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LEGENDARY ISLANDS
OF THE ATLANTIC


American Geographical Society
Research Series No. 8
W. L. G. Joerg, Editor


LEGENDARY ISLANDS
OF THE ATLANTIC

A Study in Medieval Geography

by

WILLIAM H. BABCOCK

Author of “Early Norse Visits to North America”


[Illustration]






New York
American Geographical Society
1922

Copyright, 1922
by
The American Geographical Society
of New York

The Conde Nast Press
Greenwich, Conn.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                          PAGE

     I  INTRODUCTION                                                  1

    II  ATLANTIS                                                     11

   III  ST. BRENDAN’S EXPLORATIONS AND ISLANDS                       34

    IV  THE ISLAND OF BRAZIL                                         50

     V  THE ISLAND OF THE SEVEN CITIES                               68

    VI  THE PROBLEM OF MAYDA                                         81

   VII  GREENLAND OR GREEN ISLAND                                    94

  VIII  MARKLAND, OTHERWISE NEWFOUNDLAND                            114

    IX  ESTOTILAND AND THE OTHER ISLANDS OF ZENO                    124

     X  ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES                                   144

    XI  CORVO, OUR NEAREST EUROPEAN NEIGHBOR                        164

   XII  THE SUNKEN LAND OF BUSS AND OTHER PHANTOM ISLANDS           174

  XIII  SUMMARY                                                     187

        INDEX                                                       191

The following chapters are reprinted, with modifications, from the
_Geographical Review_: III, Vol. 8, 1919; V, Vol. 7, 1919; VI, Vol. 9,
1920; VIII, Vol. 4, 1917; X, Vol. 9, 1920; XI, Vol. 5, 1918.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(_All illustrations, except Figs. 1, 15, and 23, are reproductions of
medieval maps. The source is indicated in a general way in each title;
the precise reference will be found in the text where the map is first
discussed._)


  FIG.                                                              PAGE

   1  Map of the Sargasso Sea, 1:72,000,000                           28

   2  The Pizigani, 1367 (two sections)                            40–41

   3  Beccario, 1426                                                  45

   4  Dalorto, 1325                                                   51

   5  Catalan map, 1375                                               58

   6  Nicolay, 1560                                                   62

   7  Catalan map, about 1480                                         64

   8  World map in portolan atlas, about 1508 (Egerton MS. 2803)      74

   9  Desceliers, 1546                                                76

  10  Ortelius, 1570                                                  77

  11  Ptolemy, 1513                                                   82

  12  Prunes, 1553                                                    88

  13  Coppo, 1528                                                     97

  14  Bishop Thorláksson, 1606                                        98

  15  Map of the early Norse Western and Eastern Settlements
        of Greenland, 1:6,400,000                                    103

  16  Clavus, 1427                                                   104

  17  Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, after 1466                           105

  18  Sigurdr Stefánsson, 1590                                       107

  19  Zeno, 1558                                                     126

  20  Beccario, 1435                                                 152

  21  Pareto, 1455                                                   158

  22  Benincasa, 1482                                                160

  23  Representation of Corvo on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
        maps as compared with its present outline                    172

  24  Buss Island, probably 1673                                     176

  25  Bianco, 1436                                                   179




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


We cannot tell at what early era the men of the eastern Mediterranean
first ventured through the Strait of Gibraltar out on the open ocean,
nor even when they first allowed their fancies free rein to follow
the same path and picture islands in the great western mystery.
Probably both events came about not long after these men developed
enough proficiency in navigation to reach the western limit of the
Mediterranean. We are equally in lack of positive knowledge as to what
seafaring nation led the way.

The weight of authority favors the Phoenicians, but there are some
indications in the more archaic of the Greek myths that the Hellenic or
pre-Hellenic people of the Minoan period were promptly in the field.
These bequests of an olden time are most efficiently exploited, in the
matter-of-fact and very credulous “Historical Library” of Diodorus
Siculus,[1] about the time of Julius Caesar, who feels himself fully
equipped with information as to the far-ranging campaigns of Hercules,
Perseus, and other worthies. His identifications of tribes, persons,
and places find an echo which may be called modern in Hakluyt’s map of
1587,[2] illustrating Peter Martyr, which shows the Cape Verde Islands
as Hesperides and Gorgades vel Medusiae. But this, though curious, is,
of course, irrelevant as corroboration. Diodorus himself was a long
way from his material in point of time, but from him we may at least
possibly catch some glimmer of the origin of the mythical narratives,
some refraction of the events that suggested them.


EARLY ACCOUNTS OF BIG SHIPS

Small coasting, and incidentally sea-ranging, vessels must be of great
antiquity, for the record of great ships capable of carrying hundreds
of men and prolonging their voyages for years extends very far back
indeed. We may recall the Scriptural item incidentally given of the
fleets of Hiram, King of Tyre, and Solomon, King of Israel: “For the
king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in
three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver,
ivory, and apes, and peacocks.”[3] Tharshish is generally understood
to have been Tartessus by the Guadalquivir beyond the western end of
the Mediterranean. The elements of these exotic cargoes indicate,
rather, traffic across the eastern seas. No doubt “ship of Tharshish”
had come (like the term East Indiaman) to have a secondary meaning,
distinguishing, wherever used, a special type of great vessel of ample
capacity and equipment, named from the long voyage westward to Spain,
in which it was first conspicuously engaged. But this would carry back
we know not how many centuries the era of huge ships sailing from
Phoenicia toward the Atlantic and seemingly able to go anywhere; with
the certainty that lesser craft had long anticipated them on the nearer
laps of the journey at least.

Corroboration is found in the utterances of a Chinese observer, later
in date but apparently dealing with a continuing size and condition.
“There is a great sea [the Mediterranean], and to the west of this sea
there are countless countries, but Mu-lan-p’i [Mediterranean Spain] is
the one country which is visited by the big ships.... Putting to sea
from T’o-pan-ti [the Suez of today] ... after sailing due west for full
an hundred days, one reaches this country. A single one of these (big)
ships of theirs carries several thousand men, and on board they have
stores of wine and provisions, as well as weaving looms. If one speaks
of big ships, there are none so big at those of Mu-lan-p’i.”[4]

This statement is credited to only a hundred years before Marco Polo.
One naturally suspects some exaggeration. But a parallel account,
nearly as expansive and very circumstantial, is given in the same work
concerning giant vessels sailing in the opposite direction some six
hundred years earlier. It begins: “The ships that sail the Southern Sea
and south of it are like houses. When their sails are spread they are
like great clouds in the sky.” Professor Holmes, drawing attention to
these passages (which he quotes), very justly observes, “who shall say
that the mastery of the sea known to have been attained in the Orient
500 A. D. had not been achieved long prior to that date?”[5]


THE ATLANTIS LEGEND

We may be safe in styling Atlantis (Ch. II) the earliest mythical
island of which we have any knowledge or suggestion, since Plato’s
narrative, written more than 400 years before Christ, puts the time
of its destruction over 9,000 years earlier still. It seems pretty
certain that there never was any such mighty and splendid island
empire contending against Athens and later ruined by earthquakes and
engulfed by the ocean. Atlantis may fairly be set down as a figment
of dignified philosophic romance, owing its birth partly to various
legendary hints and reports of seismic and volcanic action but much
more to the glorious achievements of Athens in the Persian War and the
apparent need of explaining a supposed shallow part of the Atlantic
known to be obstructed and now named the Sargasso Sea. Perhaps Plato
never intended that any one should take it as literally true, but his
story undoubtedly influenced maritime expectations and legends during
medieval centuries. It cannot be said that any map unequivocally shows
Atlantis; but it may be that this is because Atlantis vanished once for
all in the climax of the recital.


PHOENICIAN EXPLORATION

It may be that Phoenician exploration in Atlantic waters was well
developed before 1100 B. C., when the Phoenicians are alleged to have
founded Cadiz on the ocean front of southern Spain; but its development
at any rate could not have been greatly retarded after that. The new
city promptly grew into one of the notable marts of the world, able
during a long period to fit out her own fleets and extend her commerce
anywhere. It is greatly to be regretted that we have no record of her
discoveries. Carthage, a younger but still ancient Tyrian colony,
farther from the scene of western action, was not less enterprising
and in time quite eclipsed her; but at last she fell utterly, as did
Tyre itself, whereas Cadiz, though no longer eminent, continues to
exist. However, in her prime Carthage ranged the seas pretty widely;
according to Diodorus Siculus, she was much at home in Madeira,[6]
and her coins have been found off the shore of distant Corvo of the
Azores. But it cannot be said that any of the Phoenician cities, older
or newer, has left any traces of exploration among Atlantic islands
other than these or added any mythical islands to maps or legends,
unless through successors translating into another language. The
crowning achievement of the Phoenicians, so far as we know, was the
circumnavigation of Africa by mariners in the service of Pharaoh Necho
some 700 years before Christ. This would naturally have brought them
_en route_ into contact with the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, and
they would be likely to pass on to the Egyptians and Greeks a report
of the attributes of those islands partly embodied in names that might
adhere.


THE GREEKS AND ROMANS

We know that the Greeks of Pythias’ time coasted as far north as
Britain and probably Scandinavia and had most likely made the
acquaintance still earlier of the Fortunate Islands (two or more of the
Canary group), similarly following downward the African shore. Long
afterward the Roman Pliny knew Madeira and her consorts as the Purple
Islands; Sertorius contemplated a possible refuge in them or other
Atlantic island neighbors; and Plutarch wrote confidently of an island
far west of Britain and a great continent beyond the sea where Saturn
slept. Other almost prophetic utterances of the kind have been culled
from classical authors, but they have mostly the air of speculation.
It cannot be said that the Greeks or Romans devoted much energy to the
remoter reaches of the ocean.


IRISH SEA-ROVING

Ireland was never subject to Rome, though influenced by Roman trade and
culture. From prehistoric times the Irish had done some sea roving,
as their Imrama, or sea sagas, attest; and this roving was greatly
stimulated in the first few centuries of conversion to Christianity by
an abounding access of religious zeal. Irish monks seem to have settled
in Iceland before the end of the eighth century and even to have sailed
well beyond it. There are good reasons for believing that they had
visited most of the islands of the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes. We
cannot suppose that this rather reckless persistency ended there in
such a period of expansion. It is quite possible that we owe to this
trait the Island of Brazil, in the latitude of southern Ireland, as an
American souvenir on so many medieval maps (Ch. IV). It is certain that
the “Navigatio” of St. Brendan scattered St. Brandan Islands, real or
fanciful, over the ocean wastes of a credulous cartography (Ch. III).


THE NORSEMEN

A little later Scandinavians followed along the northern route, finding
convenient stopping points in the Faroes and Iceland, discovered
Greenland, and planted two settlements on its southwestern shore
in the last quarter of the tenth century (Ch. VII). Some of their
ruins, a less number of inscriptions, and many fragmentary relics and
residua are found, so that we can form a good idea of their manner
of life. Such as it was, it endured more than four hundred years. To
contemporary and slightly later geography Greenland appeared most often
as a far-flung promontory of Europe, jutting down on the western side
of the great water; but sometimes it was thought of as an oceanic
island, with greater or less shifting of location, and seems to be
responsible for divers mythical Green Islands of various maps and
languages.

Less than a quarter of a century after their first landing the Norse
Greenlanders became aware of a more temperate coast line to the
southwest, the better part of which they called Vinland, or Wineland,
but all of which we now name America. Perhaps Leif Ericsson brought the
first report of it as the result of an accidental landfall close to
the year 1000 A. D. Not long afterward, Thorfinn Karlsefni with three
ships and 160 people attempted to colonize a part of the region. The
venture failed, owing chiefly to the hostility of the Indians at the
most favorable point. The visitors, however, made the acquaintance of
the typical American Atlantic shore line of beach and sand dune which
stretches from Cape Cod to the tip of Florida with one or two slight
interruptions and one or two fragmentary minor northward extensions.
The Norsemen or some predecessor had observed and named the three great
zones of territory which must always have existed. Among investigators
there has been general concurrence as to their discovery of Labrador
and Newfoundland, to which most would add Cape Breton Island and more
or less of the coast beyond. It has appeared to me that they made
their chief abode in the New World on the shore of Passamaquoddy Bay
behind Grand Manan Island and Grand Manan Channel, with the racing
ocean streams of the mouth of the Bay of Fundy; and that they found
this site inclement in winter and tried to remove to a land-locked
bay of southern New England but were baffled and withdrew. My reasons
have been pretty fully set forth in “Early Norse Visits to North
America.”[7] For the present it is enough to say that the discovered
regions seem sometimes to have been thought of as a continuous coast
line, sometimes as separate islands more or less at sea. But they did
not get upon the maps in any shape until several centuries later.


MOORISH VOYAGES

The Moors who conquered Spain took up the task of Atlantic exploration
from that coast after a time. Its islands appear in divers of the
Arabic maps. In particular we know through Edrisi,[8] the most
celebrated name of Arabic geography, of the extraordinary voyage of the
Moorish Magrurin of Lisbon, who set out at some undefined time before
the middle of the twelfth century to cross the Sea of Darkness and
Mystery. They touched upon the Isle of Sheep and other islands which
were or were to become notable in sea mythology. Perhaps these islands
were real, but they are not capable of certain identification now.
These Moorish adventurers seem to have reached the Sargasso Sea and to
have changed their course in order to avoid its impediments, attaining
finally what may have been one of the Canary Islands, where they
suffered a short imprisonment and whence, after release, they followed
the coast of Africa homeward. Edrisi about 1154 wrought a world map in
silver (long lost) for King Robert of Sicily and also wrote a famous
geography illustrated by a world map and separate sectional or climatic
maps. He devotes some space to Atlantic islands and their legends,
shows a few of them, and believes in twenty-seven thousand; but the
very few copies of his work which remain were made at different periods
and in different nations, and their maps disagree surprisingly; so that
it is not practicable to restore with certainty what he originally
depicted. He seems to have had at least some acquaintance with the
authentic island groups from the Cape Verde Islands to the Azores and
Britain. The fantastic legends he appends to some of them do not seem
to have greatly affected the prevailing European lore of that kind.


ITALIAN EXPLORATION

The Italians of the thirteenth century undertook similar explorations
and temporarily occupied at least one of the Canary Islands, Lanzarote,
which still bears, corrupted, the name of its Genoese invader,
Lancelota Maloessel, of about 1470. On early fourteenth-century maps
and some later ones the cross of Genoa is conspicuously marked on
this island in commemoration of the exploit. It was probably at this
period that Italian names were applied to most of the Azores and
to other islands of the eastern groups. A few of these names still
persist, for example, Porto Santo and Corvo; but others, after the
rediscovery, gave way to Portuguese equivalents or substitutes. Thus
Legname was translated into Madeira, and Li Conigi (Rabbit Island)
became more prettily Flores (Island of Flowers). About 1285 the Genoese
also sent out an expedition[9] “to seek the east by way of the west”
under the brothers Vivaldi, who promptly vanished with all their men.
Long afterward another expedition picked up on the African coast one
who claimed to be a survivor; and it is probable that the Genoese
expedition attempted to sail around Africa but came upon disaster
before it was far on its way. The thirteenth- and fourteenth-century
Italians undoubtedly added many islands to the maps or secured their
places there; but we have no evidence that they passed westward beyond
the middle of the Atlantic.


BRETONS AND BASQUES

The Bretons shared in the Irish monk voyages, their Saint Malo
appearing in tradition sometimes as a companion of Saint Brendan,
sometimes as an imitator or competitor. Also their fishermen, with
the Basques, from an early time had pushed out into remote regions of
the sea. The Pizigani map of 1367[10] (Fig. 2) represents a Breton
voyage of adventure and disaster near one of _les îles fantastiques_,
appearing for the first time thereon. Their presence on the American
shore in the years shortly following Cabot’s discovery is commemorated
by Cape Breton Island.


THE ZENO STORY

It has been alleged that two Venetian brothers, Antonio and Nicolò
Zeno, in the service of an earl of the northern islands, took part with
him about 1400 A. D. in certain explorations westward, he being incited
thereto by the report of a fisherman, who claimed to have spent many
years as a castaway and captive in regions southwest of Greenland. The
Zeno narrative, dealt with later (Ch. IX), was accompanied by a map
(Fig. 19), which exercised a great influence during a long period on
all maps that succeeded it, adding several islands never before heard
of. Both map and narrative are recognized as spurious or at best so
corrupted by misunderstandings and transformed by rough treatment and a
post-Columbian attempt at reconstruction as to be wholly unreliable. It
is, indeed, possible that a fisherman of the Faroes made an involuntary
sojourn in Newfoundland and elsewhere in America from about 1375 or
1380 onward and that his story induced the ruler of certain northern
islands to sail westward and investigate. But both features are very
dubious, and at any rate nothing was accomplished except the confusion
of geography.


PORTUGUESE DISCOVERY

This brings us down to the rise of Portuguese nautical endeavor, which
seems to have begun earlier than has generally been supposed but became
most conspicuous under the direction of Prince Henry the Navigator. Its
achievements included the rediscovery of Madeira and the Azores, which
in many quarters had been forgotten, the exploration of the African
coast, the accidental discovery or rediscovery of South American Brazil
by Cabral, and the voyage of Vasco da Gama to India around the Cape
of Good Hope. Perhaps we might insert in the list the discovery of
Antillia. At any rate, it got on the map with a Portuguese name in
the first half of the fifteenth century, and several other islands
accompanied it. They all certainly seem to be American and West Indian.


COLUMBUS, VESPUCIUS, AND CABOT

Incidentally the Portuguese activity stimulated the enthusiasm of
Columbus, guided his plans, and contributed to the eminent success of
his great undertaking. In Antillia it provided a first goal, which he
believed to be nearer than it really was. He fully meant to attain it
and probably really did so, but without recognizing Antillia in Cuba
or Hispaniola, for he thought he had missed it on the way and left it
far behind. Vignaud insists that Columbus did not aim at Asia until
after he actually reached the West Indies but sought to attain Antillia
only.[11] However this may be, there is no doubt that he found in the
island a notable prompting to his supreme adventure.

The discoveries of Columbus, Vespucius, and Cabot, with their immediate
followers, heralded the opening of an effective knowledge of the
western world and the ocean world to the centers of civilization.
Thereafter the delineation of new islands did not cease but for a long
time rather multiplied; yet they had little significance or importance,
being chiefly the products of fancy, optical illusion, or error in
reckoning. One of the latest worth considering is the island of Buss
(Ch. XII), reported where there is no land by a separated vessel of
Frobisher’s expedition near the end of the sixteenth century. Afterward
it was known as the Sunken Land of Bus, or Buss, to the grave concern
of mariners.

We are reasonably secure against such imposition now, though perhaps
it is not yet impossible. The old mythical or apocryphal islands, too,
are gone from standard maps and most others, though you may yet find in
cartographic work of little authority one or two of the more tenacious
specimens making a final stand.




CHAPTER II

ATLANTIS


About 2,300 years ago Plato wrote of a great and populous island
empire in the outer (Atlantic) ocean, which had warred against Athens
more than 9,000 years before his time and been suddenly engulfed by
a natural cataclysm. According to his statement of the case this
prodigious phenomenon, with all the splendor of national achievement
that shortly preceded it, had been quite forgotten by the Athenians;
but the tradition was recorded in the sacred books of the priests
of Sais at the head of the Nile delta and was related by these
Egyptians to Solon of Athens when he visited them apparently somewhere
near 550 B. C. Solon embodied it, or began to embody it, in a poem
(all trace of which is lost) and also related it to Dropides, his
friend. It is probably to be understood that he further communicated
it to this friend in some written form, for we find Critias in
a dialogue with Socrates represented by Plato as declaring: “My
great-grandfather, Dropides, had the original writing, which is still
in my possession.”[12] If so, it has vanished.


ELEMENTS OF FACT AND FANCY IN PLATO’S TALE OF ATLANTIS

It is evident that the Atlantis tale must be treated either as mainly
historical, with presumably some distortions and exaggerations, or as
fiction necessarily based in some measure (like all else of its kind)
on living or antiquated facts. Certainly no one will go the length of
accepting it as wholly true as it stands. But, even eliminating all
reference to the god Poseidon and his plentiful demigod progeny, we
are left with divers essential features which credulity can hardly
swallow. Atlantis is too obviously an earlier and equally colossal
Persia, western instead of eastern, overrunning the Mediterranean until
checked by the intrepid stand of the great Athenian republic. The
supreme authentic glory of Athens was the overthrow of Xerxes and his
generals. Had this been otherwise we must believe that we should not
have heard of the baffled invasion by Atlantis. Again, we are asked
to accept Athens, contrary to all other information, as a dominant
military state more than 9,500 years before Christ, when presumably
its people, if existent, were exceedingly primitive and unformidable.
Moreover, the sudden submergence of so vast a region as the imagined
Atlantis would be an event without parallel in human annals, besides
being pretty certain to leave marks on the rest of the world which
could be recognized even now.

The hypothesis of fiction seems reasonably well established. We must
remember that Plato did not habitually confine himself to bare facts.
His favorite method of exposition was by reporting alleged dialogues
between Socrates and various persons--dialogues which no one could
have remembered accurately in their entirety. It is recognized that in
arrangement, characters, and utterance he has contrived to convey his
own theories and conceptions as well as those of his revered teacher
and leader, so that it is often impossible to say whether we should
credit certain views or statements mainly to Plato or to Socrates.
Possessed by his meditations, he would even present as an instructive
example and incitement a fancied picture of an elaborate system of
social and political organization, chiefly the product of his own
brain. He did this in the “Republic” and apparently had planned a
larger partly parallel work of the kind in the triology of which the
“Timaeus” and the fragmentary “Critias” are the first part and the
unfinished second. A writer (Lewis Campbell) in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, article “Plato,” states the case very clearly.

    What should have followed this [the _Timaeus_], but is only
    commenced in the fragment of the _Critias_, would have been
    the story, not of a fall, but of the triumph of reason in
    humanity.... Not only the _Timaeus_, but the unfinished
    whole of which it forms the introduction, is professedly an
    imaginative creation. For the legend of prehistoric Athens and
    of Atlantis, whereof Critias was to relate what belonged to
    internal policy and Hermocrates the conduct of the war, would
    have been no other than a prose poem, a “mythological lie,”
    composed in the spirit of the _Republic_, and in the form of a
    fictitious narrative.[13]

Jowett takes substantially the same view in his introduction to the
“Critias,” indicating surprise at the innocent, literal, matter-of-fact
way in which the former existence and destruction of great Atlantis
have generally been accepted as sober declarations of fact and
accounted for in divers fashions accordingly. Nor is this estimate of
the Atlantis tale as primarily a romance of enlightenment and uplifting
a merely modern theory. Plutarch, in a passage quoted by Schuller,
lays more stress on Plato’s tendency to adorn the subject, treating
Atlantis as a delightful spot in some fair field unoccupied, than on
ennobling imagination, and avers the described magnificence to be “such
as no other story, fable, or poem ever had.”[14] But this, whether
wholly adequate or no, surely emphasizes the recognition of romance.
Plutarch adds a word of regret that Plato began the “delightful” story
late in life and died before the work was completed. The precise motive
of the fiction is only of minor importance to our present inquiry. It
seems hardly possible that the development of the composition in the
remaining two parts of the trilogy could have given it a more authentic
historical cast. As the matter stands Atlantis is rather succinctly
reported in the “Timaeus,” more fully and with mythological and
architectural adornments in the later “Critias” till it breaks off in
the middle of a sentence; but the two accounts are consistent. It seems
a clear case of evolution suddenly arrested but allowing us fairly to
infer the character of the whole from the parts that remain.

If there were any corroboration of the tale, it would count on the
historical side; but it seems to be agreed that Greek literature and
art before Plato do not supply this in any unequivocal and reliable
form. Certain hints or contributory items will be dealt with below, but
they do not affect the character of the story as a whole nor tend to
establish the reality of its main features.

We do not need to ascribe to Plato all the fancy and invention in
the story. The romancing may have been done in part by the priests
of Sais or by Solon or by Dropides or by Critias; or possibly all
these may have contributed successive strata of fancy, crowned by
Plato. Practically we have to treat the tale as beginning with him.
Its circumstantiality and air of realism have sometimes been taken as
credentials of accuracy; but they are not beyond the ordinary skill of
a man of letters, and Plato was much more than equal to the task.


SIGNIFICANT PASSAGES FROM THE TALE

The Atlantis narrative has been so often translated and copied, at
least as to its more significant parts, that one hesitates to quote
again; but there are certain items to which attention should be drawn,
and brief extracts are the best means of effecting this. The following
passages are from the Smithsonian translation of Termier’s remarkable
paper on Atlantis reproduced by that institution. It differs verbally
from the translation by Dr. Jowett but not in the broader features. Of
the two quotations the first is from the “Critias.” It is briefer than
the other, though forming part of a more elaborate and extended account
of the island. Taking his appointed part in the dialogue, Critias says:

    According to the Egyptian tradition a common war arose 9,000
    years ago between the nations on this side of the Pillars of
    Hercules and the nations coming from beyond. On one side it was
    Athens; on the other the Kings of Atlantis. We have already
    said that this island was larger than Asia and Africa, but
    that it became submerged following an earthquake and that its
    place is no longer met with except as a sand bar which stops
    navigators and renders the sea impassable.[15]

Termier quotes also from the “Timaeus” dialogue (Critias is repeating
the statement of the Egyptian priests):

    The records inform us of the destruction by Athens of a
    singularly powerful army, an army which came from the Atlantic
    Ocean and which had the effrontery to invade Europe and Asia;
    for this sea was then navigable, and beyond the strait which
    you call the Pillars of Hercules there was an island larger
    than Libya and even Asia. From this island one could easily
    pass to other islands, and from them to the entire continent
    which surrounds the interior sea.... In the Island Atlantis
    reigned kings of amazing power. They had under their dominion
    the entire island, as well as several other islands and some
    parts of the continent. Besides, on the hither side of the
    strait, they were still reigning over Libya as far as Egypt and
    over Europe as far as the Tyrrhenian. All this power was once
    upon a time united in order by a single blow to subjugate our
    country, your own, and all the peoples living on the hither
    side of the strait. It was then that the strength and courage
    of Athens blazed forth. By the valor of her soldiers and their
    superiority in the military art, Athens was supreme among the
    Hellenes; but, the latter having been forced to abandon her,
    alone she braved the frightful danger, stopped the invasion,
    piled victory upon victory, preserved from slavery nations
    still free, and restored to complete independence all those
    who, like ourselves, live on this side of the Pillars of
    Hercules. Later, with great earthquakes and inundations, in
    a single day and one fatal night, all who had been warriors
    against you were swallowed up. The Island of Atlantis
    disappeared beneath the sea. Since that time the sea in these
    quarters has become unnavigable; vessels can not pass there
    because of the sands which extend over the site of the buried
    isle.[16]

We have said that all fiction has some root in reality. Even a myth is
commonly an attempted explanation of some mysterious natural phenomenon
or distorted narrative of obscure, nearly forgotten happenings.
Intentional fiction, try as it may, cannot keep quite clear of facts.
We turn, then, to those salient features of the above excerpts which
may in a measure stand for real past events or puzzling conditions
supposed to continue. Beside the prehistoric grandeur and triumph
of Athens, already dealt with, these are to be noted: the Atlantean
invasion of the Mediterranean; the vastness of the outer island which
sent forth these armies; its submergence; and the alleged continued
obstruction to navigation in that quarter.


ATLANTEAN INVASION OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

There seem to have been some rumors afloat of very early hostilities
between dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean and those beyond
the Pillars of Hercules. That geographical name bears witness to the
supposed exertion of Greek dominant power at the very gateway of the
Atlantic, and the legend connecting this demigod with Cadiz carries
his activities a little farther out on the veritable ocean front. The
rationalizing Diodorus, writing in the first century before Christ
but dealing freely with traditions from a very much earlier time,
presents Hercules as a great military commander, who, having set up his
memorial pillars, proceeded to overrun and conquer Iberia (the present
Spain and Portugal), passing thence to Liguria and thence to Italy
after the manner of Hannibal, much nearer to Diodorus and even better
known.[17] It is evident that the earlier part of this campaign must
include warfare beyond the Pillars on at least the Lusitanian Atlantic
front. Furthermore, we are introduced to the western Amazons, who had
their center of power on the Island Hesperia between Mount Atlas and
the ocean and invaded both the inland mountaineers and their seaboard
neighbors, the Gorgons--also feminine, if no great beauties.[18] The
poor Gorgons were subjugated but long afterward developed power again
under Queen Medusa, only to be disastrously overcome by the great Greek
general, Perseus. Both the Gorgons and the western Amazons seem to
have had their abodes on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean south of the
Strait of Gibraltar, along the front of what we now call Morocco and
the region south of it. We cannot say how much of these tales belongs
to Diodorus; but he certainly did not invent the whole of them and is
not likely to have contrived their most distinctive features. The myth
of Perseus, like that of Theseus and the Minotaur, meant something
dimly and distantly historic. We think we partly understand the latter
after the excavations in Crete. Similarly, the flights and feats of
Perseus, as given in mythology, may be another way of saying that he
made swift voyages far afield and descended on his enemies with deadly
execution.

These tales as we have them from Diodorus do not represent the
Atlantic coast dwellers as invading the Mediterranean; but some such
incursions would naturally follow, by way of retaliation, the strenuous
proceedings attributed to eastern-Mediterranean commanders, if, indeed,
they did not precede and provoke them. We need not picture a host of
Atlantides pouring through between the Pillars; but piratical descents
of outer seafaring people were probable enough and might be on a rather
large scale--subject, of course, to exaggeration by rumor. Nor would
any of the threatened people be likely to distinguish closely between
forces from a mainland coast and those from some outlying island. The
enemy might well embody both elements.


LOCATION AND SIZE OF ATLANTIS

The location of Atlantis, according to Plato, is fairly clear. It was
in the ocean, “then navigable,” beyond the Pillars of Hercules; also
beyond certain other islands, which served it as stepping-stones to
the continental mass surrounding the Mediterranean. This effectually
disposes of all pretensions in behalf of Crete or any other island or
region of the inner sea. Atlantis must also have lain pretty far out
in the ocean, to allow space for the intervening islands, which may
well have been, at least in part, the Canary Islands or other surviving
members of the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes; still it could not have
been too distant to prohibit the transfer of large forces when means
of transportation were slow and scant. This rules out America, apart
from the fact that America (like Crete) still exists, whereas Atlantis
foundered, and the further fact that America is continental, while
Atlantis is described as merely a large island. Besides, what evidence
is there that America could send forth armies or navies for the
invasion of Europe? Neither the Incas nor the Aztecs nor the Mayas were
capable of such aggressions, and we know of nothing greater in this
part of the world before the very modern development of the white man’s
power.

As to the size of Atlantis, it is not quite clear whether we are to
compare it with Mediterranean Africa and Asia Minor individually or
collectively. Probably Plato merely meant to indicate a great area
without any exact conception of its extent. If we think of an island
as large as France and Spain we shall probably not miss the mark very
widely. The site of the mid-Atlantic Sargasso Sea would be about the
location indicated.


IMPROBABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SUCH AN ISLAND

Now, was there any such great island and populous magnificent kingdom
in mid-Atlantic or anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean about 11,400 years
ago? If not absolutely impossible, it seems at least very unlikely.
Through the mouth of Critias Plato tells how the people of Atlantis
employed themselves in constructing their temples and palaces, harbors
and docks, a great palace which they continued to ornament through many
generations, canals and bridges, walls and towns, numerous statues of
gold, fountains both cold and hot, baths, and a great multitude of
houses.[19]

Such advance in civilization, such elaboration of organization, such
splendor and power would certainly have overflowed abundantly on the
islands intervening between Atlantis and the continental shore. It
is not written that these all shared the same fate; and in point of
fact the Azores, Madeira and her consorts, the Canary Islands, and the
Cape Verde group are still in evidence. Some of them must have been
within fairly easy reach of Atlantis if Atlantis existed. There is no
indication that they have been newly created or have come up from below
since that time. Even allowing for great exaggeration and assuming
only a large and efficient population in a vast insular territory
without the ascribed superfluity of magnificence, such a people would
surely have left some kind of lasting memorial or relic beyond their
own borders. Nothing of the kind has ever been found either in these
islands of the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes or elsewhere in that part
of the earth.

The advocates of a real Atlantis try to pile up proofs of a great land
mass existing at some time in the Atlantic Ocean, a logical proceeding
so far as it goes but one that falls short of its mark, for the land
may have ascended and descended again ages before the reputed Atlantis
period. It is of no avail to demonstrate its presence in the Miocene,
Pliocene, or Pleistocene epoch, or, indeed, at any time prior to the
development of a well organized civilization among men, or, as Plato
apparently reasons, between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago. Also what is
wanted is evidence of the great island Atlantis, not of the former
seaward extension of some existing continent nor of any land bridge
spanning the ocean. It is true that such conditions might serve as
distant preliminaries for the production of Atlantis Island by the
breaking down and submergence of the intervening land; but this only
multiplies the cataclysms to be demonstrated and can have no real
relevance in the absence of proof of the island itself. The geologic
and geographic phenomena of pre-human ages are beside the question.
The tale to be investigated is of a flourishing insular growth of
artificial human society on a large scale, not so very many thousands
of years ago, evidently removed from all tradition of engulfment and
hence dreading it not at all but sending forth its conquering armies
until the final defeat and annihilating cataclysm.


TERMIER’S THEORY OF AN ANCIENT ATLANTIC CONTINENTAL MASS

Nevertheless, inquiries as to an ancient Atlantic continental mass
have an interest. We may cite a few of the recent outgivings. Termier
tells us of an east-and-west arrangement of elevated lands across the
Atlantic in earlier ages, as opposed to the present north-and-south
system of islands and raised folds. By the former there was

    a very ancient continental bond between northern Europe and
    North America and ... another continental bond, also very
    ancient, between the massive Africa and South America.... Thus
    the region of the Atlantic, until an era of ruin which began
    we know not when, but the end of which was the Tertiary, was
    occupied by a continental mass, bounded on the south by a
    chain of mountains, and which was all submerged long before
    the collapse of those volcanic lands of which the Azores seem
    to be the last vestiges. In place of the South Atlantic Ocean
    there was, likewise, for many thousands of centuries a great
    continent now very deeply engulfed beneath the sea.[20]

Later he refers to

    collapses ... at the close of the Miocene, in the folded
    Mediterranean zone and in the two continental areas, continuing
    up to the final annihilation of the two continents ... then,
    in the bottom of the immense maritime domain resulting from
    these subsidences, the appearance of a new design whose general
    direction is north and south.... The extreme mobility of the
    Atlantic region ... the certainty of the occurrence of immense
    depressions when islands and even continents have disappeared;
    the certainty that some of these depressions date as from
    yesterday, are of Quaternary age, and that consequently they
    might have been seen by man; the certainty that some of them
    have been sudden, or at least very rapid. See how much there is
    to encourage those who still hold out for Plato’s narrative.
    Geologically speaking, the Platonian history of Atlantis is
    highly probable.[21]


FLORAL AND FAUNAL EVIDENCE OF CONNECTION WITH EUROPE AND AFRICA

Professor Schuchert, reviewing the paper of Termier above quoted,
agrees in part and partly disagrees. He says:

    The Azores are true volcanic and oceanic islands, and it is
    almost certain that they never had land connections with the
    continents on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. If there
    is any truth in Plato’s thrilling account, we must look
    for Atlantis off the western coast of Africa, and here we
    find that five of the Cape Verde Islands and three of the
    Canaries have rocks that are unmistakably like those common
    to the continents. Taking into consideration also the living
    plants and animals of these islands, many of which are of
    European-Mediterranean affinities of late Tertiary time, we see
    that the evidence appears to indicate clearly that the Cape
    Verde and Canary Islands are fragments of a greater Africa....
    What evidence there may be to show that this fracturing and
    breaking down of western Africa took place as suddenly as
    related by Plato or that it occurred about 10,000 years ago is
    as yet unknown to geologists.[22]

Termier puts in evidence as biological corroboration the researches of
Louis Germain, especially in the mollusca, which have convinced him of
the continental origin of this fauna in the four archipelagoes, the
Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, and Cape Verde. He also notes a few
species still living in the Azores and the Canaries, though extinct in
Europe, but found as fossils in Pliocene rocks of Portugal. He deduces
from this a connection between the islands and the Iberian Peninsula
down to some period during the Pliocene.[23]

Dr. Scharff has devoted some space and assiduous effort to similar
considerations. He reviews the insular flora and fauna, pointing out
that some of the forms common to the islands, or some of them, and a
now distant continent could hardly have reached there over sea. He
comes to the following conclusion: “I believe they [the islands] were
still connected, in early Pleistocene times, with the continents of
Europe and Africa, at a time when man had already made his appearance
in western Europe, and was able to reach the islands by land.”[24]

He also points out that the Azores Islands were first known and named
for their hawks, which feed largely on small mammalia, that presumably
would have come thither overland, and also points out that some of
the islands were named in Italian on old maps Rabbit Island, Goat
Island, etc., before the Portuguese rediscovery in the fifteenth
century.[25] Those names (on several fifteenth-century maps St. Mary’s
is Louo, Lovo, or Luovo--“Wolf Island,” cf. Portuguese _lobo_) are
certainly interesting, but they may have been given for some supposed
resemblance of outline or other fancy. There is this in favor of Dr.
Scharff’s supposition: the name Corvo in its original form Corvis
Marinis (Island of the Sea Crows) appears to have been prompted by
the abundance of birds of a particular species--possibly cormorants,
possibly black skimmers--and not by any typical bird form of the island
itself. Also Pico, now named for its peak, was called the Isle of
the Doves, and wild doves or pigeons are said to abound still on its
mountain side. But, if we assume by analogy that Li Conigi (Rabbit
Island) and Capraria (Goat Island) were so named by reason of the
pre-Portuguese wild rabbits and goats, these may be the donations of
earlier visitants or settlers--Italian, Carthaginians, or what not. We
cannot well believe that wolves were voluntarily brought by man to Lovo
(Lobo), now St. Mary’s; but here there may have been some mistake, as
of dogs run wild or some play of imitative fancy, as before indicated.
In any case these archaic island names are a long way from being
convincing evidence of former land connection with any continent, still
less of the former existence of Atlantis.

More recently Navarro, in an argument mainly geological, has also
called attention to the continental character of some species of
the fauna and flora of the eastern Atlantic islands, with the same
implications as his predecessors.[26] But there seems to be little real
addition to the evidence of this nature; and no one has made it more
apposite to the existence of Atlantis Island 12,000 or so years ago.


EVIDENCE OF SUBMERGENCE

The great final catastrophe of Atlantis would surely write its record
on the rocks both of the sea bed and the continental land masses. As to
the ocean bottom it would be the natural repository for vitreous and
other rocky products of volcanic and seismic action occurring above it.
Termier relates what he considers very significant indications at a
point 500 miles north of the Azores at a depth of 1,700 fathoms, where
the grappling irons of a cable-mending ship dragged for several days
over a mountainous surface of peaks and pinnacles, bringing up “little
mineral splinters” evidently “detached from a bare rock, an actual
outcropping sharp-edged and angular.” These fragments were all of a
non-crystalline vitreous lava called tachylyte, which “could solidify
into this condition only under atmospheric pressure.” He infers that
the territory in question was covered with lava flows while it was
still above water and subsequently descended to its present depth;
also from the general condition of the rock surface that the caving
in followed very closely on the emission of the lavas and that this
collapse was sudden. He thinks, therefore, “that the entire region
north of the Azores and perhaps the very region of the Azores, of
which they may be only the visible ruins, was very recently submerged,
probably during the epoch which the geologists call the present.” He
believes also that like results would follow a “detailed dredging to
the south and the southwest of these islands.”[27]

It will be observed that the whole of this very tempting edifice is
built on the declared impossibility of tachylyte forming on the sea
bottom under heavy water pressure. But Professor Schuchert insists
that: “It is not pressure so much as it is a quick loss of temperature
that brings about the vitreous structure in lava. In other words,
vitreous lava apparently can be formed as well in the ocean depths as
on the lands. What the cable layers got was probably the superficial
glassy crust of probable subterranean lava flows.”[28] If that be so,
there is, of course, no need to infer a descent of territory into the
depths in that region of the mid-Atlantic. This tachylyte matter seems
enveloped in uncertainty.

On the other hand, it is well known that volcanic outbursts and
earthquakes have been rather frequent and alarming even in modern times
among the islands of the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes, especially
the Canaries and the lowest and middle groups of the Azores. In
some instances the nearest mainland also has suffered, as notably on
“Lisbon-earthquake day,” and the various occasions of disturbances
cited by Navarro. Also, there is the memorable instance of a small
island that was thrust upward from the depths before the eyes of a
British naval ship’s crew and remained in sight for several days.
Changes of a distinctly non-volcanic character have also occurred, as
when an appreciable slice of cliff wall broke away from Flores and
sank, raising a great wave which did damage, with loss of life on
Corvo, some nine miles away. Moreover, Corvo was once considerably
larger than it is now in comparison with this neighbor, Flores (or Li
Conigi), if we may trust to the general testimony of fourteenth-century
and fifteenth-century maps. But all these shiftings and transformations
for a long time past have been local and usually rather narrowly
restricted. It does not follow that no depressions or elevations of
greater extent have suddenly occurred in times before men regularly
made permanent records; yet it must be owned that the belief in any
very large sunken Atlantis derives no direct support from what we
actually know of volcanic and seismic action in that region in historic
centuries.


RELATION OF THE SUBMARINE BANKS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC TO THE PROBLEM

There remain to be considered a small array of undersurface insular
items which seem germane to our inquiry. Sir John Murray tells us that:

    Another remarkable feature of the North Atlantic is the series
    of submerged cones or oceanic shoals made known off the
    northwest coast of Africa between the Canary Islands and the
    Spanish peninsula, of which we may mention: the “Coral Patch”
    in lat. 34° 57′ N., long. 11° 57′ W., covered by 302 fathoms;
    the “Dacia Bank” in lat. 31° 9′ N., long. 13° 34′ W., covered
    by 47 fathoms; the “Seine Bank” in lat. 33° 47′ N., long. 14°
    1′ W., covered by 81 fathoms; the “Concepcion Bank” in lat.
    30° N. and long. 13° W., covered by 88 fathoms; the “Josephine
    Bank” in lat. 37° N., long. 14° W., covered by 82 fathoms; the
    “Gettysburg Bank” in lat. 36° N., long. 12 W., covered by 34
    fathoms.[29]

All of these subaqueous mountain-top lands or hidden elevated plateaus
are conspicuously nearer the ocean surface than the real depths of the
sea--so much nearer that they inevitably raise the suspicion of having
been above that surface within the knowledge and memory of man. It is
notorious that coasts rise and fall all over the world in what may be
called the normal non-spasmodic action of the strata, and sometimes the
movement in one direction--upward or downward--seems to have persisted
through many centuries. If we assume that Gettysburg Bank has been
continuously descending at the not extravagant rate of two feet in a
century, then it was a considerable island above water about the period
dealt with by the priests of Sais. Apparently the rising of Labrador
and Newfoundland since the last recession and dispersion of the great
ice sheet has been even more. Here the elements of exact comparison
in time and conditions are lacking; nevertheless, the reported uplift
of more than 500 feet in one quarter and nearly 700 in another is
impressive as showing what the old earth may do in steady endeavor. It
must be borne in mind, too, that a sudden acceleration of the descent
of Gettysburg Bank and its consorts may well have occurred at any
stage in so feverishly seismic an area. All considered, it seems far
from impossible that some of these banks may have been visible and
even habitable at some time when men had attained a moderate degree of
civilization. But they would not be of any vast extent.


FACTS AND LEGENDS AS TO SUBMERGENCES IN HISTORIC TIMES

Westropp has made an interesting and important disclosure of the
legends of submerged lands with villages, churches, etc., all around
the coasts of Ireland. In some instances they are believed to be
magically visible again above the surface in certain conditions; in
others the spires and walls of a fine city may at times, it is thought,
be still seen through clear water. Nearly, if not quite, every one of
them coincides with a shoal or bank of no great depth, the upjutting
teeth of rocks, or a barren fragmentary islet--vestiges perhaps of
something more conspicuous, extended, and alluring. Westropp says:
“When we examine the sea bed, we see that it is not impossible (save
Brasil and the land between Teelin and the Stags of Broadhaven)
that islands may have existed within traditional memory at all the
alleged sites.”[30] In some cases considerable inroads of the ocean
are perfectly well known to have occurred within relatively recent
historic centuries. The same on a large scale is certainly true of
Holland--witness Haarlem Lake and the Zuyder Zee. Other countries,
perhaps most countries, might be called as witnesses.

In these considerations of known facts and legends still repeated we
are dealing mostly with events of periods not excessively remote, but
the same laws must have been at work and the same phenomena occurring
in earlier millenniums.

If there were men to observe, the legend would follow the subsidence;
and Phoenician or other voyagers would naturally bear it back to the
Eastern Mediterranean, to Plato or the sources from which Plato derived
it.

In any such case the submergence would most likely be exaggerated
and made a great catastrophe, but there were special reasons why the
exaggeration should be enormous in this particular story. It is the
office of a myth or legend to explain. We see that in Plato’s time
the Atlantic Ocean was believed, in part at least, to be no longer
navigable, and with some modifications this idea persisted far down
into the Middle Ages, involving at least a conviction of abnormal
obstacles hardly to be overcome. The account of Critias is: “Since
that time the sea in those quarters has become unnavigable; vessels
cannot pass there because of the sands which extend over the site of
the buried isle.” This item differs from the other features of the
narration put into his mouth by Plato, in that it related to a present
and continuing condition and in a way challenged investigation--which
would have to be at a distant and ill-known region but was not really
impracticable. It must be evident that Plato would not have written
thus unless he relied on the established general repute of that part of
the ocean for difficulty of navigation.


REPORTS OF OBSTRUCTION TO NAVIGATION IN EARLY TIMES

We get further light on this matter of obstruction from the Periplus of
Scylax of Caryanda, the greater part of which must have been written
before the time of Alexander the Great. Probably we may put down the
passage as approximately of Plato’s own period. He begins on the
European coast at the Strait of Gibraltar, makes the circuit of the
Mediterranean, and ends at Cerne, an island of the African Atlantic
coast, “which island, it is stated, is twelve days’ coasting beyond the
Pillars of Hercules, where the parts are no longer navigable because of
shoals, of mud, and of seaweed.”[31] “The seaweed has the width of a
palm and is sharp towards the points, so as to prick.”[32]

Similarly, when Himilco, parting from Hanno, sailed northward on the
Atlantic about 500 B. C., he found weeds, shallows, calms, and dangers,
according to the poet Avienus, who professes to repeat his account long
afterward and is quoted by Nansen, with doubts inclining to acceptance.
It reads:

    No breeze drives the ship forward, so dead is the sluggish wind
    of this idle sea. He [Himilco] also adds that there is much
    seaweed among the waves, and that it often holds the ship back
    like bushes. Nevertheless, he says that the sea has no great
    depth, and that the surface of the earth is barely covered by a
    little water. The monsters of the sea move continually hither
    and thither, and the wild beasts swim among the sluggish and
    slowly creeping ships.[33]

Avienus also has the following:

    Farther to the west from these Pillars there is boundless sea.
    Himilco relates that ... none has sailed ships over these
    waters, because propelling winds are lacking ... likewise
    because darkness screens the light of day with a sort of
    clothing, and because a fog always conceals the sea.[34]

[Illustration: FIG. 1--Map of the Sargasso Sea showing its relation to
the Azores, to illustrate its possible bearing on the medieval belief
in the existence of lands or islands beyond. Scale 1:72,000,000. (The
map is also intended to help in locating the various existing islands
of the North Atlantic.)]

Aristotle, as cited by Nansen, tells us in his “Meteorologica” that the
sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules was muddy and shallow and little
stirred by the winds.[35] In early life Aristotle was a pupil of Plato,
and, though he afterward developed a widely different method and
outlook, it is likely that their information as to this matter was in
common, being supplied perhaps by Phoenician and other seamen.

In the passage quoted from Scylax and the first excerpt from Avienus
the courses referred to are apparently too near the mainland shore
to approach that prodigious accumulation of eddy-borne weeds in dead
water which has long given to a great space of mid-Atlantic the name
of the Sargasso Sea. But they show that huge seaweeds were very
early associated with obstruction to navigation in seafaring minds
and popular fancy. Perhaps they may also have suggested shallows as
affording beds of nourishment for so enormous an output of vegetation.
It would not readily occur to the early seagoing observers that the
greatest of these entangling creations floated in masses quite free,
though we now know this to be the case. In any event, it is evident
that some imperfect knowledge of conditions far west of the Pillars
of Hercules had made its way to Greece. Somewhere in that ocean
of obscurity and mystery there was a vast dead and stagnant sea,
presumably shallow, a sea to be shunned. Gigantic entrapping weeds and
wallowing sea monsters freely distributed were recognized, too, as
among the standing terrors of the Atlantic.


THE SARGASSO SEA AS THE ANCIENT ATLANTIS

It would be idle and wearying to follow such utterances through the
rather numerous centuries that have elapsed since those early times.
When the Magrurin or deluded explorers of Lisbon, at some undefined
time between the early eighth century and the middle of the twelfth
attempted, according to Edrisi, to cross the great westward Sea of
Darkness they encountered an impassable tract of ocean and had to
change their course, apparently reaching one of the Canary Islands.
Later the map of the Pizigani brothers of 1367[36] (Fig. 2) contains
in words and a saintly figure of warning a solemn protest against
attempting to sail the unnavigable ocean tract beyond the Azores. As
will be seen by a modern map (Fig. 1), this area includes the vast
realm of the Sargasso--a waste of weed, shifting its borders with
the seasons but constant in its characteristics in some parts and
always to be found by little seeking--one of the permanent conspicuous
features of earth’s surface.[37] It is described by a writer in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica as nearly equal to Europe in area, a statement
hardly warranted unless by including all outlying tatters and fringes
of Gulf weed floating free.[38]

It is one of the topics that tempt and have always tempted exaggeration
and misunderstandings. The effect on a bright mind of current nautical
yarns concerning it is shown by Janvier’s “In the Sargasso Sea,” a
narrative almost as extravagant as Plato’s tale of Atlantis, in its own
quite different way. One of the more moderate preliminary passages may
be cited:

    And to that same place, he added, the stream carried all that
    was caught in its current--like the spar and plank floating
    near us, so that the sea was covered with a thick tangle of the
    weed in which were held fast fragments of wreckage and stuff
    washed overboard and logs adrift from far southern shores,
    until in its central part _the mass was so dense that no ship
    could sail through it nor could a steamer traverse it because
    of the fouling of her screws_.[39]

He admits this theory of formation was inaccurate but later refers
to “the dense wreck-filled center of the Sargasso Sea” and makes his
castaway hero declare:

    What I looked at was the host of wrecked ships, the dross
    of wave and tempest which through four centuries has been
    gathering slowly and still more slowly wasting in the central
    fastnesses of the Sargasso Sea.[40]

Sir John Murray naturally gives a more moderate and scientific account,
explaining:

    The famous Gulf Weed characteristic of the Sargasso Sea in
    the North Atlantic belongs to the brown algae. It is named
    _Sargassum bacciferum_, and is easily recognized by its small
    berry-like bladders.... It is supposed that the older patches
    gradually lose their power of floating, and perish by sinking
    in deep water.... The floating masses of Gulf Weed are believed
    to be continually replenished by additional supplies torn
    from the coasts by waves and carried by currents until they
    accumulate in the great Atlantic whirl which surrounds the
    Sargasso Sea. They become covered with white patches of polyzoa
    and serpulae, and quite a large number of other animals (small
    fishes, crabs, prawns, molluscs, etc.) live on these masses of
    weed in the Sargasso Sea, all exhibiting remarkable adaptive
    coloring, although none of them belong properly to the open
    ocean.[41]

Finally we have from the Hydrographic Office the official naval and
scientific statement of the case. In the little treatise already
referred to, Lieutenant Soley tells us that the southeast branch of the
Gulf Stream “runs in the direction of the Azores, where it is deflected
by the cold upwelling stream from the north and runs into the center of
the Atlantic Basin, where it is lost in the dead water of the Sargasso
Sea.”[42] As to just what this is the office answers:

    Through the dynamical forces arising from the earth’s rotation
    which cause moving masses in the northern hemisphere to be
    deflected toward the right-hand side of their path, the algae
    that are borne by the Gulf Stream from the tropical seas find
    their way toward the inner edge of the circulatory drift which
    moves in a clockwise direction around the central part of the
    North Atlantic Ocean. In this central part the flow of the
    surface waters is not steady in any direction, and hence the
    floating seaweed tends to accumulate there. This accumulation
    is perhaps most observable in the triangular region marked
    out by the Azores, the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands,
    but much seaweed is also found to the westward of the middle
    part of this region in an elongated area extending to the 70th
    meridian.

    The abundance of seaweed in the Sargasso Sea fluctuates much
    with the variation of the agencies which account for its
    presence, but this Office does not possess any authentic
    records to show that it has ever materially impeded vessels.[43]

Perhaps these statements are influenced by present or recent
conditions. It is obvious that giant ropelike seaweeds in masses would
more than materially impede the action of the galley oars, which
were the main reliance in time of calm of the ancient and medieval
navigators. Also it is hardly to be believed that small sailing vessels
could freely drive through them with an ordinary wind. If the weeds
were so unobstructive, why all these complaints and warnings out of
remote centuries? In the days of powerful steamships and when the
skippers of sailing vessels have learned what area of sea it is best
to avoid, there may well be a lack of formal reports of impediment;
but it certainly looks as though there were some basis for the long
established ill repute of the Sargasso Sea.


SUMMARY

For the genesis of Atlantis we have then, first, the great idealist
philosopher Plato minded to compose an instructive pseudo-historical
romance of statesmanship and war and actually making a beginning of
the task; and, secondly, the fragmentary cues and suggestive data
which came to him out of tradition and mariners’ tales, perhaps in
part through Solon and intervening transmitters, in part more directly
to himself. Of this material we may name foremost the vague knowledge
of vast impeded regions in the Atlantic believed to be shallow and
requiring a physical explanation; then rumors of cataclysms and sunken
lands in the same ocean; then legends of ancient hostilities between
dwellers beyond the Pillars of Hercules and the peoples about the
Mediterranean; and finally the reflection of the Persian war on the
shadowy ancient past of Athens--Athens the defender and victor, Athens
the Queen of the Sea.

Every solution of the Atlantis problem must be conjectural. The above
is offered simply as the best conjecture to which I can see my way.




CHAPTER III

ST. BRENDAN’S EXPLORATIONS AND ISLANDS


THE LISMORE VERSION OF THE SAINT’S ADVENTURES

The fifteenth-century Book of Lismore, compiled from much older
materials, tells us that St. Brenainn (evidently St. Brendan, the
navigator)

    desired to leave his land and his country, his parents and his
    fatherland, and he urgently besought the Lord to give him a
    land secret, hidden, secure, delightful, separated from men.
    Now after he had slept on that night, he heard the voice of the
    angel from heaven, who said to him, “Arise, O Brenainn,” saith
    he, “for God hath given thee what thou soughtest, even the Land
    of Promise” ... and he goes alone to Sliab Daidche and he saw
    the mighty intolerable ocean on every side, and then he beheld
    the beautiful noble island, with trains of angels (rising) from
    it.[44]

Thus far, in the rather redundant style of such literature, from the
Life of Brenainn in the Lives of the Saints of this old manuscript.
After a century and a half of disappearance this manuscript was
accidentally discovered in 1814, in a walled-up recess, by workmen
engaged on repairs.

Mr. Westropp holds that this Lismore version is the “simplest and
probably the earliest;”[45] but its full-blown development of certain
marvels (such as the spending of every Easter for at least five years
on the back of a vast sea monster as a substitute for an island) may
well awaken a question as to the validity of this conjecture.

However, the suggestion of the voyage by a dream seems likely enough,
and his mood was in keeping with the anchorite enthusiasm of his
time. Of course he promptly set forth to find his “promised land;” at
first, in a hide-covered craft, with failure in spite of long endeavor;
afterward, by advice of a holy woman, in a large wooden vessel, built
in Connaught and manned by sixty religious men, with final success.


ANOTHER VERSION

Another version gives the credit of the first incitement to a purely
human visitor, a friendly abbot, St. Brendan’s aim being to reach an
island “just under Mount Atlas.” Here a holy predecessor, Mernoc by
name, long vanished from among men, was believed to have hidden himself
in “the first home of Adam and Eve.” To all readers this was a fairly
precise location for the earthly paradise. The great Atlas chain forms
a conspicuous feature of medieval maps, running down to sea (as it does
in reality) near Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the innermost of the
Canaries, which seem like detached, nearly submerged, summits of the
range.

This narrative is longer and more detailed than that of the Book of
Lismore and gives more plentiful indications of voyaging, especially
toward the end, in southern seas. In its picture of volcanic fires it
recalls occasional outbursts of Teneriffe and its neighbors. “They saw
a hill all on fire, and the fire stood on each side of the hill like
a wall, all burning.” A visit is also recorded to a neighboring land,
apparently continental, which the adventurers penetrated for forty
days’ travel to the banks of a magical river, whence they brought away
“fruit and jewels.” This may well be meant for Africa, obviously quite
near these Fortunate Islands.


ATTEMPTS TO EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF THE BRENDAN NARRATIVES

It has been intimated that the narratives of “St. Brendan’s Navigation”
may have originated in misunderstood tales of his early sea wanderings
around the coasts of Ireland seeking for a monastery site. He was
successful in this at least, being best known (excepting as a
discoverer) for the great religious establishment at Clonfert, not the
first which he founded in the sixth century but the most widely known
and the greatest.

Another explanation casts doubts upon his real existence and supposes
the story of the discoveries to have arisen by confusion of language
with the well-known pagan “Voyage of Bran,” perhaps the earliest of the
ancient Irish Imrama, or sea sagas.

It has also been said that the origin of the Brendan narratives may be
found in “a ninth-century sermon elaborated up to its present form by
the eleventh century.”[46] A ninth-century manuscript is said to be in
the Vatican library.


A NORMAN FRENCH VERSION

A Norman French translation was turned into Norman French verse by
some trouvère of the court for the benefit of King Henry Beauclerc and
his Queen Adelais early in the twelfth century and partly translated
metrically into English for _Blackwood’s Magazine_ in 1836. It avers
that the saint set sail for an

              Isle beyond the sea
        Where wild winds ne’er held revelry,
        But fulfilled are the balmy skies
        With spicy gales from Paradise;
        These gales that waft the scent of flowers
        That fade not, and the sunny hours
        Speed on, nor night, nor shadow know.[47]

They sail westward fifteen days from Ireland; then in a month’s calm
drift to a rock, where they find a palace with food and where Satan
visits them but does no harm. They next voyage seven months, in a
direction not stated, and find an island with immense sheep; but, when
they are about to cook one, the island begins to sink and reveals
itself as a “beast.” They reach another island where the birds are
repentant fallen angels. From this they journey six months to an island
with a monastery founded by St. Alben. They sail thence till calm falls
on them and the sea becomes like a marsh; but they reach an island
where are fish made poisonous by feeding on metallic ores. A white bird
warns them. They keep Pentecost on a great sea monster, remaining seven
weeks. Then they journey to where the sea sleeps and cold runs through
their veins. A sea serpent pursues them, breathing fire. Answering
the saint’s prayer, another monster fights and kills the first one.
Similarly a dragon delivers them from a griffin. They see a great and
bright jeweled crystal temple (probably an iceberg). They land on
shores of smoke, flame, blast, and evil stench. A demon flourishes
before them, flies overhead, and plunges into the sea. They find an
island of flame and smoke, a mountain covered with clouds, and the
entrance to hell. Beyond this they find Judas tormented. Next they find
an island with a white-haired hermit, who directs them to the promised
island, where another and altogether wonderful holy man awaits them, of
whom more anon.

In this version, as in others, there are passages--such as the mention
of extreme cold and the account of a great floating structure of
crystal--which imply a northward course for their voyage in some
one of its stages. So greatly was Humboldt impressed by this and by
the insistence on the Isle of Sheep, which he identified with the
Faroes, that he restricted in theory the saint’s navigation to high
latitudes.[48]


THE PROBABLE BASIS OF FACT

But it is noticeable that every version gives St. Brendan the task
of finding a remote island, which was always warm and lovely, and
chronicles the attainment of this delight, though he finds other
delectable islands near it or by the way. The metrical description
before quoted is surely explicit enough, but the Book of Lismore
outdoes it in a very revel of adjectives. As though praises alone
failed to satisfy the celebrant, he introduces the figure of a holy
ungarmented usher--a living demonstration of the benignity of the
climate. He was “without any human raiment, but all his body was full
of bright white feathers like a dove or sea mew; and it was almost the
speech of an angel that he had.” “Vast is the light and fruitfulness of
the island,” he cried in welcome and launched forthwith on a prodigal
expenditure of superextolling words outpoured on their new delightful
home. It is all perfectly in keeping with the glow and luxuriance of
sun-warmed shores and the unique airiness of his spontaneous raiment.
Clearly “summer isles of Eden,” and nothing that has to do with
icebergs or wintry blasts, are called for in this case.

About six centuries lie between St. Brendan’s experiences and the
earliest writing purporting to relate them and generally accepted as
to date. Doubtful manuscripts and miscellaneous allusions--also often
doubtful--may lessen the gap; but at best we have several centuries
bridged by tradition only, and that rather inferred than known. It
seems likely that he really visited and enjoyed some remote lovely
islands, not very often reached from the mainland, such as could in
any age have been discovered among the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes.
In doing so he might well meet with surprising adventures, readily
distorted and magnified; and the first tales of them would be basis
enough for the florid fancy of Celtic and medieval romancers, growing
in extravagance with passing generations.


THE CARTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

That he found some island or islands was certainly believed, for his
name is on many maps in full confidence. But as to the particular
islands thereby identified we find that conjecture had a wide range,
varying in different periods and even with individual bias.


THE HEREFORD MAP OF CIRCA 1275

Probably its first appearance is on the Hereford map of 1275 or not
much later,[49] the inscription being “Fortunate Insulae sex sunt
Insulae Sct Brandani.” It is about on the site of the Canary group, and
the elliptical island Junonia is just below. The showing is uncertain
and conventional; also the number six misses the mark by one; still
there can be no doubt that the Canaries as a whole were intended.
Concerning them Edrisi[50] had observed, about 1154: “The Fortunate
Islands are two in number and are in the Sea of Darkness.” Perhaps he
had Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the most accessible pair, especially
in mind. The surviving derivatives of the last eighth-century Beatus
map[51] also bear the inscription “Insulae Fortunate” where the Canary
Islands should be, but they assert nothing of “St. Brandan.” Doubtless,
dimly known, they had been reputed Isles of the Blest from prehistoric
times. If St. Brendan found them, he found them already the “Fortunate
Isles.”

A tradition long survived--perhaps survives still--in the Canary
archipelago supporting this identification by the Hereford map. Thus
Father Espinosa,[52] who long dwelt in Teneriffe and wrote his book
there between 1580 and 1590, avers that St. Brendan and his companions
spent several years in that archipelago and quotes a still earlier
“calendar,” date not given, as authority for their mighty works done
there “in the time of the Emperor Justinian.” Even as late as the
eighteenth century an expedition sailed from among them for an island
believed to be outside of those already known and to be the one
discovered by St. Brendan.

[Illustration: FIG. 2--Section, in two continuous parts, of the
Pizigani map of 1367 showing St. Brendan’s Islands, Mayda, Brazil,
Daculi, and other legendary islands. (After Jomard’s hand-copied
reproduction.)]


THE DULCERT MAP OF 1339

The second cartographical appearance of the saint’s name seems to be in
the portolan map[53] of Angelinus Dulcert, the Majorcan, dated 1339,
where three islands corresponding to those now known as the Madeiras
(Madeira, Porto Santo, and Las Dezertas) and on the same site are
labeled “Insulle Sa Brandani siue puelan.” Since “u” was currently
substituted for “v,” and “m” and “n” were interchangeable on these
old maps, the last two words should probably be read “sive puellam.”
However the ending of the inscription be interpreted, there can be no
doubt about St. Brendan and his title to the islands--according to
Dulcert. And that this island group must be identified with Madeira and
her consorts (though Madeira is named Capraria and Porto Santo is named
Primaria) hardly admits of any question.

If the identification of them with the Fortunate Islands especially
favored by St. Brendan were no more than a conjecture of Dulcert or
some predecessor, it still had a certain plausibility from the facts
of nature and the favorable report of antiquity. Strabo may have
borne these islands in mind when he wrote: “the golden apples of the
Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed they speak of, which we know
are still pointed out to us not far distant from the extremities
of Maurusia, and opposite to Gades.”[54] Apparently, too, Diodorus
Siculus, writing half a century or so before the Christian era about
what happened a thousand years earlier still, means Madeira by the
“great island of very mild and healthful climate” and “in great part
mountainous but much likewise champaign, which is the most sweet and
pleasant part of all the rest;”[55] whereto the Phoenicians were
storm-driven after founding Cadiz and which the Etrurians coveted but
the Carthaginians planned to hold for themselves. Even since those old
days there has been a general recognition of Madeira’s balminess and
slumberous, flowery, enticing beauty.


THE MAP OF THE PIZIGANI OF 1367

Divers maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries do not contain
the name of St. Brendan (it is perhaps never spelled Brendan in
cartography) and hence do not count either way. But the identification
of the notable map of 1367 of the brothers Pizigani[56] (Fig. 2) is the
same as Dulcert’s, the inscription being also given in the alternative.
Like many oceanic features of this strange production it is by no
means clear, but seems to read “Ysole dctur sommare sey ysole pone+le
brandany.” Perhaps it is to be understood as the “islands called of
slumber or the islands of St. Brandan.” There is at any rate no doubt
about the last word or its meaning. But, as if to place the matter
beyond all question, a monkish figure, generally accepted as that of
the saint himself, is depicted bending over them in an attitude of
benediction.

This map evidently does not copy from Dulcert, for the forms,
proportions, and individual names of the islands all differ. It calls
the chief island Canaria, instead of Capraria or the later Madeira, and
appends a longer name, which seems like Capirizia, to what have long
been known as Las Dezertas, which appear greatly enlarged on it. Porto
Santo is left unnamed on the map, perhaps because it lies so close to
the general name of the group.


FIRST USE OF “PORTO SANTO” AS NAME OF ONE OF THE MADEIRAS

A claim has been set up by the Portuguese that Porto Santo (Holy
Port) was first applied to this island by their rediscoverers of the
next century in honor of their safe arrival after peril, but this is
abundantly confuted by its presence on divers fourteenth-century
maps, notably the Atlante Mediceo[57] of 1351. Also the Book of the
Spanish Friar,[58] dating from about the middle of that century,
contains in his enumeration of islands the words “another Desierta,
another Lecname, another Puerto Santo.” It would seem to have been
a familiar appellation about 1350 or earlier, and the suggestion
naturally occurs that it may have originated in the tradition of the
visit and blessing of the Irish saint. At any rate, the Portuguese,
in the fifteenth-century rediscovery, can have had nothing to do with
conferring it.


ANIMAL AND BIRD NAMES OF ISLANDS

Concerning such names as Canaria, Capraria, etc., which, by reason
of other associations, appear oddly out of place in this group, the
more general question is raised of the tendency to apply animal and
bird names to Eastern Atlantic islands. Goat, rabbit, dog, falcon,
dove, wolf, and crow were applied to various islands long before the
Portuguese visited the Madeiras and Azores, finding them untenanted;
these names long held their ground on the maps, and some of them are
in use even now. The reason for their adoption piques one’s curiosity.
If they could be taken as throwing any light on the fauna of these
islands in 1350, they might also instruct us as to the probability of
prior human occupancy or previous connection with the mainland. But, of
course, in any significant instances some fancied resemblance of aspect
may have suggested the name.


MADEIRA

Madeira, meaning island of the woods or forest island, is a direct
Portuguese translation from the Italian “I. de Legname” of the Atlante
Mediceo and various later maps, and of the “Lecname” of the unnamed
Spanish friar who tells us he was born in 1305. It is sufficiently
explained by the former condition of the island, the northern part of
which is said to preserve still its abundant woodland. Perhaps the
modern name of Madeira (or Madera) first appears on the map of Giraldi
of 1426,[59] not very long after the rediscovery. But, with some
cartographers, the Italian form of the name lingered on much later.

[Illustration: FIG. 3--Section of the Beccario map of 1426 showing St.
Brendan’s Islands. (From a photograph in the author’s possession.)]


THE BECCARIO MAP OF 1426

The alternative names, which had been given the Madeira group by
Dulcert and the Pizigani, commemorating both the general fact of
repose or blessedness and the delighted visit of St. Brendan, were
closely blended (in what became the accepted formula) by the 1426
map of Battista Beccario, which unluckily had never been published
in reproduction. Before the war, however, the writer obtained a good
photograph of a part of it from Munich and herewith presents a section
recording the words “Insulle fortunate santi brandany” (Fig. 3).[60]
The first “a” of the final name may possibly be an “e,” having been
obscured by one of the compass lines; but I think not. Beccario repeats
the same inscription in his very important and now well-known map[61]
of 1435, substituting “sancti” for “santi” by way of correction.

With no serious variations, this name, “The Fortunate Islands of St.
Brandan” (or Brendan), is applied to Madeira and her consorts by Pareto
(1455;[62] Fig. 21), Benincasa (1482;[63] Fig. 22), the anonymous
Weimar map formerly attributed to 1424 but probably of about 1480 or
1490,[64] and divers others. In several instances (the Beccario maps,
for example) the words are almost as near to the most southerly pair
of the Azores, next above them, as to the Madeiras below, and it is
possible that the condition of special beatitude was understood as
extending to the former also.


THE BIANCO MAP OF 1448

At any rate, the verdict of the fifteenth century for Madeira was by no
means unanimous. The 1448 map of Bianco,[65] which is very unlike his
earlier one of 1436 so far as concerns the Atlantic, was prepared after
all the Azores had been found again by the Portuguese except Flores
and Corvo. It shows the old familiar inaccurately north-and-south
string of the three groups of the Azores as they had come to him
conventionally and traditionally, for evidently he did not dare or
could not bring himself to discard them. But it also shows a slanting
array of islands farther out, arranged in two groups respectively of
two islands and five islands each and much more accurately presented
as to location and direction than the old Italian stand-bys. These are
quite clearly the Portuguese version, brought down to that date, of
the newly rediscovered Azorean archipelago. But Bianco was obviously
put to it to conjecture what islands these might be. He drew names
from miscellaneous sources: in particular the largest island of the
main group, corresponding to Terceira, bears the title “y^a fortunat
de sa. beati blandan.” Nevertheless, he shows and names Madeira, Porto
Santo, and Deserta in their usual places. Evidently he had given up, if
he ever held, all thought of annexing St. Brendan’s special blessing
to them. He seems very confident of the St. Brandan’s Island of his
slanting series, for it is drawn heavily in black and contrasts with
the rather ghastly aspect of some neighbors. It has nearly the form of
a Maltese cross, with long arms, but there is no reason to suppose that
this has any significance.


BEHAIM’S GLOBE OF 1492

About the same period a Catalan map[66] of unknown authorship,
without copying details, adopted the same expedient of duplicating
the Azores by adding the new slanting series. It is quite independent
in details, however, omitting mention of “St. Brandan” in particular,
though Ateallo (Antillia?) is given in the second group but not in
the corresponding place. This may possibly indicate some confusion of
Antillia with St. Brandan’s Island, such as is more evident in the
transfer of the traditional outline of the former to the latter, little
changed, by Behaim on his globe of 1492.

As it stands, this globe undoubtedly gives an original and unique
representation of St. Brandan’s Island far west of the Cape Verde group
and emphasizes it by showing Antillia independently in a more northern
latitude and less western longitude and also of quite insignificant
size and form. But Ravenstein, who made a very thorough study of
the matter, tells us[67] that this globe has been twice retouched
or renovated and that the only way to ascertain exactly what was
originally delineated is to treat it as a palimpsest and remove the
accretions. In particular, he relates the story of an expert geographer
who found the draftsmen about to transpose St. Brandan’s Island and
Antillia; but they yielded to his protest. Of course, it is impossible
to be quite certain that these map figures are such and in such place
as Behaim intended or that they bear the names he gave. The presumption
favors the present showing, generally accepted as authentic. It gives
the saint only one island, but this a very large one, set in mid-ocean
between Africa and South America.

Possibly this location may be suggested by an undefined coast line
shown by Bianco’s map of 1448, previously mentioned, and, like Behaim’s
island, set opposite the Cape Verde group. In Venetian Italian it bears
an obscure inscription, which calls it an “authentic island” and is
variously interpreted as saying that this coast is fifteen hundred
miles long or fifteen hundred miles distant. The map of Juan de la
Cosa (1500)[68] exhibits off the coast of Brazil, and with an outline
similar to Behaim’s, “the island which the Portuguese found.” His date
is too late to have influenced Behaim, too early to have been prompted
by Cabral’s accidental discovery of that very year. It is more likely
that he and Behaim both were acquainted with Bianco’s work or that all
three drew from the same report of discovery.


LATER MAPS

From this time on there is never more than one island for St. Brendan,
but it indulges in wide wanderings. Especially as the attention of men
was attracted to the more northern and western waters, the map-makers
shifted the island thither. Thus the map of 1544, purporting to be the
work of Sebastian Cabot and probably prepared more or less under his
influence,[69] places the island San Brandan not far from the scene of
his father’s explorations and his own. It lies well out to sea in about
the latitude of the Straits of Belle Isle. The Ortelius map of 1570[70]
(Fig. 10) repeats the showing with no great amount of change. In short,
the final judgment of navigators and cartographers, before the island
quite vanished from the maps, made choice of the waste of the North
Atlantic as its most probable hiding place. Perhaps this westward
tendency in rather high latitudes may be partly responsible for the
hypotheses in recent times which have taken the explorer quite across
to interior North America on a missionary errand. There is certainly
nothing to prohibit any one from believing them, if he can and if it
pleases him.


CONCLUSION

In general review it appears likely that St. Brendan in the sixth
century wandered widely over the seas in quest of some warm island,
concerning which wonderful accounts had been brought to him, and found
several such isles, the Madeira group receiving his special approval,
according to the prevailing opinion of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. But this judgment of those centuries is the only item as to
which we can speak with any positiveness and confidence.




CHAPTER IV

THE ISLAND OF BRAZIL


So far as we know, the first appearance of the island of Brazil in
geography was on the map of Angellinus Dalorto,[71] of Genoa, made in
the year 1325. There it appears as a disc of land of considerable area,
set in the Atlantic Ocean in the latitude of southern Ireland (Fig. 4).
But the name itself is far older. In seeking its derivation, one is
free to choose either one of two independent lines.


PROBABLE GAELIC ORIGIN OF THE WORD “BRAZIL”

The word takes many forms on maps and in manuscripts: as Brasil,
Bersil, Brazir, O’Brazil, O’Brassil, Breasail. As a personal name it
has been common in Ireland from ancient days. The “Brazil fierce” of
Campbell’s “O’Connor’s Child” may be recalled by the few who have not
wholly forgotten that beautiful old-fashioned poem. Going farther back,
we find Breasail mentioned as a pagan demigod in Hardiman’s “History
of Galway”[72] which quotes from one of the Four Masters, who collated
in the sixteenth century a mass of very ancient material indeed. Also
St. Brecan, who shared the Aran Islands with St. Enda about A.D. 480
or 500, had Bresal for his original name when he flourished as the son
of the first Christian king of Thormond. The name, however spelled,
is said to have been built up from two Gaelic syllables “breas” and
“ail,” each highly commendatory in implication and carrying that note
of admiration alike to man or island. Quite in consonance therewith the
fifteenth-century map of Fra Mauro in 1459[73] not only delineated and
named this Atlantic Berzil but appended the inscription “Queste isole
de Hibernia son dite fortunate,” ranking it as one of the “Fortunate
Islands.”

[Illustration: FIG. 4--Section of the Dalorto map of 1325 showing
Brazil, Daculi, and other legendary islands. (After Magnaghi’s
photographic facsimile.)]


ANOTHER SUGGESTED DERIVATION

On the whole, this seems the more likely channel of derivation of the
name; or, if there were two such channels, then the more important
one. For there is another suggested derivation, of which much has
rightly been made and which we must by no means neglect. Red dyewood
bore the name “brazil” in the early Middle Ages, a word derived,
Humboldt believed,[74] by translation from the Arabic _bakkam_ of like
meaning, on record in the ninth century. He notes that Brazir, one
form of the name, as we have seen, recalls the French _braise_, the
Portuguese _braza_ and _braseiro_, the Spanish _brasero_, the Italian
_braciere_, all having to do with fire, which is normally more or less
red like the dye. He does not know any tongue of medieval Asia which
could supply _brasilli_ or the like for dyewood. He suggests also the
possibility of the word’s being a borrowed place name, like indigo or
jalap, commemorating the region of origin, but cannot identify any such
place. His treatment of the topic leaves a feeling of uncertainty, with
a preference for some sort of transformation from “bakkam” which would
yield “brazil” probably by a figure of speech.

The earliest distinctly recognizable mention of brazil as a commodity
occurs in a commercial treaty of 1193 between the Duchy of Ferrara,
Italy, and a neighboring town or small state, which presents _grana
de Brasill_ in a long list including wax, furs, incense, indigo, and
other merchandise.[75] The same curious phrase, “grain of Brazil,”
recurs in a quite independent local _charta_ of the same country only
five years later. Muratori, who garnered such things into his famous
compilation of Italian antiquities, avowed his bewilderment over this
strange phrase, asking what dyewood could be so called; and Humboldt,
reconsidering the whole matter, was no more clear in mind. He calls
attention to the fact that cochineal very long afterward bore the same
name, but evidently without considering this any sort of solution, as,
indeed, it could not well be, since it bears distinct reference to the
South American Brazil, which was discovered and named centuries later.
But the facts remain that grain does not naturally mean dyewood of any
kind or in any form, that its recurrence in public documents proves it
a well-established characterization of a known article of trade in the
twelfth century, and that its presentation is such as to indicate a
granular packaged material.

Perhaps an explanation may be found in Marco Polo’s experience and
experiments nearly a century later than these Italian documents. Of
Lambri, a district in Sumatra, he writes:

    They also have brazil in great quantities. This they sow, and
    when it is grown to the size of a small shoot they take it up
    and transplant it; then they let it grow for three years, after
    which they tear it up by the root. You must know that Messer
    Marco Polo aforesaid brought some seed of the brazil, such as
    they sow, to Venice with him and had it sown there, but never a
    thing came up. And I fancy it was because the climate was too
    cold.[76]

The seeds of that Sumatran shrub might well pass for grain in the sense
of a small granular object, as we say a grain of sand, for example.
But, since the plant was not and perhaps could not be reared in Italy,
it seems unlikely that the seed should be a valued item of commerce,
regularly listed, bargained for, and taxed. We do not hear of its being
put to use as a dye; and, indeed, the bark or wood of the plant seems
far more promising for that purpose. Like our distinguished forerunners
in considering this little mystery, we must set it aside as not yet
fully solved.

“Grain of Brazil” is not repeated in any entry, so far as I know,
after the end of the twelfth century; but brazil as a commodity
figures rather frequently; for example, in the schedules of port
dues of Barcelona and other Catalan seaboard towns in the thirteenth
century, as compiled by Capmany.[77] Thus in 1221 we find “carrega de
Brasill,” in 1243 “caxia de bresil,” and somewhat later (1252) “cargua
de brazil,” the spelling varying as in the easy-going fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century maps, the word being plainly the same. But the word
and the thing were not confined to the Mediterranean, for a grant of
murage rates of 1312 to the city of Dublin, Ireland, uses the words
“de brasile venali.”[78] This is pretty far afield and shows that
the knowledge and use of brazil as taxable merchandise was nearly
Europe-wide. As a rule, it has been taken for granted that the word
meant either some special kind of red dyewood or dyewood in general.
Marco Polo’s account conforms rather to the former version, while
Humboldt seems to lean toward the latter; but there is singularly
little in the entries which tends to identify it as wood at all or in
any way relate it thereto. Such words as _carrega_, _caxia_, _cargua_,
show that it was put up in some kind of inclosure, and perhaps give the
impression of comminution or at least absence of bulkiness. Most likely
many kinds of red bark, red wood suitable for dyeing, and perhaps other
vegetable products available for that purpose were sometimes included
under the name brazil. People of that time were more concerned about
results and means to attain them than about exactness in classification
or definition.

It may well be that both lines of derivation of the name meet in the
Brazil Island west of Ireland, that it was given a traditional Irish
name by Irish navigators and tale tellers and mapped accordingly by
Italians, who would naturally apply to it the meaning with which
they were familiar in commerce and eastern story, so that the Island
of Brazil, extolled on all hands, would come to mean along the
Mediterranean chiefly the island where peculiarly precious dyewoods
abounded. We know that Columbus was pleased to collect what his
followers called brazil in his third and fourth voyages along American
shores;[79] that Cabot felicitates himself on the prospect of finding
silk and brazilwood by persistence in his westward explorations;[80]
and that the great Brazil of South America received its final name as a
tribute to its prodigal production of such dyes.


FREE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NAME ON EARLY MAPS

But there is a curious phenomenon to be noticed--the free distribution
of this name among sea islands, especially of the Azores archipelago,
from an early date. Thus the Pizigani map of 1367[81] applies it with
slight change of spelling not only to the original disc-form Brazil
west of Ireland and to a mysterious crescent-form island, which must
be Mayda, but to what is plainly meant for Terceira of the main middle
group of the Azores (Fig. 2). The Spanish Friar, naming Brazil in
his island list about 1350, appears also to mean Terceira, judging
by the order of the names.[82] His matter-of-fact tone indicates a
long-settled item. This carries us well back toward the first settled
date for the Irish Brazil in cartography. Further, the name still
adheres to Terceira, though long restricted to a single mountainous
headland. The explanation remains a matter of conjecture. Perhaps the
Azores islands that bore it borrowed from the older Brazil west of
Ireland. Perhaps also the word had gone about that islands were notable
for dyes--archil, for example--and the special dye name brazil has been
loosely affixed in consequence.

On some of the maps certain alternative names are given, which do not
greatly further our investigation. Thus the very first one which shows
Brazil--Dalorto, 1325--adds Montonis as a second choice (Fig. 4). This
has been understood to mean the Isle of Rams, linking it with Edrisi’s
Isle of Sheep, a quite ancient fancy, sometimes referred to the Faroes,
but of very uncertain identification. But Freducci,[83] 1497, makes
it Montanis; Calapoda,[84] 1552, Montorius; and an anonymous compass
chart of 1384,[85] Monte Orius. In all these the idea of mountains, not
sheep, is dominant. The change from “a” to “o” is easy with a not very
vigilant transcriber, and it is most likely that Freducci preserves the
original form and meaning.

The Pizigani map of 1367 is confused and enigmatic on this point, as in
all its inscriptions. It seems to read (Fig. 2) “Ysola de nocorus sur
de brazar,” but it may best be set aside as too uncertain.

Equally unenlightening is the “de Brazil de Binar” of Bianco’s 1448
map.[86] If the “n” be read “m,” the inscription may mean “Brazil of
the two seas;” but the allusion is mystifying.

Fra Mauro’s inscription before quoted merely bears testimony to
Brazil’s benign and almost Elysian repute and its connection with the
Green Isle in fancy.


LOCATION AND SHAPE OF THE ISLAND

The circular form of Brazil and its location westward of southern
Ireland are affirmed by many maps, including Dalorto, 1325 (Fig. 4);
Dulcert, 1339;[87] Laurenziano-Gaddiano, 1351;[88] Pizigani, 1367
(Fig. 2); anonymous Weimar map, probably about 1481;[89] Giraldi,
1426;[90] Beccario, 1426[91] and 1435[92] (Fig. 20); Juan da Napoli,
perhaps 1430;[93] Bianco, 1436 and 1448;[94] Valsequa, 1439;[95]
Pareto, 1455[96] (Fig. 21); Roselli, 1468;[97] Benincasa, 1482[98]
(Fig. 22); Juan de la Cosa, 1500;[99] and numerous later maps. Probably
the persistent roundness is ascribable to a certain preference for
geometrical regularity, which sowed these early maps with circles,
crescents, trilobed clover leaves, and other more unusual but not less
artificial island forms. The direction must stand for the tradition of
some old voyage or voyages.


SIGNIFICANT SHAPE ON THE CATALAN MAP OF 1375

But the celebrated Catalan map of 1375[100] above mentioned introduced
a significant novelty, converting the disc into an annulus of land--of
course, still circular--surrounding a circular body of water dotted
with islets (Fig. 5). The preferred explanation thus far advanced
connects these islets with the Seven Cities of Portuguese and Spanish
legend.[101] But there seem to be nine islands, not seven, and it is
not clear what necessary relation exists between isles and cities nor
whence the idea is derived of the central lake or sea as a background.
Moreover, the Island of the Seven Cities was most often identified
with Antillia far to the south, and there seems no warrant for
identification with Brazil. All considered, this explanation seems
arbitrary, inadequate, and unconvincing.

[Illustration: FIG. 5--Section of the Catalan map of 1375 showing
the islands of Mayda and Brazil. (After Nordenskiöld’s photographic
facsimile.)]

The same ring form with inclosed water and islets is repeated by a
map of the next century copied by Kretschmer.[102] It varies only
by showing just seven islets, if we may rely for this detail on his
handmade copy.


POSSIBLE IDENTIFICATION WITH THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE REGION

Now, in all the Atlantic Ocean and its shores there is one region, and
one only, which thus incloses a sheet of water having islands in its
expanse, and this region lies in the very direction indicated on the
old maps for Brazil. I allude to the projecting elbow of northeastern
North America, which most nearly approaches Europe and has Cape Race
for its apex. Its front is made up of Newfoundland and Cape Breton
Island. The remainder of the circuit is made up of what we now call
southern Labrador, a portion of eastern Quebec province, New Brunswick,
and Nova Scotia. This irregular ring of territory incloses the great
Gulf of St. Lawrence, which has within it the Magdalens, Brion’s
Island, and some smaller islets, not to include the relatively large
Anticosti and Prince Edward. It has two rather narrow channels of
communication with the ocean, which might readily fail to impress
greatly an observer whose chief mental picture would be the great
land-surrounded, island-dotted expanse of water. The surrounding land
would itself almost certainly be regarded as insular, for there was
a strong tendency to picture everything west of Europe in that way,
even long after the time when most of these maps were made. Even when
Cartier[103] in 1535 ascended the St. Lawrence River it was in the
hope of coming out again on the open sea--a hope that implies the
very conception of an insular mass inclosing the gulf, not differing
essentially from the showing of the Catalan map of 1375. The number of
the islands is immaterial. We may picture the Catalan map-maker dotting
them in from vague report as impartially as the far better known Lake
Corrib is besprinkled with islands in most of the old maps--far more
plentifully than the facts give warrant.

But it would seem that other observers were more impressed by the
separation of Newfoundland, due to the Straits of Belle Isle and Cabot
and the waterway (of the gulf) connecting them behind the great island.
As a rule the maps presenting Brazil in this divided way adhere to
the accepted latitude, which does not differ appreciably from that
of the St. Lawrence Gulf region. The dividing passage, mainly from
north to south but slightly curved at the ends which join the ocean,
corresponds fairly well with the facts. The maps of Prunes, 1553[104]
(Fig. 12), and Olives, 1568,[105] may be cited as instances of this
divided form of Brazil. No explanation seems yet to have been offered
except Nansen’s,[106] that the dividing channel represents “the river
of death (Styx),” and Westropp’s,[107] that it may be owing to mistaken
copying of a name space or label on some older map. But the former
lacks any better basis than conjectured fancy and the latter is refuted
by the position of the channel on most maps and by the general aspect
of the delineation. As a matter of fact, the showing of most of the
maps differs in little more than proportions from that of Gastaldi
illustrating Ramusio in 1550,[108] when the Gulf of St. Lawrence was
fairly well known to many, but appears as a rather narrow channel
behind a broken-up Newfoundland, extending from the Strait of Belle
Isle to the Strait of Cabot. As in the much older map referred to, the
delineation of Gastaldi is perhaps to be explained by concentration of
attention on the waterway and the ignoring of the wider parts of the
expanse. Absolute demonstration of the causes of the divided Brazil
of some maps and the ring of land inclosing an island-dotted body of
water in others is, of course, impossible; but we can show that in the
designated direction there is a region presenting both of these unusual
features, so that one of the visitors might well be especially taken up
with one set of characteristics, another with the other set, and might
depict the region accordingly. This is the more probable because the
region was peculiarly exposed to accidental or intentional discovery
from the west of the British islands and is known, in fact, to have
been the first to be reached therefrom of all North America in times of
historic record.

It must not be supposed that Brazil was always thought of as relatively
near Europe. Nicolay in 1560[109] (Fig. 6) and Zaltieri in 1566[110]
prepared maps which show a Brazil Island in distinctly American waters,
practically forming part of the archipelago into which Newfoundland
was supposed to be divided, or at least lying between it and the Grand
Banks. These presentations no doubt may have been suggested by American
discoveries and later theories, especially as no navigator had been
able to find Brazil at any point nearer Europe; but again they may
be at least partly due to surviving early traditions of the great
distance westward at which this island lay. The Brazil of Nicolay and
Zaltieri is, to be sure, a very small affair; but their maps were made
about two and a half centuries after the earliest one which shows this
island--ample time for many misconceptions to creep in. Their only
value is in their illustration of locality.


THE CATALAN MAP OF ABOUT 1480

More important in every way is a Catalan map (Fig. 7) preserved in
Milan and reproduced by Nordenskiöld in 1892,[111] but since copied
partly by Nansen, by Westropp, and by others. It belongs to the
fifteenth century--perhaps about 1480--and deserves clearly to rank as
the only map before Columbus, thus far reported, which shows a part of
North America other than Greenland. The latter had long before appeared
in the well-known map of Claudius Clavus, 1427[112] (Fig. 16), no doubt
on the faith of the early Norse narratives and subsequent commercial
intercourse, for the Norse Greenland colony is known to have existed
in 1410 and probably did not die out entirely until much later. The
Catalan map of about 1480 shows Greenland also as a great northwestern
land mass beyond Iceland, identifying it by name as Illa Verde (Green
Island). But just south, or west of south, of this Greenland at a
slight interval and southwest of Iceland is drawn and named a large
Brazil of the conventional circular disc form. Its position is that
of Labrador, or perhaps Newfoundland, as it would naturally have been
understood and reported by the Norse explorers. It can be nothing but
one or both of these regions of America with perhaps neighboring lands.

[Illustration: FIG. 6--Section of the Nicolay map of 1560 showing, on
the American Side of the Atlantic, Brazil, Man, and Insula Verde, the
first two transferred from the European side. (After Nordenskiöld’s
photographic facsimile.)]

It is true that this map shows also another Brazil of the divided kind
(in this instance with a channel crossing it from east to west) located
in mid-Atlantic about where Prunes and others show their bisected
Brazil. But this seems only an instance of conservation and deference
for authority, such as has often been manifested in cartography. Of
such deference for authority perhaps there is no more striking instance
than Bianco’s map of 1448, which places the rediscovered Azores where
they should be but also preserves them, on the faith of older maps,
where they should not be--making a double series. The lesser bisected
mid-Atlantic Brazil of the Catalan map may well be set aside as a
survival without significance.

But the duplication by Bianco in 1448 raises a question of distance,
which must be considered, for his Azores retained from the maps
antedating the Portuguese rediscoveries are far nearer the coast of
Europe than the truth at all warrants; and, so far as we can judge, the
same cautious underestimating was applied to all oceanic islands as
reported. Corvo, for example, is actually nearly half-way across the
Atlantic, yet on all the maps for a long time is brought eastward to a
position much nearer Portugal. We must suppose that the region about
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, if visited, would be similarly treated, and
we cannot tell how far the minimization of distance might be carried
by some map-makers.

[Illustration: FIG. 7--Section of the Catalan map of about 1480 showing
Brazil Island and Green Island (Illa Verde). (After Nordenskiöld’s
photographic facsimile.)]


THE SYLVANUS MAP OF 1511

The fact is, this matter does not rest in supposition only, for the
thing has undoubtedly happened. The map of Sylvanus,[113] 1511, brings
the Gulf of St. Lawrence and surroundings as an insular body almost as
near Ireland as are many of the presentations of Brazil Island on older
maps. He shows in front a single large island; a square gulf behind it;
a bent shore line forming the border on the north, west, and south;
and two gaps well representing the Straits of Belle Isle and Cabot.
The names given are Terra Laboratorum and Regalis Domus. Nobody doubts
that it illustrates the St. Lawrence Gulf region, though there has been
much speculation as to what unknown explorer has had his discoveries
commemorated here, thirteen years before the first voyage of Cartier.
Why should not a like episode of discovery and imperfect record have
happened at a still earlier date?

It is not to be supposed that Brazil Island was generally conceived
of by intelligent persons as no farther at sea than it appears on
the map of Dalorto, 1325, and divers later ones. Peasantry and
fisher folk might, indeed, confuse it with the mythical Isle of the
Undying--accessible only to a few chosen ones but vanishing from
ordinary mortal gaze--and thus account for Brazil’s elusiveness, though
so near at hand; but the sturdy explorers of Bristol[114] who kept
sailing westward in search of the island, before and after Columbus,
sometimes at least being away on this quest for many months together,
must often have passed over the very site given by Dalorto and far
beyond. They were looking for solid earth and rock and must have
been convinced that the real Brazil was to be found in remoter seas.
Also, during a great part of the period in which Brazil appeared on
the maps off the Blaskets and Limerick and unduly close to Ireland,
Italian traders were habitually following the Irish western coast and
trafficking in that port and others and must often have been blown out,
or sailed out by choice, far enough for a landing on the island if it
had actually been where Dalorto and others pictured it. The total lack
of any such happening must have been convincing to all except devotees
of the occult and those given over blindly to seashore tradition. No
doubt the far westward showing of the fifteenth-century Catalan and
the much later Nicolay and Zaltieri maps accorded with the general
expectation of thoughtful and well-informed navigators.


OMISSION OF THE NAME IN NORSE AND IRISH RECORDS

It may seem strange that the Norse sagas do not mention Brazil by that
name, though its relation to the Scandinavian colony of Greenland is
made so conspicuous on the Catalan fifteenth-century map above referred
to; also that there is no distinct Irish record of any voyage to Brazil
as such, though the western ports of Ireland were natural points of
departure and return for western voyages and though voyages to a far
western Great Ireland are reported by the Norse from Irish sources.
Perhaps there is no quite satisfactory answer to this. All narratives
of the kind are fragmentary and more or less mythical, and the name
Brazil may often have been used in the reports of Irish explorers,
as it certainly was later the especial goal of the English, without
having left any other trace than the name on the map and such hints as
we have mentioned. The Norse seem to have adhered to their own names
Markland and Vinland, only mentioning Great Ireland incidentally in
the same neighborhood and Brazil not at all unless the delineation of
the Catalan map be of their suggestion; but no really strong adverse
argument can be founded on these matters of nomenclature and omission
where all references and records are so meager.

There can be no certainty; but from the evidence at hand it seems
likely that the part of America indicated, i. e. Newfoundland and
neighboring shores, was visited very early by Irish-speaking people,
who gave it the commendatory name Brazil. Naturally one inclines to
ascribe such an unremitting westward push to the powerful religious
impulsion which, according to Dicuil, carried Irishmen to Iceland in
the latter part of the eighth century and even bore them on, it is
reported, some two hundred miles beyond it. The date, however, may
have been much later. Yet it must have preceded Dalorto’s map of 1325,
whereon Brazil first appears by name.

Of evidence on the ground there is nothing; but what have we now to
show even for the perfectly attested visits to the same region of
Cabot and Cortereal? Their case rests on maps, governmental entries,
and contemporary correspondence, luckily preserved. Earlier visits to
Brazil have no epistles, no entries, to show but must rely on the maps
and the general tradition in the British islands of such a western
region across at least a part of the great sea.




CHAPTER V

THE ISLAND OF THE SEVEN CITIES


The mythical islands of the Atlantic (_les îles fantastiques_) on the
old maps have had divers origins, instructive to study. Perhaps only
one of them derives its name and being directly from a real human
episode of a twilight period in history.

When the Moors descended on Spain in 711, routed King Roderick’s army
beside the Guadalete, and rapidly overran the Iberian Peninsula, it was
most natural, indeed nearly inevitable, that some Christian fugitives
should continue their flight from the seaboard to accessible islands
already known or rumored, or even desperately commit themselves in
blindness to the remoter mysteries of the ocean. Such an event would
afford a fabric for the embroidery of later fancy. A part of this has
been preserved by record; and it is curious to watch the development of
the story, which takes several forms, not differing widely, however,
one from another.


THE ISLAND OF BRAZIL

When Pedro de Ayala, Spanish Ambassador to Great Britain, found
occasion in 1498 to report English exploring activities to Ferdinand
and Isabella, he wrote:

    The people of Bristol have, for the last seven years, sent out
    every year two, three, or four light ships (caravels) in search
    of the island of Brasil and the seven cities.[115]

There is indeed one well-attested voyage of 1480 conducted by
well-known navigators, seeking this insular Brazil, and it was not the
earliest.

The first appearance of that island thus far reported, as we have seen
in the preceding chapter, is on the map of Dalorto[116] (dated 1325;
Fig. 4) as a disc of land well at sea, westward from Hibernian Munster;
but the Catalan map of 1375[117] (Fig. 5) and at least one other[118]
turn the disc into a ring surrounding a body of water which is studded
with small islands--apparently nine in the Catalan map photographically
reproduced by Nordenskiöld, though Dr. Kretschmer draws seven on
the other. These miniature islands have sometimes been thought[119]
to represent the seven cities of the old legend; but islets are not
cities, and there seems no reason why each city should require an
islet. However, the coincidence of number, exact or approximate, is
suggestive.


ANTILLIA

Antillia (variously spelled) was a home for the elusive cities more
favored than Brazil by cartography and tradition. In 1474 Toscanelli, a
cosmographer of Florence, being consulted by Christopher Columbus as to
the prospects of a westward voyage, sent him a copy of a letter which
he had written to a friend in the service of the King of Portugal. Its
authenticity has been questioned, but it is still believed in by the
majority of inquirers and may be accepted provisionally. In it occurs
this passage:

    From the island Antilia, which you call the seven cities, and
    whereof you have some knowledge, to the most noble island of
    Cipango [Japan], are ten spaces, which make 2,500 miles.[120]

The name Antillia had appeared on the maps much earlier. As Atilae,
or Atulae, it is doubtfully found in an inscription on that of the
Pizigani (1367;[121] Fig. 2), identifying a “shore,” not drawn, on
which a colossal statue of warning had been erected. The location seems
to be somewhere in the region where Corvo of the Azores should appear.

We meet the island name, for the first time unmistakably, on the map
of Beccario (Becharius) of 1435[122] (Fig. 20). It is applied to the
chief of a group of four large islands, comparable to nothing actually
in the western Atlantic except the Greater Antilles, or three of them
with Florida (Bimini). They are collectively designated “Insulle a Novo
Repte”--the “Newly Reported Islands.” Antillia itself is shown as an
elongated quadrilateral having its sides indented by seven two-lobed
bays of identical form, beside another and larger bay in the southern
end. Several subsequent maps repeat the delineation with little change,
and the map of Benincasa (1482;[123] Fig. 22) supplies local names for
the bays or the regions adjoining excepting only the lowest but one on
the eastern side, which bay is opposite the middle of the island name
Antillia. The other names as read by Dr. Kretschmer are Aira, Ansalli,
Ansodi, Con, Anhuib, Ansesseli, and Ansolli. It will be observed
that five of them borrow the first syllable of Antillia. Nobody has
explained these names, and they seem mere products of linguistic fancy.
But again the coincidence in number is impressive, although somewhat
offset by the fact that the next largest island in the group, Saluaga,
has a similar arrangement of five bays of like form and carries the
names, similarly applied, of Arahas, Duchal, Imada, Nom, and Consilla.
They can hardly be extra bishops’ towns. At least we are in the
dark about them. The anonymous map sometimes attributed to 1424 and
preserved at Weimar[124] shows in photographic copy traces of names, or
at least letters, on the part of Antillia which it represents. Its true
date is believed to be about that of Benincasa’s map above cited. But
the markings do not seem to be identical and are very meager.


THE LEGENDARY HOME OF PORTUGUESE REFUGEES

However, there can be no doubt of Toscanelli’s meaning at an earlier
date in the passage quoted. The same is true of Behaim’s globe (1492),
though he discards the accepted form of Antillia. He appends a long
inscription, translated by Ravenstein as follows:

    In the year 734 of Christ, when the whole of Spain had been won
    by the heathen (Moors) of Africa, the above island Antilia,
    called Septe citade (Seven cities), was inhabited by an
    archbishop from the Porto in Portugal, with six other bishops,
    and other Christians, men and women, who had fled thither from
    Spain, by ship, together with their cattle, belongings, and
    goods. 1414 a ship from Spain got nighest it without being
    endangered.[125]

Again, in Ruysch’s map of 1508 there is “a large island in the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean between Lat. N. 37° and 40°. It is called Antilia
Insula, and a long legend asserts that it had been discovered long ago
by the Spaniards, whose last Gothic king, Roderik, had taken refuge
there from the invasion of the Barbarians.”[126]

Ferdinand Columbus, living between 1488 and 1539, says that some
Portuguese cartographers had located

    Antilla ... not ... above 200 leagues due west from the
    Canaries and Azores, which they conclude to be certainly the
    island of the seven cities, peopled by the Portuguese at the
    time that Spain was conquered by the Moors in the year 714. At
    which time they say, seven bishops with their people embark’d
    and sailed to this island, where each of them built a city; and
    to the end none of their people might think of returning to
    Spain, they burnt the ships, tackle and all things necessary
    for sailing. Some Portuguese discoursing about this island,
    there were those that affirmed several Portuguese had gone to
    it, who could not find the way to it again.[127]

He relates particularly how “in the time of Henry infant of Portugal
[perhaps about 1430], a Portuguese ship was drove by stress of weather
to this island Antilla.” The crew went to church with the islanders but
were afraid of being detained and hurried back to Portugal. The Prince
heard their story and ordered them to return to the island, but they
escaped from him and were not found again. It is said that of the sand
gathered on Antillia for the cook room a third part was pure gold.

Galvano tells of a still later visit; or possibly it is only another
version of the same:

    In this yeere also, 1447, it happened that there came a
    Portugall ship through the streight of Gibraltar; and being
    taken with a great tempest, was forced to runne westwards
    more then willingly the men would, and at last they fell upon
    an Island which had seven cities, and the people spake the
    Portugall toong, and they demanded if the Moors did yet trouble
    Spaine, whence they had fled for the losse which they received
    by the death of the king of Spaine, Don Roderigo.

    The boateswaine of the ship brought home a little of the sand,
    and sold it unto a goldsmith of Lisbon, out of the which he had
    a good quantitie of gold.

    Don Pedro understanding this, being then governour of the
    realme, caused all the things thus brought home, and made
    knowne, to be recorded in the house of justice.

    There be some that thinke, that those Islands whereunto
    the Portugals were thus driven, were the Antiles, or Newe
    Spaine.[128]


ANOTHER ACCOUNT

The Portuguese historian Faria y Sousa has yet another version.
According to Stevens’ translation:

    After Roderick’s defeat the Moors spread themselves over all
    the province, committing inhuman barbarities. * * * The chief
    resistance was at Merida. The defendants, many of whom were
    Portuguese, that being the Supreme Tribunal of Lusitania, were
    commanded by Sacaru, a noble Goth. Many brave actions passed
    at the siege, but at length there being no hopes of relief and
    provisions failing, the town was surrendered upon articles.
    The commander of the Lusitanians, traversing Portugal, came to
    a seaport town, where, collecting a good number of ships, he
    put to sea, but to which part of the world they were carried
    does not appear. There is an ancient fable of an island called
    Antilla in the western ocean, inhabited by Portuguese, but it
    could never yet be found, and therefore we will leave it until
    such time as it is discovered, but to this place our author
    supposes these Portugals to have been driven.[129]

It is plain that Captain Stevens paraphrases with comments rather than
translates. The original[130] avers that the fugitives made sail for
the Fortunate Islands (the Canaries), in order that they might preserve
some remnants of the Spanish race, but were carried elsewhere. It also
specifies that the legendary island which they are supposed to have
reached is inhabited by Portuguese and contains seven cities--_tiene
siete cividades_.

This last account lacks positive mention of the emigrating bishops and
for the first time names a definite though rather remote goal as aimed
at by their effort. But the movement from Merida is well accounted for,
and a trusted military commander would seem a natural leader for such
an enterprise of wholesale escape. The bishops, implied by the seven
cities, might well gather to him at Oporto or be picked up on the way.
On the whole it seems the most easily believable version of the story;
though of course it does not necessarily follow that they really chose
any land so remote as Teneriffe and its neighbors--if they knew of
them--for a new abiding place. Of course the continuance of Portuguese
language and civilization and the persistence of seven isolated towns
through so many centuries must be ranked with the auriferous sands of
Antillia as late products of the dreaming Iberian brain.


MYTHICAL LOCATION OF THE SEVEN CITIES ON THE MAINLAND

The citations thus far given identify the Island of the Seven Cities
with some legendary, but generally believed-in patch of land afar out
in the ocean--sometimes with the Island of Brazil, more often with
Antillia. But the earliest of them dates six or seven centuries after
the supposed fact, and it may well be that a distinction was made
at first, which became lost afterward by blending. In a still later
stage of development the name of the Seven Cities becomes separate
and strangely migratory, not avoiding even the mainland. We know, for
instance, what power the Seven Cities of Cibola had to draw Coronado
and his followers northward through the mountains and deserts of our
still arid Southwest until all that was real of them stood revealed
as the even then antiquated and rather uncleanly terraced villages of
sun-dried brick which are picturesquely familiar on railway folders and
in the pages of illustrated magazines.

But this was not the only part of North America on which the romantic
myth alighted. The British Museum contains in MS. 2803 of the Egerton
collection an anonymous world map,[131] (Fig. 8), forming part of a
portolan atlas attributed by conjecture to 1508, which shows, somewhat
as in La Cosa’s map of 1500, the Atlantic coast distorted to a nearly
westward trend, with the Seven Cities (Septem Civitates), represented
by conventional indications of miters, scattered along a seaboard
tract from a point considerably west of “terra de los bacalos” and
the Bay of Fundy to a point nearly opposite the western end of Cuba.
The cartographer’s ideas of geography were exceedingly vague, but
apparently he conceived of Portuguese episcopal domination for the
coastal country between lower New England and Florida as we know them
now. Perhaps, however, he merely meant to set down his cities somewhere
on the eastern shore of temperate North America and has strewn them
along at convenience.

[Illustration: FIG. 8--Section of the world map in the portolan atlas
of about 1508 known as Egerton MS. 2803 in the British Museum, placing
the Seven Cities in North America and the name “Antiglia” in South
America. (After Stevenson’s photographic facsimile.)]

Incidentally, this map is also interesting as one of a few which
inscribe Antillia, with slight changes of orthography, on some part of
the mainland of South America. In this instance “Antiglia” occupies a
tract of the northwestern coastal country apparently corresponding to
contiguous portions of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.


LATER REAPPEARANCE AS AN ISLAND

But the Island of the Seven Cities appeared as such on other maps and
by this name only. Perhaps its most salient showing is on Desceliers’
fine map of 1546[132] (Fig. 9), that entertaining repository of isles
which are more than dubious and names which are fantastic. He presents
it off the American coast about a third as far as the Bermudas and
midway from Cape Breton to the Bay of Fundy. The size is considerable,
the outline being deeply embayed on several sides and hence very
irregular, almost as much so as Celebes. Two islets lie near two of its
projecting peninsulas. It bears a brief inscription giving the name
Sete Cidades and indicating that it belongs to Portugal.

This choice of location would have been more venturesome a century
later. In 1546 there had been some exploring and much fishing in these
waters but no determined settlement near them, and they were hardly
yet familiar. However, the Ortelius map of 1570[133] (Fig. 10), and
the Mercator map of 1587[134] find it more prudent to move this island
farther south and farther out to sea, reducing its area, but retaining
its traditional name. Not long after this, except for a local name on
St. Michaels of the Azores, the Seven Cities disappear from geography.

[Illustration: FIG. 9--Section of the Desceliers map of 1546 showing
the Island of Seven Cities and various other legendary islands. (After
Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.) The names are mostly upside
down because on the original south is at the top.]

[Illustration: FIG. 10--Section of Ortelius’ world map of 1570 showing,
of the legendary islands and regions discussed in the present work, the
Island of Seven Cities (“Sept cites”), St. Brendan’s Islands, Brazil,
Vlaenderen, Green Island (Y. Verdo), Estotiland, Drogio, Frisland,
Islands of Demons, La Emperadada, and Grocland. (After Nordenskiöld’s
photographic facsimile.)]


OCCURRENCE OF THE NAME IN THE AZORES

The exception noted is well worth considering. Just as Terceira retains
her medieval name of Brazil to designate one headland, St. Michaels has
still its valley of the Seven Cities. Brown’s guidebook presents the
fact very casually: “St. Michaels. Ponta Delgada. Brown’s Hotel. About
ten people. Among the chief sights are the lava beds coming from Sete
Cidades.... At Sete Cidades, which is worth a visit, there is a great
crater with two lakes at the bottom, one of which appears to be green,
the other blue.”[135]

This naïve incuriousness in the presence of something so significant
of course has not been shared by a different order of observers.
Buache[136] found here as he thought the genuine and only Seven
Cities of the legend. Humboldt[137] opposed this view with a reminder
of the Seven Cities of Cibola. But it is fair to remember that New
Mexico was quite impossible for the Portuguese of 711 or thereabout,
whereas St. Michaels Island offered an accessible and tempting place
of refuge. The name could not have been derived from settlement in
the former; but it might really be derived from settlement in the
latter. Granting that the fugitives might not be able to maintain
themselves there in safety for many years after the Arabs had begun
their tentative and always uneasy incursions into the western Sea
of Darkness, it still may be that the town or towns of this hidden
island valley might endure long enough and seem imposing enough and
be visited often enough by Christians from the mainland to supply the
nucleus of the most picturesque and adventurous of legends; and this
tale might follow any later migration into the unknown, or survive and
find new abiding places for the name and fancy long after the original
colony--archbishop and bishops and congregations, military commanders,
and mailed soldiery--had all been somehow destroyed or had melted apart
and drifted away. All that remains certain is the continued presence of
the name of the Seven Cities on that spot.

Some ruins are said to have marked it formerly, but very little
is visible now, if we may trust the following description by an
intelligent visitor in the middle of the last century:

    Emerging from these sunken lanes, so peculiar to the island
    of St. Michael’s, we come to the green hills which border the
    village and the valley of the Seven Cities.... From these dull
    evergreen mountains, stretching before us without apparent end,
    we speedily had an unexpected change. Suddenly the mountain
    track up which we were climbing ended on the edge of a vast
    precipice, hitherto entirely concealed, and at a moment’s
    transition disclosed a wide and deeply sunk valley with a
    scattered village and a blue lake. The hills which hemmed
    them in were bold and precipitous, tent-shaped, rounded and
    serrated. Others swept in soft and gentle lines into a little
    plain where the small village was nestled by the water side.
    The lake was of the deepest blue and so calm that a sea bird
    skimming over its surface seemed two, so perfect was its image
    in the water. The clouds above were floating in this very deep
    lake, and the inverted tops of the hills on every side were
    perfectly reflected in its bosom. A few women on the shore
    seemed rooted there, so steady were their reflections in the
    water, and the cattle standing in the shallows stood like
    cattle in a picture.... The sides slope gradually from this
    part of the valley into the level ground where the village
    stands. It is a small collection of cottages, without a church
    or a wineshop or a store of any kind, and at the time I entered
    it was enveloped in clouds of wood smoke which rose from the
    fires used in the process of bleaching cloth. This and clothes
    washing are the chief occupations of the villagers....

    A portion of the lake is separated from the larger one by a
    narrow causeway. It is singular to notice the difference made
    in the two pieces of water by this small embankment; for, while
    the large lake is clear and crystalline, this is thick, green,
    and muddy, and as gloomy as the Dead Sea, with no clouds or
    birds or bright sky reflected in it.[138]

Perhaps a little excavating archeology might not be amiss in the
neighborhood of the causeway and the green dead lakelet. But at least
it is satisfactory to have a good external account of the only site
in the world, so far as I know, which still bears the legendary name.
As elsewhere used, this name has certainly wandered widely and been
affixed to many places. Whether any of these represent real refuges
of the original emigrants or their descendants or others like them
no one can quite certainly say; but there is no evidence for it, and
the probabilities are against it. Certainly no Spanish nor Portuguese
community, of Moorish or of any pre-Columbian times, established itself
in western lands for any great period to make good the aspiration of
the fugitives of Merida.




CHAPTER VI

THE PROBLEM OF MAYDA


Of all the legendary islands and island names on the medieval maps,
Mayda has been the most enduring. The shape of the island has generally
approximated a crescent; its site most often has been far west of lower
Brittany and more or less nearly southwest of Ireland; the spelling
of the name sometimes has varied to Maida, Mayd, Mayde, Asmaida, or
Asmayda. The island had other names also earlier and later and between
times, but the identity is fairly clear. As a geographical item it
is very persistent indeed. Humboldt about 1836 remarked that, out of
eleven such islands which he might mention, only two, Mayda and Brazil
Rock, maintain themselves on modern charts.[139] In a note he instances
the world map of John Purdy of 1834. However, this was not the end; for
a relief map published in Chicago and bearing a notice of copyright of
1906 exhibits Mayda. Possibly this is intended to have an educational
and historic bearing; but it seems to be shown in simple credulity, a
crowning instance of cartographic conservation.


POSSIBLE ARABIC ORIGIN OF NAME

If Mayda may, therefore, be said to belong in a sense to the twentieth
century, it is none the less very old, and the name has sometimes been
ascribed to an Arabic origin. Not very long after their conquest of
Spain the Moors certainly sailed the eastern Atlantic quite freely
and may well have extended their voyages into its middle waters and
indefinitely beyond. They named some islands of the Azores, as would
appear from Edrisi’s treatise and other productions; but these names
did not adhere unless in free translation. The name Mayda was not
one of those that have come down to us in their writings or on their
maps, and its origin remains unexplained. It is unlike all the other
names in the sea. Perhaps the Arabic impression is strengthened by the
form Asmaidas, under which it appears (this is nearly or quite its
first appearance) on the map of the New World in the 1513 edition of
Ptolemy (Fig. 11).[140] But any possible significance vanishes from
the prefixed syllable when we find the same map turning Gomera into
Agomera, Madeira into Amadera, and Brazil into Obrassil. Evidently
this map-maker had a fancy for superfluous vowels as a beginning of his
island names. He may have been led into it by the common practice of
prefixing “I” or the alternative “Y” (meaning Insula, Isola, Ilha, or
Innis) instead of writing out the word for island in one language or
another.

[Illustration: FIG. 11--Section of the map of the New World in the 1513
edition of Ptolemy showing the islands of Mayda (asmaidas) and Brazil
(obrassil). (After Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.)]

However, there is a recorded Arabic association of this particular
island under another name. It had been generally called Mam or Man,
and occasionally other names, for more than a century before it was
called Mayda. Perhaps the oldest name of all is Brazir, by which it
appears on the map of 1367 of the Pizigani brothers (Fig. 2),[141] a
form evidently modified from Brazil and shared with the round island
of that name then already more than forty years old on the charts.
The Brazil which we specially have to do with bears roughly and
approximately the crescent form, which later became usually more neat
and conventionalized under the name Man or Mayda. It appears south (or
rather a little west of south) of the circular Brazil, which is, as
usual, west of southern Ireland and a little south of west of Limerick.
The crescent island is also almost exactly in the latitude of southern
Brittany, taking a point a little below the Isle de Sein, which still
bears that name. In this position there may be indications of relation
with both Brittany and Ireland. The former relation is pictorially
attested by three Breton ships. One of them is shown returning to the
mouth of the Loire. A second has barely escaped from the neighborhood
of the fateful island. A third is being drawn down stern foremost by
a very aggressive decapod, which drags overboard one of the crew;
perhaps she has already shattered herself on the rocks, offering the
opportunity of such capture in her disabled state. A dragon flies by
with another seaman, apparently snatched from the submerging deck.
Blurred and confused inscriptions in strange transitional Latin seem
to warn us of the special dangers of navigation in this quarter; the
staving of holes in ships, the tawny monsters, known to the Arabs,
which rise from the depths, the dragons that come flying to devour. The
words “Arabe” and “Arabour” are readily decipherable; so is “dragones.”
Perhaps there is no statement that Arabs have been to that island,
for their peculiar experience may belong to some other quarter of the
globe; but the verbal association is surely significant. The name
Bentusla (Bentufla?) applied to this crescent island by Bianco in his
map of 1448[142] has sometimes been thought to have an Arabic origin;
but one would not feel safe in citing this as absolute corroboration.
The Breton character of the ships, however, may be gathered (as well as
from their direction and behavior) from the barred ensigns which they
carry, recalling the barred standard set up at Nantes of Brittany, in
Dulcert’s map of 1339,[143] just as the _fleur-de-lis_ is planted by
him at Paris.


MAYDA AND THE ISLE OF MAN

We have, then, in this fourteenth-century island a direct recorded
association with the Arabs, followed long after by what have been
thought to be Arabic names. We have also a pictorial and cartographical
connection with Brittany and also an indication of relations with
Ireland. This last is fortified by its next and, except Mayda, its most
lasting name.

The great Catalan map of 1375[144] (Fig. 5) calls it Mam, which should
doubtless be read as Man, for it was common to treat “m” and “n” as
interchangeable, no less than “u” and “v” or “i” and “y.” Thus Pareto’s
map of 1455[145] (Fig. 21) turns the Latin “hanc” into “hamc” and
“Aragon” into “Aragom.” On some of the early maps, e. g. that of
Juan da Napoli (fifteenth century),[146] the proper spelling “Man” is
retained, just as it is retained and has been ever since early Celtic
days, in the name of the home of “the little Manx nation” in the Irish
Sea. That the same name should be carried farther afield and applied
to a remote island of the Atlantic Ocean is quite in accordance with
the natural course of things and the general experience of mankind.
No doubt the name Man might be derived from other sources, but the
chances are in this instance that the Irish people whose navigators
found Brazil Island (or imagined it, if you please) did the same favor
for the crescent-shaped “Man,” quite overriding for a hundred years any
preceding or competing titles.

Almost immediately there was some competition, for the Pinelli map
of 1384[147] calls it Jonzele (possibly to be read I Onzele, a word
which has an Italian look but is of no certain derivation), reducing
the delineation of the island to a mere shred, bringing Brazil close
to it, and giving the pair a more northern and more inshore location.
Another map of about the same period follows this lead, but there
the divergence ended. Soleri of 1385[148] reverted to the former
representation; and about the opening of the fifteenth century the
regular showing of the pair was established--Brazil and Man, circle
and crescent, by those names and in approximately the locations and
relative position first stated.

It is true that the crescent island is sometimes represented without
any name, as though it were well enough known to make a name
unnecessary. But during the fifteenth century, when it is called
anything, with a bare exception or two, it is called Man. Its shape and
general location are substantially those of the Catalan map of 1375 on
the maps of Juan da Napoli; Giraldi, 1426;[149] Beccario, 1426[150]
and 1435[151] (Fig. 20); Bianco, 1436 and 1448;[152] Benincasa,
1467[153] and 1482[154] (Fig. 22); Roselli, 1468;[155] the Weimar map,
(probably) about 1481;[156] Freducci, 1497;[157] and others--arguing
surely a robust and confident tradition.


RESUMPTION OF NAME “MAYDA”

On sixteenth-century maps this island is still generally presented,
though lacking on those of Ruysch, 1508;[158] Coppo, 1528[159] (Fig.
13); and Ribero, 1529;[160] but suddenly and almost completely the
name Mayda in its various forms takes the place of Man, a substitution
quite unaccounted for. There are hardly enough instances of survival of
the older name to be worth mentioning. Was there some resuscitation of
old records or charts, now lost again, which thus overcame the Celtic
claim and supplied an Arabic or at least a quite alien and unusual
designation? The little mystery is not likely ever to be cleared up.
The previously mentioned map from the Ptolemy edition of 1513 (Fig.
11), which perhaps first introduces it, also presents several other
innovations in departing from the crescent form and shifting the island
a degree or two southward; and these changes surely seem to hint at
some fresh information. That there was no supposed change of identity
is shown by the fact that succeeding cartographers down to and beyond
the middle of that century revert generally to the established crescent
form and to nearly the same place in the ocean previously occupied by
Man, while applying the new name Mayda. Thus an anonymous Portuguese
map of 1519 or 1520,[161] reproduced by Kretschmer, and the graduated
and numbered map of Prunes, 1553[162] (Fig. 12), concur in placing
Mayda or Mayd at about latitude 48° N., the latitude of Quimper,
Brittany, and almost exactly the same as that given by the Pizigani to
the crescent island on its first appearance on the maps as a clearly
recognizable entity.


TRANSFERENCE OF MAYDA TO AMERICAN WATERS

The maps made after the world had become more or less familiarized
with the details of modern discoveries, in this case as in most others
of its kind, indicate little except the dying out of old traditions,
whatever they may have been, and haphazard or conventional substitution
of locations and forms or the influence of the new geographic facts
and theories. Thus Desceliers’ map of 1546[163] (Fig. 9), a museum of
strangely-named sea islands, makes the latitude of “Maidas” 47° and
the longitude that of St. Michaels, but not long afterward Nicolay
(1560;[164] Fig. 6) and Zaltieri (1566)[165] transferred the island to
Newfoundland waters. Nicolay calls it “I man orbolunda,” and places
it just south of the Strait of Belle Isle. It is accompanied by Green
Island and by Brazil, a little farther out on the Grand Banks where the
Virgin Rocks may still be found at low tide. Taken together these three
islands look like parts of a disintegrated Newfoundland. Zaltieri of
1566 gives Maida by that name more nearly the same outward location,
though it is still distinctly American. Nicolay’s name “orbolunda”
is one of the many puzzling things connected with this island. His
“Man” may be either a reversion to the fifteenth-century name, or,
more likely, a modification of, or error in copying from Gastaldi’s
map-illustration[166] of Ramusio about ten years previously, which
allots the same inclement site to an “isola de demoni” and depicts the
little capering devils in wait there for their prey. It is likely,
though, that Gastaldi had no thought of identifying it with Mayda. But
the neighborhood of the island of Brazil and Green Island seem nearly
conclusive evidence that Nicolay intended I Man for Mayda and had
ascribed to it, by reason of evil association, the supposed attributes
of Gastaldi’s island. However, Ramusio himself in 1566,[167] the same
year as Zaltieri, set his “Man” south of Brazil off the coast of
Ireland. The only really important contributions of these maps are
their testimony to the continued diabolical reports of Mayda, or Man,
and the apparent conviction of Nicolay and Zaltieri that the island was
after all American; a suggestion that could have had no meaning and no
support in the times when America was unrecognized. Evidently these
map-makers did not regard the inadequate western longitude of Mayda, or
Man, in the older maps as a formidable objection. Presumably they were
well aware how many of the insular oceanic distances as shown by these
forerunners needed stretching in the light of later discovery. But
their views with regard to an American Mayda seem to have ended with
them, so far as map representation is concerned.

[Illustration: FIG. 12--Section of the Prunes map of 1553 showing
Mayda (in latitude 48°), Brazil, and Estotiland (“Esthlanda”). (After
Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.)]


POSSIBLE IDENTITY OF VLAENDEREN ISLAND WITH MAYDA

There is another curious and rather mystifying episodical divergence
in the cartography of that period, this time on the part of the great
geographers Ortelius and Mercator in their respective series of maps
during the latter part of the sixteenth century, for example Ortelius
of 1570[168] and Mercator of 1587.[169] Ortelius presents as Vlaenderen
an oceanic island which certainly seems intended for Mayda (Fig. 10),
while Mercator shows Vlaenderen as lying about half-way between Brazil
and the usual site of Maida. The word has a Dutch or Flemish look. Of
course there must be some explanation of it, but this is unknown to the
writer. The natural inference would be that some skipper of the Low
Countries thought he had happened upon it and reported accordingly.
This was what occurred in the case of Negra’s Rock, now held to be
wholly fictitious though shown in many maps; and also in the case of
the sunken land of Buss, now generally recognized as real and as a part
of Greenland but recorded and delineated in the wrong place by an error
of observation. It may be that Ortelius believed in a rediscovery of
Mayda and that for some reason it should have the name latest given.
But, in spite of the prestige of these great names, Vlaenderen did not
continue on the maps, while Mayda did, though in a rather capricious
way.


PERSISTENCE OF MAYDA ON MAPS DOWN TO THE MODERN PERIOD

There would be little profit in listing the maps of the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries which persisted by inertia and
convention in the nearly stereotyped delineation of Mayda but, of
course, with slight variations in location and name. Thus Nicolaas
Vischer in a map of Europe of 1670 (?)[170] shows “L’as Maidas” in
the longitude of Madeira and the latitude of Brittany; a world map
in Robert’s “Atlas Universel” (1757)[171] gives “I. Maida” about the
longitude of Madeira and the latitude of Gascony; and on a chart of the
Atlantic Ocean published in New York in 1814[172] “Mayda” appears in
longitude 20° W. and latitude 46° N. But these representations have no
significance except as to human continuity.

The evil reputation which was early established and seems to have hung
about the island in later stages, assimilating the icy clashings and
noises and terrors of the north as it had previously incorporated the
monstrous fears of a warmer part of the ocean, is surely a curious
phenomenon. I have fancied it may be responsible for the probably quite
imaginary Devil Rock, which appears in some relatively recent maps,
perhaps as a kind of substitute for Mayda, much in the fashion that
Brazil Rock took the place of Brazil Island when belief in the latter
became difficult. The present view of the U. S. Hydrographic Office,
as expressed on its charts, is that Negra’s Rock, Devil Rock, Green
Island, or Rock, and all that tribe are unreal “dangers,” probably
reported as the result of peculiar appearances of the water surface.
Whether the possibility has been wholly eliminated of a lance of rock
jutting up to the surface from great depths and not yet officially
recognized, I will not presume to say; but it seems highly improbable
that there is anything of the sort in the North Atlantic Ocean except
the lonely and nearly submerged peak of Rockall, some 400 miles west of
Britain, and the well-known oceanic groups and archipelagoes.


PROBABLE BASIS OF FACT UNDERLYING THIS LEGENDARY ISLAND

What was this island, then, which held its place in the maps during
half a millennium and more, under two chief names and occasional
substitutes, designations apparently received from so many different
peoples? One cannot easily set it aside as a “peculiar appearance
of the surface” or as a mere figment of fancy. But there is nothing
westward or southwestward of the Azores except the Bermudas and
the capes and coast islands of America. The identification with
some outlying island of the Azores, as Corvo, for example, is an
old hypothesis; and the grotesquery of that rocky islet seems to
have deeply impressed the minds of early navigators, lending some
countenance to the idea. But the Laurenziano map of 1351[173] and the
Book of the Spanish Friar[174] show that all the islands of the Azores
group were known before the middle of the fourteenth century, and
Corvo in particular had been given the name which it still holds. Man,
afterward Mayda, appears on many maps of the fifteenth century, which
show also the Azores in full. Perhaps this is not conclusive, for there
are strange blunders and duplications on old maps; but it is at least
highly significant. If Man, or Mayda, were really Corvo or another
island of the Azores group, surely someone would have found it out in
the course of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, just as it came to
be perceived after a time that the Azores had been located too near
to Europe and just as Bianco’s duplication of the Azores in 1448 had
finally to be rejected. Mayda, if real, must have been something more
remote and difficult to determine than Corvo.

Perhaps Nicolay and Zaltieri were right in thinking that Mayda was
America, or at least was on the side of the Atlantic toward America.
The latitude generally chosen by the maps would then call for Avalon
Peninsula, Newfoundland, often supposed to be insular in early days;
or perhaps for Cape Breton Island, the next salient land feature. But
that is an uncertain reliance, for the observations of pre-Columbian
navigators would surely be rather haphazard, and they might naturally
judge by similarity of climate. This would justify them in supposing
that a region really more southerly lay in the latitude of northern
France--for example Cape Cod, which juts out conspicuously and is
curved and almost insular. Or by going farther south, although nearer
Europe, they might thus indicate the Bermudas, the main island of which
is given a crescent form on several relatively late maps. But we must
not lay too much stress on this last item, for divers other map islands
were modeled on this plan. We may be justified, then, in saying that
Mayda was probably west of the middle of the Atlantic and that Bermuda,
Cape Cod, or Cape Breton is as likely a candidate for identification as
we can name.




CHAPTER VII

GREENLAND OR GREEN ISLAND


The first account of Greenland given to the world, indeed the first
mention of that region in literature, is by Adam of Bremen, an
ecclesiastical official and geographical author.


ADAM OF BREMEN’S ACCOUNT OF GREENLAND

He interviewed in 1069 the enterprising king Sweyn of Denmark, and
acquired from him divers Scandinavian and other northern items which
Adam embodied about 1076 in his work “Descriptio Insularum Aquilonis,”
the Description of the Northern Islands. Nansen quotes, with other
matter, the following passages:[175]

    ... On the north this ocean flows past the Orchades, thence
    endlessly around the circle of the earth, having on the left
    Hybernia, the home of the Scots, which is now called Ireland,
    and on the right the skerries of Nordmannia, and farther off
    the islands of Iceland and Greenland....

    Furthermore, there are many other islands in the great ocean,
    of which Greenland is not the least; it lies farther out in
    the ocean, opposite the mountains of Suedea, or the Riphean
    range. To this island, it is said, one can sail from the shore
    of Nortmannia [_sic_] in five or seven days, as likewise to
    Iceland. The people there are blue (“cerulei”, bluish-green)
    from the salt water; and from this the region takes its name.
    They live in a similar fashion to the Icelanders, except that
    they are more cruel and trouble seafarers by predatory attacks.
    To them also, as is reported, Christianity has lately been
    wafted.

It was in fact about seventy-five years since Leif, son of Eric the
Red, according to the sagas, had effected that wafting from the
Christian court of Norway to the still pagan Norsemen of his father’s
far-western domain. For Adam clearly means these white people and not
the Eskimos, with whom they had not yet come in contact and of whom no
whisper had yet reached the European world unless it related to relics
of former occupancy discerned on first landing. It is surely matter for
astonishment to find the ruddy followers of hot-blooded Eric described
as bluish-green and so conspicuous in this complexion that it gave
their region its name. Perhaps there is no more curious instance to be
found of the inveterate human tendency to read into any unfamiliar name
some meaning that seems plausible.

It is not clear where Adam supposed Greenland to be located; perhaps
he, too, was not clear about the matter. The earlier of his two
passages on the subject seems to call for something like the true
location in the far west; but the later mention of the mountains of
Sweden has been understood by the most learned commentators to indicate
a site directly north of Norway. King Sweyn perhaps had a fairly good
idea of the sailing courses for Iceland and Greenland, but his guest
may have assimilated the information rather confusedly. Adam seems
convinced that Greenland was a distinctly oceanic island, with no
suggestion of any near relation to any continent. In this respect he
differs from certain maps of the fifteenth century with which we shall
presently have to deal. We know now that the truth lies between these
views; that the highly glaciated mass which we name in its entirety
Greenland is, indeed, an island and probably the largest of islands but
an island with the aspect and attributes of a peninsula, being barely
severed from that polar archipelago which crowns our American mainland
and being not very remote at one point from the mainland itself.


ITS INSULAR CHARACTER

Adam’s idea of oceanic insulation was accepted in many quarters, as
the maps disclose. Of course, they may not have derived it from him
in all instances, directly or indirectly, but at least they shared
it. Usually the name, slightly changed, becomes the equivalent “Green
Island” in one or another of several languages. Thus, to take a very
late instance, the map of Coppo, 1528[176] (Fig. 13), discloses near
the true site of Greenland a mass of land elongated from east to west,
but clearly all at sea with no greater land near it, and labeled Isola
Verde. There seems no room for doubt of the meaning or origin of this
name. That any land found there should be an island of the sea was
the natural assumption of geographers at that time. Maps of the early
sixteenth century generally show a scattering of islands south of North
America sometimes approaching an archipelago, sometimes more widely
distributed, and in either case being substitutes for what we now know
as North America and its appendages.


AS “ILLA VERDE” ON THE CATALAN MAP OF 1480

In another well-known map[177] (Fig. 7), an unnamed cartographer,
said to be Catalan, probably about 1480, delineates an elongated Illa
Verde (using the Portuguese name for island), locating it southwest of
Iceland, which bears the name Fixlanda, but is easily identifiable by
its outline and geographical features. His Illa Verde runs nearly north
and south, approximating more closely than Coppo’s island the true
trend of Greenland. It also by its greater bulk seems founded on more
adequate information. It is equally at sea and remote from other land,
except that off its concave southern end, with a narrow interval, lies
a large circular island named Brazil, our old mythical acquaintance of
medieval maps not often located so far westward but, as we have seen in
Chapter IV, apparently intended to represent the Gulf of St. Lawrence
region. These two islands strikingly resemble in general situation and
arrangement the Greenland and Estotiland (Labrador) in a map (Fig. 14)
illustrating Torfaeus’ early eighteenth century “Gronlandia,”[178]
except that the rounded outline of Estotiland is not completed, its
proportional area is greater than “Brazil,” the strait between the
two bodies of land is a little wider, and the lower end of Torfaeus’
Greenland is not made concave like that of Illa Verde. But again there
can be no doubt that the Illa Verde of the Catalan (if he were a
Catalan) represents the Greenland of Adam of Bremen and the sagas.

[Illustration: FIG. 13--Coppo’s world map of 1528 showing Green Island
(“isola verde”). (After Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.)]


GREEN ISLAND ON SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MAPS

To the same origin, in a remoter sense, we may ascribe the rather
large Insula Viridis of Schöner, 1520,[179] which is brought down to a
latitude between that of southern Ireland and that of northern Spain
and something east of mid-ocean. It must seem that the map-maker had
quite lost sight of any relation between this Latinized Green Island
and the true Greenland of the northwest.

[Illustration: FIG. 14--Bishop Thorláksson’s map of Greenland 1606,
showing Estotiland as a part of America. Cf. with Fig. 18. (From
Torfaeus’ “Gronlandia antiqua,” Copenhagen, 1706, in the library of the
American Geographical Society.)]

This is even more obviously true of Nicolay’s map of 1560[180] (Fig.
6), which carries Verde into the Newfoundland Banks, even nearer
than his Brazil to a broken-up Newfoundland; and of Zaltieri’s map
of 1566,[181] which plants Verde rather close to “C. Ras” (Cape
Race), with only a narrow strip of water between. These cartographers
undoubtedly indicated American habitats for their little island; but
they can have had no thought of confusing it with Greenland, which
they well knew and which Zaltieri distinctly shows as Grutlandia.
They would be far from admitting a common origin. Perhaps in most
of such northern cases a conception like Coppo’s of Greenland as
an oceanic island is at the root of the derivation; but successive
copyings, modifications, and shiftings may have altered the area, form,
and location, while the clue was gradually lost and only the name
remained--hardly as a reminder, for it is of too general descriptive
application.


VARIOUS “GREEN ISLANDS:” SHRINKAGE OF THE NAME

There is, indeed, one instance of a Green Island with which Greenland
can have had nothing whatever to do. Peter Martyr d’Anghiera’s sketch
map of 1511[182] shows a small tropical Isla Verde near Trinidad; it is
apparently Tobago. Doubtless its luxuriance of vegetation prompted the
name.

This may have happened in other instances of warm climates or even in
temperate zones where grass and foliage grow freely; so that we in
many cases cannot distinguish on the maps the Green Islands, real or
fanciful, which acquired their name as a remote legacy of Eric’s land
from those which were called “green” simply because they were green.
Both derivations may sometimes apply; but the islands of the far
northwest bearing that name, like Coppo’s island and the Catalan’s Illa
Verde, must naturally go into the former category.

As we have seen, Green Islands were scattered rather widely; but the
name occurs most often in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in
the middle or eastern part of the ocean to indicate a small island,
having Mayda (Vlaenderen) for its rather distant consort. Desceliers
indeed, in 1546[183] (Fig. 9), shows it in the same longitude as
the tip of Labrador, but this is done by carrying Labrador too far
eastward. St. Brandan’s Island is a neighbor on his map. Ortelius,
in 1570[184] (Fig. 10) and Mercator, in 1587,[185] represent Y
Verde west of Vlaenderen in the region north of the Azores. In the
eighteenth century it still held its ground west of France in the
eastern Atlantic as Isla Verde, Isla Verte, Ile Verte, Ilha Verde, and
Green Island. By the early part of the nineteenth century it had, after
its kind, dwindled to Green Rock--Brazil Island similarly becoming
Brazil Rock--as dubious rocks became easier to believe in than dubious
islands. Perhaps the well-known actual instances of Rockall and the
Virgin Rocks may have prompted credence in other spears and knolls of
the earth crust here and there reaching the surface.

The Hydrographic Office does not believe in any such Green Rock or
Green Island but supplies, in a letter to the writer, a mariner’s yarn
which is not without interest and may be evidence for the rock as far
as it goes.

“Captain Tulloch, of New Hampshire, states that an acquaintance of
his, Captain Coombs, of the ship _Pallas_, of Bath, Maine, in keeping
a lookout for Green Island actually saw it on a remarkably fine day
when the sea was smooth. According to the story, he went out in his
boat and examined it and found it to be a large rock covered with green
moss. The rock did not seem much larger than a vessel floating bottom
upward, and it was smooth all around. The summit was higher than a
vessel’s bottom would appear out of the water, being about twenty feet
above the surface of the sea. Captain Coombs added that if the object
had not been so high he would have thought it to be a capsized vessel.
A sounding taken near this spot shows that a depth of 1,500 fathoms
exists there.”

So Greenland, misunderstood and carried southward, dwindles to what may
be taken for a capsized vessel’s hull, the existence of which is denied
by those who best should know. Or, to take it the other way about, the
traditions of Green Island, dwindling, prompted the mariner’s fancy to
develop a Green Rock; and Green Island is in numerous instances derived
mainly, even if remotely, from Greenland, reinforced sometimes by
implications of attractiveness.


ORIGIN OF THE NAME “GREENLAND” AND ITS JUSTIFICATION

There can be no doubt that the Down East sea captain, who was so quick
to perceive green vegetation on his fancied Green Island, came nearer
the true explanation of Greenland’s name than the good prebendary of
Bremen with his bluish-green Norsemen colored by the sea. It is pretty
well understood that about 985 or 986 Eric Rauda (Eric the Red, or
Ruddy), the first explorer and colonizer of this new region, applied
the name at least partly as an advertisement of fertility and promising
conditions for the encouragement of Icelandic colonists. This is the
way Ari Frode (the Wise), the best informed man of Iceland, puts it
in his surviving Libellus of the “Islendingabok” about a century
later:[186]

    This country which is called Greenland was discovered and
    colonized from Iceland. Eric the Red was the name of the man,
    an inhabitant of Breidafirth, who went thither from here and
    settled at that place, which has since been called Ericsfirth.
    He gave a name to the country and called it Greenland and
    said that it must persuade men to go thither if it had a good
    name. They found there both east and west in the country the
    dwellings of men and fragments of boats and stone implements
    such that it might be perceived from these that that manner
    of people had been there who have inhabited Wineland and whom
    Greenlanders call Skraelings. And this when he set about the
    colonization of the country was fourteen or fifteen winters
    before the introduction of Christianity here in Iceland,
    according to what a certain man who himself accompanied Eric
    the Red thither informed Thorkell Gellison.

This last was an uncle of Ari, a man of liberal and inquiring mind and
one of Ari’s most valued sources of knowledge as to the affairs of
earlier generations.

The passage has been often quoted, but that Eric was largely justified
in his nomenclature is less generally known. Greenland to the
intending colonists would naturally mean not the ice-enshrouded waste
of the almost continental interior nor yet the forbidding cliffs of
the eastern coast guarded by a nearly impassable floe-laden Arctic
current, but the really habitable thousand-mile fringe of uncovered
land along the southwestern shore, on the average fifty miles wide and
occasionally much wider. It was partly shut in by forbidding headlands
and perverse currents, but feasible of access when the true course was
disclosed. Some parts of this region were, and still are, green with
grass and bright with summer flowers. Nansen, who certainly ought to
know, declares that the Greenland sites chosen would have seemed more
attractive than Iceland to an Icelander. Rink, who was connected with
the Greenland government for a full generation, mentions certain places
with special approval and regards life in most parts of the inhabited
region quite contentedly.[187] Professor Hovgaard tells us:[188]


ICELANDIC SETTLEMENT

    It was on this strip of land that the Icelanders settled at the
    end of the tenth century. Though barren on the outer shores and
    islands and on the hills, it is covered at the inner part of
    the fiords on the low level by a rich growth of grass together
    with stunted birch trees and various bushes, particularly
    willows. On the north side of the valleys crowberries
    (_Empetrum nigrum_) may be found....

    Eric settled in Ericsfiord, the present Tunugdliarfik, at
    a place which he called Brattahlid, now Kagsiarsuk, in 985
    or 986. Two distinct colonies were founded, the Eastern
    Settlement, extending from about Cape Farewell to a point well
    beyond Cape Desolation, comprising the whole of Julianehaab
    Bay and the coast past Ivigtut, and the Western Settlement,
    beginning about one hundred and seventy miles farther north
    at Lysufiord, [i.e. Agnafiord], the present Ameralikfiord,
    comprising the district of Godthaab.

    The fiord next Ericsfiord in the Eastern Settlement was
    Einarsfiord, now Igalikofiord. These fiords were separated
    at their head by a low and narrow strip of land, the present
    Igaliko Isthmus. It was here, at Gardar, that the Althing of
    Greenland met, and here was also found the bishop’s seat,
    established at the beginning of the twelfth century. There were
    as many as sixteen churches in Greenland, for almost every
    fiord had its own church on account of the long distances and
    difficult traveling between the fiords.

[Illustration: FIG. 15--Map of the early Norse Western and Eastern
Settlements of Greenland. Scale 1:6,400,000. (The inset below.
1:70,000,000, shows the relation of Norway, Iceland, and Greenland.)]

The unfamiliar localities above named may be followed by the aid of the
accompanying map (Fig. 15) copied from Finnur

Jónsson’s maps,[189] which embody the results of the research of the
best experts and scholars with the aid of relics on the ground and
surviving records. It is apparent that from the first to last the
heart of Greenland was about the low, fairly fertile, favorable tract
near the heads of the two fiords named for Eric and his friend, Einar,
and not far from Eric’s Greenland home. The Western Settlement was a
comparatively small offshoot, with four churches only, yet it contrived
to maintain existence for between three and four centuries, being at
last obliterated, as is supposed, by the Eskimos. The main settlement
was still more enduring, having a continuous record of nearly half
a millennium, a history not surpassed in duration by some far more
populous and powerful nations.

[Illustration: FIG. 16--Section of the Clavus map of 1427 showing
Greenland continuous with Europe. (After Joseph Fischer’s hand-copied
reproduction.)]

This seems marvelous, if it be true that the entire population never
exceeded 2,000 souls, as Nansen and Hovgaard have supposed. Rink, on
the other hand, estimated the maximum at 10,000.[190] Some intermediate
number would seem more likely than either extreme, if we may hazard
a conjecture where doctors disagree. The prosperity of the colony,
such as it was, seems to have been at its best in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries but was never conspicuous enough to get an outline of
Greenland into the maps until about the time of final extinction.

[Illustration: FIG. 17--Section of the world map of Donnus Nicolaus
Germanus (after 1466) showing Greenland continuous with Europe. (After
Joseph Fischer’s photographic reproduction.)]


GREENLAND AS A PENINSULA

We must remember, though, that during the earlier part of this period
there were not many maps extant which included the Atlantic, and
of these the greater number were more concerned with theological
conceptions and figures of wonder than with the sober facts of
geography, especially in remote places. About 1300 a remarkable series
of navigators’ portolan maps, revolutionizing this attitude, began to
add to the delineation of the Mediterranean, which they had already
developed with considerable minuteness, something definite of the
outer European coasts, islands, and waters. Step by step they advanced
into the unknown or little known, but perhaps none of them, before the
fifteenth century, can be confidently relied on as indicating Greenland.

This remained for the Nancy map of Claudius Clavus (Schwartz),
1427[191] (Fig. 16). Greenland is, however, made distinctly continuous
with Europe, being connected thereto by a long land bridge, far north
of Iceland, in accordance with an hypothesis then prevailing. The
second half of the same century saw this conception of Claudius Clavus
greatly popularized. Divers maps[192] appeared, some showing Greenland
as a prodigiously elongated peninsula of Europe, having its tip in the
correct location (Fig. 17), while others ran up a perverse trapezoidal
Greenland from the north coast of Norway.

Probably one or more of the former kind suggested in part the memorable
Zeno map of 1558[193] (Fig. 19), professing to be a reproduction of a
map prepared by the Zeni of a past generation and carelessly damaged
by the final editor in boyhood. If not a total forgery, it is at least
untrustworthy, as we shall see in Chapter IX, and the same is true of
an accompanying narrative of experiences in Greenland about 1400.

Another map of somewhat later date, by Sigurdr Stefánsson, probably
1590[194] (Fig. 18), is a quite honest presentation of the traditional
views of Icelanders at that time and is distinctly more modern than
the Zeno map in the complete severance of Greenland from Europe and
its union with the great western land mass which included Helluland,
Markland, and Vinland, supposed to be divided by a fiord from “America
of the Spaniards.” Of course, that union with the Western continent
is not precisely accurate and the eastward trend which he gives his
great peninsula is still less so; but his map, often copied, remains a
peculiarly interesting production.


LIFE OF THE ICELANDIC COLONY

To hark back to Adam of Bremen, the charges of special cruelty and
predatory attacks on seafarers in the middle of the eleventh century
awaken some surprise. The life of the people seems simple and innocent
enough, as disclosed by their relics and remnants, which have been
unearthed with great care. As seal bones predominate in their refuse
piles, this offshore supply must have been their greatest reliance
for animal food; but they had also sheep, goats, and a small breed of
cattle. They spun wool and wove it; they carved vessels of soapstone,
sometimes with decoration; they milked cows and made butter; they
exported sealskins, ropes of walrus hide, and walrus tusks; they paid
tithes to the Pope in such commodities; they boiled seal fat and made
seal tar; they gathered tree trunks as driftwood far up the coast
and probably brought back cargoes of timber from Markland; they built
substantial houses and churches, using huge stones in some cases. But
they had to import grain, iron, and many other articles from Europe;
and the infrequent visits of ships from Iceland, Norway, and elsewhere
must have made a break in the monotony of their lives which they could
ill afford to forego. One would expect them to be especially kind to
such visitors.

[Illustration: FIG. 18--Sigurdr Stefánsson’s map of Greenland, 1590,
showing the severance of Greenland from Europe and its union with the
western land mass which includes Helluland, Markland, and Vinland. Cf.
with Fig. 14. (From Torfaeus’ “Gronlandia antiqua,” Copenhagen, 1706,
in the library of the American Geographical Society.)]

On the other hand, the belligerent spirit which kept up the bloody
feuds of Iceland would not quickly have lapsed from these transplanted
Icelanders in their new home. Moreover, there were thralls among
them and the irritations growing out of thralldom. Also, while much
of their daily routine was quiet enough, they were subject to savage
weather and perils of navigation, of the fisheries, of hunting far up
the coast, where many of them maintained stations for that purpose at
Krogfiordsheath and other points. Even in getting to Greenland Eric was
able to carry through only about half of the ships that sailed with
him, and Gudrid and Thorbiorn, coming later, incurred ample experiences
of storm and danger. These wild elements of life would tend to enhance
a certain recklessness; and the law must have been impotent to maintain
order in remote fiords and headlands, even if it had sought to do so.

In the Floamanna Saga, dealing with events not long after the very
first settlement, the thralls of Thorgils murder his young wife on the
eastern coast, where they had all been cast ashore together. In another
of the Greenland tales there is a bloody contention, freely involving
homicide, over the claims of the church upon the contents of two ships
which had come to grief. No doubt such instances might be multiplied;
but in the main we may believe that the lives of the Greenlanders
went orderly enough in common grooves of very primitive husbandry and
fishing. Adam may have judged by reports of visitors with a grievance,
narrated at second or third hand.

If Greenland had a long history, it was that of a few people in a
remote region and could not present many salient features. The colony
possessed at least one monastery and the beginning of a literature,
including, it is said, the Lay of Atli, revealing a curious interest in
the career of the great Hun Attila, on the part of a distant colonist
hidden in Arctic mists and writing beside the glaciers. In art, as
distinguished from literature, they seem to have made few advances,
if any, beyond mere ornamental carving or designing on a plane hardly
surpassing that of the Eskimos.


EXPLORATIONS OF EARLY GREENLANDERS

But in seamanship and exploration their achievements, considering
their numbers and resources, were really wonderful. All experts agree
that Eric’s first exploration was daring, skillful, persistent, and
exhaustive, according to the best modern standards, and that his
selection of settlement sites was exceedingly judicious; in fact, could
not have been improved upon. Then followed in less than twenty years
the discovery of the American mainland by Eric’s son Leif (or, as some
say, by one Biarni, followed by Leif) and a series of other voyages,
including Thorfinn Karlsefni’s prolonged effort to colonize, involving
the tracing of the American coast line from at least upper Labrador to
some point south of Newfoundland. The precise lower limit is matter of
dispute, but, according to the better opinion, may be found somewhere
on the front of southern New England. These were followed in 1121
by the missionary journey, as it seems to have been, of Bishop Eric
Gnupsson, who then sailed out of Greenland for Vinland, we do not know
with what result. Subsequent communication with parts of the American
continent was probably not uncommon, as has been inferred from the
accidental arrival in 1347 of a ship which had sailed from Greenland to
Markland and been storm-driven from the latter westward. It pursued its
course to Norway.

In the opposite (northern) direction we know of at least two
venturesome voyages up Baffin Bay, and, as the records have reached us
almost by accident, we may naturally conjecture many more.

A British exploring expedition in 1824 acquired a small stone inscribed
with runic characters near some beacons on an island north of Upernivik
on the upper northwestern coast of Greenland. The original is lost,
but a duplicate of it is preserved in the Copenhagen National Museum.
Divers copies[195] have been published. The inscription is thought
to date from about 1300, translated by various runologists, with
differences in detail. As given by Professor Hovgaard, it reads:

    Erling Sigvatsson and Bjarne Thordarson and Endride Oddson
    built this (or these) beacon(s) Saturday after “Gagnday” (April
    25th) and cleared (the place) (or made the inscription) 1135
    (?).

The year is reported with some uncertainty; and it must be owned that
the body of the text offers several alternatives. Such a memorial would
more naturally be put up by the men who built the beacons or those of
about their time than by a later generation to commemorate the not
vitally important doings of those who were dead and gone. The year 1300
seems a little late for venturing so far, as it was about the beginning
of a period of decadence and less than forty years before the Western
Settlement vanished altogether. The date 1135 would better accord with
the climax of Norse strenuousness and Greenland adventure. Perhaps the
runes were carved in the stone earlier than the runologists suppose.
But, whether the original visit took place in the twelfth century or
the fourteenth, and whether the stone denotes two Norse visits to this
place or only one, it is still conclusive that some Greenlanders had
explored well to the northward along the shore of Baffin Bay in the
time of the old colony.

A more extensive exploration was undertaken in 1266 by the clergy,
apparently of the Bishop’s seat, since they traveled home to Gardar.
It appears that certain men had been farther north than usual but
reported no sign of previous occupancy by the Eskimos (who seem by
this time to have awakened some concern among the Norsemen) except
at the unusually broad reindeer-pasture land and hunting ground of
Krogfiordsheath, a little below Disko Bay. This made a good starting
point for the ship, which was thereupon sent “northward in order to
explore the regions north of the farthest point which they had hitherto
visited,” apparently with a special view of getting more light on the
whereabouts of the heathen and their line of approach. In these regards
the adventure was barren; but the narrative of one of the priests is
interesting so far as it goes:[196]

    ... they sailed out from Krogfiordsheath, until they lost
    sight of the land. Then they had a south wind against them and
    darkness, and they had to let the ship go before the wind;
    but when the storm ceased and it cleared up again, they saw
    many islands and all kinds of game, both seals and whales and
    a great number of bears. They came right into the sea-bay and
    lost sight of all the land, both the southern coast and the
    glaciers; but south of them were also glaciers as far as they
    could see.

That was their farthest point. They then sailed southward, reaching
Krogfiordsheath again and eventually Gardar. On the way they had
noticed some abandoned Eskimo houses but no living Eskimos.

There is some attempt to indicate latitude by the way shadows fell in a
boat. Also we are told, apparently meaning midsummer or a little later:
“at midnight the sun was as high as at home in the settlement when it
is in northwest.” But speculations as to their course and distance
have given varying results. Some think they may even have passed into
Smith Sound; others that they may have crossed the Middle Water to
the western shore of Baffin Bay, seeing south of them the glaciers of
northeastern Baffin Land; others still that they did not get very far
above Upernivik; but, whatever the exact limit, it seems to have been a
notable bit of Arctic exploration, prosecuted rather at random and with
scant resources.


THE ESKIMOS

The Eskimos (Skraelings) are referred to in this account as if already
known to the settlers, though uncertain as to their home quarters and
mysterious in their coming and going. Probably there had been some
contact, not wholly friendly, between outranging members of the two
races. The Historia Norvegiae,[197] a manuscript of the same century
discovered in Scotland, says:

    Beyond the Greenlanders toward the north their hunters came
    across a kind of small people called Skraelings. When they are
    wounded alive their wound becomes white without issue of blood;
    but the blood scarcely ceases to stream out of them when they
    are dead.

Whatever may be thought of this magical oddity of surgery, it at least
seems to imply authentically some experiments in piercing or slashing
the living. Whether such collision was a matter of the thirteenth
century only or had first occurred in the twelfth or still earlier
we cannot say. The Eskimo race was the ominous shadow of the Norse
colonist from the beginning, though long unrecognized as a menace.
Apparently there had been a temporary movement of these people down the
western coast about the tenth century, withdrawing before the first
white men appeared. After that for generations, perhaps centuries,
the weaker heathen wisely kept out of sight, either beyond the water
or at hunting grounds far up the Greenland coast. At last they moved
nearer, and there was occasional contact while still the Norsemen were
formidable. But by the fourteenth century Norse Greenland had begun to
dwindle in power and population, with diminishing aid and reinforcement
from Europe, and the danger drew nearer. Perhaps there was some special
impulsion of the uncivilized people which resulted in the obliteration
of the Western Norse Settlement, always relatively feeble. Some rumor
of its need having reached the Eastern Settlement, an expedition
of relief was dispatched about 1337, or perhaps a little later,
accompanied by Ivar Bardsen, then or afterward steward of the Bishop,
who tells the tale. Only a few stray cattle were found; presumably the
colonists had been killed or carried away.

The ground thus lost could not be regained. On the contrary, we
may suppose the Eskimos to be getting stronger and drawing nearer.
In 1355 an expedition under Paul Knutson came out to reinforce the
Norsemen; but it returned home in or before 1364 and can have made
only a temporary lightening of the load. In 1379 there seems to have
been an Eskimo attack, costing the Norsemen 18 of their few men. But
peace may have reigned as a rule. At any rate, the ordinary functions
of life went on, for it is of record that a young Icelander, visiting
Greenland, was married by the Bishop at Gardar in 1409; and the last
visit of the Norwegian _knorr_, or supply ship, occurred by way of
Iceland in 1410.

After that nothing is certainly known. There are two papal letters at
different periods of the century, based on very questionable hearsay
information and indicating confusion and general falling away. There
was even a futile effort to reopen communication in 1492. Probably by
that time the Norsemen and Norse women were all dead or married to the
Eskimos. That particular form of primitive heathendom seems to have
absorbed them.

Greenland was to be rediscovered and repeopled in due season; but
for the time being it had become in European knowledge only a
half-forgotten figure on certain maps, sometimes given with fair
accuracy of outline but sometimes also as an oceanic Green Island of
only indirect relation to reality and passing its name on to little
islands and even fancied rocks far at sea, which owned nothing in
common with the far northern region except a part of its name.




CHAPTER VIII

MARKLAND, OTHERWISE NEWFOUNDLAND


The name Markland, meaning Forest Land, must be, in one language
or another, among the oldest geographical designations known among
men. Nothing could be more natural to even the most primitive people
than to distinguish in this way any heavily overgrown region which
especially challenged attention, perhaps as a refuge or as a barrier.
Its appearance in any form of record was, of course, very much later.
As to Atlantic regions, the earliest instance other than Norse may be
the “Insula de Legname” of certain fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
portolan charts,[198] evidently given by some Genoese or other Italian
navigator to Madeira, the latter name being a translation of the
former, substituted by the Portuguese[199] after their rediscovery.
Thus we might say that this island was the original western Markland,
but for the fact that certain Greenland Norsemen had affixed the name
long before to a region much farther west.


FIRST NORSE ACCOUNT, IN HAUK’S BOOK

The earliest manuscript of the first distinct account of the Norse
Markland is included in the compilation known as Hauk’s Book,[200]
from Hauk Erlendsson, for whom and partly by whom it was prepared,
necessarily before his death in 1334, but probably after he was
given a certain title in 1305. Perhaps 1330 may mark the time of its
completion. Along with divers other documents, it copies from some
unknown original the saga of Eric the Red, sometimes called the saga of
Thorfinn Karlsefni, an ancestor of the compiler, whose adventures as an
early explorer of northeastern North America constitute a conspicuous
feature of the narrative. Some parts of the saga of Eric the Red as
thus transcribed, especially toward its ending, cannot be much older
than the time of transcription, but verses embedded in other parts have
been identified as necessarily of the eleventh century; and the body of
the tale is, for the greater part, manifestly archaic.


ANOTHER ACCOUNT, IN THE ARNA-MAGNAEAN MANUSCRIPT

Beside Hauk’s Book, there is a corroborative, independent, but almost
identical manuscript copy of the saga--No. 557 of the Arna-Magnaean
collection at Copenhagen.

This saga[201] tells us:

    Thence they sailed away beyond the Bear Islands with northerly
    winds. They were out two _daegr_ (days); then they discovered
    land and rowed thither in boats and explored the country and
    found there many flat stones (_hellur_) so large that two men
    could well spurn soles upon them [lie at full length upon them,
    sole to sole]. There were many Arctic foxes there. They gave a
    name to the land and called it Helluland.

    Thence they sailed two _daegr_ and bore away from the south
    toward the southeast and they found a wooded country and on it
    many animals; an island lay off the land toward the southeast;
    they killed a bear on this and called it Biarney (Bear
    Island); but the country they called Markland (Forest Land).

    When two _daegr_ had elapsed they descried land, and they
    sailed off this land. There was a cape (_ness_) to which they
    came. They beat into the wind along this coast, having the land
    on the starboard (right) side. This was a bleak coast with
    long and sandy shores. They went ashore in boats and found
    the keel of a ship, so they called it Kjalarness (Keelness)
    there; they likewise gave a name to the strands and called
    them Furdustrandir (Wonder Strands) because they were so long
    to sail by. Then the country became indented with bays [or
    “fiord-cut,” as Dr. Olson translates] and they steered their
    ships into a bay.... The country round about was fair to look
    upon.... There was tall grass there.

A very severe winter, however, drove them far southward to a
warmer bay, or _hop_, where they dwelt for nearly a year among the
characteristic products of Wineland; but at last withdrew after an
onslaught of the Indians.

Probably it was from this narrative that Arna-Magnaean Manuscript 194,
an ancient geographic miscellany, partly in Icelandic, partly in Latin,
derived the following statement, generally ascribed[202] to Abbot
Nicholas of Thingeyri who died in 1159.

    Southward from Greenland is Helluland, then comes Markland;
    thence it is not far to Wineland the Good, which some men
    believe extends from Africa, and if this be so there is an open
    sea flowing between Wineland and Markland. It is said that
    Thorfinn Karlsefni hewed a “house-neat-timber” and then went to
    seek Wineland the Good, and came to where they believed this
    land to be, but they did not succeed in exploring it or in
    obtaining any of its products.[203]

The foregoing view of the relative positions of these regions along
the coast is also illustrated in the well-known map[204] (Fig. 18)
of Sigurdr Stefánsson (1570, or 1590, according to Storm) which was
evidently based on surviving Icelandic traditions.


LATER DERIVATIVE RECORDS

There is great verisimilitude in the Karlsefni narrative and these
later derivative records. Their geography agrees convincingly with the
facts of the actual coast line from north to south--namely, first a
desolate region, cold, bare, and stony, the appropriate home of Arctic
foxes; secondly, a game-haunted and very wild forest land, untempting
to settlement, unhopeful for agriculture, but a hunter’s paradise;
thirdly, the warmer country to the south, well suited to cultivation
and even producing spontaneously various kinds of edibles, notably
the large fox grapes from which wine might be made. Helluland, the
first, remains, as Labrador and perhaps Baffin Land, nearly unchanged
excepting some uplift of the shore line; Markland has suffered great
inroads of the lumberman’s axe, but still as Newfoundland contains much
heavy timber in its western part; Wineland, the third, has become the
chief seat of American civilization east of the Appalachian Mountains.
But in the time of the Norsemen and long afterward Newfoundland was a
veritable Markland, a land of woods, down to its eastern front.[205]
Its rediscoverers and earliest settlers found it so; and the maps of
Cantino[206] and Canerio,[207] both attributed to 1502 and certainly
not much later, exhibit the great island pictorially, under different
names, as a mass of woodland with tall trees standing everywhere,
apparently thus commemorating the most distinctive and conspicuous
natural feature of the land.


LABRADOR AS MARKLAND

Some have urged that the southern part of Labrador may have been
Markland; but its trees of any considerable size are to be found only
by following up inlets far into the interior where the Arctic current
has less power to chill; there is nothing to indicate that conditions
were very different then in this regard; and to judge by the narrative
itself we must not conceive of the Norse visitors as pausing to explore
deeply without allurement, but rather as hastening down the shore in
quest of warmer regions and ampler pasturage for their stock which they
carried with them, also of a good warm site for settlement, such as
Leif had already reported. They were primarily colonists, not explorers
of the disinterested or glory-seeking type. It was most natural to sail
on; noting only what they could discern from the sea, or by a brief
boat-landing. This would hardly give them the idea of a forest land in
any part of hard-featured, ice-battered Labrador.

It is probable that, like some later navigators, they would not
think of the Strait of Belle Isle as other than a fiord or inlet,
after the pattern of the great Hamilton Inlet farther north; and if
they guessed Markland to be an island it would be on quite different
grounds--chiefly the natural tendency (which persisted until long after
their time) to consider every western discovery insular; but they would
at least be alive to the distinction between treelessness and an ample
forest cover, and we see that in point of fact they did distinguish the
regions on just this score.


NOVA SCOTIA AS MARKLAND

Certainly this might involve the inclusion of Nova Scotia in the
second of the three regions; and there have been many to champion this
peninsula as distinctively Markland. But other features of Nova Scotia
attracted the attention of Karlsefni’s party and gave parts of that
land an individuality distinguished from that of the forest country.
The great cape Kjalarness, which seems to have been the northern horn
of Cape Breton Island, and the exceedingly long strands, which may
now be represented in part by the low front of Richmond County, are
duly recorded, with no suggestion of their belonging to Markland,
the region farther north. Also on the Stefánsson map above referred
to (Fig. 18), the name Promontorium Vinlandiae is applied to a long
protuberance apparently meant for this part of Cape Breton Island,
containing the counties of Victoria and Inverness, and the much earlier
statement in Arna-Magnaean Manuscript 194 concerning the sea running in
between Markland and Wineland seems to mark all south of Cabot Strait
as belonging in some sense to the latter region. No doubt the name
Markland may sometimes have been used with vagueness of limitation;
but on the whole it seems most likely that Newfoundland was Markland
almost exclusively. It seems practically certain, at the least, that
the characteristics first noted in Newfoundland supplied the earlier
regional name.

In many of the discussions of this exploring saga there has been too
great a tendency to localize the territorial names, as though Wineland
for example must denote a small area or short stretch of coast.
Professor Hovgaard has even suggested that there may have been two
Winelands--Leif’s Wineland being much farther south than Karlsefni’s,
the name in each case standing for some one site or place and the
territory immediately about it. This does not accord well with one of
the notes on the Stefánsson map, which gives Wineland an extension as
far as a fiord dividing it from “the America of the Spaniard.” That
may be read as meaning Chesapeake Bay and must at any rate be taken
to suggest great extension for this region, since the Promontorium
Vinlandiae, as already stated, obviously marks its upper end. Markland
need not be conceived as of equal size, for in truth it represents at
most only the wild and wooded interval between the hopelessly void and
barren north and the great habitable, comfortable, and fruitful region
stretching far below; but so much of parallelism holds as will forbid
us to anchor the name to any one locality on the Newfoundland shore.
Doubtless the long sea front of the great island as a whole is entitled
to the name.


INTERCOURSE BETWEEN GREENLAND AND MARKLAND

No doubt it is surprising, in view of the deep impression which
Markland obviously made on the Norsemen from near-by treeless
Greenland and Iceland, to find so few subsequent references to the name
or indications of a knowledge of the region. There is a well-known and
often cited instance recorded in Icelandic annals--in one instance
nearly contemporary--of a small Greenland vessel storm-driven to
Iceland in 1347, after having visited Markland, the latter name being
presented in a matter-of-course way, much as though it were Ireland or
the Orkneys. This has sometimes been taken as evidence of a regular
timber traffic between Greenland and Markland during the preceding
three centuries and more. It shows at least that acquaintance with the
more southwestern country had been kept really alive thus long, and
that it was not a half-mythical figure on the frontier of knowledge, to
be doubtfully sought for, but territory that one might visit without
claiming the reward of new and daring exploration or causing any
extreme surprise. What Markland had to offer was so decidedly what
Greenland needed, and the repetition of Karlsefni’s voyage thus far was
at all times so feasible, that one must suppose the trips to and fro
were not wholly intermitted between 1003 and 1347. Only they have left
no clear and unquestionable trace.

Perhaps the nearest approach thereto is a fifteenth-century Catalan
map[208] (Fig. 7) preserved in the Ambrosian library in Milan, which
as we have seen in Chapter IV, presents Greenland (Illa Verde) as a
great elongated rectangle of land in northern waters, having a concave
southern end. Below this, beyond a narrow interval of water, appears
a large round island, the direction certainly calling for Labrador
or Newfoundland, probably the latter. The minimizing of the distance
between these land masses may indicate some report of the ease with
which the crossing was effected. At any rate, unless we are prepared
to set aside the testimony of the map altogether as mere fancy work,
we must acknowledge that some one had a general impression of land
in mass south or southwest of Greenland and reasonably accessible
therefrom.


BRAZIL ISLAND IN THE PLACE OF MARKLAND

The name Brazil given to this island on the map and its disk-like form
link it to the long series, already discussed, of “Brazil islands,”
approximately in the latitude of Newfoundland, on the medieval maps,
beginning with that of Dalorto of 1325[209] (Fig. 4). Usually, as in
this last instance, they have the circular form--sometimes, however,
being annular, with an island-studded lake or gulf inside, and
sometimes being divided into two parts by a curved channel. Usually,
too, the station of this Brazil is pretty near southern Ireland, off
the Blaskets, but sometimes it is carried out into mid-Atlantic,
and in the sixteenth-century maps of Nicolay[210] (1560; Fig. 6)
and Zaltieri[211] (1566) it is taken clear across to the Banks of
Newfoundland or a little nearer inshore. From various mutually
corroborative indications, I have been impressed with the belief that
it is probably a record of some early crossing of the Atlantic from
Ireland; but whatever the explanation, Brazil Island remains one of the
most interesting of map phenomena. Its name was somehow passed along
to Terceira of the Azores, where there is still a Mt. Brazil, and long
thereafter to the largest of South American countries.

Its appearance near Greenland and as a substitute for Markland is
not easily accounted for. The matter is indeed complicated on this
fifteenth-century map by the appearance of a second Brazil (of the
channeled type) in the middle of the Atlantic. It may be that the
cartographer was familiar with this form and kind of presentation in
older maps and did not feel warranted in giving up _that_ “Brazil;”
but had received convincing information of lands southwest or south
of Greenland, with some suggestion of Brazil as a name traditionally
associated with such discoveries, and so drew and named it. Undoubtedly
the map is the work of a man well acquainted with the first disk form
of Brazil and the later channeled or divided form, beside having some
knowledge of later discoveries in Greenland and beyond.

There is a parallel to the two Brazils of his map in the two series of
Azores on that of Bianco (1448).[212] The latter cartographer retained
the original Italian-discovered series, inaccurately aligned north
and south, but showed also farther afield the islands of Portuguese
rediscovery, properly slanted northwestward, omitting only Flores
and Corvo, which the rediscoverers had not yet found or at least had
not yet brought to his notice. Another map of about the same period
makes the same double showing--certainly a curious compromise between
conservatism and progressiveness.


THE ZENO NARRATIVE

There is perhaps no other news of Markland before it became
Newfoundland, unless we may put some glimmer of faith in the
much-discussed Zeno narrative[213] (Ch. IX), which embodies the tale of
an Orkney islander wrecked on the shore of Estotiland (perhaps the name
was first written Escociland--Scotland) a little before the opening
of the fifteenth century. He professed to have found there a people
having some of the rudiments of civilization and carrying on trade with
Greenland, but ignorant of the mariner’s compass. The picture given
is not incredible and perhaps receives some support from the really
notable works known to have been executed by the Beothuks[214] of
Newfoundland in their later and feebler, though not quite their latest
days--such as extensive deer fences, to give their hunters the utmost
benefit from the annual migrations. Granted a certain infusion of Norse
blood, or even without it, there is perhaps nothing stated of the
Escocilanders which may not have been true. As to the name, it is no
more strange than Nova Scotia, which still occupies the coast just to
the south, and it may have been applied in the same spirit.

Very early in the history of European colonization this Markland--which
by its outjutting position was accused of being a New-found-land,
again and again with varying designations during the ill-recorded
centuries--took under the latter name the position, which it still
holds, of the very earliest of the English colonies of the New World.




CHAPTER IX

ESTOTILAND AND THE OTHER ISLANDS OF ZENO


Some of the well-known mythical or dubious map islands of the North
Atlantic make their entry into cartography very early indeed,
apparently as the contribution or record of otherwise forgotten
voyages, though we cannot say with certainty precisely when or how;
others, long afterward, were the products of mirage, ocean-surface
phenomena, or mariners’ fancies working under the suggestion of saintly
or demoniacal legends amid the hazes and perils of little-known seas,
the precise time of their origin remaining uncertain. As a rule the
latter class were less persistent on the maps and are geographically
rather unimportant.

In two cases, however, Estotiland and Drogio, we know the first
appearance of their names before the public, which is very probably
the first use of them among men. They derive a special interest from
being located in America and from an asserted journey by Europeans to
them more than a hundred years before the first voyage of Columbus.
The map which first shows them also displays divers other Atlantic
islands, either of unusual name or unusual location and area, not
conforming at all to the insular tracts of the North Atlantic basin as
we know them now. The fantastic exhibition as a whole had an immediate,
long-continuing, and considerable--almost revolutionary--effect on the
map-making of the world.


THE ZENO VOLUME

In the year 1558 a volume was printed by Marcolino at Venice,
purporting to give an account of “The Discovery of the Islands of
Frislanda, Eslanda, Engroneland, Estotiland, and Icaria made by two
brothers of the Zeno family, Messire Nicolò the Chevalier and Messire
Antonio.”[215] Some of the islands named in the book are omitted from
this title; and the word “Discovery” must have been used with willful
inexactness, for Greenland (Engroneland) had been in Norse occupancy
for centuries, and Shetland (Eslanda, Estland, or Estiland) was as
positively, though not as familiarly, known as Great Britain. But the
indication of aim and scope was sufficient.

The name of the author, or, as he calls himself, “the compiler,” was
not given; but he is generally recognized to have been the Nicolò Zeno
of a younger generation, a man of local prominence and a member of the
dominant Council of Ten of the Venetian republic. In 1561 he edited for
Ruscelli’s edition of Ptolemy, a subsequent edition of the map (Fig.
19) which is the volume’s most conspicuous feature. His account of the
Zeno book’s origin seems to have been accepted generally and promptly
among his own people, as also the general accuracy of its geography.
But, as Lucas remarks, “An adverse critic of a member of the Council of
Ten, in Venice, in the sixteenth century, would have been a remarkably
bold, not to say foolhardy, man.”[216] However, there are shelters and
places of seclusion from even the most arbitrary power; and it would
seem that the eminent younger Nicolò would hardly have the effrontery
to challenge the world in matters then easily susceptible of disproof
concerning his still more eminent ancestor and kinsman. Surely they
must have had some notable experiences in northern islands on the
reports of which he could rely in a general way, however erroneous or
fraudulent in some important features, though then first advancing the
transatlantic claim to discovery.

Moreover, the dread of the Council could not overshadow distant
geographers like Mercator and Ortelius, whose maps of 1569 and
1570[217] (cf. Fig. 10) almost eagerly embody the most distinctive
Zeno additions, giving them the greatest currency and implying some
sense of the general probability of discoveries by members of that
family. Estotiland and Drogio are very distinctly shown, the former
apparently as Newfoundland united to Labrador, the latter as a smaller
and more southern island which may well be Cape Breton Island, pushed a
bit offshore, but still not very far from the mainland.

[Illustration: FIG. 19--The map of the northern regions by the Zeno
brothers, 1558, showing Frisland, Estotiland, Icaria, and Drogio.
(After Lucas’ photographic facsimile.)]

There has been much discussion as to whether the book should be
regarded as wholly a forgery or not, as to the location of these
regions, and as to the derivation and meaning of the names; but all
agree that Estotiland and Drogio were not known before 1558.

Nicolò the compiler reports: “The sailing chart which I find, I still
have among our family antiquities and, though it is rotten with age,
I have succeeded with it tolerably well.” Just what this success
involved is an interesting question. It has been understood by his most
reasonable advocates to include conjectural restoration, such as the
deficiencies of rottenness seemed to call for, and somewhat more.

Nicolò the younger avers, further, that his ancestor Antonio wrote
a book recording his northern observations and many facts about
Greenland, but that the compiler as a boy had thoughtlessly destroyed
the book with other papers and that the Zeno narrative as he gives it
is made up from fragmentary letters of the elder Nicolò to Antonio
and of the latter to their brother, Carlo, remaining in Venice; which
letters by good fortune happened to survive.

Nobody except the younger Nicolò is asserted to have seen the map,
the letters, or any of the original documents; though his parents, it
would seem, must have been custodian of them before him, and he would
surely have been likely to display such precious evidences to some one
after awakening to their importance. But those were less critical and
exacting times than the present, and conceivably it may have been felt
that any corroboration would be superfluous. Yet the fact remains that
we are not informed of any means of testing the accuracy of restoration
or even of demonstrating that there was anything to restore.


FIRST USE OF THE NAMES “ESTOTILAND” AND “DROGIO”

The two names “Estotiland” and “Drogio” are supplied by a story within
a story, an alleged yarn of a fisherman, reporting to his island
ruler, whom the elder Zeno served. Obviously, the chances of lapse
from truth are multiplied. Either the later Nicolò or his ancestor of
more than a century and a half before may have wholly invented or more
or less transformed it; or the first narrator may have created his
tale out of no real happenings or have so distorted it by mistake or
willful imposture as to render it wholly unreliable. In its general
outlines it is by no means impossible; but neither would it have been
very difficult to compose such a yarn out of nothing but fancy and
the American information at the command of the younger Nicolò. It
comes to us through the medium of an alleged letter of his ancestor
Antonio, written home to the latter’s brother Carlo near the end of the
fifteenth century. With some slight compression, the narrative runs as
follows:

    Six and twenty years ago four fishing boats put out to sea,
    and, encountering a heavy storm, were driven over the sea in
    utter helplessness for many days; when at length, the tempest
    abating, they discovered an island called Estotiland, lying to
    the westwards above one thousand miles from Frislanda. One of
    the boats was wrecked, and six men that were in it were taken
    by the inhabitants, and brought into a fair and populous city,
    where the king of the place sent for many interpreters, but
    there were none could be found that understood the language of
    the fishermen, except one that spoke Latin, and who had also
    been cast by chance upon the same island.... They ... remained
    five years on the island, and learned the language. One of
    them in particular visited different parts of the island, and
    reports that it is a very rich country, abounding in all good
    things. It is a little smaller than Iceland, but more fertile;
    in the middle of it is a very high mountain, in which rise four
    rivers which water the whole country.

    The inhabitants are a very intelligent people, and possess
    all the arts like ourselves; and it is to be believed that
    in time past they have had intercourse with our people, for
    he said that he saw Latin books in the king’s library, which
    they at this present time do not understand. They have their
    own language and letters. They have all kinds of metals, but
    especially they abound with gold. Their foreign intercourse
    is with Greenland, whence they import furs, brimstone and
    pitch.... They have woods of immense extent. They make their
    buildings with walls, and there are many towns and villages.
    They make small boats and sail them, but they have not the
    loadstone, nor do they know the north by the compass. For this
    reason these fishermen were held in great estimation, insomuch
    that the king sent them with twelve boats to the southwards to
    a country which they call Drogio; but in their voyage they had
    such contrary weather that they were in fear for their lives.

    ... They were taken into the country and the greater number
    of them were eaten by the savages.... But as that fisherman
    and his remaining companions were able to show them the way of
    taking fish with nets, their lives were saved.... As this man’s
    fame spread ... there was a neighboring chief who was very
    anxious to have him with him ... he made war on the chief with
    whom the fisherman then was, and ... at length overcame him,
    and so the fisherman was sent over to him with the rest of his
    company. During the space of thirteen years that he dwelt in
    those parts, he says that he was sent in this manner to more
    than five-and-twenty chiefs ... wandering up and down ... he
    became acquainted with almost all those parts. He says that
    it is a very great country, and, as it were, a new world; the
    people are very rude and uncultivated, for they all go naked
    and suffer cruelly from the cold, nor have they the sense to
    clothe themselves with the skins of the animals which they take
    in hunting. They have no kind of metal. They live by hunting,
    and carry lances of wood, sharpened at the point. They have
    bows, the strings of which are made of beasts’ skins. They are
    very fierce, and have deadly fights amongst each other, and
    eat one another’s flesh.... The farther you go southwestwards,
    however, the more refinement you meet with, because the climate
    is more temperate, and accordingly there they have cities and
    temples dedicated to their idols, in which they sacrifice men
    and afterwards eat them.

    His fellow captives having decided to remain where they were,
    he bade them farewell, and made his escape through the woods
    in the direction of Drogio, ... where he spent three years.
    [One day] some boats had arrived. He went down to the seaside,
    and ... found they had come from Estotiland. [They took him
    aboard as interpreter.] He afterwards traded in their company
    to such good purpose that he became very rich, and, fitting out
    a vessel of his own, returned to Frislanda.[218]


GEOGRAPHICAL IMPLICATION OF THE NARRATIVE

In spite of plain geographical indications in the above recital,
Estotiland has been located by some random or oversubtle conjectures
in the strangest and most widely scattered places, including even
parts of the British Isles. But a region a thousand miles west of the
Faroes or any other Atlantic islands can be nothing but American, and
the restriction of its commerce to Greenland, apparently as a next
neighbor, points very clearly (as Estotiland) to that outjutting elbow
of North America, which culminates in Cape Race, south of Greenland
and thrust out toward Europe. The clear definition of it in the tale
as an island, largely explored by the narrator, approximating the size
of Iceland but more fertile, with mountainous interior, great forests
(such as gave the name Markland to Norse tradition), and rivers flowing
several ways, clearly indicates Newfoundland. The Zeno map accords with
this, and most of the later maps accept that identification--though
often with a great extension of territory. Thus a French map in the
United States National Museum,[219] having 1668 for an entry of
discovery and perhaps dating from about 1700, presents the whole
region southeast of Hudson Bay in an inscription as called Estotiland
by the Danes, Nouvelle Bretagne (New Britain) by the English, Canada
Septentrionale by the French, and Labrador by the Spanish; but here
again Labrador and Newfoundland may have been chiefly in mind.


CONJECTURES AS TO THE DERIVATION OF “ESTOTILAND”

Evidently this map-maker attributed the name Estotiland to the Norsemen
of Greenland on the faith of the fisherman’s story, for no other
Scandinavians can be supposed to have fastened a name on the region in
question. But, barring the last syllable, which is a common affix, the
name has an Italian sound rather than Scandinavian. “East-out-land” has
been suggested as a derivation, but why in this instance should either
Norse or Italian borrow an English name? Another suggestion requires
the use of the first three syllables of the motto “esto fidelis usque
ad mortem” making up “Estofi,” with the appendant “land.” But there
seems no historic link of positive connection, and the letter “f” would
not readily change into “t.” Perhaps “Escotiland” or “Escociland”
(Scotland) is a more likely conjecture (first made by Beauvois[220]),
since “c” often resembles “t” in older forms of handwriting and might
readily be misunderstood. The name may have been applied in the same
spirit which has long affixed “Scotia” (Nova Scotia) to a lower part of
the same Atlantic coast. That the name was ever really thus applied by
the Norsemen seems very unlikely; but Nicolò Zeno may have used it to
help out his fisherman’s yarn as readily as he certainly adapted “King
Daedalus of Scotland” to help out his more mythical account of Icaria.
Or “Estotiland” may be a modification of Estilanda or Esthlanda, a
form sometimes taken by Shetland, for example on the map of Prunes,
1553[221] (Fig. 12). In casting about for a name, it would be an
economy of effort on the part of Zeno or the fisherman to utilize one
that was familiar. But I do not know that this derivation from Estiland
has ever before been suggested.


THE ESTOTILANDERS

Ortelius, in crediting the discovery of the New World to the Norsemen,
seems to identify Estotiland with Vinland.[222] He was so far right
that the fisherman’s account of the people of Estotiland was evidently
composed by some one acquainted with the mistaken ideal of Vinland, or
Wineland, which pictured it a permanent Norse offshoot from Greenland,
perhaps slowly deteriorating but still possessed of a city and library,
letters and the ordinary useful arts of at least a primitive northern
white civilization, trading regularly with Greenland though archaic
enough to lack the mariner’s compass, and in most respects fairly on
a par with the Icelanders, Faroese, Shetlanders, or Orkneymen of the
fourteenth to the sixteenth century. We know that such Estotilanders
did not exist; that the ground was occupied by Beothuk Indians,
possibly slightly influenced by Greenlanders’ timber-gathering visits,
with Eskimos for neighbors on one side and Micmac Algonquins on the
other; and that none of these could be thought even so far advanced in
culture as some natives farther down the coast. But it is interesting
to get the point of view of the narrator or reporter.


DROGIO

The tale is of a prolonged residence among these alleged relatively
advanced Estotiland people, followed by a much longer wandering
sojourn, mostly as a captive, in a great “new world” southwest of it
and a final escape. Drogio (also spelled “Drogeo” and “Droceo” on some
maps) was the region through which this continental territory was
entered. It is plainly an island, to judge by the maps; but, according
to the narrative, it should be close inshore, since no mention is made
of water being crossed by the neighboring chief, who made war on the
first captors and thus acquired the fishermen. This accords curiously
with the facts as to Cape Breton Island, which is barely cut off by
the Gut of Canso, being easily reached by any incursion from the
mainland. It also lies southward from Newfoundland (Estotiland), but
sailing vessels would ordinarily be required to get to it across the
broad Cabot Strait, where the conditions of storm and shipwreck might
well be supplied. It is, indeed, surprising, since the description of
inhabitants and conditions is so far from the truth, that the geography
of Estotiland and Drogio should be given so much more accurately than
in some carefully prepared and useful maps of the same period, for
example Nicolay’s of 1560[223] (Fig. 6) and Zaltieri’s of 1566,[224]
both of which represent Newfoundland as broken up into an archipelago;
and the same may be said of Gastaldi’s map illustrating Ramusio.[225]

It has been generally surmised that the name Drogio represents some
native word, but there is a lack of evidence and a difficulty in
identification. Lucas thinks it may be a corruption of Boca del
Drago,[226] a strait between Trinidad and the mainland South America;
but this seems a far-fetched and unsupported conjecture: All the
other island names used by Zeno are of European origin, and Drogio by
its sound and orthography suggests Italy. Perhaps the best guess we
can make would point to the Italian words “deroga” or “dirogare” as
supplying in disparagement a form afterward contracted to Drogio; for
the latter island, lower in latitude and elevation, was also, according
to the narrative, inferior in the status of its population and might
well be spoken of derogatively. We have seen that a fairly high culture
is imputed to Estotiland; whereas the natives of Drogio were sunk
in mere cannibal savagery. Notwithstanding the plain implication of
the story as to the comparative nearness of the two regions and the
concurrent testimony of the Zeno map, Drogio has been located by some
theorizers at divers different points of our coast line from Canada to
Florida and even as far afield as Ireland--which is perhaps a shade
more extravagant than Lucas’s South American derivation of the name.


DISCREPANCIES IN THE NARRATIVE OF THE FISHERMAN

There is this to be said for the last-mentioned speculation and some
others, that the statements concerning the mainland natives are plainly
prompted by Spanish accounts of certain naked and cannibalistic
denizens of the tropics, when not due to the experience of Cortés and
his companions among the teocallis and ceremonial sacrifices of the
Aztecs. That any one starting from Nova Scotia or thereabout could have
reached southern or at least central Mexico and returned alone must
have struck even Nicolò Zeno the younger as incredible, if he had any
conception of the distances and difficulties involved. But probably
he believed the area of temple building to extend farther northward
than it actually did and had little notion of the great waste of
intervening interior. Besides, it is not explicitly stated that the
fisherman saw these things; and to have gone far enough to encounter
a rumor of them, though a very improbable, would not be a quite
impossible, feat.

As regards the characteristics of the ruder inhabitants who nearly
devoured him, fought for him, and two dozen times shifted ownership
of him from chief to chief, he must surely be understood to speak
from personal observation; but there is a conspicuous failure of
corroboration from internal evidence. We know a good deal about the
Indian tribes of northeastern America of a time not very much later,
and hardly a distinctive characteristic which he gives will fit what
we know. To say that the Algonquian tribes and their neighbors had not
sense to clothe themselves with the skins of the animals they killed is
itself arrant nonsense; to assert that they habitually ate each other
like Caribs is an imputation without foundation. The total absence
of metals among them is as untrue as the great abundance of gold in
Estotiland, for many of them had at least a little copper. They did not
live wholly by hunting--at least south of Nova Scotia--but were partly
agricultural, raising Indian corn and various vegetables. They did not
depend, in hunting, on wooden lances with sharpened points, though some
backward and feeble far-southern insular tribes are reported to have
done so. They were expert fishermen with weirs and nets and inducted
many of the white settlers into their secrets, so naturally would not
extravagantly need nor prize the counsel of a white specialist in the
same line, though he might have some things to teach them. Finally,
the really distinctive features of the Indian race in these latitudes,
such as bark canoes and the peculiarities of maize cultivation, are not
mentioned at all.

In view of these discrepancies it is not easy to believe that the
fisherman ever visited America or at any rate ever journeyed far
inland. The nature of the errors rather points to Nicolò Zeno “the
compiler” as their author, since they embody observations made
elsewhere, which the fisherman would not be aware of and which had not
been made in his time, so far as now known. The landing by shipwreck
on Estotiland in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, though a
startling feature, cannot be called impossible or perhaps even wildly
improbable; and, once on this side of the Atlantic at that point,
some accident might take him across to Cape Breton Island, whence he
well might travel or be carried a little farther. This sequence of
events may be said to hang well together, and the geographic accuracy
as to Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island may be taken diffidently
as establishing a faint presumption that something like it really
occurred. But farther than this we cannot go, for all other indications
are adverse; and, even if we credit the incongruities to one of the
Zeni and suppose them to take the place of forgotten or disregarded
observations of the original adventurer, we are without these last,
and it is only substituting a vacuum for incorrectness. Perhaps the
only thing that remains to be said in favor of the story is that if it
were wholly the invention of Nicolò Zeno it would have been natural and
quite easy for him to make his ancestor the discoverer, instead of an
unnamed and insignificant fisherman.


THE ZENO NARRATIVE ITSELF

For the story above considered enters the Zeno narrative only as the
incentive to a voyage of exploration which failed of its aim; and
it is nowhere alleged, unless in the title, that either of the Zeno
brothers discovered anything American. Each of them, it says, visited
Greenland, but that needed no discovery. Briefly summarized, the Zeno
story is that the elder Nicolò, being an adventurous wanderer like
many of his countrymen, was shipwrecked about 1380 on the island of
Frisland and taken into the service of Zichmni, lord of the Orkneys,
then prosecuting the conquest of the former region. Zeno took part in
the warfare of this chieftain, chiefly against the King of Norway his
feudal lord, also in his various navigations, including a visit to
Greenland, of which this elder Nicolò writes quite fully to his brother
Antonio in Venice, urging the latter to join him in Zichmni’s service.
Antonio did so, after many adventures and hardships and incidental
delay, and served with him four years, when Nicolò died, and Antonio
succeeded to his honors and emoluments for thirteen years longer. About
1400 the fisherman returned with his story of transatlantic experience,
and Earl Zichmni resolved to attempt to reach Estotiland in person.
Instead, he was storm-driven to Icaria, whatever that may be, and again
visited Greenland, exploring parts of its coast. Antonio Zeno went with
him and sailed home separately, under orders, slightly missing his
course and first reaching Porlanda (Pomona) of the Orkneys and Neome
(Fair Island) midway between the Orkneys and Shetland. He knew then
that he was “beyond Iceland” (i. e. to the eastward) and readily found
his way to Frisland. He was never allowed to return to Venice but wrote
his brother Carlo what he had seen and heard, including the fisherman’s
story.


R. H. MAJOR’S STUDY OF THE ZENO NARRATIVE

Major endeavored to end the long-standing discussion as to the
authenticity of the map and the narrative of voyages by an elaborate
and ingenious study, on the hypothesis of an honestly intended
reproduction, the various additions, interpolations, and changes being
due partly to misunderstandings by the original Zeno brothers, partly
to injuries accidentally inflicted by the compiler and inaccurately
repaired, and partly to extraneous matter of illustration and ornament,
which the later Nicolò Zeno had not the self-control to withhold. This
method of exposition leads to some curious experiences of prodigious
exaggeration backed by a veritable genius for transforming words.
Thus when we read that Zichmni, ruling in Porlanda and conqueror
of Frisland, made successful war on his feudal superior, the King
of Norway, it means, according to Major, that Henry St. Clair (or
Sinclair), who was given the Earldom of the Orkneys in 1379, had a
skirmish with a forgotten claimant to a part of his territory. A
little later in the narrative a warm spring (108° maximum) on an
island of a fiord in the inhabited part of Greenland, beside which
some ruins are found, evolves a monastery and monk-ruled village of
dome-topped houses on the slope of a volcanic mountain far up the
impossible ice-bound eastern coast, with house-warming, cooking, and
hothouse gardening by subterranean heat and a continual commerce
maintained with northern Europe--though all this had never been heard
of before. It is true that Major was handicapped by a belief, formerly
prevalent, that the eastern coast of Greenland was the site of the
Eastern Settlement of the Norsemen, though in modern times that coast
is subjected to conditions which make life hardly practicable; whereas
it is now conclusively established that both of the Norse settlements
were on the relatively pleasant southwestern coast, one settlement
being more easterly and the other more westerly. But at the best
such interpretations run the gauntlet of the reader’s involuntary
skepticism. It is often easier to discard the statements altogether.


THE WORK OF F. W. LUCAS

Lucas, writing some years afterward, with the benefit of recently
discovered maps and information, has chosen this destructive
alternative for nearly the whole Zeno narration: denying that Nicolò
Zeno had any map of a former generation to restore; styling his
own keenly critical and exhaustive production “an indictment,” and
branding the book under consideration as a forgery throughout--with,
necessarily, some true things in it. He has gone far toward making good
his case. Some things not fully accounted for suggest that there may
have been a basis of genuine material, a nucleus of truth; but it must
have been very slight.

Major and his preservative school relied chiefly on three points of
coincidence: a fairly good description of that most unusual boat, the
kayak of the Eskimos; the hot water of the monastery already mentioned;
and the general geography of Greenland, which is shown more accurately
than on many maps of the sixteenth century and later. But Lucas points
out that the history of Olaus Magnus, or other northern sources, might
have supplied the kayak to Zeno the younger. This may seem rather
far-fetched in view of the wide interval between Italy and Scandinavia;
but intercourse was regular in 1558, and Zeno was a man of ample
information and intelligence, using material from many sources and
having his attention especially directed to the north.


A MONASTERY IN THE ARCTIC

The Zeno account of the monastery of St. Thomas is very extended and
particular, going into details of daily life, artificial agriculture,
and traffic. It is the sublimation of cultivation in hothouse
conditions (of volcanic origin), located far up within the Arctic
Circle at a particularly repellent point, where no man has ever
lived or perhaps will live hereafter. Lucas tries to explain the
account--which is interesting in its own way with a certain wild and
preposterous plausibility--by reminiscences of a favored Scandinavian
fortress, the gardens of which were hardly ever frozen, enjoying “all
the advantages which any fortunate abode of mortals could demand and
obtain from the powers above.”[227] But this is manifestly vague, a
general picture of balminess and delightfulness, far removed from a
specific account of roasting food by subterranean heat, warming garden
beds to the forcing point by pipes naturally supplied, and carrying
on an extensive commerce from the polar regions by the aid of a tame
volcano. Certainly the warm spring of southwestern Greenland is not
much more to the point; but neither fortress gardens nor flowing water
should be needed to stimulate a lively fancy in creating rather obvious
marvels. Nicolò knew of volcanoes in Iceland (as well as Italy), may
well have surmised their activity in Greenland, and would be only one
of many who have amused themselves with speculations as to what might
be accomplished by tapping the great reservoir of heat and energy below
us. It is not necessary to find a precise earlier parallel, to be sure
that there is no corroboration for his tale of ancestral voyages in
such fancies.


THE ZENO MAP

A glance at the Zeno map (Fig. 19) discloses a good approximation
to the general outline, trend, and taper of Greenland, with certain
features which imply information. For a long time it was thought that
no earlier source existed from which this could have been drawn by
Zeno the compiler. But of later years other fifteenth-century maps
showing Greenland have been discovered in various libraries, notably
four by Nordenskiöld,[228] out of which or out of others like them
Zeno could certainly have gleaned all that he needed for judicious
copying. In particular the maps of Donnus Nicolaus Germanus (1466 to
1474, or a little later; e. g. Fig. 17), elaborated from the map of
Claudius Clavus (1427; Fig. 16), seem to supply the chief features of
the Zeno exhibition.[229] Sharing an error common to Clavus and all
successors of his school, Zeno connected Greenland to Europe. He also
represented its eastern coast as habitable at the extreme upper end. It
is true that a visitor to the real surviving Greenland settlement about
Ericsfiord probably would not learn the facts about these matters, so
that his misinformation is no disproof of the visits of the older Zeni
to that country. On the other hand, it would be difficult to point
to any convincing evidence that either of them was ever there. Kohl
suggests[230] that the fisherman’s story may be a mere reflection of
the general American knowledge of Greenlanders, and this might call
for the presence of one of the Zeni in Greenland to hear the story.
But, if the Norse of Greenland knew anything about Newfoundland or
Labrador, they could hardly have credited and passed along these word
pictures of cities, libraries, and kings. The only thing like internal
corroboration is in the geography of Estotiland and Drogio.

As Nicolò Zeno followed the disciples of Claudius Clavus in outlining
Greenland, so he took for his guide Mattheus Prunes’ map of 1553[231]
in dealing with the more eastern islands. Podanda or Porlanda (Pomona,
the main island of the Orkneys) and Neome (Fair Island) are in both
(Figs. 19 and 12). Prunes displaces these islands to a position west,
instead of south, of southern Shetland (Estiland or Esthlanda), and
Zeno simply carries them both still farther west, while moving them
southward; but his Neome is still in the latitude of the lower end of
Shetland. Long before the time of either of them, the Faroe Islands
had been shown as one territory--see the Ysferi (Faroe Islands) of
the eleventh-century map of the Cottonian MS. in the British Museum,
reproduced by Santarem.[232] The main islands are in fact barely
severed from each other by a thread of water.


FRISLAND

It was, and is, so common to use “land” as a final syllable for island
names (witness Iceland, Shetland, and the rest) that “Ferisland” would
easily be derived from the form of the name last given and would be as
readily contracted into “Frisland.” We find the latter (Frislanda),
indeed, on the map of Cantino (1502)[233] and in the life of Columbus
ascribed to his son Ferdinand.[234] There seems no doubt of its very
early use for a northern island or islands; apparently primarily for
the Faroe group, often blended as one island.

But there seems to have been some confusion in men’s minds between
Iceland and Frisland as northern fishing centers and neighbors of like
conditions. Thus the portolan atlas known as Egerton MS. 2803, contains
two maps[235] (one shown in Fig. 8) naming Iceland “Fislanda,” and
the notable Catalan map of about 1480[236] (Fig. 7), first copied by
Nordenskiöld, which shows Greenland as an elongated rectangular “Illa
Verde” and Brazil in the place later given to Estotiland, also depicts
a large insular “Fixlanda,” which is surely Iceland, if any faith may
be put in general outline and the arrangement of islets offshore.
Prunes (1553; Fig. 12) substantially reproduces it, with the same name
and apparently the same meaning. Zeno (Fig. 19) follows him closely in
area and aspect but draws also an elongated Iceland to the northward,
the latter island trending southwestward in imitation of Greenland and
seeming to derive its geography therefrom. This version of Iceland was
probably suggested by one of the Nicolaus Germanus maps above referred
to.

Thus Zeno has two great islands, Frisland and Iceland, the former being
several times larger than Shetland and many times larger than Orkney.
His Frisland gets its name from the Faroes, its area and outline from
Iceland; it is located south of Iceland, where there never was anything
but waste water. No such large island, distinct from Iceland, ever
existed at the north. Certainly, as shown, it is a mythical island
indeed.

Major stoutly argued that any derelictions of the map are to be
explained as the defects of age and rottenness, unskillfully cobbled
by a later hand. This sounds reasonable to one who has seen how the
changes of time deface these old memorials and how easily outlines
and much more may be misread. But in point of fact the map as we have
it answers to the narrative singularly well. Any blurs or lacunae
which needed restoration must have occurred in very fortunate places.
Iceland, Shetland, Greenland, Scotland, Estotiland, and Drogio are all
not very far from where they should be. The Orkneys and Fair Island, if
too far west in fact, are only far enough to suit the tale, for when
Antonio sails eastward he comes to them and knows he has passed east of
Iceland, a reflection more likely to occur if the interval were rather
small than if it were very great.


ICARIA

Again, when Earl Zichmni and Antonio Zeno with their little flotilla,
fired by the fisherman’s American experiences, strike westward from
Frisland for Estotiland they, indeed, do not reach that goal but do
attain by accident the mysterious Icaria and find themselves where
Greenland can be and is reached without much difficulty. Now, on the
map (Fig. 19), Icaria, about the size of Shetland, is the most westerly
of all the islands not distinctly American. Draw a straight line from
Iceland to Estotiland and another from the center of Frisland to
Cape Hwarf near the lower end of Greenland, and Icaria lies at the
intersection. Granting the rest of the story, it is shown where they
might very well have stumbled upon it in trying to go farther west.

Of course, it is not there; nothing ever was there except an ample
expanse of sea. Where Zeno got the idea of Icaria is not known--except
as an appended and unimportant myth from the Aegean; it certainly was
not supplied by the facts of the North Atlantic. Probably the initial
“I” stands for island as usual, and “Caria” is a not impossible
transformation of either “Kerry” (preferred by Major) or “Kilda”--the
latter more likely, for southern Ireland was continually visited by
Italian traders, whereas St. Kilda lay off the trade routes rather far
away in the mists and myths of the ocean and might be a fairer field
for exaggeration and shifting of place. But, with every allowance, it
is hard to see how this small ultra-Hebridean rock pile could become a
large island territory just short of America. Perhaps it is as well to
treat Icaria as merely the unprovoked creation of the romantic brain of
the younger Zeno.


INFLUENCE OF IMAGINARY CARTOGRAPHY

It may be true that the elder Zeno brothers served for a time under
some northern island ruler, whose name the later Nicolò Zeno read
and copied as the impossible Zichmni; that they then visited various
countries and islands, possibly including the surviving but dwindling
Greenland settlement; that one of them heard in general outline the
adventures of a fisherman or minor mariner cast away at two points of
the American coast; and that a futile attempt was thereupon made by
their patron to explore the same regions. Every one of these admissions
lacks adequate confirmation and is very dubious; yet they are all
possible. But it is not possible that a map made about 1400 could bear
at almost all points the plain marks of copying with slight changes
from maps of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and, since the
narrative so well fits the map, the two as we have them must stand or
fall together.

Either Nicolò Zeno of 1558 invented the whole matter, building up
his imposture by the aid of maps and information already existent
and accessible, or he actually had some sort of old sketch map and
fragments of letters and has recast them with more modern aids quite at
his convenience, leaving no certain trace of the original outlines or
statements. It comes to much the same thing in either case.

Also in either case his unscrupulous and misleading achievements in
imaginary cartography remain as historic facts. For a century or more
he supplied the maps of the world with several new great islands; he
shifted others widely into new positions; he adorned other regions
with new names that were loath to depart; and he presented a story of
pre-Columbian discovery of America which was long accepted as true and
is not wholly discarded even yet.




CHAPTER X

ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES


There are two names still in common use for American regions, which
long antedate Columbus and most likely commemorate achievements of
earlier explorers. They are Brazil and the Antilles. The former is
earlier on the maps and records; but the case for Antillia, as an
American pre-Columbian map item, is in some respects less complex and
more obvious.


ANTILLIA

A good many decades before the New World became known as such, Antillia
was recognized as a legitimate geographical feature. A comparatively
late and generally familiar instance of such mention occurs in
Toscanelli’s letter of 1474 to Columbus,[237] recommending this
island as a convenient resting point on the sea route to Cathay. Its
authenticity has been questioned, notably by the venerable and learned
Henry Vignaud,[238] but at least some one wrote it and in it reflected
the viewpoint of the time.

Nordenskiöld in his elaborate and invaluable “Periplus” declares: “As
the mention of this large island, the name of which was afterwards
given to the Antilles, in the portolanos of the fourteenth century,
is probably owing to some vessel being storm-driven across the
Atlantic (as, according to Behaim, happened to a Spanish vessel in
1414), those maps on which this island is marked must be reckoned
as Americana.”[239] The word “fourteenth” is probably an accidental
substitute for “fifteenth.” The reference to Behaim undoubtedly means
the often-quoted inscription on his globe of 1492, which avers that
“1414 a ship from Spain got nighest it without being endangered.”[240]
This seems to record an approach rather than an actual landing. But at
least it was evidently believed that Antillia had been nearly reached
in that year by a vessel sailing from the Iberian Peninsula. Little
distinction would then have been made between Spain and Portugal in
such a reference by a non-Iberian.

Ruysch’s map of 1508 is a little more vague in its Antillia inscription
as to the time of this adventure.[241] He says it was discovered by
the Spaniards long ago; but perhaps this means a rediscovery, for he
also chronicles the refuge sought there by King Roderick in the eighth
century.


PETER MARTYR’S IDENTIFICATION OF ANTILLIA

Both of these representations show Antillia far in the ocean
dissociated from any other land, but in the work of Peter Martyr
d’Anghiera, contemporary and historian of Columbus, writing before
1511, we have an explicit identification as part of a well-known
group or archipelago. He has been narrating the discovery of Cuba and
Hispaniola and proceeds:

    Turning, therefore, the stems of his ships toward the east, he
    assumed that he had found Ophir, whither Solomon’s ships sailed
    for gold, but, the descriptions of the cosmographers well
    considered, it seemeth that both these and the other islands
    adjoining are the islands of Antillia.[242]

Perhaps he meant delineations, like those we have yet to consider, and
not descriptions in words; or writings concerning these islands may
then have been extant which have since vanished as completely as the
celebrated map of Toscanelli.

Among “the other islands adjoining” we may be sure he included that
island of Beimini, or Bimini (no other than Florida), a part of which,
thus marked, occurs in his accompanying map and has the distinction
of owning the fabled fountain of youth and luring Ponce de Leon into
romantic but futile adventure. Perhaps only one other map gives it the
name Bimini; but its insular character is plain on divers maps (made
before men learned better), with varying areas and under different
names.


OTHER IDENTIFICATIONS

Peter Martyr was not alone in his identification of the “islands of
Antillia.” Canerio’s map,[243] attributed to 1502, names the large West
India group “Antilhas del Rey de Castella,” though giving the name
Isabella to the chief island; and another map of about the same date
(anonymous)[244] gives them the collective title of Antilie, though
calling the Queen of the Antilles Cuba, as now. A later map,[245]
probably about 1518, varies the first form slightly to “Atilhas [i. e.
Antilhas] de Castela” and shows also “Tera Bimini.” This is the second
Bimini map above referred to.

It is true that the name Antillia, often slightly modified, was not
restricted to this use but occasionally was applied in other quarters.
Beside Behaim’s globe and Ruysch’s map already mentioned, a Catalan map
of the fifteenth century (obviously earlier than the knowledge of the
Portuguese rediscovery of Flores and Corvo)[246] presents a duplicate
delineation of most of the Azores, giving the supposed additional
islands a quite correct slant northwestward and individual names
selected impartially from divers sources. One of these is Attiaela,
recalling the doubtful “Atilae” of the warning-figure inscription on
the map of the Pizigani of 1367[247] (Fig. 2), which may have suggested
it, being applied in the same or a neighboring region. The islands
remain mysterious, perhaps merely registering a free range of fancy at
divers periods.


AN ANTILLIA OF THE MAINLAND

Again, at a much later time, when the exploration of the South American
coast line had proceeded far enough to demonstrate the existence of a
continent, some one speculated, it would seem, concerning an Antillia
of the mainland. One of the maps[248] in the portolan atlas in the
British Museum known as Egerton MS. 2803 bears the word “Antiglia”
running from north to south at a considerable distance west of
the mouth of the Amazon, apparently about where would now be the
southeastern part of Venezuela. Also, the world map[249] in the same
atlas (Fig. 8) bears “Antiglia” as a South American name, in this
instance moved farther westward to the region of eastern Ecuador and
neighboring territory.

But these aberrant applications of the name Antillia in its various
forms were mostly late in time and probably all suggested by some novel
geographical disclosures. The standard identification, as disclosed
on the maps discussed below, at least from Beccario’s of 1435 to
Benincasa’s of 1482, was with a great group of western islands; as was
Peter Martyr’s, much later.


THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME

Naturally the origin of the word has been found a fascinating problem.
Ever since Formaleoni,[250] near the close of the eighteenth century,
called attention to the delineation of Antillia in Bianco’s map of
1436, discussed below, as indicating some knowledge of America, there
have been those to urge the claims of the suppositional lost Atlantis
instead. The two island names certainly begin with “A” and utilize
“t,” “l,” and “i” about equally; but “Atlantis” comes so easily out of
“Atlas,” and the great mountain chain marches so conspicuously down to
the sea in all early maps, that the derivation of the former may be
called obvious; whereas you cannot readily or naturally turn “Atlas”
into “Antillia,” and there is no evidence that any one ever did so.
As to geographical items, both have been located in the great western
sea; but that is true of many other lands, real or fanciful. Something
has been made of the elongated quadrilateral form of Antillia; but
Humboldt points out[251] that in the description transmitted by Plato
this outline is ascribed to a particular district in Atlantis, not to
the great island as a whole, and that, even if it could be understood
in the latter sense, there seems no reason why a fragment surviving
the great cataclysm should repeat the configuration of Atlantis as a
whole. There seems a total lack of any direct evidence, or any weighty
inferential evidence, of the derivation of Antillia from Atlantis.


HUMBOLDT’S HYPOTHESIS

Humboldt, in rejecting this hypothesis, advanced another, which is
picturesque and ingenious but hardly better supported.[252] His choice
is “Al-tin,” Arabic for “the dragon.” Undoubtedly Arabs navigated to
some extent some parts of the great Sea of Darkness, and these monsters
were among its generally credited terrors. The hardly decipherable
inscriptions in the neighborhood of an island on the map of the
Pizigani of 1367[253] (Fig. 2), as we have seen (Ch. VI), seem to cite
Arabic experience in proof of perils from _fulvos_ (krakens) rising
from the depths of the sea, coupling dragons with them in the same
legend and illustrating it by a picture of a kraken dragging one seaman
overboard from a ship in distress, while a dragon high overhead flies
away with another. It is even true that Arabic tradition established
a dragon on at least one island as a horrible oppression, long ago
happily ended, and that another island (perhaps more than one) was
known as the Island of the Dragon. But in all this there is nothing
to connect dragons with Antillia, and that most hideous medieval
fancy is out of all congruity with the fair and almost holy repute of
this island as the place of refuge of the last Christian ante-Moorish
monarch of Spain in the hour of his despair and as the new home of the
seven Portuguese bishops with their following.

In passing, we may note that Antela, the version of the Laon globe
hereinafter referred to, is identical with the name of that Lake Antela
of northwestern Spain which is the source of the river Limia, fabled
to be no other than Lethe, so that Roman soldiers drew back from it,
fearing the waters of oblivion. But as yet no one has taken up the
cause of Spanish Antela as the origin of the island’s name. Probably it
is a mere matter of coincidence.

Humboldt admits that Antillia may be readily resolved into two
Portuguese words, _ante_ and _illa_ (island). He even cites several
parallel cases, of which Anti-bacchus will serve as an example. But
he objects that such compound names have been used in comparison with
other islands, not with a continent. In the present instance, however,
the comparison would be with Portugal, not with all Europe, and the
other member of it would be a map island which, he says, is as long
as Portugal and seems curiously to borrow and copy Portugal’s general
form and is arranged opposite to that kingdom far beyond the Azores
across a great expanse of sea. It must be remembered that _illa_ is the
old form of _ilha_, found in many maps, that either would naturally be
pronounced “illia,” and that you cannot say “anteillia” or “antiillia”
at all rapidly without turning it almost exactly into Antillia. The
“island out before,” or the “opposite island,” would be the natural
interpretation. The latter seems preferable. Notwithstanding the great
importance which must always be attached to any opinion of Humboldt’s,
there really seems no need to let fancy range far afield when an
obvious explanation faces us in the word itself and on the maps.


THE WEIMAR MAP

Nordenskiöld, practically applying his test of the presence of Antillia
and arranging his materials in chronological order, heads his list
of “The Oldest Maps of the New Hemisphere”[254] with the anonymous
map preserved in the Grand Ducal library in Weimar and credited to
1424.[255] But it seems that this map does not deserve that position,
for it is not entitled to the date; Humboldt, inspecting the original,
made out certain fragments of words and the Roman characters for
that year on a band running from south to north between the Azores
and Antillia; also, in more modern ink, the date 1424 on the margin.
Whatever the explanation, he was convinced of error by subsequent
correspondence with the Weimar librarian and admitted that it was
probably the work of Conde Freducci not earlier than 1481. Apart from
all considerations of workmanship and map outlines, the use of “insule”
instead of “insulle” and of “brandani” instead of “brandany” in the
inscription concerning the Madeiras marks the map as almost certainly
belonging to the last quarter, not the first quarter, of the fifteenth
century.


THE BECCARIO MAP OF 1426

The second map on Nordenskiöld’s New World list is “Becharius 1426,”
a Latinization of the surname of Battista Beccario and at least not
so weird a transformation as Humboldt’s “Beclario or Bedrazio.”
Apparently the year of this map has not been doubted, but there is a
lack of first-hand evidence that the original contains Antillia. No
reproduction of this map had been published prior to the writer’s paper
on St. Brendan’s Islands in the July, 1919, _Geographical Review_,
nor, so far as is known, has its extreme western part been copied in
any way. The section there reproduced, and herewith reprinted only
slightly curtailed (Fig. 3), is one of several sent me in response
to arrangements, made before the war, for a photograph of the map,
but by some mistake the very portion that would have been conclusive
was omitted, and all attempts to remedy the error have failed. But,
if there were any inscription concerning recently discovered islands
located as in his later map, some part of it at least would probably be
seen on what I have; and for this and other reasons I do not believe
that Antillia is delineated or named on the Beccario map of 1426.


THE BECCARIO MAP OF 1435

The addition to fifteenth-century geography of a great group of large
western islands roughly corresponding to a part of the West Indies and
Florida rests mainly on the testimony of the following maps now to
be discussed: Beccario 1435, Bianco 1436, Pareto 1455, Roselli 1468,
Benincasa 1482, and the anonymous Weimar map probably by Freducci and
dating somewhere after 1481. Of these the most complete as well as
the earliest is Beccario’s[256] (Fig. 20). He gives the islands the
collective title of “Insulle a novo rep’te” (newly reported islands),
which may refer to the discovery recorded by Behaim for 1414 or to
some more recent experience. The interval would not be much greater
than that between the first landing of Columbus and the narrative of
Peter Martyr beginning with equivalent words. It is likely, however,
that some lost map or maps preceded Beccario’s, for the artificially
regular outlines of his islands, though in accord with the fashion
of cartography in his time, seem rather out of keeping with a first
appearance. The type had somehow fixed itself with curious minuteness
and was repeated faithfully by his successors. In spite of these
impossibly symmetrical details and some discrepancies as to individual
direction of elongation and latitude, the fact remains that in the
Atlantic there is no such great group except the Antilles and that
the general correspondence is too surprising to be explained by mere
accident or conjecture. Surely some mariner had visited Cuba and some
of its neighbors before 1435.

[Illustration: FIG. 20--Section of the Beccario map of 1435 showing
the four islands of the Antilles, St. Brendan’s Islands, Daculi, and
others. (After Uzielli’s photographic facsimile.)]

This map of Beccario had been somewhat neglected, with misreading of
the names, before it was taken in hand by the Italian Geographical
Society and reproduced very carefully by photo-lithography. As regards
the island names in particular, this eliminated some misunderstanding
and confusion and made their meaning plain. Thus rendered, the map
affords a convenient standard for the others, which, indeed, differ
from it very little as to these “Islands of Antillia.”


THE FOUR ISLANDS OF THE ANTILLES ON THE BECCARIO MAP

This group, or more properly series--for three of them are strung out
in a line--comprises the four islands Antillia, Reylla, Salvagio, and I
in Mar. All these names have meaning, easy to render.


ANTILLIA

The largest and most southerly, Antillia, the “opposite island,”
which I take to be no other than Cuba, is shown as an elongated, very
much conventionalized parallelogram, extending from the latitude of
Morocco a little south of the Strait of Gibraltar to that of northern
Portugal. As Humboldt says, it is about a third as wide as it is long;
and in this respect it is singularly even throughout its length. In
its eastern front there are four bays, and three in its western. The
intervals on each side are pretty nearly equal, and each bay is of a
three-lobed form resembling an ill-divided clover leaf. In the lower
end there is a broader and larger bay nearly triangular. The artificial
exactness of these minute details is in keeping with the treatment on
divers maps of the really well-known islands of the eastern Atlantic
archipelagoes, except that the comparative smallness of a Teneriffe, a
Terceira, or even a Madeira, offered less opportunity. The slant of the
island is very slightly east of north, obviously quite different from
the actual longitudinal direction of the even more elongated Queen of
the Antilles.


REYLLA

Behind the lower part of Antillia, much as Jamaica is behind the
eastern or lower part of Cuba, and about in similar proportions of
relative area, Beccario shows a smaller but, nevertheless, considerable
island, pentagonal in outline, mainly square in body, with a low
westward-pointing broad-based triangular extension. He gives it the
impressive name of Reylla, King Island, not ill suited to the royal
beauty of that mountainous gem of the seas.


SALVAGIO

North of Antillia and nearly in line with it, but at a rather wide
interval, he shows Saluagio or Salvagio (“u” and “v” being equivalent),
which has the same name then long given to a wild and rocky cluster of
islets between Madeira and the Canaries, that still bears it in the
form Salvages. Wherever applied the name is bound to denote some form
of savageness; perhaps “Savage Island” is an adequate rendering, the
second word being understood. This Salvagio imitates the general form
of Antillia on a reduced scale, being, nevertheless, much larger than
any other island in the Atlantic south of the parallel of Ireland.
Like Antillia, its eastern and western faces are provided with highly
artificial bays, three in each. Its northern end is beveled upward
and westward. I think this large island probably represents Florida,
similarly situated to the northward of Cuba and divided from it by
Florida Strait. Its area must have been nakedly conjectural, as much
later maps show its line of supposed severance from the mainland to
have been drawn by guesswork.


I IN MAR

The inclined northern end of Salvagio is divided by a narrow sea belt
from I in Mar, which has approximately a crescent form and a bulk not
very different from that commonly ascribed at that time to Madeira.
“I,” of course, stands for Insula or one of its derivatives, such as
Illa, a word or initial applied or omitted at will. “Island in the Sea”
is probably the true rendering, though formerly the initial and the two
words were sometimes blended, as Tanmar or Danmar, to the confusion of
geographers. A larger member of the Bahama group lying near the Florida
coast would seem to fill the requirements, being naturally recognized
as more at sea than Florida or Cuba. Great Abaco and Great Bahama
are nearly contiguous and, considered together, would give nearly
the required size and form; but it is not necessary to be individual
in identification. Possibly Insula in Mar as drawn was meant to be
symbolical and representative of the sea islands generally rather than
to set forth any particular one of them.


THE ROSELLI MAP OF 1468

The Roselli map of 1468,[257] the property of the Hispanic Society of
America, New York City, is nearly as complete as the Beccario map of
1435. It lacks only the western part of Reylla (a name here corrupted
into “roella”), by the reason of the limitations of the material. These
maps were generally drawn on parchment made of lambskin with the narrow
neck of the skin presented toward the west, perhaps as the quarter in
which unavoidable omissions were thought to do the least harm. Because
of the island’s position on the very edge of the skin, its outline,
although unmistakable, is faint and in a few decades of exposure of
the original might have vanished altogether. This raises the question
whether certain outlines, now missing but plainly called for, on other
maps of the same period, have not met with the same fate. Probably this
has happened. Antilia--spelled thus--is plain in name and outline;
so is the island next above it, spelled Saluaega. The “I” is omitted
from I in Mar, as was often done in like cases, and the words “in
Mar” are uncertain, but seem as above. The island figure is correctly
given by Beccario’s standard, and in general the representation of the
island series is almost exactly the same. Perhaps the most discernible
difference is a very slight northwestern trend given to Antillia,
instead of the equally slight northeastern inclination in Beccario’s
case.


THE BIANCO MAP OF 1436

The Bianco map of 1436[258] (Fig. 25) was the first of the Antillia
maps to attract attention in quite modern times but has suffered far
worse than Roselli’s in the matter of limitation. The border of the
material cuts off all but Antillia and the lower end of Salvagio, to
which Bianco has given the strange name of La Man (or Mao) Satanaxio,
generally translated “The Hand of Satan” but believed by Nordenskiöld
to be rather a corruption of a saint’s name, perhaps that of St.
Anastasio. It remains a mystery, though one hypothesis connects it with
a grisly Far Eastern tale of a demon hand. The initial “S” is all that
Satanaxio has in common with the names for this island on the other
maps that show it; and, as nearly all of these present very slight
changes from Salvagio, easily to be accounted for by carelessness or
errors in copying, the latter name is fairly to be regarded as the
legitimate one, while Satanaxio remains unique and grimly fanciful,
perhaps to be explained another day. The most that can be said for its
generally accepted meaning is that it corroborates Salvagio in so far
as it intensifies savagery to diabolism. One is tempted to speculate
as to whether any very cruel treatment from the natives had formed
part of the experience of the visitors along that shore; but there is
no known fact or assertion upon which to base such an idea. As to the
delineation of the islands, it is quite evident that Bianco showed the
same group as Beccario and Roselli so far as circumstances permitted;
and there is no reason to believe that the islands for which he had no
room would have differed from theirs in his showing, if admissible, any
more than his Antillia differs; that is to say, hardly at all.

Humboldt was so impressed by this map of Bianco that he took the pains
of measuring upon it the distance of Antillia from Portugal, making
this about two hundred and forty leagues: an unreliable test, one would
say, for the distances over the western waste of waters probably were
not drawn to scale nor supposed to approach exactness. For that matter,
the interval between Portugal and the Azores, as shown on maps for
nearly a hundred years, was greatly underestimated, and the discrepancy
becomes more glaring as the islands lie farther westward, Flores and
Corvo being conspicuous examples. We should naturally expect to find
the West Indies reported much nearer than they really are by anyone
mapping a record of them. Perhaps the explanation lies in a disposition
of cartographers to expect and allow for a great deal of nautical
exaggeration in the mariners’ yarns that reached them. A careful man
might come at last to believe in the existence of an island but doubt
if it were really so very far away.


THE PARETO MAP OF 1455

Pareto, 1455, has a very interesting and elaborate map[259] (Fig.
21) showing Antillia, Reylla, and I in Mar (the latter without name)
in the orthodox size, shape, and position, but with a great gap
between Antillia and I in Mar where Salvagio should be. Very likely
it was there once. Perhaps this is another case of fading away. One
doubts whether the loss might not still be retrieved by more powerful
magnifying glasses and close study of the significant interval. Pareto
is unmistakably disclosing the same series of islands as the others.
It may be that from him Roselli borrowed the inaccurate “roella” for
Reylla, since Pareto is earlier in using a similar form (Roillo).

[Illustration: FIG. 21--Section of the Pareto map of 1455 showing
the Antilles, St. Brendan’s Islands, Daculi, and others. (After
Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.)]


THE BENINCASA MAP OF 1482

Benincasa’s map of 1482[260] (Fig. 22) presents Salvagio as Saluaga,
and I in Mar without name, but omits Reylla, both name and figure.
The islands shown are in their accepted form and arrangement, except
that Saluaga has but two bays on the western side, and his map adds
a novelty in a series of names applied to the several bays, or the
regions adjoining them, of the two larger islands. These names (Fig.
22) are twelve in number and seem like the fanciful work of some
Portuguese who was haunted by a few Arabic sounds in addition to those
of his native tongue. Several of them, like Antillia, begin with
“An,” perhaps another illustration of the law of the line of least
resistance. I cannot think that there is any significance in these bits
of antiquated ingenuity, though, as we have seen in Chapter V, some
have believed they found in them a relic of the Seven Cities legend.


THE WEIMAR MAP (AFTER 1481)

The Weimar map,[261] though long carefully housed, has suffered
blurring and fading with some other damage in its earlier history.
It is evidently a late representative of the tradition and begins to
wander slightly from the accepted standard. It has been curtailed also
from the beginning, like Bianco’s map of 1436, by the limitations of
the border, which in this instance cuts off the lower part of Antillia,
though the name is nearly intact; but enough remains to indicate a
reduced relative size and a greater slant to the northeastward than on
Beccario’s map. There is, of course, no room for Reylla, and there is
none for I in Mar; but

Salvagio is given plainly and fully, with the letter S quite
conspicuous. I cannot read more of the name on the photograph; but
the Weimar librarian reads San on the original, being uncertain as
to the rest. This map bears traces of local names arranged in places
like those of Benincasa but fragmentary and illegible. Perhaps these
names tend to show that the maps belong not only to the same period,
but to the same general school of development. The other differences
between this map and its predecessors are trivial. The general idea
of the island series is the same so far as it is disclosed, and it is
hardly to be doubted that all elements of the islands of Antillia would
have been presented in the main on this map as they are by Roselli and
Beccario, if there had been room to do so.

[Illustration: FIG. 22--Section of the Benincasa map of 1482 showing
the Antilles, St. Brendan’s Islands, and others. (After Kretschmer’s
hand-copied reproduction.)]


THE LAON GLOBE OF 1493

The Laon globe,[262] 1493, though mainly older, certainly had room
enough, but it appears to have formed part of some mechanism and to
have had only a secondary or incidental, and in part rather careless,
application to geography. It shows two elongated islands, Antela and
Salirosa, undoubtedly meant for Antillia and Salvagio. Perhaps the
globe maker had at command only a somewhat defaced specimen of a map
like Bianco’s or that of Weimar, showing perforce only two islands, and
merely copied them, guessing at the dim names and outlines, without
thinking or caring whether anything more were implied or making
any farther search. This is apparently the last instance in which
the larger two islands of the old group or series, marked by their
traditional names or what are meant for such, appear together.


OTHER MAPS

It may seem strange that certain other notable maps, for example
Giraldi 1426,[263] Valsequa 1439,[264] and Fra Mauro 1459,[265] show
nothing of Antillia and its neighbors. Perhaps the makers were not
interested in these far western parts of the ocean, or the narratives
on which Beccario and the rest based their maps had not reached them;
more likely they were skeptical and unwilling to commit themselves.

It is also true that the Antillia of Beccario and others is made to
extend nearly north and south instead of east and west; that I in Mar
is placed north of its greater neighbor instead of east; and that
the whole chain of islands is moved into considerably more northern
latitudes than the group which we suppose them to represent. Thus the
eastern, or lower, end of Cuba is actually in the latitude of the
lower part of the Sahara, and a point above the upper end of Florida
would be in the latitude of the upper part of Morocco; whereas in the
maps discussed the average location of the chain from the lower end
of Antillia to the most northerly island, I in Mar, would run from
the latitude of northern Morocco to that of southern France. There
are slight individual differences in this matter of extension, but I
believe Antillia always begins below Gibraltar and ends above northern
Spain and a little below Bordeaux. But some dislocation, of course, is
to be looked for in mapping exploration in an unscientific period. The
changes of direction and extension are not greater than in the American
coast line of Juan de la Cosa’s very important map of 1500,[266] not to
mention even more extravagant instances of later date; and the shifting
of latitudes may partly be accounted for by ignorance of the southward
dip of the isothermal lines in crossing the Atlantic westward. Thus a
Portuguese sailor on reaching a far western island or shore having what
seemed to him the climate and conditions of Gascony would be likely to
suppose that it was really opposite Gascony, though in fact it might be
more nearly opposite the Canaries; and the same cause of error would
apply all down the line. Cuba is not really directly opposite Portugal
but may easily have been believed so.


IDENTITY OF ANTILLIA WITH THE ANTILLES

A more difficult question is raised by the absence of Haiti and Porto
Rico from these maps, with all the more eastward Antilles. But it is
possible that they may not have been visited or even seen. We can
imagine an expedition that would touch Great Abaco, coast along
Florida and Cuba, and visit Jamaica, returning out of sight, or with
little notice, of the Haitian coast and barely passing an islet or two
of the Bahamas, which, if not sufficiently commemorated in a general
way by Insula in Mar, might well be disregarded. A report of such an
expedition, adding that Antillia was directly opposite Portugal and of
about equal size, would account fairly for the map which for half a
century was faithfully repeated even in details by many different hands
and evidently confidently believed in.

Unless we accept this explanation, we must assume an uncanny, almost
an inspired, gift of conjecture in some one who, without basis, could
imagine and depict the only array of great islands in the Atlantic.
Certainly the outlines of Cuba, Jamaica, Florida, and one of the
Bahamas will very well bear comparison with Scandinavia or the Hebrides
and the Orkneys as given on maps of equal or even later date. Some
glaring errors are to be expected in such work, as notoriously occurred
in the sixteenth-century treatment of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Applying the same tests and canons and making the same allowances as
in these cases of distortion of undoubtedly actual lands, we may be
reasonably confident that the Antillia of 1435 was really, as now, the
Queen of the Antilles.




CHAPTER XI

CORVO, OUR NEAREST EUROPEAN NEIGHBOR


Far at sea from Portugal, straggling in a long northwestward line
toward America, lies the archipelago sometimes called the Islands of
the Sun or the Western Islands but now generally known as the Azores.
That line breaks into three divisions separated by wide gaps of sea:
the most easterly pair, St. Michael and St. Mary; the main cluster of
five islands, Pico being the loftiest and Terceira the most important;
and the northwesterly pair, Flores and Corvo. These last make a little
far-severed world of their own, sharing in none of the tremors and
upheavals which from time to time more or less transform parts of the
other two divisions. The remote origin of the pair was volcanic, and
Corvo is little more now than an old crater lifted about 300 feet above
the surface; but the fires have long been dead, and in historic times
the lower strata have never shifted suddenly to produce any great
earthquake. There have been changes, but they must be attributed for
the most part to gradual subsidence.

These two islands, though almost as near to Newfoundland as to any
point in Portugal, cannot be classed as American; yet Corvo in
particular seems to have impressed the imagination of ancient and
medieval explorers with a sense of some special relation to regions
beyond, though possibly only to the entangling Sargasso Sea of weeds,
which would lie next in order southwestward (Fig. 1), and the menacing
mysteries of the remoter wastes of the Atlantic. It may have been felt
as the last stepping stone for the leap into the great unknown.


ORIGIN OF THE NAME

Flores, the island of flowers, thus prettily renamed by the
Portuguese, is referred to as the rabbit island, Li Conigi, in the
fourteenth-century maps and records; but Corvo has always borne, in
substance, the same name, one of the oldest on the Atlantic. Probably
the very first instance of its use is in the Book of the Spanish
Friar,[267] written about 1350 (the author says he was born in 1305),
rather recently published in Spanish and since translated for the
Hakluyt Society publications by Sir Clements Markham. After relating
alleged visits to more accessible islands of the eastern Atlantic
archipelagoes, from Lanzarote and Tenerife of the Canaries to São Jorge
(St. George) of the Azores, he continues: “another, Conejos [doubtless
Li Conigi], another, Cuervo Marines [Corvo--the sea crow island], so
that altogether there are 25 islands.”

This account may not actually be later than the Atlante Mediceo
map,[268] attributed to 1351--may even have been suggested by it, as
some things seem to indicate. The Friar’s voyages are perhaps merely
imaginary, their variety and total extent being hardly believable.
This very important map has been best reproduced in the collection
by Theobald Fischer; on it the same name (Corvi Marinis) seems to
be applied to both islands collectively, the plural form “insule”
being used to introduce it. Both names appear on the Catalan map of
1375.[269] It is more than probable that they date at least from the
earlier half of the fourteenth century.

Possibly the name Corvo had been carried over by a somewhat free
translation from the older Moorish seamen and cartographers, who
dominated this part of the outer ocean from the eighth century to the
twelfth. Edrisi,[270] greatest of Arab geographers, writing for King
Roger of Sicily about the middle of the twelfth century, tells us,
among other items, of the eastern Atlantic:

    Near this isle is that of Râca, which is “the isle of the
    birds” (Djazîrato ’t-Toyour). It is reported that a species
    of birds resembling eagles is found there, red and armed with
    fangs; they hunt marine animals upon which they feed and never
    leave these parts.

This statement recalls the cormorants, which are supposed to be meant
by the sea crows, “corvi marinis” of the later maps. They would
naturally flock about the submerged ledges and the wild shore of Corvo
and may be held to suggest either the crow or the eagle, though not
closely resembling either. Everywhere they are the scavengers of the
deep seas. Edrisi mentions a legendary expedition sent by the “King of
France” after these birds. It ended in disaster. The pictorial record
on the Pizigani map of 1367[271] (Fig. 2), of Breton ships in great
trouble with a dragon of the air and a kraken, or decapod, on the
extreme western border of navigation, may conceivably refer to this
experience.


ANCIENT MEMORIALS

But Corvo has even more ancient traditions and associations, Diodorus
Siculus,[272] in the first century before the Christian era, wrote of a
great Atlantic island, probably Madeira, which the Etrurians coveted
during their period of sea power; but the Carthaginians, its first
discoverers, prohibited them, wishing to keep it for their own uses. If
the Etrurians were thus well informed concerning one island of these
eastern Atlantic archipelagoes, it is a fair conjecture that they had
visited the others.

However this may be, it seems that the Carthaginians left memorials
on Corvo. At least this is the most reasonable explanation of
the extraordinary story repeated by Humboldt[273] in the “Examen
Critique,” apparently with full faith in its main feature at least,
notwithstanding the fascinating atmosphere of romance and wonder which
hangs about the details. In the month of November, 1749, it appears, a
violent storm shattered an edifice (presumably submerged) off the coast
of Corvo, and the surf washed out of a vault pertaining to the building
a broken vase still containing golden and copper coins. These were
taken to a convent or monastery (probably on some neighboring island).
Some of them were given away as curiosities, but nine were preserved
and sent to a Father Flores at Madrid, who gave them to M. Podolyn.
Some of them bore for design the full figure of a horse; others bore
horses’ heads. Reproductions of the designs were published in the
_Memoirs of the Gothenburg Royal Society_[274] and compared with those
on coins in the collection of the Prince Royal of Denmark. It seems to
be agreed that they were certainly Phoenician coins of North Africa,
partly Carthaginian.

It has been suggested[275] that they may have been left by Norman
or Arab seafarers, who certainly journeyed among the Azores in the
Middle Ages. But, as Humboldt points out, that these should have
left a hoard of exclusively Phoenician coins, so much more ancient
than their own, without even a single specimen of any other mintage,
appears very unlikely. On the other hand, it is true that Phoenician
vessels sailing northward in the tin or amber traffic would hardly
be likely to be storm-driven so far northwestward as Corvo; St.
Michael would have been a more natural involuntary landfall. This
objection does not apply, however, if we suppose the deposit to be
the work not of accident, but of full intention and deliberation, as
the alleged edifice and vault would certainly tend to show. If these
coins were deposited by Phoenicians who erected permanent buildings,
the remoteness of the island would be only an added reason for
commemoration. The coins might have been immured in the vault for safe
keeping or might have been enclosed in the corner stone, in accordance
with the general custom of placing coins and records in the corner
stones of notable structures.

Of course these details cannot be confidently accepted. As Humboldt
suggests, it is to be regretted that we are without information as to
the period or character of the edifice in question. But at least it
seems most probable that Phoenicians occupied or at any rate visited
this island and deposited coins of Carthage.


EQUESTRIAN STATUES

Furthermore, Corvo is one of several Atlantic islands reputed to have
been marked by monuments generally of one type. Edrisi[276] knows
of them in Al-Khalidat, the Fortunate Isles--bronze westward-facing
statues on tall columnar pedestals. There are said to have been six
such in all, the nearest being at Cadiz. Tradition places an equestrian
statue also on the island of Terceira, as repeated in a much more
modern work.[277] The Pizigani map of 1367, it will be remembered,
shows (Fig. 2) near where Corvo should be the colossal figure of a
saint warning mariners backward, with a confused inscription declaring
westward navigation impracticable beyond this point by reason of
obstructions and announcing that the statue is erected on the shore
of Atilie. But perhaps the best and most apposite account is that of
Manuel de Faria y Sousa in the “Historia del Reyno de Portugal:”

    In the Azores, on the summit of a mountain which is called the
    mountain of the Crow, they found the statue of a man mounted
    on a horse without saddle, his head uncovered, the left hand
    resting on the horse, the right extended toward the west. The
    whole was mounted on a pedestal which was of the same kind of
    stone as the statue. Underneath some unknown characters were
    carved in the rock.[278]

Apparently the reference is to the first ascent of Corvo after its
rediscovery between 1449 and 1460. The mention of “characters” recalls
those found in a cave of St. Michael, also by rediscoverers, during
the same period, as related by Thevet[279] long afterward, most likely
from tradition. A man of Moorish-Jewish descent, who was one of the
party, thought he recognized the inscription as Hebrew, but could not
or did not read it. Some have supposed the characters to be Phoenician.
There is naturally much uncertainty about these stories of very early
observations by untrained men, recorded at last, as the result of a
long chain of transmissions: but they tend more or less to corroborate
the other evidences of Phoenician presence.

It may be possible that the persistent and widely distributed story
of westward-pointing equestrian statues marking important islands
may have grown out of the ancient mention of the pillars of Saturn,
afterward Hercules, and Strabo’s discussion[280] as to whether they
were natural or artificial in origin; but this puts a severe strain on
fancy. We know that the Carthaginians did set up commemorative columns;
and that the horse figured conspicuously in their coinage. Nothing in
the enterprising character of the Phoenician people is opposed to the
idea of incitement to exploration westward. It seems easier to believe
that they set up these statuary monuments on one island after another
than that the whole tradition has grown out of a misunderstanding.
Such statues might well vanish subsequently as completely as the great
silver “tabula” map of Edrisi and many other valuable things of olden
time.

Corvo has no statue now; but it is reputed to hold a statue’s
representative. Captain Boid (1834) relates:

    Corvo is the smallest, and most northerly of the Azores,
    being only six miles in length, and three in breadth, with a
    population of nine hundred souls. It is rocky and mountainous;
    and on being first descried, exhibits a sombre dark-blue
    appearance, which circumstance gave rise to its present
    name, whereby it was distinguished by the early Portuguese
    navigators.... It is not known at what period this island was
    first visited, though from a combination of circumstances,
    it is supposed, about the year 1460. The inhabitants are
    ignorant, superstitious, and bigoted, in the highest degree,
    and relate innumerable ridiculous traditions respecting their
    country. Amongst other absurdities they state, with the utmost
    gravity, that to Corvo is owed the discovery of the western
    world--which, they say, originated through the circumstance
    of a large projecting promontory on the N. W. side of the
    island, possessing somewhat of the form of a human being,
    with an outstretched arm toward the west; and this, they have
    been led to believe, was intended by Providence, to intimate
    the existence of the new world. Columbus, they say, first
    interpreted it thus; and was here inspired with the desire to
    commence his great researches.[281]

Captain Boid was wrong in his derivation of the name Corvo, as we have
seen; wrong also, in another way, in despising the “superstitions” as
“absurd” and refusing them record, for they might embody some valuable
suggestion. Humboldt thought, however, that the story of the pointing
horseman might have grown out of this natural rock formed in human
semblance. No doubt this is possible; but it would not account for
like stories of the other islands nor the general similitude of their
figures. Perhaps an equally valid explanation might be found in the
former presence of such artificial figures, leaving a certain repute
behind them and causing popular fancy to point out resemblances which
would not have been noticed otherwise.

A more recent mention of this pointing rock occurs in “A Trip to the
Azores” by Borges de F. Henriques, a native of Flores. He says:

    Another natural curiosity which has been defaced by the weather
    and the bad taste of visitors is a rock resembling a horseman
    with the right arm extended to the westward as if pointing the
    way to the new world. Some insular writers deny the existence
    of this rock.[282]


NEED OF EXPLORATION

There seems still a good deal of vagueness about the matter, and Corvo
might well be given a thorough overhauling for vestiges of ancient
times. This naturally should be extended to the submerged area close
to the shore, for the outlying reefs and ridges may mark the site of
lower lands where human work once went on and where its traces and
relics may remain. In expanse the island probably was not always what
we find it now, six miles in length by at most three in breadth (seven
square miles in all, as most accounts compute it) with fringes of rock
running off from the shore, “lifting themselves high above the water in
one place, blackening the surface in another, and again sinking to such
a depth that the waves only eddy and bubble over them.” Mr. Henriques
says elsewhere: “In many of the islands, but especially in Flores,
there are vestiges clearly indicating that formerly as well as lately
parts of the island have sunk or rather disappeared in the sea.” He
cites for instance a notable loss of land in the summer of 1847.

There is reason to believe that Corvo has dwindled in this way much
more, proportionately, than Flores. One striking indication is found
in the comparison of the present map with those of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. For convenience sketches of these are appended
(Fig. 23). The relative position of the islands is about the same in
all. The form of Corvo varies from the pear shape of the Laurenziano
map (1351),[283] and another shape[284] not much later slightly
resembling an indented segment of a circle, to the three-lobed or
clover-leaf form which was accepted as the final convention or standard
and first clearly appears in the great Catalan atlas[285] of 1375,
repeated by Beccario 1435[286], Benincasa 1482[287], and others; but
all agree in making Corvo the main island and Li Conigi (Flores)
a minor pendant. Corvo seems in every way to have commanded chief
attention, and in size the difference was conspicuous and decisive.
The difference certainly is great enough now, but conditions and
proportions are reversed. Corvo has but one-eighth the area of Flores
and less than one-tenth the population. In all ways it lacks advantages
and conveniences, taking rather the place of a poor dependent.

[Illustration: FIG. 23--Representation of Corvo on fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century maps as compared with its present outline. (The
sources may be identified from the text.)]

There is no good reason for discrediting so many of the old maps. Their
makers sometimes went wrong; but they tried to be accurate and would
hardly, through a century or two, persist in making the northern island
the greater one unless it was at first really so. Of course the most
natural solution of the difficulty is that Corvo’s border has sunk or
the sea has risen over it, completely drowning the territory which made
the lobes or curved outline of the island form in the medieval maps
and leaving only above water its rocky backbone, with the crater for a
nucleus. Apparently those lobes and their contents are just what might
be most profitably dredged for and dived after.

Perhaps the island has not greatly changed since Mr. Henriques wrote
his little sketch of it in the sixth decade of the last century:

    The first part of the ride to it [the crater] is through steep
    and narrow lanes walled in with stones. Over those walls you
    can sometimes see the country right and left, which is divided
    into small and well-cultivated compartments by low stone walls.
    These small fields form narrow terraces, one above another,
    looking from the sea like steps in the hills. An hour’s ride
    brings you to an open mountain covered with heath where browse
    flocks of sheep and hogs, and about an hour and a half more
    to the crater on the summit, now a quiet green valley, with a
    dark, still pond in the center....

    The Corvoites, particularly the women, are a happy and
    industrious people and have strong and healthy constitutions.
    The men in trade evince a remarkable shrewdness, proverbial
    among the other Azorians, but in private life their manners
    are simple and unassuming.... They are like a large family of
    little less than a thousand members, all living in the only
    village on the island.[288]




CHAPTER XII

THE SUNKEN LAND OF BUSS AND OTHER PHANTOM ISLANDS


Beside those legendary Atlantic islands that may cast some light on
visits of white men to America before Columbus or have been at some
time linked therewith by speculation or tradition--notably Antillia
and its consorts, Brazil, Man or Mayda, Green Island, Estotiland and
Drogio, the Island or Islands of St. Brendan, and the Island of the
Seven Cities--there are numerous others, quite a swarm indeed, excusing
Ptolemy’s and Edrisi’s extravagant estimate of 27,000. Sometimes, but
not always, they are of more recent origin and are explainable in
various ways.

Several are linked to the idea of volcanic destruction or seismic
engulfment. Of course the colossal and classical instance of Atlantis
comes first into mind, it being the earliest as well as in every way
the most imposing. Most likely the well-known story, repeated, if not
originated, by Plato, developed naturally, as we have seen, from the
insistent need to account for the obstructive weedy wastes of the
Sargasso Sea beyond the Azores and recurrent facts of minor cataclysms
among them.

The next oldest instance, perhaps, is supplied by Ruysch’s map of
1508,[289] an inscription on which avers that an island in the sea
about midway between Iceland and Greenland had been totally destroyed
by combustion in the year 1456. We do not know his authority for this
startling announcement. The spot is where one would naturally look
for Gunnbjörn’s skerries of the older Icelandic writings; and no one
can find them now, unless they were, after all, but projecting points
of the eastern Greenland coast. Also Iceland is at times tremendously
eruptive; and this islet, or these islets, would not be far away. The
assertion is not in itself incredible, but there seems no corroboration.


THE DISCOVERY OF BUSS

The “Sunken Island of Buss” presents a suggestion of engulfment on
a more extensive scale. The whole episode is of rather recent date,
Buss being the latest born of mythical or illusory islands, unless we
except Negra’s Rock and other alleged and unproven apparitions of land
on a very small scale, which may not have wholly ceased even yet. Buss
is, at any rate, the one moderately large phantom map island the time
and occasion of whose origin are securely recorded. For, as narrated
by Best and published in Hakluyt’s compilation, on Frobisher’s third
voyage (1578), one of his vessels, a buss, or small strong fishing
craft, of Bridgewater, named _Emmanuel_, made the discovery. In his
words:

    The Buss of Bridgewater, as she came homeward, to the
    southeastward of Frisland, discovered a great island in the
    latitude of 57 degrees and a half, which was never yet found
    before, and sailed three days along the coast, the land seeming
    to be fruitful, full of woods, and a champaign country.[290]

Best must have had his information at second or third hand, with
liberal play of fancy in the final touches on the part of his informant
or himself. His was the first account published, but not long afterward
appeared that of an eyewitness, “Thomas Wiars, a passenger in the
_Emmanuel_, otherwise called the Busse of Bridgewater,” repeated
in Miller Christy’s admirable little treatise on the subject.[291]
Wiars says they fell with Frisland (probably a part of Greenland) on
September 8 and on September 12 reached this new island, coasted it for
parts of two days, and considered it 25 leagues long. There was much
ice near it. He gives no suggestion of fertility, woods, or fields.

[Illustration: FIG. 24--Map of Buss Island from John Seller’s
“English Pilot,” probably 1673. (After Miller Christy’s photographic
facsimile.)]


ITS DISAPPEARANCE FROM THE MAP

The only other witnesses to the visual existence of the island, so
far as recorded, were James Hall (probably by honest mistake) in 1606
and Thomas Shepherd (gravely distrusted) in 1671.[292] Nevertheless
an impressive insular figure grew up in the maps, bearing the name
“Buss” to commemorate the vessel that first found it. In some instances
it was made a very large island indeed. Shepherd’s map, reproduced
herewith (Fig. 24), was accompanied by a brief descriptive narrative
which may be attributed to a fancy for yarning, with no strong curb of
conscience on the fancy. Buss remained an accepted figure of geography
for considerably more than a century.

Quite naturally, however, the efforts of reliable searchers failed
to find this island again, for it was not really there. A theory of
cataclysm seemed more acceptable than to discard outright what so
many maps, books, and traditions had attested. Van Keulen’s chart of
1745[293] led the way with the inscription “The submerged land of Buss
is nowadays nothing but surf a quarter of a mile long with rough sea.
Most likely it was originally the great island of Frisland.” So the
name “Sunken Land of Buss” passed into general use with geographic
sanction. After much disturbance of mariners’ and cartographers’ minds
not only the phantom island but its legacy, the supposed line of
breakers and dangers, vanished altogether from the records. There is
no “Buss” to be found on maps after about the middle of the nineteenth
century, though the preceding hundred years had been prolific in them.
Probably we must suppose a later date for the cessation of current
mention of the sunken land of that name, in recognition of what,
according to belief, once had been but existed (above water) no longer.

Indeed, even after the opening of this twentieth century the same
hypothesis has revived,[294] with scientific support of a submarine
range in 53° N. and 35° W., really ocean-bottom mountains 8,000 feet
high between Ireland and Newfoundland, reported upon in 1903 by Captain
de Carteret of the cable ship _Minia_. They are not on the same spot
and would still require a great lift to reach the surface. Of course
their past sinking is not impossible, but there is no need to explain
Buss by cataclysm any more than Mayda or Brazil Island, Drogio or
Icaria.


ISLANDS OF DEMONS

Somewhat allied by nature to these reported isles of destruction and
disappearance are the islands of imported diabolism, appearing on
maps now and then through the centuries. Bianco’s “The Hand of Satan”
(1436[295]; Fig. 25), if correctly translated (see Ch. X, p. 156), is
probably the first to present this quality. He locates the sinister
island well to the southward; but the most pictorial appearance is
Gastaldi’s (for Ramusio) “Island of Demons,”[296] with its eager and
capering imps at the bleak and savage northern end of Newfoundland. The
preferred site, however, would seem to be yet a little farther north.
Ruysch, in the map referred to above, which announces the burning up
of Gunnbjörn’s skerries, exhibits two Insulae Demonium near the middle
of the dreaded Ginnungagap passage between Labrador and Greenland.
There is no suggestion of volcanic action in their case, and it does
not appear that any real islands occupied the spot. The reason for the
delineation and the name is still to seek.

The map of 1544, attributed to Sebastian Cabot,[297] makes a single
island of them, “marked Y. de Demones”, and brings it nearer
the eastern front of Labrador below Hamilton Inlet. Agnese[298]
in the same century enlarges it greatly but still keeps it just off
the Labrador coast. The Ortelius map of 1570[299] (Fig. 10) shows
the insular haunt of devils, plural again in form and name, but
retains approximately the site chosen by Cabot. Mercator’s world
map of 1569[300] keeps the islands plural beside the upper tip of
Newfoundland, approximating Gastaldi’s position. There seems to have
been a pronounced and general concurrence of belief in diabolical evil
in the northeastern coast of America, perhaps because it is there that
the Arctic current brings down its tremendous freight, and tempests are
at their wildest, and all barrenness and bleakness at their worst.

[Illustration: FIG. 25--Section of the Bianco map of 1436 showing
the Island of the Hand of Satan and Antillia. (After Kretschmer’s
hand-copied reproduction.)]


SAINTLY ISLANDS

Much farther south, on the lines followed by Columbus and his Latin
successors and in the tracks of vessels plying between the eastern
Atlantic archipelagoes and the West Indies, what may be considered
as a contrary impulse--that of exultant religious enthusiasm--came
into play in island naming. The Island of the Seven Cities (Ch. V)
will be recalled but needs no further consideration here. St. Anne,
La Catholique, St. X, and Incorporado (in the sense of Christ’s
Incarnation) are among the more conspicuous instances. The second-named
was always in low latitudes. It occurs in the latitude of the tip of
Florida, in mid-Atlantic in the Desceliers map of 1546[301] (Fig. 9);
also as “La Catolico” on Portuguese maps, with similar situation.
Desceliers shows Encorporade (Incorporado) about east of Cape Hatteras
and south of western Newfoundland; but he also has Encorporada Adonda
not far from Nova Scotia. Thomas Hood (1592)[302] makes a wild and
unenlightened transformation of Incorporado to “Emperadada” and puts
it about opposite the site of Savannah, but not so far east as the
considerable outjutting of the coast which must be meant for Cape
Hatteras and its neighborhood. However, this location is not very
different from that usually given it. Desceliers has two islands
marked St. X, one being in the longitude of St. Michaels and latitude
of Bermuda; the other in the longitude of eastern Newfoundland and
latitude of the Hudson. In about the same latitude as the latter, and
more than half way between it and the Azores, an island called St.
Anne is shown. There seems nothing real to prompt the derivation of
these religiously named islands. Perhaps they are merely the offspring
of optical delusion, fancy, and fervor.


DACULI AND BRA

On the other side of the Atlantic the much earlier map island Daculi
must be reckoned as of kin to them, since its map legends deal with
beneficent wonder working or magical medical aid, and its name may be
identical with or have originated the saintly one which still denotes
an outlying Hebridean island. Though less renowned than the island of
Brazil and less significant, Daculi shares with it the record for first
appearance of mythical islands on portolan maps.

Dalorto’s map of 1325[303] (Fig. 4) already indicated as the earliest
one of much interest in this special regard, presents many islands of
familiar or unfamiliar names near Ireland and Scotland. Nobody can
mistake the rightly located Man, Bofim, and Brascher (the Blaskets).
Insula Sau must be Skye, though with the outline of the Kintyre
peninsula. Sialand seems to be Shetland. Tille may be Orkney displaced.
Galuaga or Saluaga probably stands for the main body of the Long Island
(Harris, Lewis, etc.) of the outer Hebrides. Bra is no doubt Barra and
has generally been thus accepted, though out of line with Galuaga and
too far eastward. Brazil, as already reported, is naturally farther at
sea opposite Brascher. Finally our subject for present consideration,
Daculi, lies off the northwestern corner of Ireland, north of Brazil
Island and west of Bra, with which last it has in later maps a curious
legendary association. With Insula de Montonis, as Brazil is also
called on Dalorto’s map, it may be linked in another way by their
Italian names, for Daculi seems capable of that derivation, “culla”
being “cradle” in that language, plural “culli,” easily modified to
“culi” by careless speech or writing. The introductory preposition “da”
in one use has an especial relation to nativity; thus Zuan da Napoli
means John born at Naples, that is John of Naples in this sense. The
blending of preposition and noun in one word, “Daculi,” is no more than
sometimes happened on the maps to the article and noun “Li Conigi,” the
Rabbit Island, making it “Liconigi,” now long known as Flores. This
explanation would interpret Daculi as the “Island of the Cradles,”
or “Cradle Island.” Some other derivation may indeed possibly be as
defensible; but it should be borne in mind that Italian traders ranged
very early up and down the Irish coast, and that name would curiously
coincide with the tradition at least afterward current concerning the
island.

To review a few later but still very early maps:--Dulcert, 1339,[304]
shows some irrelevant changes farther north and east; but his Hebridean
islands repeat very nearly the form given them by Dalorto (believed by
many to be the same man), and there is no significant change in Bra or
Daculi, though the first syllable of the latter becomes Di.

The Atlante Mediceo, of 1351,[305] makes more changes than Dulcert
among these islands and leaves unnamed the one which by position seems
meant for Bra, or Barra. Daculi is largely expanded and named Insul
Dach indistinctly.

The Pizigani map of 1367[306] (Fig. 2) modifies many names. Daculi
becomes Insuldacr in one word; but its place remains nearly as in
Dalorto’s map, though most of the other islands are drawn closer to
Ireland, so that Bra is nearly stranded thereon. A line of inscription
seems to relate to Bra--“Ich sont ysula qu--[possibly pronominal
abbreviation] abitabi honõ quõ morit may.” Perhaps some of these words
should be read differently, and “abitabi” needs some recasting. I will
not attempt to interpret but should infer that Bra had its troubles.
They do not seem to have extended to Daculi.

Pareto’s fine map of 1455[307] (Fig. 21) applies the following more
extended and significant legend to Daculi: “Item est altera insulla
nomine Bra in qua femine que in insulla ipsa habitant non pariuntur
sed quando est eorum tempus pariendi feruntur foras insulla et ibi
pariuntur secundum tempus.” From this we may gather that the outer
island Daculi was believed to afford especial aid in childbearing to
women carried thither after being baffled on the inner island Bra,
and we see readily the appositeness of the name “cradle” applied to
the former. Beccario’s map of 1435[308] (Fig. 20), though without the
legend, had already adopted in “Insulla da Culli” almost exactly the
form of the name which we have divined, with apparently that meaning.

St. Kilda seems to me the most plausible original for Daculi that has
been suggested. It is true that Barra is actually south of the parallel
of latitude of that most lonely western sentinel of the Hebrides,
and there is no obvious link of relation between them. Also the rock
islet of North Barra is about as far above it, equally unconnected and
not likely ever to have maintained much population. But so simple a
misunderstanding on the part of the old cartographers would be no more
than what happened to them all the time, and exact identity of latitude
is unimportant. There is, in fact, no land on the site given Daculi in
any of these old maps; and Bra, as noted, is absurdly out of place for
Barra. How the tradition grew up we do not know. Perhaps it was some
tale picked up by coasting Italian traders, partly misunderstood and
passed on by them to the map-makers at home. St. Kilda, lost in the
mists and mystery of the Atlantic, of holy name and miracle-working
associations, and out of touch with most tests of reality, seems a
likely place to be linked to some less abnormal island by a fanciful
contribution of saintly white magic, a rumor originating nobody knows
how.


GROCLAND, HELLULAND, ETC.

On the western side of the Atlantic there are divers instances of
island names given of old--sometimes with considerable changes of
location, area, or outline, or of all three--to regions which we
know quite otherwise. Some of these have been dealt with extensively
already. Greenland has a lesser neighbor, Grocland, on its western
side in divers sixteenth-century maps; which I take to be a magnified
presentation of Disko or possibly a reflection of Baffin Land brought
near. It appears conspicuously in Mercator’s map of the Polar basin
(1569),[309] the Hakluyt map of 1587 illustrating Peter Martyr,[310]
and the map of Mathias Quadus (1608).[311]

This is not the place to enlarge on the Helluland, Markland, and
Vinland of the Norsemen beginning with the eleventh century, as this
theme has been dealt with elsewhere.[312] But they were often thought
of as islands, as shown by the notice of Adam of Bremen. Perhaps
there was never any great clearness of conception as to extent or
form. But in a general way they may be identified respectively with
northern Labrador, Newfoundland, and the warmer parts of the Atlantic
coast. Great Iceland, or White Men’s Land, seems also to have been
understood as what we should now call America. Eugène Beauvois located
it conjecturally about the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.[313]
Dr. Gustav Storm, on the other hand, thought it was merely Iceland
misunderstood.[314]


STOKAFIXA

Perhaps the latter explanation is the best yet given of the mysterious
island Scorafixa, or Stokafixa, in Andrea Bianco’s map of 1436.[315]
It has sometimes been understood as Newfoundland, which bore long
afterward the name Bacalaos, the equivalent in a different tongue of
the northern “stockfish,” our codfish. But it would naturally be freely
applied to any island in rather high latitudes which was conspicuous
for that fishery, and Stokafixa seems near of kin to Fixlanda, which
figures on divers maps as a combined suggestion of Iceland and the
imaginary Frisland but with geographical features mainly borrowed
from the former. The first-named identification may be tempting as
establishing another pre-Columbian discovery of America, but it quite
lacks corroboration; and Iceland was a great center of codfishery,
distributing its name and attributes rather liberally in legend and
on the maps. Humboldt incidentally mentions “l’île des Morues (île de
Stockfisch, _Stokafixa_)” on the seventh map of the atlas of Bianco,
1436. I do not clearly make out the name on T. Fischer’s facsimile
reproduction;[316] but from position and appearance the island seems
meant for Iceland.


OTHER MAP ISLANDS IN THE NORTHWESTERN ATLANTIC

The Grand Banks and other banks of Newfoundland, with the Virgin Rocks
and perhaps other piles or pinnacles rising from that bed nearly to
the surface so as to be uncovered in some tides; Sable Island, a
rather long way offshore; Cape Breton Island and fragments of the main
shore--may be held responsible for some map islands such as Arredonda
and Dobreton, Jacquet I., Monte Christo, I. de Juan, and Juan de Sampo.

There are still other islands mostly north of the latitude of Bermuda
and between it and the Azores or northeastern America, but far at sea,
of which one can make little, except as probably complimenting some
pilot, skipper, or other individual, or commemorating some incident
which has nevertheless been generally forgotten. Thus Negra’s Rock,
which has hardly ceased to appear on the maps, does not really exist
but may keep us in mind, by its rather sinister and mythical sound,
that a certain Captain Negra once thought he saw something solid in
the great liquid and reported accordingly. Of such origin, perhaps,
are I. de Garcia, Y Neufre, Y d’Hyanestienne, Lasciennes, and divers
others scattered over various maps and offering no promise of reward
for hunting down their pedigrees or history. All these distinctly
post-Columbian islands are quite too recent and casual to throw any
light on the earlier historically and geographically significant
“mythical islands” or on what these reveal.




CHAPTER XIII

SUMMARY


It seems neither practicable nor desirable to recapitulate minutely
in this final chapter the rather numerous distinctive features of the
present work; but attention may properly be directed to some of its
salient conclusions. In stating them positively as below, here or
elsewhere, I do not mean to be offensively dogmatic but to present
concisely my own deductions from evidence which I have been at some
pains to gather.

Atlantis was a creation of philosophic romance, incited and aided
by miscellaneous data out of history, tradition, and known physical
phenomena, especially by rumors of the weed-encumbered windless dead
waters of the Sargasso Sea. There never was any such gorgeous and
dominant Atlantic power as the Atlantis of Plato, able to overrun and
conquer more than half of the Mediterranean and contend with Athens in
a struggle of life and death.

St. Brendan did not cross the Atlantic nor discover any island in its
remoter reaches, where some maps show islands bearing his name. He
seems, however, to have visited divers eastern Atlantic islands, now
well known; and it is quite likely that most of the portolan maps of
the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries are right in linking his
name especially to Madeira and her neighbors.

Brazil Island is a conspicuously complex problem. Probably it
represents the region around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, brought on the
same parallel unduly near the Irish shore. Thus understood, it would
be, presumably, but not necessarily, the cartographic record of some
early Irish voyage far to the westward. It does not appear on any
extant map before 1325, but maps showing the Atlantic and its remoter
islands (apart from the hopeless distortions of Edrisi and certain
monks) can hardly be said to have existed earlier.

Man, or Mayda, is frequently a more southern and western companion of
Brazil Island on the old maps and may stand for Bermuda or for some
jutting point, like Cape Cod, on the American coast. Some indications
connect it with the Bretons, some with the Arabs. It has borne divers
names. We cannot tell who first found and reported it.

The Island of the Seven Cities derived its name from a very credible
Spanish and Portuguese tradition of escape from the Moors by sea early
in the eighth century. It may first have been localized as St. Michaels
of the Azores, where a valley still bears the name. Afterward it was
confused for a long time with Antillia and still later was distributed
rather widely over sea and land, the Seven Cities not always insisting
on being insular but appearing now just back of the American Atlantic
coast line, now in the far and arid Southwest.

Of the Norse discoveries in America at the opening of the eleventh
century, Helluland represents the northern treeless waste of upper
Labrador and beyond; Markland represents the forested zone next below,
notably Newfoundland, with probably southern Labrador supplying only
timber and game; and Vinland, or Wineland, represents all that immense
region where the climate was milder and wine grapes grew. Straumey was
Grand Manan Island; Straumfiord, Passamaquoddy Bay with Grand Manan
Channel; Hop, Mount Hope Bay, R. I., or some bay of the eastern front
of southern New England; the Wonderstrands, some part of the prevalent
American coastal front of unending strand and dune. It is needless to
particularize further.

Antillia is Cuba; Reylla, Jamaica; Salvagio, or Satanaxio, Florida; I
in Mar, one or more of the Bahamas. Early in the fifteenth century some
Iberian navigator, probably Portuguese, visited these islands and made
the report that resulted in the addition of these islands to divers
maps. They, in turn, were among the inciting causes of the undertaking
of Columbus.




FOOTNOTES


[1] The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian, in 15 Books, to
which are added the fragments of Diodorus, and those published by H.
Valesius, I. Rhodomannus, and F. Ursinus, transl. by G. Booth, Esq., 2
vols., London, 1814; reference in Vol. 1, Bk. 3, Ch. 4, p. 195, and Bk.
4, Ch. 1, pp. 235 and 243.

[2] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of
Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekelöf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm,
1889, p. 131.

[3] I Kings, 10: 22.

[4] Chau Ju-Kua: His Work on Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries Entitled Chu-fan-chï, transl. and annotated by
Friedrich Hirth and W. W. Rockhill, St. Petersburg, 1911, p. 142.

[5] W. H. Holmes: Handbook of Aboriginal American Antiquities, _Bur. of
Amer. Ethnology, Bull. 60, Part I_, Smithsonian Instn., Washington, D.
C., 1919, p. 27.

[6] Historical Library, Vol. 1, Bk. 5, Ch. 2, p. 309.

[7] _Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections_, Vol. 59, No. 19,
Washington, D. C., 1913. See also: Recent History and Present Status of
the Vinland Problem, _Geogr. Rev._, Vol. 11, 1921, pp. 265–282.

[8] Edrisi’s “Geography,” in two versions, the first based on two,
the second on four manuscripts, viz.: (1) P. A. Jaubert (translator):
Géographie d’Edrisi, traduite de l’Arabe en Français, 2 vols. (Recueil
de Voyages et de Mémoires publié par la Société de Géographie, Vols.
5 and 6), Paris, 1836 and 1840; reference in Vol. 2, p. 27; (2) R.
Dozy and M. J. De Goeje (translators): Description de l’Afrique et de
l’Espagne par Edrisi: Texte arabe publié pour la première fois d’après
les man. de Paris et d’Oxford, Leiden, 1866.

[9] M. d’Avezac: Notice des découvertes faites au Moyen Age dans
l’Océan Atlantique antérieurement aux grandes explorations portugaises
du quinzième siècle, Paris, 1845, p. 23.

[10] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ..., Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1.

[11] Henry Vignaud: The Columbian Tradition on the Discovery of America
and of the Part Played Therein by the Astronomer Toscanelli, Oxford,
1920.

[12] Benjamin Jowett: The Dialogues of Plato, Translated into English
with Analyses and Introductions, 3rd edit., 5 vols., London and New
York, 1892; reference in Vol. 3, p. 534.

[13] Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edit., Vol. 21, p. 823.

[14] Atlantis, the “Lost” Continent: A Review of Termier’s Evidence,
_Geogr. Rev._, Vol. 3, 1917, pp. 61–66; reference on p. 62.

[15] Pierre Termier: Atlantis (transl. from _Bull. l’Inst. Océanogr.
No. 256_, Monaco), _Ann. Rept. Smithsonian Instn. for 1915_,
Washington, D. C., pp. 219–234; reference on p. 222.

[16] _Ibid._, pp. 220–221.

[17] The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian in 15 Books, to
which are added the fragments of Diodorus, and those published by H.
Valesius, I. Rhodomannus, and F. Ursinus, transl. by G. Booth, Esq., 2
vols., London, 1814; reference in Vol. 1, Bk. 4, Ch. 1, p. 234.

[18] _Ibid._, Vol. 1, Bk. 3, Ch. 4, p. 195.

[19] Jowett, _op. cit._, Vol. 3, pp. 536–539.

[20] Termier, pp. 228–229.

[21] _Ibid._, pp. 230, 231.

[22] _Geogr. Rev._, Vol. 3, 1917, p. 65.

[23] Termier, pp. 231 and 232.

[24] R. F. Scharff: Some Remarks on the Atlantis Problem, _Proc. Royal
Irish Acad._, Vol. 24. Section B, 1903, pp. 268–302; reference on p.
297.

[25] _Idem_: European Animals: Their Geological History and
Geographical Distribution, London and New York, 1907, pp. 102 and 104.

[26] L. F. Navarro: Nuevas consideraciones sobre el problema de la
Atlantis, Madrid, 1917, pp. 6 and 15 (extract from _Rev. Real Acad. de
Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales de Madrid_, Vol. 15, 1917, pp.
537–552).

[27] Termier, pp. 226 and 227.

[28] _Geogr. Rev._, Vol. 3, 1917, p. 66.

[29] Sir John Murray: The Ocean: A General Account of the Science of
the Sea (Home University Library of Modern Knowledge, No. 76), New
York, 1913, p. 33.

[30] T. J. Westropp: Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the North
Atlantic: Their History and Fable, _Proc. Royal Irish Acad._, Vol. 30,
Section C, 1912–13, pp. 223–260; reference on p. 249.

[31] E. L. Stevenson: Portolan Charts, _Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer.
No. 82_, New York, 1911, pp. 5–6.

[32] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, p. 8.

[33] Fridtjof Nansen: In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early
Times, transl. by A. G. Chater, 2 vols., New York, 1911; reference in
Vol. 1, p. 38.

[34] _Ibid._, pp. 40–41.

[35] Nansen, In Northern Mists, p. 41.

[36] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ..., Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1.

[37] J. C. Soley: Circulation of the North Atlantic in February and in
August [sheet of text with charts on the reverse]. Supplement to the
Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean for 1912, Hydrographic Office,
Washington, D. C.

Otto Krümmel: Die nordatlantische Sargassosee, _Petermanns Mitt._, Vol.
37, 1891, pp. 129–141, with map.

Gerhard Schott: Géographie des Atlantischen Ozeans, Hamburg, 1912, pp.
162–164 and 268–269, Pls. 16 and 26.

[38] Krümmel (paper cited in footnote 26) suggests applying the name
Sargasso Sea to the area limited by the curve of 5 per cent probability
of occurrence on his map (our Fig. 1). This area amounts to 4,500,000
square kilometers, or somewhat less than half the area of Europe.
Schott (see footnote 26), p. 140, gives 8,635,000 square kilometers as
the area of his natural region Sargasso Sea, which is based not only
on the occurrence of gulfweed but also on the prevailing absence of
currents and on the relatively high temperature of the water in all
depths.--EDIT. NOTE.

[39] T. A. Janvier: In the Sargasso Sea, New York, 1896, p. 26.

[40] _Ibid._, p. 27.

[41] Murray, pp. 140–141.

[42] Soley, column 2, lines 3–5.

[43] Reprint of Hydrographic Information: Questions and Answers, No. 2,
June 2, 1910, Hydrographic Office, Washington, D. C., p. 17.

[44] Anecdota Exoniensia: Lives of the Saints, from the Book of
Lismore, edited, with a translation, notes, and indices, by Whitley
Stokes, Oxford, 1890, p. 252.

[45] T. J. Westropp: Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the North
Atlantic: Their History and Fable, _Proc. Royal Irish Acad._, Vol. 30,
Section C, 1912–13, pp. 223–260; reference on p. 230.

[46] Westropp, Brasil, p. 229.

[47] The Anglo-Norman Trouvères of the 12th and 13th Centuries,
_Blackwood’s Edinburgh Mag._, Vol. 39, 1836, pp. 806–820; reference on
p. 808.

[48] Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l’histoire de la
géographie du nouveau continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique
aux quinzième et seizième siècles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836–39; reference
in Vol. 2, p. 166.

[49] R. D. Benedict: The Hereford Map and the Legend of St. Brandan,
_Bull. Amer. Geogr. Soc._, Vol. 24, 1892, pp. 321–365; reference on p.
344.

[50] Edrisi’s “Geography,” in two versions, the first based on two,
the second on four manuscripts, viz.: (1) P. A. Jaubert (translator):
Géographie d’Edrisi, traduite de l’Arabe en Français, 2 vols. (Recueil
de Voyages et de Mémoires publié par la Société de Géographie, Vols.
5 and 6), Paris, 1836 and 1840; reference in Vol. 2, p. 27; (2) R.
Dozy and M. J. De Goeje (translators): Description de l’Afrique et de
l’Espagne par Edrisi: Texte arabe publié pour la première fois d’après
les man. de Paris et d’Oxford, Leiden, 1866.

[51] Konrad Miller: Die Weltkarte des Beatus (776 n. Chr.), with
facsimile of one derivative, Heft 1 of his “Mappaemundi: Die ältesten
Weltkarten,” Stuttgart, 1895. The 9 other derivatives on Pls. 2–9 of
Heft 2 (Atlas von 16 Lichtdrucktafeln, Stuttgart, 1895).

[52] The Guanches of Tenerife: The Holy Image of Our Lady of Candelaria
and the Spanish Conquest and Settlement, by the Friar Alonso de
Espinosa of the Order of Preachers, translated and edited, with notes
and an introduction, by Sir Clements Markham, _Hakluyt Soc. Publs._,
2nd Ser., Vol. 21, London, 1907, p. 29.

[53] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, Stockholm, 1897, Pl. 8.

[54] The Geography of Strabo, literally translated with notes: the
first six books by H. C. Hamilton, the remainder by W. Falconer, 3
vols., H. C. Bohn, London, 1854–57; reference in Vol. 1, p. 226.

[55] The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian, in 15 Books, to
which are added the fragments of Diodorus, and those published by H.
Valesius, I. Rhodomannus, and F. Ursinus; transl. by G. Booth, Esq., 2
vols., London, 1814; reference in Vol. 1, Bk. 5, Ch. 2, pp. 308–309.

[56] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ..., Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1.

[57] Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten
italienischen Ursprungs, 1 vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing
photographs of maps, Venice, 1877–86; reference in Portfolio 5
(Facsimile del Portolano Laurenziano-Gaddiano dell’ anno 1351), Pl. 4.

[58] Book of the Knowledge of All the Kingdoms, Lands, and Lordships
That Are in the World, and the Arms and Devices of Each Land and
Lordship, or of the Kings and Lords Who Possess Them, written by a
Spanish Franciscan in the middle of the 14th century, published for
the first time with notes by Marcos Jiménez de la Espada in 1877,
translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham, _Hakluyt Soc. Publs._,
2nd Ser., Vol. 29, London, 1912; reference on p. 29.

[59] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 8 (Facsimile del Portolano di Giacomo
Giraldi di Venezia dell’anno 1426), Pl. 4.

[60] First published by the author in the _Geogr. Rev._, Vol. 8, 1919,
Pl. 1, facing p. 40.

[61] Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del
medioevo e dei secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da
italiani o trovati nelle biblioteche d’Italia, Part II (pp. 280–390)
of “Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della Geografia
in Italia,” published on the occasion of the Second International
Geographical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Società Geografica Italiana,
Rome, 1875; reference on Pl. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does
not contain the plates).

[62] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung für
die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin, 1892;
reference in atlas, Pl. 5.

[63] _Ibid._, atlas, Pl. 4.

[64] W. H. Babcock: Indications of Visits of White Men to America
before Columbus, _Proc. 19th Internatl. Congr. of Americanists held at
Washington, Dec. 27–31, 1915_, [Smithsonian Institution], Washington,
D. C., 1917, pp. 469–478; map on p. 476.

[65] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 11, Pls. 3 and 4.

[66] _Ibid._, Portfolio 13, Pl. 5.

[67] E. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe, London,
1908, p. 59.

[68] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 7.

[69] S. E. Dawson: The Voyages of the Cabots in 1497 and 1498; With an
Attempt to Determine Their Landfall and to Identify Their Island of St.
John, _Trans. Royal Soc. of Canada_, Vol. 12, Section II, 1894; map
on p. 86. The map is also reproduced by Jomard, in the work cited in
footnote 13.

[70] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of
Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekelöf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm,
1889, Pl. 46.

[71] Alberto Magnaghi: La carta nautica costruita nel 1325 da Angelino
Dalorto, with facsimile, Florence, 1898 (published on the occasion
of the Third Italian Geographical Congress). Cf. also: _idem_: Il
mappamondo del genovese Angellinus de Dalorto (1325): Contributo alla
storia della cartografia mediovale, _Atti del Terzo Congr. Geogr.
Italiano, tenuto in Firenzi dal 12 al 17 Aprile, 1898_, Florence,
1899, Vol. 2, pp. 506–543; and _idem_: Angellinus de Dalorco (_sic_),
cartografo italiano della prima metà del secolo XIV, _Riv. Geogr.
Italiana_, Vol. 4, 1897, pp. 282–294 and 361–369.

[72] James Hardiman: The History of the Town and County of Galway from
the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Dublin, 1820, p. 2.

[73] [M. F.] Santarem: Atlas composé de mappemondes, de portulans, et
de cartes hydrographiques et historiques depuis le VI^e jusqu’au XVII^e
siècle ... devant servir de preuves à l’histoire de la cosmographie et
de la cartographie pendant le Moyen Age ..., Paris, 1842–53, Pls. 43–48
(Quaritch’s notation); reference on Pl. 46.

[74] Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l’histoire de la
géographie du nouveau continent, 5 vols., Paris, 1836–39.; reference
in Vol. 2, pp. 216–223. See also Fridtjof Nansen: In Northern Mists:
Arctic Exploration in Early Times, transl. by A. G. Chater, 2 vols, New
York. 1911; reference in Vol. 2, p. 229.

[75] L. A. Muratori: Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi, 6 vols., Milan,
1738–42; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 891 and 894.

[76] Sir Henry Yule: The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian Concerning
the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, 3rd edit., revised ... by Henri
Cordier, 2 vols., London, 1903; reference in Vol. 2, p. 299. See also
pp. 306, 313, and 315 (note 4).

[77] Antonio de Capmany: Memorias historicas sobre la marina, comercio,
y artes de la antigua ciudad de Barcelona, 4 vols., Madrid, 1779–92;
reference in Vol. 2, pp. 4, 17, and 20.

[78] T. J. Westropp: Early Italian Maps of Ireland from 1300 to 1600.
With Notes on Foreign Settlers and Trade, _Proc. Royal Irish Acad._,
Vol. 30, Section C, 1912–13, pp. 361–428; reference on p. 393.

[79] Humboldt, Examen critique, Vol. 2, p. 223.

[80] See Soncino’s second letter to the Duke of Milan, published in
many works on John Cabot; e. g. in “The Northmen, Columbus, and Cabot,
985–1503,” edited by J. E. Olsen and E. G. Bourne (Series: Original
Narratives of Early American History), New York, 1906; reference on p.
426.

[81] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ..., Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1.

[82] Book of the Knowledge of All the Kingdoms, Lands, and Lordships
That Are in the World, and the Arms and Devices of Each Land and
Lordship, or of the Kings and Lords Who Possess Them, written by a
Spanish Franciscan in the middle of the 14th century, published for
the first time with notes by Marcos Jiménez de la Espada in 1877,
translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham, _Hakluyt Soc. Publs._,
2nd Ser., Vol. 29, London, 1912, p. 29.

[83] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, Pl. 22.

[84] _Ibid._, Pl. 26.

[85] _Ibid._, Pl. 15.

[86] Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten
italienischen Ursprungs, 1 vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing
photographs of maps, Venice, 1877–86; reference in Portfolio 11
(Facsimile della Carta nautica de Andrea Bianco dell’ anno 1448), Pl. 3.

[87] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 8.

[88] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 5 (Facsimile del Portolano
Laurenziano-Gaddiano dell’ anno 1351), Pl. 5.

[89] W. H. Babcock: Indications of Visits of White Men to America
before Columbus, _Proc. 19th Internatl. Congr. of Americanists, Held at
Washington, Dec. 27–31, 1915_ [Smithsonian Institution], Washington, D.
C., 1917, pp. 469–478; map on p. 476.

[90] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 8 (Facsimile del Portolano di Giacomo
Giraldi di Venezia dell’ anno 1426), Pl. 5.

[91] The section of which the author has a photograph (first published
in the _Geogr. Rev._, Vol. 8, 1919, opposite p. 40, and here
reproduced, Fig. 3, somewhat curtailed) does not extend far enough to
show the island of Brazil.

[92] Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del
medioevo e dei secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da
italiani o trovati nelle biblioteche d’Italia, Part II (pp. 280–390)
of “Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della Geografia
in Italia,” published on the occasion of the Second International
Geographical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Società Geografica Italiana,
Rome, 1875; reference on Pl. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does
not contain the plates).

[93] In the Kohl collection of maps relating to America, No. 17, in the
Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

[94] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 20; Theobald Fischer, Portfolio
II, Pl. 3.

[95] Original in Majorca. A good copy is owned by T. Solberg, Register
of Copyrights, Washington, D. C.

[96] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung für
die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin, 1892;
reference in atlas, Pl. 5.

[97] E. L. Stevenson: Facsimiles of Portolan Charts Belonging to the
Hispanic Society of America, _Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 104_,
New York, 1916, Pl. 2.

[98] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4, map 1.

[99] _Ibid._, Pl. 7.

[100] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus. Pl. 11.

[101] _Ibid._, p. 164.

[102] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4, map 8.

[103] Justin Winsor: Cartier to Frontenac, Geographical Discovery in
the Interior of North America in Its Historical Relations, 1534–1700.
With Full Cartographical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources,
Boston and New York, 1894; reference on p. 28.

[104] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4, map 5.

[105] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 29.

[106] Nansen, In Northern Mists, Vol. 2, p. 228.

[107] T. J. Westropp: Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the North
Atlantic: Their History and Fable, _Proc. Royal Irish Acad._, Vol. 30,
Section C, 1912–13, pp. 223–260.

[108] Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac. p. 60.

[109] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 27.

[110] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 19, map 3.

[111] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Bidrag till Nordens äldsta Kartografi.
Stockholm, 1892, Pl. 5. Also (reduced) in Nansen’s “In Northern Mists,”
Vol. 2, p. 280, and in T. J. Westropp’s “Brasil.” Pl. 20, facing p. 260.

[112] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus. p. 90; also discussed by Joseph
Fischer: The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America, With Special
Relation to Their Early Cartographical Representation, transl. by B. H.
Soulsby, and London, 1903.

[113] Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, p. II.

[114] See Ayala’s letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, copied in many
Cabot narratives; e. g. in the work cited above in footnote 10, p. 430,
and at the beginning of the next chapter.

[115] G. E. Weare: Cabot’s Discovery of North America, London, 1897, p.
59.

[116] Alberto Magnaghi: La carta nautica costruita nel 1325 da Angelino
Dalorto, with facsimile, Florence, 1898 (published on the occasion
of the Third Italian Geographical Congress). Cf. also: _idem_: Il
mappamondo del genovese Angellinus de Dalorto (1325): Contributo alla
storia della cartografia mediovale, _Atti del Terzo Congr. Geogr.
Italiano, tenuto in Firenze dal 12 al 17 Aprile, 1898_, Florence,
1899, Vol. 2, pp. 506–543; and _idem_: Angellinus de Dalorco (_sic_),
cartografo italiano della prima metà del secolo XIV, _Riv. Geogr.
Italiana_, Vol. 4, 1897, pp. 282–294 and 361–369.

[117] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, Pl. 2.

[118] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung
für die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin,
1892; reference in atlas, Pl. 4, map 8.

[119] E. g. by Nordenskiöld, _op. cit._, p. 164.

[120] Ferdinand Columbus: The History of the Life and Actions of Adm.
Christopher Columbus, and of His Discovery of the West-Indies, Call’d
the New World, Now in Possession of His Catholic Majesty. Written by
His Own Son, transl. from the Italian and contained in “A Collection of
Voyages and Travels, Some Now First Printed from Original Manuscripts,
Others Now First Published in English,” by Awnsham Churchill and John
Churchill (6 vols., London, 1732), Vol. 2, pp. 501–628; reference on p.
512.

[121] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ... Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1.

[122] Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del
medioevo e dei secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da
italiani o trovati nelle biblioteche d’Italia, Part II (pp. 280–390)
of “Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della Geografia
in Italia,” published on the occasion of the Second International
Geographical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Società Geografica Italiana,
Rome, 1875; reference on Pl. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does
not contain the plates).

[123] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4, map 1.

[124] W. H. Babcock: Indications of Visits of White Men to America
before Columbus, _Proc. 19th Internatl. Congr. of Americanists, Held at
Washington, Dec. 27–31, 1915,_ [Smithsonian Institution], Washington,
D. C., 1917, pp. 469–478; map on p. 476.

[125] E. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe, London,
1908, p. 77.

[126] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of
Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekelöf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm,
1889, p. 65 and Pl. 32.

[127] Ferdinand Columbus, p. 514.

[128] Antonio Galvano: The Discoveries of the World from Their First
Original unto the Year of Our Lord 1555, _Hakluyt Soc. Publs._, 1st
Series, Vol. 30, London, 1862, p. 72.

[129] Manuel de Faria y Sousa: The History of Portugal, transl. by
Capt. John Stevens, London, 1698; reference in Bk. 2, Ch. 6, p. 112.

[130] Manuel de Faria y Sousa: Epitome de las Historias Portuguesas, 2
vols., Madrid, 1628; reference in Part II, Ch. 7, p. 257.

[131] E. L. Stevenson: Atlas of Portolan Charts: Facsimile of
Manuscript in British Museum, _Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 81_,
New York, 1911, folio 1b.

[132] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 17.

[133] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 46.

[134] _Ibid._, Pl. 47.

[135] A. S. Brown: Guide to Madeira and the Canary Islands (with notes
on the Azores), 5th edit., London, 1898, p. 148.

[136] N. Buache: Recherches sur l’ile Antillia et sur l’époque de
découverte d’Amérique, _Mémoires de l’Institut des Sciences, Lettres,
et Arts_, Vol. 6, 1806, pp. 1–29, following p. 84 of Section entitled
“Histoire” and appended list. See p. 13.

[137] Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l’histoire de la
géographie du nouveau continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique
aux quinzième et seizième siècles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836–39; reference
in Vol. 2, p. 281.

[138] Joseph Bullar and Henry Bullar: A Winter in the Azores and a
Summer in the Baths of the Furnas, 2 vols., London, 1841; reference in
Vol. 2, pp. 242–247.

[139] Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l’histoire de la
géographie du nouveau continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique
aux quinzième et seizième siècles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836–39; reference
in Vol. 2, p. 163.

[140] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung
für die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols (text and atlas), Berlin,
1892; reference in atlas, Pl. 12, map 1.

[141] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales.... Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1.

[142] Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten
italienischen Ursprungs, 1 vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing
photographs of maps, Venice, 1877–86; reference in Portfolio 11
(Facsimile della carta nautica di Andrea Bianco dell’ anno 1448), Pl.
3. See also Kretschmer, text, p. 184.

[143] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, Pl. 8.

[144] _Ibid._, Pl. 11.

[145] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 5.

[146] Listed as No. 17 in Justin Winsor: The Kohl Collection (now
in the Library of Congress) of Maps Relating to America, Library of
Congress, Washington, D. C., 1904, p. 27.

[147] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 15.

[148] _Ibid._, Pl. 18.

[149] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 8 (Facsimile del Portolano di Giacomo
Giraldi di Venezia dell’ anno 1426).

[150] The section of which the author has a photograph (first
published in the _Geogr. Rev._, Vol. 8, 1919, opposite p. 40, and here
reproduced, Fig. 3, somewhat curtailed) does not extend far enough to
show the island.

[151] Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del
medioevo e dei secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da
italiani o trovati nelle biblioteche d’Italia, Part II (pp. 280–390)
of “Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della Geografia
in Italia,” published on the occasion of the Second International
Geographical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Società Geografica Italiana,
Rome, 1875; reference on Pl. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does
not contain the plates).

[152] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 20.; Theobald Fischer,
Portfolio 11, Pl. 3.

[153] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 33.

[154] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4, map 1.

[155] E. L. Stevenson: Facsimiles of Portolan Charts Belonging to the
Hispanic Society of America, _Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 104_,
New York, 1916, Pl. 2.

[156] W. H. Babcock: Indications of Visits of White Men to America
before Columbus, _Proc. 19th Internatl. Congr. of Americanists, Held at
Washington, Dec. 27–31, 1915_, [Smithsonian Institution,] Washington,
D. C., 1917, pp. 469–478; map on p. 476.

[157] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 22.

[158] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 9, map 3; also in A. E. Nordenskiöld:
Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartography, transl. by J. A.
Ekelöf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm, 1889, Pl. 32.

[159] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 14, map 5.

[160] _Ibid._, Pl. 15.

[161] _Ibid._, Pl. 12, map 2.

[162] _Ibid._, Pl. 4, map 5.

[163] _Ibid._, Pl. 17; also A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 51.

[164] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 27.

[165] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 19, map 3.

[166] Justin Winsor: Cartier to Frontenac: Geographical Discovery in
the Interior of North America in Its Historical Relations, 1534–1700,
with Full Cartographical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources,
Boston and New York, 1894, p. 60.

[167] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Fig. 76, p. 163.

[168] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 46.

[169] _Ibid._, Pl. 47.

[170] Copy in map collection of American Geographical Society.

[171] Atlas universel, par M. Robert, Géographe ordinaire du Roy, et
par M. Robert de Vaugondy, son fils, ... Paris, 1757, Pl. 13.

[172] [E. M.] Blunt’s New Chart of the Atlantic or Western Ocean, New
York, 1814.

[173] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 5 (Facsimile del Portolano
Laurenziano-Gaddiano dell’ anno 1351), Pl. 4.

[174] Book of the Knowledge of All the Kingdoms, Lands, and Lordships
That Are in the World, and the Arms and Devices of Each Land and
Lordship, or of the Kings and Lords Who Possess Them, written by a
Spanish Franciscan in the middle of the 14th century, published for
the first time with notes by Marcos Jiménez de la Espada in 1877,
translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham, _Hakluyt Soc. Publs._,
2nd Ser., Vol. 29, London, 1912, p. 29.

[175] Fridtjof Nansen: In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early
Times, transl. by A. G. Chater, 2 vols., New York, 1911; reference in
Vol. 1, pp. 192 and 194.

[176] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung
für die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin,
1892; reference in atlas, Pl. 14, map 5.

[177] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Bidrag till nordens äldsta kartografi,
Stockholm, 1892, Pl. 5. Also (reduced) in Nansen (Vol. 2, p. 285),
and in T. J. Westropp: Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the North
Atlantic: Their History and Fable, _Proc. Royal Irish Acad._, Vol. 30,
Section C, 1912–13, pp. 223–260; see Pl. 20, opp. p. 260.

[178] Thormodus Torfaeus: Gronlandia Antiqua seu veteris Gronlandiae
descriptio, Copenhagen, 1706; Tabula I, facing p. 20.

[179] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 13.

[180] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, Pl. 27.

[181] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 19, map 3.

[182] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of
Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekelöf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm,
1889, p. 67.

[183] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 17.

[184] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 46.

[185] _Ibid._, Pl. 47.

[186] Quoted by Nansen in his “In Northern Mists,” Vol. 1, p. 260.

[187] Henry Rink: Danish Greenland, Its People and Its Products,
London, 1877, pp. 306–312 and _passim_.

[188] William Hovgaard: The Voyages of the Norsemen to America
(Scandinavian Monographs, Vol. 1), American-Scandinavian Foundation,
New York, 1914, pp. 25 and 26.

[189] Finnur Jónsson: Grönlands gamle Topografi efter Kilderne:
Österbygden og Vesterbygden, _Meddelelser on Grönland_, Vol. 20 (text,
pp. 267–329), Pls. 2 and 3, 1899.

[190] _Op. cit._, p. 27.

[191] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Facsimile-Atlas, p. 49. Also copied by Joseph
Fischer: The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America, With Special
Relation to Their Early Cartographical Representation, transl. by B. H.
Soulsby, London, 1903, p. 70.

[192] Joseph Fischer, Pls. 1–8. See also the map of Henricus Martillus
Germanus (1489) in E. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim, His Life and His
Globe, London, 1908, p. 67. The name Greenland does not appear on the
latter map, but the peninsula is there.

[193] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4, map 4; better facsimile reproductions
in the works by Major and Lucas cited in footnotes 1 and 2, Ch. IX.

[194] Thormodus Torfaeus: Gronlandia Antiqua, seu veteris Gronlandiae
descriptio. Copenhagen, 1706, Tabula II, after p. 20. Also reproduced
by Gustav Storm: Studies on the Vineland Voyages, _Mémoires Soc. Royale
des Antiquaires du Nord_ (Copenhagen), N. S., 1884–89, pp. 307–370 (map
on p. 333); by Fridtjof Nansen: In Northern Mists, Vol. 2, p. 7; and
by W. H. Babcock: Early Norse Visits to North America, _Smithsonian
Misc. Colls._, Vol. 59, No. 19, Washington, D. C., 1913, map facing p.
62; by Hovgaard, _op. cit._, opp. p. 118. These are two versions, the
one appearing in Torfaeus (1706), reproduced herewith (Fig. 18) and
by Nansen, the other a copy of about 1670 belonging to Bishop Thordr
Thorláksson, now preserved in the Royal Library of Copenhagen (Old
Collection, No. 2881, 4to), of Stefánsson’s original map, which was
lost. The earlier version is reproduced by Storm, Babcock, and Hovgaard.

[195] Hovgaard. p. 39.

[196] Often quoted, e. g. by Hovgaard, p. 37.

[197] Pp. 69–124 in Gustav Storm: Monumenta historica Norvegiae,
Christiania, 1880; reference on p. 76. In English, e. g. in Hovgaard,
p. 167.

[198] Portolano Laurenziano-Gaddiano, 1351; see Pl. 5 of facsimile in
Portfolio 5 of Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und
Seekarten italienischen Ursprungs, 1 vol. of text and 17 portfolios
containing photographs of maps, Venice, 1877–1886.

Catalan atlas, 1375, Pls. 11–14 in A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An
Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by
F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897.

Pareto map, 1455, Pl. 5 in atlas accompanying Konrad Kretschmer:
Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung für die Geschichte des
Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin, 1892 (our Fig. 21).

[199] M. A. P. d’Avezac: Notice des découvertes faites au Moyen-Age
dans l’Océan Atlantique antérieurement aux grandes explorations
portugaises du quinzième siècle, Paris, 1845, pp. 8–9. See “I de
Madera” on Benincasa map, 1482, in Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4 (our Fig.
22).

[200] Fully set forth in A. M. Reeves: The Finding of Wineland the
Good, London, 1890; summarized in W. H. Babcock: Early Norse Visits to
North America, _Smithsonian Misc. Colls._, Vol. 59, No. 19, Washington,
D. C., 1913, pp. 64 _et seq._

[201] Reeves, pp. 42 _et seq._ This work gives facsimiles of the pages
in Hauk’s Book dealing with the saga of Eric the Red, as well as the
printed text in Icelandic, also a translation and notes distinguishing
slight divergencies of Arna Magnæan MS. 557. I have followed the latter
as slightly preferable and equally authentic and archaic in substance.
William Hovgaard (The Voyages of the Norsemen to America, New York,
1914, p. 103) translates a little differently from Reeves in details
but gives much the same purport.

[202] For example by Joseph Fischer: The Discoveries of the Norsemen
in America, With Special Relation to Their Early Cartographical
Representation, transl. by B. H. Soulsby, London, 1903, pp. 7–8.

[203] Thus quoted in Reeves, p. 15. See also Hovgaard, p. 79, where the
obscure phrase in quotation marks above is rendered “Karlsefni cut wood
for a house ornament.”

[204] Thormodus Torfaeus: Gronlandia Antiqua, seu veteris Gronlandiae
descriptio, Copenhagen, 1706, Tabula II, after p. 20. See also footnote
20, Chapter VII.

[205] Fridtjof Nansen: In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early
Times, transl. by A. G. Chater, New York, 1911, 2 vols.: reference
in Vol. 1, p. 323. Cf. R. Whitbourne: A Discourse and Discovery of
Newfoundland, London, 1622.

[206] E. L. Stevenson: Maps Illustrating Early Discovery and
Exploration in America, 1502–1530, Reproduced by Photography from the
Original Manuscripts, text and 12 portfolios, New Brunswick, N. J.,
1906; reference in Portfolio 1.

[207] E. L. Stevenson: Marine World Chart of Nicolo de Canerio
Januensis, 1502 (circa), 2 vols. (text, 1908, and facsimile in
portfolio, 1907), Amer. Geogr. Soc. and Hispanic Soc. of Amer., New
York, 1907–08.

[208] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Bidrag till nordens äldsta kartografi,
Stockholm, 1892, Pl. 5. Also (reduced) in Nansen: In Northern Mists,
Vol. 2, p. 280, and in T. J. Westropp: Brasil and the Legendary Islands
of the North Atlantic: Their History and Fable (_Proc. Royal Irish
Acad._, Vol. 30, Section C, 1912–13, pp. 223–260), Pl. 20, facing p.
260.

[209] Alberto Maghaghi: La carta nautica costruita nel 1325 da Angelino
Dalorto, with facsimile, Florence, 1898 (published on the occasion
of the Third Italian Geographical Congress). Cf. also: _idem_: Il
mappamondo del genovese Angellinus de Dalorto (1325): Contributo alla
storia della cartografia mediovale, _Atti del Terzo Congr. Geogr.
Italiano, tenuto in Firenze dal 12 al 17 Aprile, 1898_, Florence,
1899, Vol. 2, pp. 506–543; and _idem_: Angellinus de Dalorco (_sic_),
cartografo italiano della prima metà del secolo XIV, _Riv. Geogr.
Italiana_, Vol. 4, 1897, pp. 282–294 and 361–369.

[210] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus, Pl. 27.

[211] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 19, map 3.

[212] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 11, Pl. 3.

[213] R. H. Major, transl. and edit.: The Voyages of the Venetian
Brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno, to the Northern Seas, in the XIVth
Century, etc., _Hakluyt Soc. Publs._, 1st Ser., Vol. 50, London, 1873;
and F. W. Lucas: The Annals of the Voyages of the Brothers Nicolò and
Antonio Zeno in the North Atlantic, etc., London, 1898--representing
opposite sides of the discussion.

[214] George Cartwright: Journal of Transactions and Events During a
Residence of Nearly Sixteen Years on the Coast of Labrador, 3 vols.,
Newark (Engl.), 1792. Republished as “Captain Cartwright and His
Labrador Journal,” with an introduction by W. T. Grenfell, Boston.
1911; reference on pp. 16–25.

[215] R. H. Major, transl. and edit.: The Voyages of the Venetian
Brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno, to the Northern Seas, in the XIVth
Century, etc., _Hakluyt Soc. Publs._, 1st Ser., Vol. 50, London, 1873.

[216] F. W. Lucas: The Annals of the Voyages of the Brothers Nicolò and
Antonio Zeno in the North Atlantic, etc., London, 1898, p. 152.

[217] _Ibid._, Pls. 13 (Mercator’s large-scale world map, 1569) and 14
(Ortelius’ large-scale world map, 1570). Ortelius’ small-scale world
map, 1570, of a section of which our Fig. 10 is a reproduction, is
facsimiled in A. E. Nordenskiöld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History
of Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekelöf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm,
1889, Pl. 46.

[218] Major, pp. 19–24.

[219] Recently on exhibition, but not accessible at present.

[220] Eugène Beauvois: La découverte du nouveau monde par les
irlandais, Nancy. 1877, p. 90.

[221] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung
für die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin,
1892; reference in atlas, Pl. 4, map 5.

[222] A. M. Reeves: The finding of Wineland the Good. London, 1890, pp.
94–95.

[223] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, Pl. 27.

[224] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 19, map 3.

[225] Justin Winsor: Cartier to Frontenac: Geographical Discovery in
the Interior of North America in Its Historical Relations, 1534–1700,
with Full Cartographical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources,
Boston, 1894, pp. 60–61.

[226] Lucas, p. 124.

[227] Lucas, p. 74.

[228] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, text maps 34 and 35, on pp. 85 and
87, and Pl. 32; _idem_: Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 30. The first three maps
are also reproduced in _idem_: Bidrag till Nordens äldsta Kartografi,
Stockholm, 1892, Pls. 3, 1, 2.

[229] Joseph Fischer: The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America with
Special Relation to Their Early Cartographical Representation, transl.
by B. H. Soulsby, London, 1903, pp. 71 and 72 and Pls. 1–6.

[230] J. G. Kohl: A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North
America, Particularly the Coast of Maine, from the Northmen in 990 to
the Charter of Gilbert in 1578 (Documentary History of the State of
Maine, Vol. 1). _Colls. Maine Hist. Soc._, 2d Ser., Portland, 1869, p.
105.

[231] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4, map 5.

[232] [M. F.] Santarem: Atlas composé de mappemondes, de portulans, et
de cartes hydrographiques et historiques depuis le VI^e jusqu’au XVII^e
siècle ... devant servir de preuves à l’histoire de la cosmographie
et de la cartographie pendant le Moyen Age ..., Paris. 1842–53, Pl. 9
(Quaritch’s notation).

[233] E. L. Stevenson: Maps Illustrating Early Discovery and
Exploration in America, 1502–1530, Reproduced by Photography from the
Original Manuscripts, text and 12 portfolios, New Brunswick. N. J.,
1906; reference in Portfolio 1.

[234] Ferdinand Columbus: The History of the Life and Actions of Adm.
Christopher Columbus, and of His Discovery of the West-Indies, Call’d
the New World, Now in Possession of His Catholic Majesty. Written by
His Own Son, transl. from the Italian and contained in “A Collection of
Voyages and Travels, Some Now First Printed from Original Manuscripts,
Others Now First Published in English,” by Awnsham Churchill and John
Churchill (6 vols., London, 1732), Vol. 2, pp. 501–628; reference on p.
507.

[235] E. L. Stevenson: Atlas of Portolan Charts: Facsimile of
Manuscript in British Museum, _Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 81_,
New York, 1911, folios 1b and 8b.

[236] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Bidrag till Nordens äldsta Kartografi,
Stockholm, 1892, Pl. 5.

[237] E. g. in [Henry Harrisse]: Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima:
Additions, Paris, 1872, pp. xvi-xviii; and Ferdinand Columbus: The
History of the Life and Actions of Adm. Christopher Columbus, and
of His Discovery of the West-Indies, Call’d the New World, Now in
Possession of His Catholic Majesty. Written by His Own Son, transl.
from the Italian and contained in “A Collection of Voyages and Travels,
Some Now First Printed from Original Manuscripts, Others Now First
Published in English,” by Awnsham Churchill and John Churchill (6
vols., London, 1732), Vol. 2, pp. 501–628; reference on p. 512.

[238] Henry Vignaud: The Columbian Tradition on the Discovery of
America and of the Part Played Therein by the Astronomer Toscanelli,
Oxford, 1920, pp. 9–10; and _idem_: Le vrai Christophe Colomb et la
légende, Paris, 1921, Ch. IX.

[239] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, p. 177.

[240] E. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe, London,
1908, p. 77.

[241] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of
Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekelöf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm,
1889, p. 65 and Pl. 32.

[242] Pietro Martyr d’Anghiera: The Decades of the New World or West
India, transl. by Rycharde Eden, London, 1597, First Decade, p. 6. For
a modern edition of this work see “De Orbe Novo: The Eight Decades of
Peter Martyr D’Anghera,” transl. by F. A. MacNutt, 2 vols., New York,
1912.

[243] E. L. Stevenson: Marine World Chart of Nicolo de Canerio
Januensis, 1502 (circa), 2 vols. (text, 1908, and facsimile in
portfolio, 1907), Amer. Geogr. Soc. and Hispanic Soc. of Amer., New
York, 1907–08.

[244] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung
für die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin,
1892; see atlas, Pl. 8, map 2.

[245] Friedrich Kunstmann: Ueber einige der ältesten Karten Amerikas,
pp. 125–151 in his “Die Entdeckung Amerikas, nach den ältesten
Quellen geschichtlich dargestellt,” with an atlas: Atlas zur
Entdeckungsgeschichte Amerikas, aus Handschriften der K. Hof- und
Staats-Bibliothek, der K. Universitaet und des Hauptconservatoriums der
K. B. Armee herausgegeben von Friedrich Kunstmann, Karl von Spruner,
Georg M. Thomas, Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich, 1859;
reference on Pl. 4 of atlas.

[246] Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten
italienischen Ursprungs, 1 vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing
photographs of maps, Venice, 1877–86; reference in Portfolio 13
(Facsimile del planisfero del mondo conosciuto, in lingua catalana, del
xv secolo), Pl. 5.

[247] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ... Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1. In Santarem’s atlas (cf. Ch. IX, footnote 18), Pl. 31, the name
is interpreted as “Atullis.”

[248] E. L. Stevenson: Atlas of Portolan Charts: Facsimile of
Manuscript in British Museum, _Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 81_,
New York, 1911, folio 9a.

[249] _Ibid._, folio 1b.

[250] Vicenzio Formaleoni: Description de deux cartes anciennes tirées
de la Bibliothèque de St. Marc à Venise, pp. 91–168 of the same
author’s “Essai sur la marine ancienne des Vénitiens,” transl. by the
Chevalier d’Henin, Venice, 1788; reference on p. 122 and Pl. III.

[251] Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l’histoire de la
géographie du nouveau continent, et des progrès de l’astronomie
nautique aux quinzième et seizième siècles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836–39;
reference in Vol. 2, p. 193. The other mentions of Humboldt in this
chapter refer to the same volume, pp. 178–211, except allusions to his
correspondence with the Weimar librarian.

[252] _Ibid._, p. 211.

[253] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales..., Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1.

[254] Periplus, p. 177.

[255] W. H. Babcock: Indications of Visits of White Men to America
before Columbus, _Proc. 19th Internatl. Congr. of Americanists, Held at
Washington, Dec. 27–31, 1915_, [Smithsonian Institution,] Washington,
D. C., 1917. map on p. 476.

[256] Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del
medioevo e dei secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da
italiani o trovati nelle biblioteche d’Italia, Part II (pp. 280–390)
of “Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della Geografia
in Italia,” published on the occasion of the Second International
Geographical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Società Geografica Italiana,
Rome, 1875; reference on Pl. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does
not contain the plates).

[257] E. L. Stevenson: Facsimiles of Portolan Charts Belonging to the
Hispanic Society of America, _Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 104_,
New York, 1916, Pl. 2.

[258] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 20. Cf. also Kretschmer, atlas,
Pl. 4. map 2.

[259] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 5.

[260] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 4.

[261] See footnotes 18 and 19.

[262] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Facsimile-Atlas, p. 73, map in text.

[263] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 8 (Facsimile del Portolano di Giacomo
Giraldi di Venezia dell’ anno 1426).

[264] Original in Majorca. A good copy is owned by T. Solberg, Register
of Copyrights, Washington, D. C.

[265] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 15 (Facsimile del Mappamondo di Fra
Mauro dell’ anno 1457 [1459]).

[266] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 7.

[267] Book of the Knowledge of All the Kingdoms, Lands, and Lordships
That Are in the World, and the Arms and Devices of Each Land and
Lordship, or of the Kings and Lords Who Possess Them, written by a
Spanish Franciscan in the middle of the 14th century, published for
the first time with notes by Marcos Jiménez de la Espada in 1877,
translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham, _Hakluyt Soc. Publs._,
2nd Ser., Vol. 29, London, 1912; reference on p. 29.

[268] Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten
italienischen Ursprungs, 1 vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing
photographs of maps, Venice, 1877–86; reference in Portfolio 5
(Facsimile del Portolano Laurenziano-Gaddiano dell’ anno 1351), Pl. 4.

[269] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, Pl. 11. Our reproduction (Fig. 5) does not extend far enough
south to show the islands.

[270] Edrisi’s “Geography,” in two versions, the first based on two,
the second on four manuscripts, viz.: (1) P. A. Jaubert (translator):
Géographie d’Edrisi, traduite de l’Arabe en Français, 2 vols. (Recueil
de Voyages et de Mémoires publié par la Société de Géographie, Vols.
5 and 6), Paris, 1836 and 1840; reference in Vol. 1, p. 201; (2) R.
Dozy et M. J. De Goeje (translators): Description de l’Afrique et de
L’Espagne par Edrisi: Texte arabe publié pour la première fois d’après
les man. de Paris et d’Oxford, Leiden, 1866, pp. 63–64.

[271] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ..., Paris, [1842–62],
Pl. X, 1. Also W. H. Babcock: Early Norse Visits to North America,
_Smithsonian Misc. Colls._, Vol. 59, No. 19, Washington, D. C., 1913,
Pls. 1 and 2.

[272] The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian, in 15 Books: to
which are added the fragments of Diodorus, and those published by H.
Valesius, I. Rhodomannus, and F. Ursinus, transl. by G. Booth, Esq., 2
vols., London, 1814; reference in Vol. 1, Bk. 5, Ch. 2, pp. 308–309.

[273] Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l’histoire de la
géographie du nouveau continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique
aux quinzième et seizième siècles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836–39; reference
in Vol. 2, pp. 237–240.

[274] _Det Götheborgska Wetenskaps och Witterhets Samhällets
Handlingar_, Vol. 1, 1778, pp. 106–108, and Pl. 6. See also Moedas
phenicias e cyrenaicas encontradas em 1749 na ilha do Corvo, _Archivo
dos Açores_, Vol. 3, pp. 11–113.

[275] Conrad Malte-Brun: Précis de géographie universelle, 8 vols.,
Paris, 1810–29; reference in Vol. 1 of that edition, constituting
“L’Histoire de la Géographie,” 1810, p. 596.

[276] Edrisi, (Dozy and De Goeje), p. 1.

[277] S. Morewood: Philosophic and Statistical History of Inventions
and Customs, ... Inebriating Liquors, Dublin, 1838, p. 322.

[278] Humboldt, Examen critique, Vol. 2, p. 227.

[279] André Thevet: La cosmographie universelle, 2 vols., Paris, 1575;
reference in Vol. 2, p. 1022.

[280] The Geography of Strabo, transl. by H. C. Hamilton and W.
Falconer (Bohn’s Classical Library), 3 vols., London, 1854; reference
in Vol. 1, pp. 255–257.

[281] Captain Boid: A Description of the Azores, or Western Islands,
London, 1834, pp. 316–317.

[282] Borges de F. Henriques: A Trip to the Azores or Western Islands,
Boston, 1867, pp. 35–36.

[283] Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 5, Pl. 4.

[284] _Idem_, Portfolio 7, Pl. 4.

[285] A. E. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 11 (not shown on Fig. 5).

[286] Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del
medioevo e dei secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da
italiani o trovati nelle biblioteche d’Italia, Part II (pp. 280–390)
of “Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della Geografia
in Italia,” published on the occasion of the Second International
Geographical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Società Geografica Italiana,
Rome, 1875; reference on Pl. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does
not contain the plates). Also Babcock, Early Norse Visits to North
America, Pl. 4. See our Fig. 20.

[287] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung
für die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin,
1892; reference in atlas, Pl. 4. See our Fig. 22.

[288] Borges de F. Henriques, pp. 35–36.

[289] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of
Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekelöf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm,
1889, Pl. 32.

[290] E. J. Payne, edit.: Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America:
Select Narratives from the Principal Navigations of Hakluyt, Ser. 1,
Hawkins, Frobisher, Drake, 2d edit., Oxford, 1893, p. 183. Cf. also E.
W. Dahlgren’s note in _Proc. and Trans. Nova Scotian Inst. of Sci._,
Vol. 11, 1902–06, p. 551.

[291] Miller Christy: On “Busse Island,” in C. C. A. Gosch: Danish
Arctic Expeditions 1605 to 1620, Bk. I: Expeditions to Greenland,
_Hakluyt Soc. Publs._, 1st Series, Vol. 96, London, 1897, Appendix B,
pp. 164–202; reference on p. 167.

[292] Miller Christy, pp. 171 and 173.

[293] Nieuwe wassende zee caart van de Noord-Oceaen, med een gedeelte
van de Atlantische, etc., Amsterdam, 1745 (as cited by Miller Christy,
_op. cit._, p. 178, footnote 1).

[294] H. S. Poole: The Sunken Land of Bus, _Proc. and Trans. Nova
Scotian Inst. of Sci._, Vol. 11, 1902–06, pp. 193–198. See also: Sir
John Murray and R. E. Peake: On Recent Contributions to the Knowledge
of the Floor of the Atlantic Ocean, Royal Geogr. Soc., London, 1904;
references on pp. 8 and 10 and inset “Soundings Taken by S. S. Minia,
1903” of the accompanying chart.

[295] A. E. Nordenskiöld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of
Charts and Sailing Directions, transl. in F. A. Bather, Stockholm,
1897, Pl. 20.

[296] Justin Winsor: Cartier to Frontenac: Geographical Discovery in
the Interior of North America In its Historical Relations, 1534–1700,
with Full Cartographical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources,
Boston and New York, 1894, pp. 60–61.

[297] Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika’s in ihrer Bedeutung
für die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin,
1892; reference in atlas, Pl. 16.

[298] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 23.

[299] Nordenskiöld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 46.

[300] Drei Karten von Gerhard Mercator: Europa--Britische
Inseln--Weltkarte: Facsimile-Lichtdruck nach den Originalen der
Stadtbibliothek zu Breslau, Geogr. Soc., Berlin, 1891; reference on
Weltkarte, Pls. 3 and 9. See also: [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la
géographie, ou recueil d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales
..., Paris, [1842–62], Pl. XXI, 2.

[301] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 17.

[302] Friedrich Kunstmann: Die Entdeckung Amerikas, nach den
ältesten Quellen geschichtlich dargestellt, with an atlas: Atlas zur
Entdeckungsgeschichte Amerikas, aus Handschriften der K. Hof- und
Staats-Bibliothek, der K. Universitaet und des Hauptconservatoriums der
K. B. Armee herausgegeben von Friedrich Kunstmann, Karl von Spruner,
Georg M. Thomas, Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich, 1859;
reference in atlas, Pl. 13.

[303] Alberto Magnaghi: La carta nautica costruita nel 1325 da Angelino
Dalorto, with facsimile, Florence, 1898 (published on the occasion
of the Third Italian Geographical Congress). Cf. also: _idem_: Il
mappamondo del genovese Angellinus de Dalorto (1325): Contributo all
storia della cartografia mediovale, _Atti del Terzo Congr. Geogr.
Italiano, tenuto in Firenzi dal 12 al 17 Aprile, 1898_, Florence,
1899, Vol. 2, pp. 506–543; and _idem_: Angellinus de Dalorco (_sic_),
cartografo italiano della prima metà del secolo XIV, _Riv. Geogr.
Italiana_, Vol. 4, 1897, pp. 282–294 and 361–369.

[304] Nordenskiöld, Periplus, Pl. 8.

[305] Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten
italienischen Ursprungs, 1 vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing
photographs of maps, Venice, 1877–86; reference in Portfolio 5
(Facsimile del Portolano Laurenziano-Gaddiano dell’ anno 1351), Pl. 4.

[306] [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil
d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales.... Paris, [1842–62], Pl.
X, 1.

[307] Kretschmer, atlas, Pl. 5.

[308] Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del
medioevo e dei secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da
italiani o trovati nelle biblioteche d’Italia, Part II (pp. 280–390)
of “Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della Geografia
in Italia,” published on the occasion of the Second International
Geographical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Società Geografica Italiana,
Rome, 1875; reference on Pl. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does
not contain the plates).

[309] Drei Karten von Gerhard Mercator, Berlin, 1891; reference on
Weltkarte, Pl. 13.

[310] Nordenskiöld, Facsimile-Atlas, map 82 on p. 131.

[311] _Ibid._, Pl. 49.

[312] Early Norse Visits to North America, _Smithsonian Misc. Colls._,
Vol. 59, No. 19, Washington, D. C., 1913; Recent History and Present
Status of the Vinland Problem, _Geogr. Rev._, Vol. 11, 1921, pp.
265–282; and Chapters VII and VIII, above.

[313] Eugène Beauvois: La découverte du nouveau monde par les
irlandais, Nancy, 1875.

[314] Gustav Storm: Studies on the Vineland Voyages, _Mémoires Soc.
Royale des Antiquaires du Nord_ (Copenhagen), N. S., 1884–89, pp.
307–370.

[315] Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l’histoire de la
géographie du nouveau continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique
aux quinzième et seizième siècles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836–39; reference
in Vol. 2, p. 107.

[316] Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und
Seekarten italienischen Ursprungs, 1 vol. of text and 17 portfolios
containing photographs of maps, Venice, 1877–86; reference in Portfolio
9 (Facsimile dell’ Atlante di Andrea Bianco dell’ anno 1436), Pl. 7.




INDEX


  Adam of Bremen, 106;
    on Greenland, 94

  Anghiera. _See_ Martyr, Peter

  Animal and bird names, 44

  Antela, 149

  Antiglia, map opp. 74, 75, 147

  Antilles, 144;
    identity with Antillia, 162

  Antillia, 188;
    as an early map item, 144;
    Atlantis and, 148;
    on Beccario map of 1426, 151;
    on Beccario map of 1435, 70, 151;
    on Benincasa map of 1482, 70, 159;
    on Bianco map of 1436, 156;
    Humboldt’s hypothesis of origin of name, 148;
    identity with the Antilles, 162;
    on Laon globe of 1493, 161;
    of the mainland, 147;
    Martyr’s (Peter) identification, 145;
    origin of the name, 148;
    other identifications, 146;
    on Pareto map of 1455, 157;
    on Roselli map of 1468, 155;
    on Ruysch map of 1508, 145;
    Seven Cities (island) and, 69, 188;
    spelling of the word, 146;
    unmentioned on certain notable maps, 161;
    on Weimar map, 150, 159

  Arctic monastery, 136–137, 138

  Ari Frode, 101

  Arna-Magnaean MS. No. 194, 116, 119

  Arna-Magnaean MS. No. 557, on Markland, 115

  Athens and Atlantis, 1, 33

  Atlantic continental mass, theory of Termier, 19

  Atlantic submarine banks, 24

  Atlantis, Antillia and, 148;
    improbability of existence, 18;
    invasion of the Mediterranean, 16;
    location and size, 17;
    Plato’s account, 3, 11, 32, 187;
    Sargasso Sea as, 29;
    submergence, question of, 22;
    Termier on, 14

  Avezac, M. A. P. d’, 8, 114

  Avienus, 27

  Ayala, Pedro de, 65, 68

  Azores, description, 164;
    floral and faunal indications of mainland connection, 21;
    Mayda and, 92;
    names of islands, 21;
    occurrence of name “Seven Cities” in, 78;
    two series on Bianco map of 1448, 122


  Babcock, W. H., “Early Norse Visits,” 6, 115, 172, 184;
    “Indications of Visits,” 46, 57, 71, 86, 150

  Baffin Land, 111, 184

  Bahamas, 155, 163, 188

  Barra, 181, 183

  Basques, 8

  Beauvois, Eugène, 131, 184

  Beccario map of 1426, Antillia on, 151;
    reproduction of a photographed section (ill.), opp. 45;
    St. Brendan’s Islands on, 45

  Beccario map of 1435, Antilles, four islands, on, 153;
    Antillia on, 70, 151, 153;
    Daculi on, 183;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 152

  Behaim globe of 1492, St. Brendan’s Islands on, 47

  Benedict, R. D., 38

  Benincasa map of 1482, Antillia on, 70, 159;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 160

  Beothuks, 123, 131

  Bermuda and Mayda, 93, 188

  Bianco map of 1436, Antillia on, 156;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 179;
    Stokafixa on, 185

  Bianco map of 1448, St. Brendan’s Islands on, 46;
    two series of Azores, 122

  Bimini (Beimini), 146

  Bird names, 44

  Birds, isle of, 166

  Blaskets, 181

  Blunt, E. M., 91

  Boid, Captain, 170

  Book of the Spanish Friar, 44, 55, 92, 165;
    on the Azores, 165

  Bourne, E. G., 55

  Bra, 181

  Brazil (island), on Catalan map of 1375, 58;
    on Catalan map of about 1480, 61;
    on Dalorto map of 1325, 50, 56, 121;
    early maps, occurrence, 55;
    location and shape, 57;
    in place of Markland, 121;
    Mayda and, 83;
    on Nicolay map of 1560, 61, 121;
    Norse and Irish omission of name, 66;
    St. Lawrence, Gulf of, and, 59, 187;
    Seven Cities (island) and, 68;
    on Sylvanus map of 1511, 65;
    two on the same map, 121–122

  Brazil (word), derivation, 50, 52;
    spellings, 50;
    various applications, 121

  Brendan (Brandan; Brenainn), St., adventures, Lismore version, 34;
    explanations of Brendan narratives, 35;
    exploration, 34, 48, 187;
    probable basis of fact in narratives, 38

  Brendan’s (St.) Islands, 34;
    on Beccario map of 1426, 45;
    on Behaim globe of 1492, 47;
    on Bianco map of 1448, 46;
    on Dulcert map of 1339, 42;
    Hereford map testimony, 38;
    on later maps, 48;
    on the Pizigani map of 1367, 43

  Bretons, exploration, 8, 84

  Brown, A. S., 78

  Buache, N., 78

  Bullar, Joseph and Henry, 79

  Buss Island, 174, disappearance from map, 177;
    discovery, 175;
    map (ill.), 176


  Cabot, John, 10, 55

  Canary Islands, mainland connection, question of, 21;
    tradition concerning St. Brendan, 39

  Canerio map, 146

  Cape Breton, 118–119, 127, 132, 135, 185;
    Mayda and, 92, 93

  Cape Cod, Mayda and, 92, 188

  Capmany, Antonio de, 54

  Carthaginians, Corvo and, 167;
    statues and coins, 169

  Cartier, Jacques, 59

  Cartwright, George, 123

  Catalan map of 1375, Brazil (island) on, 58;
    Mayda on, 84;
    reproduction (ill.), 58

  Catalan map of about 1480, Brazil (island) on, 61;
    Fixlanda (Iceland) on, 141;
    Greenland on, 62, 96, 120;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 64

  Catholique, La, 180

  Cerne, 27

  Chau Ju-Kua, 2

  Chesapeake Bay, 119

  Christy, Miller, 175, 176, 177

  Churchill Collection, 140

  Clavus map of 1427, Greenland on, 105, 139;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 104

  Coins found in Corvo, 167

  Columbus, Christopher, 10

  Columbus, Ferdinand, “Life of Christopher Columbus,” 69, 71, 140, 144

  Conigi, Li, 8, 165, 172, 182

  Coombs, Captain, 100

  Coppo map of 1528, Greenland on, 96;
    reproduction (ill.), 97

  Corvo, 22;
    ancient memorials, 166;
    comparative representations on maps (ill.), 172;
    equestrian statues, 168;
    Mayda and, 92;
    origin of name, 164;
    Pizigani map of 1367 and, 168

  Cuba, 153, 162, 163, 188


  Daculi, 181;
    on Pareto map of 1455, 183

  Dalorto map of 1325, Brazil (island) on, 50, 56, 121;
    mythical islands on, 181;
    reproduction (ill.), 51

  Dawson, S. E., 48

  Demons, 37, 89;
    islands of, 178

  Desceliers map of 1546, Greenland on, 99;
    Mayda on, 87;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 76;
    saintly islands on, 180;
    Seven Cities (island) on, 75

  Devil Rock, 91

  Diodorus Siculus, 1, 4, 16, 42, 166

  Disko, 184

  Dragons, 37, 83, 149

  Drogio, first mention, 124, 127;
    meaning, 133;
    region designated, 132;
    spelling, 132;
    on Zeno map of 1558, 126

  Dulcert map of 1339, St. Brendan’s Islands on, 42


  Edrisi, “Geography,” 7, 39, 166, 168;
    on the isle of birds, 166

  Egerton MS. 2803. _See_ World map in portolan atlas of about 1508

  _Emmanuel_ (ship), 175

  Emperadada, Encorporada, Encorporade (Incorporado), 180

  Equestrian statues, 168

  Eric the Red, 101, 108, 109, 115

  Eskimos, 110, 111

  Espinosa, Alonso de, 39

  Esthlanda, 131

  Estotiland, 122; derivation, conjectures, 130;
    first mention, 124, 127;
    on Prunes map of 1553, 131;
    region designated, 130;
    on Zeno map of 1558, 126

  Estotilanders, 131


  Faria y Sousa, Manuel de, 73;
    on Corvo, 169

  Fischer, Joseph, 61, 105, 116, 139

  Fischer, Theobald, 44, 45, 46, 47, 56, 57, 84, 86, 92, 114, 122, 147,
        161, 165, 172, 182, 185

  Fixlanda, 96, 185;
    on Catalan map of 1480, 141

  Flores, 8, 171, 172, 182

  Florida, 146, 155, 163, 188

  Formaleoni, Vicenzio, 148

  Fortunate Islands, 38, 39.
    _See also_ Brendan’s (St.) Islands

  Freducci, Conde, 150

  Frisland, 136, 175, 185;
    Buss Island and, 177;
    confusion with Iceland, 141;
    occurrence of name, 140;
    on Zeno map of 1558, 141


  Galvano, Antonio, 72

  Germain, Louis, 21

  Germanus, Donnus Nicolaus, world map (after 1466), Greenland on, 105,
        139;
    reproduction of section (ill.), opp. 105

  Ginnungagap, 178

  Gnupsson, Eric, 109

  Gosch, C. C. A., 175

  Grand Banks, 185

  Grand Manan, 188

  Great Abaco, 155, 162–163

  Great Iceland, 184

  Greeks, early exploration, 4

  Green Island, 95;
    on sixteenth-century maps, 97;
    various islands;
    shrinkage of the name, 99

  Greenland, Adam of Bremen’s account, 94;
    on Catalan map of about 1480, 62, 96, 120;
    on Clavus map of 1427, 105, 139;
    on Coppo map of 1528, 96;
    on Desceliers map of 1546, 99;
    on Germanus (D. N.) map, 105, 139;
    insular character, 95;
    intercourse with Markland, 119;
    life of Icelandic colony, 106;
    on Nicolay map of 1560, 98;
    Norse settlements, 137;
    Norse settlements (with map), 103;
    origin of name, 101;
    on Ortelius map of 1570, 99;
    as a peninsula, 105;
    on Sigurdr Stefánsson map, 106;
    Thorláksson map of 1606 (ill.), 98;
    on Zeno map of 1558, 105, 139

  Greenlanders, early explorations, 109

  Grocland, 184

  Gunnbjörn’s skerries, 174


  Haiti, 162

  Hall, James, 177

  Hand of Satan, 156, 178

  Hardiman, James, 50

  Harrisse, Henry, 144

  Hauk’s Book on Markland, 114

  Hebrides, 181, 182, 183

  Helluland, 115, 116, 188

  Henriques, Borges de F., 171, 173

  Hereford map of 1275, St. Brendan’s Islands on, 38

  Himilco, 27

  Holmes, W. H., 3

  Hood, Thomas, 180

  Hovgaard, William, on Icelandic settlement of Greenland, 102, 109,
        110, 115, 116;
    suggestion of two Winelands, 119

  Humboldt, Alexander von, on Antillia, 148;
    on Bianco map of 1436, 157;
    on Corvo, 167;
    “Examen critique,” 37, 52, 55, 78, 81, 148, 167, 169, 185

  Hydrographic Office, 30, 31, 32


  I in Mar, 155, 188

  Icaria, 136;
    on Zeno map of 1558, 142

  Iceland, confusion on maps, 141;
    Great Iceland, 184;
    Greenland discovery and relations, 101;
    on Zeno map of 1558, 141

  Illa Verde, 96.
    _See also_ Greenland

  Imagination in cartography, 143

  Incorporado, 180

  Ireland, submerged lands about, 25

  Irish sea-roving, 5

  Island of the Seven Cities. _See_ Seven Cities (island)

  Islands, cataclysms, 174;
    mythical and scattered, 174

  Italians, exploration, 8


  Jamaica, 163, 188

  Janvier, T. A., 30

  Jomard, E. F., 8, 30, 43, 55, 70, 83, 147, 149, 166, 179, 182

  Jónsson, Finnur, 102–103

  Jowett, Benjamin, 11, 18


  Karlsefni, Thorfinn, 109, 115, 116;
    geography of narrative and later records, 117

  Kilda, St., 142, 183

  Kjalarness, 116, 118

  Kohl, J. G., 139

  Kohl collection, 57, 85

  Krakens, 149

  Kretschmer, Konrad, 45, 48, 57, 58, 60, 61, 69, 70, 75, 82, 84, 86,
        87, 96, 97, 98, 99, 105, 114, 117, 121, 131, 132, 140, 146,
        157, 159, 162, 172, 178, 179, 180, 183

  Krümmel, Otto, 30

  Kunstmann, Friedrich, 146, 180


  Labrador as Markland, 117

  La Catholique, 180

  La Man Satanaxio, 156, 178

  Laon globe of 1493, Antillia on, 161

  Legname, 8, 114

  Leif Ericsson, 109

  Li Conigi, 8, 165, 172, 182

  Lismore, Book of, 34

  Lucas, F. W., 122, 125;
    on Drogio, 133;
    on the Zeno narrative, 137, 138


  Madeira Islands, as the Fortunate Islands of St. Brendan, 42;
    name, 44, 114

  Magnaghi, Alberto, 50, 69, 121, 181

  Major, R. H., 122, 124, 129;
    study of the Zeno narrative, 136

  Malte-Brun, Conrad, 167

  Man or Mam, 83. _See also_ Mayda

  Maps (ills.), Beccario of 1426, opp. 45;
    Beccario of 1435, 152;
    Benincasa of 1482, 160;
    Bianco of 1436, 179;
    Buss Island of 1673, 176;
    Catalan of 1375, 58;
    Catalan of about 1480, 64;
    Clavus of 1427, 104;
    Coppo of 1528, 97;
    Corvo representations, 172;
    Dalorto of 1325, 51;
    Desceliers of 1546, 76;
    Egerton MS. 2803, opp. 74;
    Germanus (D. N.), after 1466, opp. 105;
    Greenland, Norse settlements, 103;
    Nicolay of 1560, 62;
    Ortelius of 1570, 77;
    Pareto of 1455, 158;
    Pizigani of 1367, 40–41;
    Ptolemy of 1513, 82;
    Prunes of 1553, 88;
    Sargasso Sea, 28;
    Stefánsson of 1590, 107;
    Thorláksson of 1606, 98;
    Zeno of 1558, 126

  Marco Polo, 53

  Markland, Brazil (island) in place of, 121;
    Hauk’s Book account, 114;
    intercourse with Greenland, 119;
    Labrador as, 117;
    name, 114;
    Newfoundland as, 114, 188;
    Nova Scotia as, 118;
    on Sigurdr Stefánsson map, 116;
    Zeno narrative and, 122

  Martyr, Peter, d’Anghiera, “Decades,” 145;
    identification of Antillia, 145

  Mayda, Azores and, 92;
    basis of fact about, 91, 188;
    Brazil (island) and, 83;
    on Catalan map of 1375, 84;
    “Man” and, 84;
    modern maps, persistence on, 90;
    name, spelling and origin, 81;
    on Ortelius map of 1570, 90;
    on Pizigani map of 1367, 83;
    on Prunes map of 1553, 87;
    problem of, 81;
    on Ptolemy map of 1513, 82;
    transference, on maps, to American waters, 87;
    Vlaenderen and, 89

  Mediterranean Sea, Atlantean invasion, 16

  Mercator, Gerhard, world map of 1569, 125, 179, 184

  Miller, Konrad, 39

  _Minia_ (ship), 178

  Monastery in the Arctic, 136–137, 138

  Montonis, 56, 181

  Moorish voyages, 7

  Morewood, S., 168

  Mount Hope Bay, 188

  Muratori, L. A., 53

  Murray, Sir John, 24;
    on the Sargasso Sea, 31

  Murray, Sir John, and R. E. Peake, 177–178


  Nansen, Fridtjof, 27, 29, 60, 61, 94, 101, 117

  Navarro, L. F., 22

  Navigation, early obstruction, 27

  Negra’s Rock, 90, 91, 175, 186

  Neome (Fair Island), 136, 140

  Newfoundland, 185; as Markland, 114, 117;
    on Nicolay map of 1560, 132

  Nicolay map of 1560, Brazil (island) on, 61, 121;
    Greenland on, 98;
    Mayda on, 87;
    Newfoundland on, 132;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 62

  Nordenskiöld, A. E., on Antillia, 144;
    “Bidrag,” 61, 96, 120, 139, 141;
    “Facsimile-Atlas,” 1, 48, 71, 75, 90, 99, 105, 125, 145, 161, 174,
        179, 184;
    “Periplus,” 27, 42, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61,69, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 98,
        114, 121, 132, 139, 145, 150, 156, 165, 172, 178, 182;
    on the Weimar map, 150

  Norsemen, early exploration, 5;
    early settlements in Greenland, 103 (with map), 137;
    Eskimos and, 111

  Nova Scotia as Markland, 118


  Olsen, J. E., 55

  Ortelius map of 1570, demon islands on, 179;
    Greenland on, 99;
    Mayda on, 90;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 77;
    Seven Cities (island) on, 75;
    Zeno additions on, 125


  Pareto map of 1455, Antillia on, 157;
    Daculi on, 183;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 158

  Payne, E. J., 175

  Perseus, 16, 17

  Peter Martyr. _See_ Martyr, Peter

  Phoenicians, Corvo and, 167;
    early explorations, 1, 3

  Pizigani map of 1367, Corvo and, 168;
    Daculi and Bra on, 182;
    Mayda on, 83;
    reproduction (ill.), 40–41;
    St. Brendan’s Islands on, 43

  Plato on Atlantis, 3, 11, 32, 187

  Podolyn, Johan, 167

  Poole, H. S., 177

  Porlanda (Pomona), 136, 140

  Porto Rico, 162

  Porto Santo, 43

  Portuguese discovery, 9;
    refugees and Seven Cities island, 71

  Promontorium Vinlandiae, 118, 119

  Prunes map of 1553, Estotiland on, 131;
    Mayda on, 87;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 88;
    Zeno islands on, 140

  Ptolemy map of 1513, Mayda on, 82;
    reproduction of section (ill.), 82


  Ravenstein, E. G., 47, 71, 105, 145

  Reeves, A. M., 115, 116, 131

  Reylla, 188;
    on Beccario map of 1435, 154;
    on Roselli map of 1468, 155

  Rink, Henry, on Greenland, 102, 104

  Robert, M., 90

  Rockall, 91, 100

  Rocks, sunken, 91, 100

  Romans, early exploration, 5

  Roselli map of 1468, Antillia on, 155

  Runic inscription in Greenland, 109–110

  Ruysch map of 1508, Antillia inscription, 145;
    island destroyed by combustion, 174


  St. Anne, 180, 181

  St. Brendan. _See_ Brendan

  St. Kilda, 142, 183

  St. Lawrence, Gulf of, possible identification of Brazil (island)
        with, 59

  St. Michael, (Azores), 78, 168, 169, 188

  St. X, 180

  Saintly islands, 180

  Salvagio, 188;
    on Beccario map of 1435, 154

  Santarem, M. F., 52, 140

  Sargasso Sea, 3, 18, 187;
    as Atlantis, 29;
    map (ill.), 28

  Satanaxio, 156, 178, 188

  Scandinavians. _See_ Norsemen

  Scharff, R. F., 21

  Schott, Gerhard, 30

  Schuchert, Charles, 23

  Schuller, Rudolph, 13

  Scorafixa, 185

  Scylax of Caryanda, 27

  Seller, John, 176

  Seven Cities (island), 68, 188;
    Antillia and, 69;
    Brazil (island) and, 68;
    on Desceliers map of 1546, 75;
    home of Portuguese refugees, 71;
    later reappearance as an island, 75;
    mainland location, 74;
    name in the Azores, 78;
    on Ortelius map of 1570, 75

  Shepherd, Thomas, 177

  Shetland, 131, 181

  Ships, early, 2

  Skraelings, 111

  Solberg, T., 57, 161

  Soley, J. C., 30, 31

  Spanish Friar. _See_ Book of the Spanish Friar

  Stefánsson (Sigurdr) map of 1590 (?), Greenland on, 106;
    Helluland, Markland, and Vinland on, 116;
    reproduction (ill.), 107

  Stevens, John, 73

  Stevenson, E. L., “Atlas of Portolan Charts,” 74, 141, 147;
    “Facsimiles of Portolan Charts,” 57, 86, 155;
    “Maps Illustrating Early Discovery,” 117, 140;
    “Marine World Chart of Nicolo de Canerio Jannensis,” 146;
    “Portolan Charts,” 27

  Stokafixa, 185

  Stokes, Whitley, 34

  Storm, Gustav, 111, 184

  Strabo, 42, 169

  Straumey, 188

  Straumfiord, 188

  Submarine banks, 24

  Sylvanus map of 1511, Brazil (island) on, 65


  Tachylyte, 23

  Termier, Pierre, on Atlantis, 14;
    theory of ancient Atlantic continent, 19, 21, 23

  Thevet, André, 169

  Thorláksson map of 1606, reproduction (ill.), 98

  Tobago, 99

  Torfaeus’ “Gronlandia,” 96–97, 98, 106, 107, 116

  Toscanelli, Paolo, 69, 144

  Trouvères, 36

  Tulloch, Captain, 100


  Uzielli, Gustavo, 45, 57, 70, 86, 151, 172, 183


  Valsequa map of 1439, 57

  Van Keulen’s chart of 1795, 177

  Vespucius, 10

  Vignaud, Henry, “Columbian Tradition,” 10;
    on the Toscanelli letter, 144

  Vinland, 188;
    Hovgaard’s suggestion, 119

  Vlaenderen and Mayda, 89


  Weare, G. E., 68

  Weimar map (after 1481), Antillia on, 150, 159

  Westropp, T. J., “Brasil,” 26, 34, 36, 60, 61, 96;
    “Early Italian maps,” 54;
    on submerged lands near Iceland, 25

  Wiars, Thomas, 175

  Wineland the Good, 116. _See also_ Vinland

  Winsor, Justin, 59, 60, 65, 85, 89, 132, 178

  Wonderstrands, 116, 188

  World map in portolan atlas of about 1508, Antiglia on, 147;
    Iceland on, 141;
    reproduction of section (ill.), opp. 74;
    Seven Cities (island) on, 74


  Yule, Sir Henry, 53


  Zaltieri map of 1566, 61, 87, 98, 132

  Zeno, Antonio and Nicolò, 9, 124

  Zeno, Nicolò, the younger, 124, 134, 135, 143

  Zeno map of 1558, Finland and Iceland on, 141;
    Greenland on, 105, 139;
    Icaria on, 142;
    reproduction (ill.), 126

  Zeno narrative, account of the book, 124;
    brief summary, 135;
    discrepancies of the fisherman’s story, 133;
    geographical implication, 129;
    Lucas’ study, 137;
    Major’s study, 136;
    Markland and, 122;
    narrative quoted, 128




      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unpaired quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unpaired.

Footnotes originally were at the bottoms of pages. Here, they are just
before the Index.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.

The text in some maps is in different orientations, and sometimes
indecipherable. Transcriber could not determine the correct orientation
of the map in Fig. 7, and chose one that made some of the larger words
upright.

The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references. Redundant hemi-title “Index” removed by Transcriber.