist. Ind._, lib. i., cap. vii.]

[Footnote 51: "The American Continent was first discovered under the auspices of the English, and the coast of the United States by a native of England (Sebastian Cabot told me that he was born in Bristowe)."--_History of the Travayles in the East and West Indies_, by R. Eden and R. Willes, 1577. fol. 267. Posterity hardly remembered that they[52] (the Cabots) had reached the American Continent nearly four months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the main-land.--Bancroft's _Hist. of the United States_, vol. i., p. 11. Charlevoix's "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," and the "Fastes Chronologiques," endeavor to discredit the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot, but the testimonies of cotemporary authors are decisive. Unfortunately, no journal or relation remains of the voyages of the Cabots to North America, but several authors have handed down accounts of them, which they received from the lips of Sebastian Cabot himself. See Hakluyt, iii., 27; Galearius Butrigarius, in Ramusio, tom. ii.; Ramusio, Preface to tom. iii.; Peter Martyr ab Angleria, Dec. III., cap. vi.; Gomara, _Gen. Hist. of the West Indies_, b. ii., c. vi. In Fabian's Chronicle, the writer asserts that he saw, in the sixteenth year of Henry VII., two out of three men who had been brought from "Newfound Island" two years before. The grant made by Edward VI. to Sebastian Cabot of a pension equal to L1000 per annum of our money, attests that "the good and acceptable service" for which it was conferred was of a very important nature. The words of the grant are handed down to us by Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 31.--See _Life of Henry VII._, by Lord Bacon; Bacon's _Works_, vol. iii., p. 356, 357.]

[Footnote 52: "The only immediate fruit of Cabot's first enterprise is said to have been the importation from America of the first turkeys ever seen in Europe. Why this bird received the name it enjoys in England has never been satisfactorily explained. By the French it was called 'Coq d'Inde,' on account of its American original, America being then generally termed Western India."--Graham's _Hist. of the United States_, vol. i., p. 7.]

[Footnote 53: Baccalaos was the name given by the natives to the codfish with which these waters abounded. Pietro Martire, who calls Sebastian Cabot his "dear and familiar friend," speaks of Newfoundland as Baccalaos; also, Lopez de Gomara and Ramusio.]

[Footnote 54: Mr. Bancroft pronounces this "fact to be indisputable," though he acknowledges that "the testimony respecting this expedition is confused and difficult of explanation." Sebastian Cabot wrote "A Discourse of Navigation," in which the entrance of the strait leading into Hudson's Bay was laid down with great precision "on a card, drawn by his own hand."--Ortelius, _Map of America in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum_; Eden and Willis, p. 223; Sir H. Gilbert, in Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 49, 50; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 12.]

[Footnote 55: The learned and ingenious author of the "Memoirs of Sebastian Cabot" has brought forward strong arguments against the discovery of the Continent of America by Jean Vas Cortereal in 1494.--Humboldt's _Geog. du Nouveau Continent_, vol. i., p. 279; vol. ii., p. 25.

"The discoverer of the territory of our country was one of the most extraordinary men of his age. There is deep cause for regret that time has spared so few memorials of his career. He gave England a continent, and no one knows his burial-place."--Bancroft, vol. i., p. 14.]

[Footnote 56: Ramusio, vol. iii., p. 417. This discovery is also attributed to Jacques Cartier, who entered the gulf on the 10th of August, 1535, and gave it the name of the saint whose festival was celebrated on that day.--Charlevoix.]

[Footnote 57: In an old map published in 1508, the Labrador coast is called Terra Corterealis.]

[Footnote 58: It has been conjectured that the name Terra de Laborador was given to this coast by the Portuguese slave merchants, on account of the admirable qualities of the natives as laborers.--_Picture of Quebec_.]

[Footnote 59: It was an idea entertained by Columbus, that, as he extended his discoveries to climates more and more under the torrid influence of the sun, he should find the productions of nature sublimated by its rays to more perfect and precious qualities. He was strengthened in this belief by a letter written to him, at the command of the queen, by one Jayme Ferrer, an eminent and learned lapidary, who, in the course of his trading for precious stones and metals, had been in the Levant and in various parts of the East; had conversed with the merchants of the remote parts of Asia and Africa, and the natives of India, Arabia, and Ethiopia, and was considered deeply versed in geography generally, but especially in the nature of those countries from whence the valuable merchandise in which he dealt was procured. In this letter Ferrer assured Columbus that, according to his experience, the rarest objects of commerce, such as gold, precious stones, drugs, and spices, were chiefly to be found in the regions about the equinoctial line, where the inhabitants were black, or darkly colored, and that until the admiral should arrive among people of such complexions, he did not think he would find those articles in great abundance.--Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. ii., Document 68.]

[Footnote 60: Ramusio, vol. iii., p. 347; Charlevoix, vol. i., p. 36; see Osorio, History of the Portuguese, b. i.; Barrow's Voyages, p. 37-48; Herrera, Dec. 1., lib. vii., cap. ix.; Ensayo Chronologico para la Historia general de la Florida. En Madrid, 1723.--Quoted by Murray.]

[Footnote 61: "Les demandes ordinaires qu'on nous fait sont, 'Y a-t-il des tresors? Y a-t-il de l'or et de l'argent?' Et personne ne demande, 'Ces peuples la sont il disposes a entendre la doctrine Chretienne?' Et quant aux mines, il y en a vraiment, mais il les faut fouiller avec industrie, labeur et patience. La plus belle mine que je sache, c'est du bled et du vin, avec la nourriture du bestial; qui a de ceci, il a de l'argent, et des mines, nous n'en vivons point."--Marc l'Escarbot.]

[Footnote 62: This bold stretch of papal authority, so often ridiculed as chimerical and absurd, was in a measure justified by the event, since it did, in fact, determine the principle on which the vast extent of unappropriated empire in the eastern and western hemispheres was ultimately divided between two petty states of Europe. Alexander had not even the excuse that he thought he was disposing of uncultivated and uninhabited regions, since he specifies in his donation both towns and castles: "Civitates et castra in perpetuum tenore praesentium donamus."]

[Footnote 63: "What," said Francis I., "shall the kings of Spain and Portugal divide all America between them, without suffering me to take a share as their brother? I would fain see the article in Adam's will that bequeaths that vast inheritance to them."--_Encyclopedia_, vol. iv., p. 695.]

[Footnote 64: "In the latter years of his life, Francis, by a strict economy of the public money, repaired the evils of his early extravagance, while, at the same time, he was enabled to spare sufficient for carrying on the magnificent public institutions he had undertaken, and for forwarding the progress of discovery, of the fine arts, and of literature."--Bacon's _Life and Times of Francis I._, p. 399-401.]

[Footnote 65: See Appendix, No. XIV. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 66: "Navigo anche lungo la detta terra l'anno 1524 un gran capitano del Re Christianissimo Francesco, detto Giovanni da Verazzano, Fiorentino, e scorse tutta la costa fino alla Florida, come per una sua lettera scritta al detto Re, particolarmente si vedia la qual sola abbiamo potuto avere perciocche l'altre si sono smarrite nelli travagli della povera citta di Fiorenza e nell' ultimo viaggio che esso fece, avendo voluto smontar in terra con alcuni compagni, furono tutti morti da quei popoli, e in presentia di coloro che erano rimasi nelle navi, furono arrostiti e mangeati." (Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 416.) The Baron La Houtan and La Potherie give the same account of Verazzano's end; they are not, however, very trustworthy authorities. Le Beau repeats the same story; but Charlevoix's words are, "Je ne trouve aucun fondement a ce que quelques uns ont publie, qu'ayant mis pied a terre dans un endroit ou il voulait batir un fort, les sauvages se jeterent sur lui, le massacrerent avec tous ses gens et le mangerent." A Spanish historian has asserted, contrary to all probability, that Verazzano was taken by the Spaniards, and hung as a pirate.--D. Andres Gonzalez de Barcia, _Ensayo Chronologico para la Historia della Florida_.]

[Footnote 67: Tiraboschi, _Storia della Literatura Italiana_, vol. vii., p. 261, 262.--Quoted in the _Picture of Quebec_, to which valuable work J.C. Fisher, Esq., president of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, largely contributed.]

[Footnote 68: Signifying "here is nothing." The insatiable thirst of the Spanish discoverers for gold is justified by the greatest of all discoverers, the disinterested Columbus himself, on high religious principles. When acquainting their Castilian majesties with the abundance of gold[69] to be procured in the newly-found countries, he thus speaks, "El oro es excelentisimo, del oro se hace tesoro; y con el quien lo tiene hace quanto quiere en el mundo, y elega a que echa las animas al paraiso." (Navarrete, _Coleccion de los Viages_, vol. i., p. 309.) A passage which the modern editor of his papers affirms to be in conformity with many texts of Scripture.]

[Footnote 69: The historian Herrera, writing in the light of experience, makes use of the strong expression, that "mines were a lure devised by the evil spirit to draw the Spaniards on to destruction." "L'Espagne," says Montesquieu, "a fait comme ce roi insense, qui demanda que tout ce qu'il toucheroit se convertit en or, et qui fut oblige de revenir aux Dieux, pour les prier de finir sa misere."--_Esprit des Loix_, lib. xxi., cap. 22.

"Les mines du Perou et du Mexique ne valoient pas meme pour l'Espagne ce qu'elle auroit tire du son propre fonds en los cultivant. Avec tant de tresors Philippe II. fit banqueroute."--Millot. "Paturage et labourage," said the wise Sully, "valent mieux que tout l'or du Perou."]

[Footnote 70: Father Hennepin asserts that the Spaniards were the first discoverers of Canada, and that, finding nothing there to gratify their extensive desires for gold, they bestowed upon it the appellation of El Capo di Nada, "Cape Nothing," whence, by corruption, its present name.--_Nouvelle Description d'un tres grand pays situe dans l'Amerique entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer Glaciale, depuis l'an_ 1667 _jusqu' en_ 1670. _Par le Pere Louis Hennepin, Missionaire Recollet a Utrecht_, 1697.

La Potherie gives the same derivation. _Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale par M. de Bacqueville de la Potherie, a Paris_, 1722. The opinion expressed in a note of Charlevoix (Histoire de la Nouvelle France, vol. i., p. 13), is that deserving most credit. "D'autres derivent ce nom du mot Iroquois 'Kannata,' qui se prononce Cannada, et signifie un amas de cabanes." This derivation would reconcile the different assertions of the early discoverers, some of whom give the name of Canada to the whole valley of the St. Lawrence; others, equally worthy of credit, confine it to a small district in the neighborhood of Stadacona (now Quebec). _Seconda Relatione di Jacques Cartier_, in Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 442, 447. "Questo popolo (di Hochelaga) non partendo mai del lore paese, ne essendo vagabondi, come quelli di Canada e di Saguenay benche dette di Canada sieno lor suggetti con otte o nove altri villaggi posti sopra detto fiume." Father du Creux, who arrived in Canada about the year 1625, in his "Historia Canadensis," gives the name of Canada to the whole valley of the St. Lawrence, confessing, however, his ignorance of the etymology: "Porro de Etymologia vocis Canada nihil satis certe potui comperire; priscam quidem esse, constat ex eo, quod illam ante annos prope sexaginta passim usurpari audiebam puer."

Duponceau, in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, founds his conjecture of the Indian origin of the name of Canada upon the fact that, in the translation of the Gospel of St. Matthew into the Mohawk tongue, made by Brandt, the Indian chief, the word Canada is always used to signify a village. The mistake of the early discoverers, in taking the name of a part for that of the whole, is very pardonable in persons ignorant of the Indian language. It is highly improbable that at the period of its discovery the name of Canada was extended over this immense country. The migratory habits of the aborigines are alone conclusive against it. They distinguished themselves by their different tribes, not by the country over which they hunted and rode at will. They more probably gave names to localities than adopted their own from any fixed place of residence. The Iroquois and the Ottawas conferred their appellations on the rivers that ran through their hunting grounds, and the Huron tribe gave theirs to the vast lake now bearing their name. It has, however, never been pretended that any Indian tribe bore the name of Canada, and the natural conclusion therefore is, that the word "Canada" was a mere local appellation, without reference to the country; that each tribe had their own "Canada," or collection of huts, which shifted its position according to their migrations.

Dr. Douglas, in his "American History," pretends that Canada derives its name from Monsieur Kane or Cane, whom he advances to have been the first adventurer in the River St. Lawrence.--Knox's _Historical Journal_, vol. i., p. 303.]