Chapter 12

THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES.

_EASTWARD OR PORTUGUESE ROUTE._

[Sidenote: Question as to whether Asia could be reached by sailing around Africa.]

As it dawned upon men's minds that to find some oceanic route from Europe to the remote shores of Asia was eminently desirable, the first attempt would naturally be to see what could be done by sailing down the western coast of Africa, and ascertaining whether that continent could be circumnavigated. It was also quite in the natural order of things that this first attempt should be made by the Portuguese.

In the general history of the Middle Ages the Spanish peninsula had been to some extent cut off from the main currents of thought and feeling which actuated the rest of Europe. Its people had never joined the other Christian nations in the Crusades, for the good reason that they always had quite enough to occupy them in their own domestic struggle with the Moors. From the throes of this prolonged warfare Portugal emerged somewhat sooner than the Spanish kingdoms, and thus had somewhat earlier a surplus of energy released for work of another sort. It was not strange that the Portuguese should be the first people since the old Northmen to engage in distant maritime adventure upon a grand scale. Nor was it strange that Portuguese seamanship should at first have thriven upon naval warfare with Mussulmans. It was in attempting to suppress the intolerable nuisance of Moorish piracy that Portuguese ships became accustomed to sail a little way down the west coast of Africa; and such voyages, begun for military purposes, were kept up in the interests of commerce, and presently served as a mighty stimulus to geographical curiosity. We have now to consider at some length how grave was the problem that came up for immediate solution.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Views of Eratosthenes, B. C. 276-196.]

[Sidenote: Opposing theory of Ptolemy, cir. A. D. 150.]

With regard to the circumnavigability of Africa two opposite opinions were maintained by the ancient Greek and Latin writers whose authority the men of the Middle Ages were wont to quote as decisive of every vexed question. The old Homeric notion of an ocean encompassing the terrestrial world, although mentioned with doubt by Herodotus,[339] continued to survive after the globular form of the earth had come to be generally maintained by ancient geographers. The greatest of these geographers, Eratosthenes, correctly assumed that the Indian ocean was continuous with the Atlantic,[340] and that Africa could be circumnavigated, just as he incorrectly assumed that the Caspian sea was a huge gulf communicating with a northern ocean, by which it would be possible to sail around the continent of Asia as he imagined it.[341] A similar opinion as to Africa was held by Posidonius and by Strabo.[342] It was called in question, however, by Polybius,[343] and was flatly denied by the great astronomer Hipparchus, who thought that certain observations on the tides, reported by Seleucus of Babylon, proved that there could be no connection between the Atlantic and Indian oceans.[344] Claudius Ptolemy, writing in the second century after Christ, followed the opinion of Hipparchus, and carried to an extreme the reaction against Eratosthenes. By Ptolemy's time the Caspian had been proved to be an inland sea, and it was evident that Asia extended much farther to the north and east than had once been supposed. This seems to have discredited in his mind the whole conception of outside oceans, and he not only gave an indefinite northward and eastward extension to Asia and an indefinite southern extension to Africa, but brought these two continents together far to the southeast, thus making the Indian ocean a land-locked sea.[345]

[Footnote 339: [Greek: Ton de Okeanon logo men legousi ap' heliou anatoleon arxamenon gen peri pasan rheein, ergo de ouk apodeiknysi.] Herodotus, iv. 8.]

[Footnote 340: [Greek: Kai gar kat' auton Eratosthene ten ektos thalattan hapasan syrroun einai, hoste kai ten Hesperion kai ten Erythran thalattan mian einai.] Strabo, i. 3, Sec. 13.]

[Footnote 341: Bunbury, _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. i. p. 644.]

[Footnote 342: Strabo, ii. 3, Sec. 4; xvii. 3, Sec. 1.]

[Footnote 343: [Greek: Kathaper de kai tes Asias kai tes Libyes, katho synaptousin allelais peri ten Aithiopian, oudeis echei legein atrekos heos ton kath' hemas kairon, poteron epeiros esti kata to syneches ta pros ten mesembrian, e thalatte periechetai.] Polybius, iii. 38.]

[Footnote 344: Bunbury, _op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 15.]

[Footnote 345: See the map of Ptolemy's world, above, p. 264.]

[Sidenote: Story of the Phoenician voyage, in the time of Necho.]

These views of Hipparchus and Ptolemy took no heed of the story told to Herodotus of the circumnavigation of Africa by a Phoenician squadron at some time during the reign of Necho in Egypt (610-595 B. C.).[346] The Phoenician ships were said to have sailed from the Red Sea and to have returned through the Mediterranean in the third year after starting. In each of the two autumn seasons they stopped and sowed grain and waited for it to ripen, which in southern Africa would require ten or twelve weeks.[347] On their return to Egypt they declared ("I for my part do not believe them," says Herodotus, "but perhaps others may") that in thus sailing from east to west around Africa they had the sun upon their right hand. About this alleged voyage there has been a good deal of controversy.[348] No other expedition in any wise comparable to it for length and difficulty can be cited from ancient history, and a critical scholar is inclined to look with suspicion upon all such accounts of unique and isolated events. As we have not the details of the story, it is impossible to give it a satisfactory critical examination. The circumstance most likely to convince us of its truth is precisely that which dear old Herodotus deemed incredible. The position of the sun, to the north of the mariners, is something that could hardly have been imagined by people familiar only with the northern hemisphere. It is therefore almost certain that Necho's expedition sailed beyond the equator.[349] But that is as far as inference can properly carry us; for our experience of the uncritical temper of ancient narrators is enough to suggest that such an achievement might easily be magnified by rumour into the story told, more than a century after the event, to Herodotus. The data are too slight to justify us in any dogmatic opinion. One thing, however, is clear. Even if the circumnavigation was effected,--which, on the whole, seems improbable,--it remained quite barren of results. It produced no abiding impression upon men's minds[350] and added nothing to geographical knowledge. The veil of mystery was not lifted from southern Africa. The story was doubted by Strabo and Posidonius, and passed unheeded, as we have seen, by Hipparchus and Ptolemy.

[Footnote 346: Ptolemy expressly declares that the equatorial regions had never been visited by people from the northern hemisphere: [Greek: Tines de eisin hai oikeseis ouk an echoimen pepeismenos eipein. Atriptoi gar eisi mechri tou deuro tois apo tes kath' hemas oikoumenes, kai eikasian mallon an tis e historian hegesaito ta legomena peri auton.] _Syntaxis_, ii. 6.]

[Footnote 347: Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, vol. iii. p. 29, note 8.]

[Footnote 348: The story is discredited by Mannert, _Geographie der Griechen und Roemer_, bd. i. pp. 19-26; Gossellin, _Recherches sur la geographie des Anciens_, tom. i. p. 149; Lewis, _Astronomy of the Ancients_, pp. 508-515; Vincent, _Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean_, vol. i. pp. 303-311, vol. ii. pp. 13-15; Leake, _Disputed Questions of Ancient Geography_, pp. 1-8. It is defended by Heeren, _Ideen ueber die Politik, den Verkehr_, etc., 3e aufl., Goettingen, 1815, bd. i. abth. ii. pp. 87-93; Rennell, _Geography of Herodotus_, pp. 672-714; Grote, _History of Greece_, vol. iii. pp. 377-385. The case is ably presented in Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. i. pp. 289-296, where it is concluded that the story "cannot be disproved or pronounced to be absolutely impossible; but the difficulties and improbabilities attending it are so great that they cannot reasonably be set aside without better evidence than the mere statement of Herodotus, upon the authority of unknown informants." Mr. Bunbury (vol. i. p. 317) says that he has reasons for believing that Mr. Grote afterwards changed his opinion and came to agree with Sir George Lewis.]

[Footnote 349: In reading the learned works of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, one is often reminded of what Sainte-Beuve somewhere says of the great scholar Letronne, when he had spent the hour of his lecture in demolishing some pretty or popular belief: "Il se frotta les mains et s'en alla bien content." When it came to ancient history, Sir George was undeniably fond of "the everlasting No." In the present case his skepticism seems on the whole well-judged, but some of his arguments savour of undue haste toward a negative conclusion. He thus strangely forgets that what we call autumn is springtime in the southern hemisphere (_Astronomy of the Ancients_, p. 511). His argument that the time alleged was insufficient for the voyage is fully met by Major Rennell, who has shown that the time was amply sufficient, and that the direction of winds and ocean currents would make the voyage around southern Africa from east to west much easier than from west to east.]

[Footnote 350: "No trace of it could be found in the Alexandrian library, either by Eratosthenes in the third, or by Marinus of Tyre in the second, century before Christ, although both of them were diligent examiners of ancient records." Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, p. 90.]

[Sidenote: Voyage of Hanno.]

Of Phoenician and other voyages along the Atlantic coast of Africa we have much more detailed and trustworthy information. As early as the twelfth century before Christ traders from Tyre had founded Cadiz (Gades),[351] and at a later date the same hardy people seem to have made the beginnings of Lisbon (Olisipo). From such advanced stations Tyrian and Carthaginian ships sometimes found their way northward as far as Cornwall, and in the opposite direction fishing voyages were made along the African coast. The most remarkable undertaking in this quarter was the famous voyage of the Carthaginian commander Hanno, whose own brief but interesting account of it has been preserved.[352] This expedition consisted of sixty penteconters (fifty-oared ships), and its chief purpose was colonization. Upon the Mauritanian coast seven small trading stations were founded, one of which--Kerne, at the mouth of the Rio d' Ouro[353]--existed for a long time. From this point Hanno made two voyages of exploration, the second of which carried him as far as Sierra Leone and the neighbouring Sherboro island, where he found "wild men and women covered with hair," called by the interpreters "gorillas."[354] At that point the ships turned back, apparently for want of provisions.

[Footnote 351: Rawlinson's _History of Phoenicia_, pp. 105, 418; Pseudo-Aristotle, _Mirab. Auscult._, 146; Velleius Paterculus, i. 2, Sec. 6.]

[Footnote 352: Hanno, _Periplus_, in Mueller, _Geographi Graeci Minores_, tom. i. pp. 1-14. Of two or three commanders named Hanno it is uncertain which was the one who led this expedition, and thus its date has been variously assigned from 570 to 470 B. C.]

[Footnote 353: For the determination of these localities see Bunbury, _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 318-335. There is an interesting Spanish description of Hanno's expedition in Mariana, _Historia de Espana_, Madrid, 1783, tom. i. pp. 89-93.]

[Footnote 354: The sailors pursued them, but did not capture any of the males, who scrambled up the cliffs out of their reach. They captured three females, who bit and scratched so fiercely that it was useless to try to take them away. So they killed them and took their skins home to Carthage. _Periplus_, xviii. According to Pliny (_Hist. Nat._, vi. 36) these skins were hung up as a votive offering in the temple of Juno (i. e. Astarte or Ashtoreth: see Apuleius, _Metamorph._, xi. 257; Gesenius, _Monumenta Phoenic._, p. 168), where they might have been seen at any time before the Romans destroyed the city.]

[Sidenote: Voyages of Sataspes and Eudoxus.]

No other expedition in ancient times is known to have proceeded so far south as Sierra Leone. Two other voyages upon this Atlantic coast are mentioned, but without definite details. The one was that of Sataspes (about 470 B. C.), narrated by Herodotus, who merely tells us that a coast was reached where undersized men, clad in palm-leaf garments, fled to the hills at sight of the strange visitors.[355] The other was that of Eudoxus (about 85 B. C.), related by Posidonius, the friend and teacher of Cicero. The story is that this Eudoxus, in a voyage upon the east coast of Africa, having a philological turn of mind, wrote down the words of some of the natives whom he met here and there along the shore. He also picked up a ship's prow in the form of a horse's head, and upon his return to Alexandria some merchants professed to recognize it as belonging to a ship of Cadiz. Eudoxus thereupon concluded that Africa was circumnavigable, and presently sailed through the Mediterranean and out upon the Atlantic. Somewhere upon the coast of Mauritania he found natives who used some words of similar sound to those which he had written down when visiting the eastern coast, whence he concluded that they were people of the same race. At this point he turned back, and the sequel of the story was unknown to Posidonius.[356]

[Footnote 355: Herodotus, iv. 43.]

[Footnote 356: The story is preserved by Strabo, ii. 3, Sec.Sec. 4, 5, who rejects it with a vehemence for which no adequate reason is assigned.]

[Sidenote: Wild exaggerations.]

It is worthy of note that both Pliny and Pomponius Mela, quoting Cornelius Nepos as their authority, speak of Eudoxus as having circumnavigated Africa from the Red Sea to Cadiz; and Pliny, moreover, tells us that Hanno sailed around that continent as far as Arabia,[357]--a statement which is clearly false. These examples show how stories grow when carelessly and uncritically repeated, and they strongly tend to confirm the doubt with which one is inclined to regard the tale of Necho's sailors above mentioned. In truth, the island of Gorillas, discovered by Hanno, was doubtless the most southerly point on that coast reached by navigators in ancient times. Of the islands in the western ocean the Carthaginians certainly knew the Canaries (where they have left undoubted inscriptions), probably also the Madeiras, and possibly the Cape Verde group.[358]

[Footnote 357: Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, ii. 67; Mela, _De Situ Orbis_, iii. 9.]

[Footnote 358: After the civil war of Sertorius (B. C. 80-72), the Romans became acquainted with the Canaries, which, because of their luxuriant vegetation and soft climate, were identified with the Elysium described by Homer, and were commonly known as the Fortunate islands. "Contra Fortunatae Insulae abundant sua sponte genitis, et subinde aliis super aliis innascentibus nihil sollicitos alunt, beatius quam aliae urbes excultae." Mela, iii. 10.

[Greek: Alla s' es Elysion pedion kai peirata gaies athanatoi pempsousin, hothi xanthos Rhadamanthys, teper rheiste biote pelei anthropoisin; ou niphetos, out' ar cheimon polys oute pot' ombros, all' aiei Zephyroio ligy pneiontas aetas Okeanos aniesin anapsychein anthropous.] _Odyssey_, iv. 563.

Since Horace's time (_Epod._ vi. 41-66) the Canary islands have been a favourite theme for poets. It was here that Tasso placed the loves of Rinaldo and Armida, in the delicious garden where

Vezzosi augelli infra le verde fronde Temprano a prova lascivette note. Mormora l' aura, e fa le foglie e l' onde Garrir, che variamente ella percote. _Gerusalemme Liberata_, xvi. 12.]

[Sidenote: Views of Pomponius Mela, cir. A. D. 50.]

The extent of the knowledge which the ancients thus had of western Africa is well illustrated in the map representing the geographical theories of Pomponius Mela, whose book was written about A. D. 50. Of the eastern coast and the interior Mela knew less than Ptolemy a century later, but of the Atlantic coast he knew more than Ptolemy. The fact that the former geographer was a native of Spain and the latter a native of Egypt no doubt had something to do with this. Mela had profited by the Carthaginian discoveries. His general conception of the earth was substantially that of Eratosthenes. It was what has been styled the "oceanic" theory, in contrast with the "continental" theory of Ptolemy. In the unvisited regions on all sides of the known world Eratosthenes imagined vast oceans, Ptolemy imagined vast deserts or impenetrable swamps. The former doctrine was of course much more favourable to maritime enterprise than the latter. The works of Ptolemy exercised over the mediaeval mind an almost despotic sway, which, in spite of their many merits, was in some respects a hindrance to progress; so that, inasmuch as the splendid work of Strabo, the most eminent follower of Eratosthenes, was unknown to mediaeval Europe until about 1450, it was fortunate that the Latin treatise of Mela was generally read and highly esteemed. People in those days were such uncritical readers that very likely the antagonism between Ptolemy and Mela may have failed to excite comment,[359] especially in view of the lack of suitable maps such as emphasize that antagonism to our modern minds. But in the fifteenth century, when men were getting their first inklings of critical scholarship, and when the practical question of an ocean voyage to Asia was pressing for solution, such a point could no longer fail to attract attention; and it happened fortunately that the wet theory, no less than the dry theory, had a popular advocate among those classical authors to whose authority so much deference was paid.

[Footnote 359: Just as our grandfathers used to read the Bible without noticing such points as the divergences between the books of Kings and Chronicles, the contradictions between the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, the radically different theories of Christ's personality and career in the Fourth Gospel as compared with the three Synoptics, etc.]

[Sidenote: Ancient theory of the five zones.]

[Sidenote: The Inhabited World and the Antipodes.]

If the Portuguese mariners of the generation before Columbus had acquiesced in Ptolemy's views as final, they surely would not have devoted their energies to the task of circumnavigating Africa. But there were yet other theoretical or fanciful obstacles in the way. When you look at a modern map of the world, the "five zones" may seem like a mere graphic device for marking conveniently the relations of different regions to the solar source of heat; but before the great Portuguese voyages and the epoch-making third voyage of Vespucius, to be described hereafter, a discouraging doctrine was entertained with regard to these zones. Ancient travellers in Scythia and voyagers to "Thule"--which in Ptolemy's scheme perhaps meant the Shetland isles[360]--had learned something of Arctic phenomena. The long winter nights,[361] the snow and ice, and the bitter winds, made a deep impression upon visitors from the Mediterranean;[362] and when such facts were contrasted with the scorching blasts that came from Sahara, the resulting theory was undeniably plausible. In the extreme north the ocean must be frozen and the country uninhabitable by reason of the cold; contrariwise, in the far south the ocean must be boiling hot and the country inhabitable only by gnomes and salamanders. Applying these ideas to the conception of the earth as a sphere, Pomponius Mela tells us that the surface of the sphere is divided into five zones, of which only two are fit to support human life. About each pole stretches a dead and frozen zone; the southern and northern hemispheres have each a temperate zone, with the same changes of seasons, but not occurring at the same (but opposite) times; the north temperate zone is the seat of the Oecumene ([Greek: oikoumene]), or Inhabited World; the south temperate zone is also inhabited by the Antichthones or Antipodes, but about these people we know nothing, because between us and them there intervenes the burning zone, which it is impossible to cross.[363]

[Footnote 360: Bunbury, _op. cit._ vol. ii. pp. 492, 527. The name is used in different geographical senses by various ancient writers, as is well shown in Lewis's _Astronomy of the Ancients_, pp. 467-481.]

[Footnote 361: The Romans, at least by the first century A. D., knew also of the shortness of northern nights in summer.

Arma quidem ultra Littora Invernae promovimus, et modo captas Orcadas, ac minima contentos nocte Britannos. Juvenal, ii. 159.

See also Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, iv. 30; Martianus Capella, vi. 595; Achilles Tatius, XXXV.]

[Footnote 362: The reader will remember Virgil's magnificent description of a Scythian winter (_Georg._, iii. 352):--

Illic clausa tenent stabulis armenta; neque ullae Aut herbae campo apparent, aut arbore frondes: Sed jacet aggeribus niveis informis, et alto Terra gelu late, septemque assurgit in ulnas; Semper hiems, semper spirantes frigora Cauri. Tum Sol pallentes haud unquam discutit umbras; Nec cum invectus equis altum petit aethera, nec cum Praecipitem Oceani rubro lavit aequore currum. Concrescunt subitae currenti in flumine crustae; Undaque jam tergo ferratos sustinet orbes, Puppibus illa prius patulis, nunc hospita plaustris, AEraque dissiliunt vulgo, vestesque rigescunt Indutae, caeduntque securibus humida vina Et totae solidam in glaciem vertere lacunae, Stiriaque impexis induruit horrida barbis. Interea toto non secius aere ningit; Intereunt pecudes; stant circumfusa pruinis Corpora magna boum; confertoque agmine cervi Torpent mole nova, et summis vix cornibus exstant. ................................................. Ipsi in defossis specubus, secura sub alta Otia agunt terra, congestaque robora, totasque Advolvere focis ulmos, ignique dedere. Hic noctem ludo ducunt, et pocula laeti Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis. Talis Hyperboreo Septem subjecta trioni Gens effraena virum Rhipaeo tunditur Euro, Et pecudum fulvis velantur corpora saetis.

The Roman conception of the situation of these "Hyperboreans" and of the Rhipaean mountains may be seen in the map of Mela's world.]

[Footnote 363: "Huic medio terra sublimis cingitur undique mari: eodemque in duo latera, quae hemisphaeria nominantur, ab oriente divisa ad occasum, zonis quinque distinguitur. Mediam aestus infestat, frigus ultimas: reliquae habitabiles paria agunt anni tempora, verum non pariter. Antichthones alteram, nos alteram incolimus. Illius situ ab ardorem intercedentis plagae incognito, hujus dicendus est," etc. _De Situ Orbis_, i. 1. A similar theory is set forth by Ovid (_Metamorph._, i. 45), and by Virgil (_Georg._, i. 233):--

Quinque tenent coelum zonae; quarum una corusco Semper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni; Quam circum extremae dextra laevaque trahuntur, Caerulea glacie concretae atque imbribus atris. Has inter mediamque, duae mortalibus aegris Munere concessae Divum; et via secta per ambas, Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.]

[Sidenote: Curious notions about Ceylon.]

This notion of an antipodal world in the southern hemisphere will have especial interest for us when we come to deal with the voyages of Vespucius. The idea seems to have originated in a guess of Hipparchus that Taprobane--the island of Ceylon, about which the most absurd reports were brought to Europe--might be the beginning of another world. This is very probable, says Mela, with delightful _naivete_, because Taprobane is inhabited, and still we do not know of anybody who has ever made the tour of it.[364] Mela's contemporary, the elder Pliny, declares that Taprobane "has long been regarded" as part of another world, the name of which is Antichthon, or Opposite-Earth;[365] at the same time Pliny vouchsafes three closely-printed pages of information about this mysterious country. Throughout the Middle Ages the conception of some sort of an antipodal inhabited world was vaguely entertained by writers here and there, but many of the clergy condemned it as implying the existence of people cut off from the knowledge of the gospel and not included in the plan of salvation.

[Footnote 364: "Taprobane aut grandis admodum insula aut prima pars orbis alterius Hipparcho dicitur; sed quia habitata, nec quisquam circummeasse traditur, prope verum est." _De Situ Orbis_, iii. 7.]

[Footnote 365: "Taprobanen alterum orbem terrarum esse, diu existimatum est, Antichthonum appellatione." _Hist. Nat._, vi. 24.]

[Sidenote: The fiery zone.]

As to the possibility of crossing the torrid zone, opinion was not unanimous. Greek explorers from Alexandria (cir. B. C. 100) seem to have gone far up the Nile toward the equator, and the astronomer Geminus quotes their testimony in proof of his opinion that the torrid zone is inhabitable.[366] Panaetius, the friend of the younger Scipio Africanus, had already expressed a similar opinion. But the flaming theory prevailed. Macrobius, writing about six hundred years later, maintained that the southernmost limit of the habitable earth was 850 miles south of Syene, which lies just under the tropic of Cancer.[367] Beyond this point no man could go without danger from the fiery atmosphere. Beyond some such latitude on the ocean no ship could venture without risk of being engulfed in some steaming whirlpool.[368] Such was the common belief before the great voyages of the Portuguese.

[Footnote 366: Geminus, _Isagoge_, cap. 13.]

[Footnote 367: Macrobius, _Somnium Scipionis_, ii. 8. Strabo (ii. 5, Sec.Sec. 7, 8) sets the southern boundary of the Inhabited World 800 miles south of Syene, and the northern boundary at the north of Ireland.]

[Footnote 368: Another notion, less easily explicable and less commonly entertained, but interesting for its literary associations, was the notion of a mountain of loadstone in the Indian ocean, which prevented access to the torrid zone by drawing the nails from ships and thus wrecking them. This imaginary mountain, with some variations in the description, is made to carry a serious geographical argument by the astrologer Pietro d' Abano, in his book _Conciliator Differentiarum_, written about 1312. (See Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, p. 100.) It plays an important part in one of the finest tales in the _Arabian Nights_,--the story of the "Third Royal Mendicant."]

[Sidenote: Going downhill.]

Besides this dread of the burning zone, another fanciful obstacle beset the mariner who proposed to undertake a long voyage upon the outer ocean. It had been observed that a ship which disappears in the offing seems to be going downhill; and many people feared that if they should happen thus to descend too far away from the land they could never get back again. Men accustomed to inland sea travel did not feel this dread within the regions of which they had experience, but it assailed them whenever they thought of braving the mighty waters outside.[369] Thus the master mariner, in the Middle Ages, might contemplate the possible chance of being drawn by force of gravity into the fiery gulf, should he rashly approach too near; and in such misgivings he would be confirmed by Virgil, who was as much read then as he is to-day and esteemed an authority, withal, on scientific questions; for according to Virgil the Inhabited World descends toward the equator and has its apex in the extreme north.[370]

[Footnote 369: Ferdinand Columbus tells us that this objection was urged against the Portuguese captains and afterwards against his father: "E altri di cio quasi cosi disputavano, come gia i Portoghesi intorno al navigare in Guinea; dicendo che, se si allargasse alcuno a far cammino diritto al occidente, come l' Ammiraglio diceva, non potrebbe poi tornare in Ispagna per la rotondita della sfera; tenendo per certissime, che qualunque uscisse del emisperio conosciuto da Tolomeo, anderebbe in giu, e poi gli sarebbe impossibile dar la volta; e affermando che cio sarebbe quasi uno ascendere all' insu di un monte. Il che non potrebbono fare i navigli con grandissimo vento." _Vita deli' Ammiraglio_, Venice, 1571, cap.