Footnote 284:"Combien de coquilles typographiques ou de lectures défectueuses ont créé de noms boiteux, qu'il est ensuite bien difficile, quelquefois impossible de redresser! L'histoire et la géographie en sont pleines." Avezac,Martin Waltzemüller, p. 9.
It is interesting to see how thoroughly words can be disguised by an unfamiliar phonetic spelling. I have seen people hopelessly puzzled by the following bill, supposed to have been made out by an illiterate stable-keeper somewhere in England:—
Some years ago Professor Huxley told me of a letter from France which came to the London post-office thus addressed:—
Sromfrédévi,Piqué du lait,Londres,Angleterre.
This letter, after exciting at first helpless bewilderment and then busy speculation, was at length delivered to the right person,Sir Humphry Davy, in his rooms at the Royal Institution on Albemarle street, just off fromPiccadilly![Back to Main Text]
Footnote 285:Columbus, on his journey to Iceland in 1477, also heard the nameFæroislanderasFrislanda, and so wrote it in the letter preserved for us in his biography by his son Ferdinand, hereafter to be especially noticed. See Major's remarks on this,op. cit.p. xix.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 286:Perhaps in the old worn-out map the archipelago may have been blurred so as to be mistaken for one island. This would aid in misleading young Nicolò.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 287:See the elaborate paper by Admiral Zahrtmann, inNordisk Tidsskrift for Oldkyndighed, Copenhagen, 1834, vol. i., and the English translation of it inJournal of Royal Geographical Society, London, 1836, vol. v. All that human ingenuity is ever likely to devise against the honesty of Zeno's narrative is presented in this erudite essay, which has been so completely demolished under Mr. Major's heavy strokes that there is not enough of it left to pick up. As to this part of the question, we may now safely cry, "finis, laus Deo!"[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 288:It was translated into Dutch by the famous Arctic explorer, William Barentz, whose voyages are so graphically described in Motley'sUnited Netherlands, vol. iii. pp. 552-576. An English translation was made for Henry Hudson. A very old Danish version may be found in Rafn'sAntiquitates Americanæ, pp. 300-318; Danish, Latin, and English versions in Major'sVoyages of the Venetian Brothers, etc., pp. 39-54; and an English version in De Costa'sSailing Directions of Henry Hudson, Albany, 1869, pp. 61-96.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 289:So he tells us himself: "Quo cum venissent, nullum hominem, neque christianum neque paganum, invenerunt, tantummodo fera pecora et oves deprehenderunt, ex quibus quantum naves ferre poterant in has deportato domum redierunt."Descriptio Grœnlandiæ, apud Major, p. 53. The glacial men had done their work of slaughter and vanished.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 290:"Ma la maggior parte sono delle Islande." Mr. Major is clearly wrong in translating it "from the Shetland Isles." The younger Nicolò was puzzled by the similarity of the names Islanda and Eslanda, and sometimes confounded Iceland with the Shetland group. But in this place Iceland is evidently meant.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 291:This application of the hot water to purposes of gardening reminds us of the similar covered gardens or hot-beds constructed by Albertus Magnus in the Dominican monastery at Cologne in the thirteenth century. See Humboldt'sKosmos, ii. 130.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 292:Major,op. cit.p. 16. The narrative goes on to give a description of the skin-boats of the Eskimo fishermen.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 293:Daubeny,Description of Active and Extinct Volcanoes, London, 1848, pp. 307; cf. Judd,Volcanoes, London, 1881, p. 234.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 294:"Ab Snefelsneso Islandiæ, quâ brevissimus in Gronlandiam trajectus est, duorum dierum et duarum noctium spatio navigandum est recto cursu versus occidentem; ibique Gunnbjœrnis scopulos invenies, inter Gronlandiam et Islandiam medio situ interjacentes. Hic cursus antiquitûs frequentabatur, nunc vero glacies ex recessu oceani euroaquilonari delata scopulos ante memoratos tam prope attigit, ut nemo sine vitæ discrimine antiquum cursum tenere possit, quemadmodum infra dicetur."Descriptio Grœnlandiæ, apud Major,op. cit.p. 40.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 295:Op. cit.p. lxxvi. See below, vol. ii. p. 115, note B.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 296:Judd,op. cit.pp. 217-220.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 297:My friend, Professor Shaler, tells me that "a volcano during eruption might shed its ice mantle and afterward don it again in such a manner as to hide its true character even on a near view;" and, on the other hand, "a voyager not familiar with volcanoes might easily mistake the cloud-bonnet of a peak for the smoke of a volcano." This, however, will not account for Zeno's "hill that vomited fire," for he goes on to describe the use which the monks made of the pumice and calcareous tufa for building purposes.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 298:They were, therefore, not Northmen.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 299:Pruning this sentence of its magniloquence, might it perhaps mean that there was a large palisaded village, and that the chief had some books in Roman characters, a relic of some castaway, which he kept as a fetish?[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 300:With all possible latitude of interpretation, this could not be made to apply to any part of America north of Mexico.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 301:The magnetic needle had been used by the mariners of western and northern Europe since the end of the thirteenth century.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 302:"Fanno nauigli e nauigano, ma non hanno la calamìta ne intendeno col bossolo la tramontana. Per ilche questi pescatori furono in gran pregio, si che il re li spedì con dodici nauigli uerso ostro nel paese che essi chiamano Drogio." Major,op. cit.p. 21.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 303:Major,op. cit.pp. 20-22.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 304:Ingram's narrative was first published in Hakluyt's folio of 1589, pp. 557-562, but in his larger work,Principal Navigations, etc., London, 1600, it is omitted. As Purchas quaintly says, "As for David Ingram's perambulation to the north parts, Master Hakluyt in his first edition published the same; but it seemeth some incredibilities of his reports caused him to leaue him out in the next impression, the reward of lying being not to be beleeued in truths."Purchas his Pilgrimes, London, 1625, vol. iv. p. 1179. The examination before Walsingham had reference to the projected voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, which was made in 1583. Ingram's relation, "wchhe reported vnto SrFrauncys Walsinghm̃, Knight, and diuers others of good judgment and creditt, in August and Septembar, AoDñi, 1582," is in the British Museum, Sloane MS. No. 1447, fol. 1-18; it was copied and privately printed in Plowden Weston'sDocuments connected with the History of South Carolina, London, 1856. There is a MS. copy in the Sparks collection in the Harvard University library. See the late Mr. Charles Deane's note in his edition of Hakluyt'sDiscourse concerning Westerne Planting, Cambridge, 1877, p. 229 (Collections of Maine Hist. Soc., 2d series, vol. ii.); see, also, Winsor,Narr. and Crit. Hist., iii. 186.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 305:See below, vol. ii. p. 501.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 306:In the first reception of the Spaniards in Peru, we shall see a similar idea at work, vol. ii. pp. 398, 407.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 307:The latest pre-Columbian voyage mentioned as having occurred in the northern seas was that of the Polish pilot John Szkolny, who, in the service of King Christian I. of Denmark, is said to have sailed to Greenland in 1476, and to have touched upon the coast of Labrador. See Gomara,Historia de las Indias, Saragossa, 1553, cap. xxxvii.; Wytfliet,Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ Augmentum, Douay, 1603, p. 102; Pontanus,Rerum Danicarum Historia, Amsterdam, 1631, p. 763. The wise Humboldt mentions the report without expressing an opinion,Examen critique, tom. ii. p. 153.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 308:Practically, but not entirely, for we have seen Markland mentioned in the "Elder Skálholt Annals," about 1362. See above, p.223.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 309:The "Truce of God" (Treuga Dei) was introduced by the clergy in Guienne about 1032; it was adopted in Spain before 1050, and in England by 1080. See Datt,De pace imperii publica, lib. i. cap. ii. A cessation of all violent quarrels was enjoined, under ecclesiastical penalties, during church festivals, and from every Wednesday evening until the following Monday morning. This left only about eighty days in the year available for shooting and stabbing one's neighbours. The truce seems to have accomplished much good, though it was very imperfectly observed.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 310:Diodorus Siculus, i. 70.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 311:Strabo, xi. 7, § 3.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 312:Robertson,Historical Disquisition concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, Dublin, 1791, p. 55. I never have occasion to consult Dr. Robertson without being impressed anew with his scientific habit of thought and the solidity of his scholarship; and in none of his works are these qualities better illustrated than in this noble essay.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 313:The Polos sailed back from China to the Persian gulf in 1292-94; see below, p.282.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 314:The name "Seres" appears on the map of Pomponius Mela (cir.A. D.50), while "Sinæ" does not. See below, p.304.
Jam Tartessiaco quos solverat æquore TitanIn noctem diffusus equos, jungebat EoïsLittoribus, primique novo Phaethonte retectiSeres lanigeris repetebant vellera lucis.Silius Italicus, lib. vi.ad init.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 315:For this whole subject see Colonel Sir Henry Yule'sCathay and the Way Thither, London, 1866, 2 vols.,—a work of profound learning and more delightful than a novel.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 316:Its title is Χριστιανῶν βίβλος, ἑρμηνεία εἰς τὴν Οκτάτευχον, i. e. against Ptolemy's Geography in eight books. The name Cosmas Indicopleustes seems merely to mean "the cosmographer who has sailed to India." He begins his book in a tone of extreme and somewhat unsavory humility: Ἀνοίγω τὰ μογιλάλα καὶ βραδύγλωσσα χείλη ὁ ἁμαρτωλὸς καὶ τάλας ἐγώ—"I, the sinner and wretch, open my stammering, stuttering lips," etc.—The book has been the occasion of some injudicious excitement within the last half century. Cosmas gave a description of some comparatively recent inscriptions on the peninsula of Sinai, and because he could not find anybody able to read them, he inferred that they must be records of the Israelites on their passage through the desert. (Compare the Dighton rock, above, p.214.) Whether in the sixth century of grace or in the nineteenth, your unregenerate and unchastened antiquary snaps at conclusions as a drowsy dog does at flies. Some years ago an English clergyman, Charles Forster, started up the nonsense again, and argued that these inscriptions might afford a clue to man's primeval speech! Cf. Bunsen,Christianity and Mankind, vol. iii. p. 231; Müller and Donaldson,History of Greek Literature, vol. iii. p. 353; Bury,History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, vol. ii. p. 177.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 317:Such views have their advocates even now. There still lives, I believe, in England, a certain John Hampden, who with dauntless breast maintains that the earth is a circular plane with centre at the north pole and a circumference of nearly 30,000 miles where poor misguided astronomers suppose the south pole to be. The sun moves across the sky at a distance of about 800 miles. From the boundless abyss beyond the southern circumference, with its barrier of icy mountains, came the waters which drowned the antediluvian world; for, as this author quite reasonably observes, "on a globular earth such a deluge would have been physically Impossible." Hampden's title is somewhat like that of Cosmas,—The New Manual of Biblical Cosmography, London, 1877; and he began in 1876 to publish a periodical calledThe Truth-Seeker's Oracle and Scriptural Science Review. Similar views have been set forth by one Samuel Rowbotham, under the pseudonym of "Parallax,"Zetetic Astronomy. Earth not a Globe. An experimental inquiry into the true figure of the earth, proving it a plane without orbital or axial motion, etc., London, 1873; and by a William Carpenter,One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is not a Globe, Baltimore, 1885. There is a very considerable quantity of such literature afloat, the product of a kind of mental aberration that thrives upon paradox. When I was superintendent of the catalogue of Harvard University library, I made the class "Eccentric Literature" under which to group such books,—the lucubrations of circle-squarers, angle-trisectors, inventors of perpetual motion, devisers of recipes for living forever without dying, crazy interpreters of Daniel and the Apocalypse, upsetters of the undulatory theory of light, the Bacon-Shakespeare lunatics, etc.; a dismal procession of long-eared bipeds, with very raucous bray. The late Professor De Morgan devoted a bulky and instructive volume to an account of such people and their crotchets. See hisBudget of Paradoxes, London, 1872.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 318:Cosmas, ii. 138. Further mention of China was made early in the seventh century by Theophylactus Samocatta, vii. 7. See Yule'sCathay, vol. i. pp. xlix., clxviii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 319:Robertson,Historical Disquisition, p. 93; Pears,The Fall of Constantinople, p. 177,—a book of great merit.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 320:"It is difficult for the modern traveller who ventures into the heart of Asia Minor, and finds nothing but rude Kurds and Turkish peasants living among mountains and wild pastures, not connected even by ordinary roads, to imagine the splendour and rich cultivation of this vast country, with its brilliant cities and its teeming population." Mahaffy,The Greek World under Roman Sway, London, 1890, p. 229.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 321:The general effects of the Crusades are discussed, with much learning and sagacity, by Choiseul-Daillecourt,De l'Influence des Croisades sur l'état des peuples de l'Europe, Paris, 1809.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 322:They were taken from Chios in the fourth century by the emperor Theodosius, and placed in the hippodrome at Constantinople, whence they were taken by the Venetians in 1204. The opinion that "the results of the Fourth Crusade upon European civilization were altogether disastrous" is ably set forth by Mr. Pears,The Fall of Constantinople, London, 1885, and would be difficult to refute. Voltaire might well say in this case, "Ainsi le seul fruit des chrétiens dans leurs barbares croisades fut d'exterminer d'autres chrétiens. Ces croisés, qui ruinaient l'empire auraient pu, bien plus aisément que tous leurs prédécesseurs, chasser les Turcs de l'Asie."Essai sur les Mœurs, tom. ii. p. 158. Voltaire's general view of the Crusades is, however, very superficial.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 323:Yule'sMarco Polo, vol. i. p. lxxi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 324:A papal dispensation was necessary before a commercial treaty could be made with Mahometans. See Leibnitz,Codex Jur. Gent. Diplomat., i. 489.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 325:Yule'sCathay, vol. i. p. cxvi.;Marco Polo, vol. i. p. xlii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 326:Yule'sMarco Polo, vol. i. p. cxxx.; cf. Humboldt,Examen critique, tom. i. p. 71. The complete original texts of the reports of both monks, with learned notes, may be found in theRecueil de Voyages et de Mémoires, publié par la Société de Géographie, Paris, 1839, tom. iv., viz.:Johannis de Plano Carpini Historia Mongolorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus, ed. M. d'Avezac;Itinerarium Willelmi de Rubruk, ed. F. Michel et T. Wright.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 327:Yule'sCathay, vol. i. p. xxxix.; Ptolemy, i. 17. Cf. Bunbury'sHistory of Ancient Geography, London, 1883, vol. ii. p. 606.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 328:See myBeginnings of New England, chap. i. How richly suggestive to an American is the contemporaneity of Rubruquis and Earl Simon of Leicester![Back to Main Text]
Footnote 329:Roger Bacon,Opus Majus, ed. Jebb, London, 1733, p. 183.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 330:Pauthier'sMarco Polo, p. 361; Yule'sMarco Polo, p. li.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 331:Ramusio,apudYule'sMarco Polo, vol. i. p. xxxvii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 332:Yule'sMarco Polo, vol. i. p. cxxxi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 333:
"But for to speake of riches and of stones,And men and horse, I trow the large wonesOf Prestir John, ne all his tresorie,Might not unneth have boght the tenth partie."Chaucer,The Flower and the Leaf, 200.
The fabulous kingdom of Prester John is ably treated in Yule'sCathay, vol. i. pp. 174-182;Marco Polo, vol. i. p. 204-216. Colonel Yule suspects that its prototype may have been the semi-Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. This is very likely. As for its range, shifted hither and thither as it was, all the way from the upper Nile to the Thian-Shan mountains, we can easily understand this if we remember how an ignorant mind conceives all points distant from its own position as near to one another; i. e. if you are about to start from New York for Arizona, your housemaid will perhaps ask you to deliver a message to her brother in Manitoba. Nowhere more than in the history of geography do we need to keep before us, at every step, the limitations of the untutored mind and its feebleness in grasping the space-relations of remote regions.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 334:These Arimaspians afford an interesting example of the uncritical statements of travellers at an early time, as well as of their tenacious vitality. The first mention of these mythical people seems to have been made by Greek travellers in Scythia as early as the seventh century before Christ; and they furnished Aristeas of Proconnesus, somewhat later, with the theme of his poem "Arimaspeia," which has perished, all except six verses quoted by Longinus. See Mure'sLiterature of Antient Greece, vol. iv. p. 68. Thence the notion of the Arimaspians seems to have passed to Herodotus (iii. 116; iv. 27) and to Æschylus:—
ὀξυστόμους γὰρ Ζηνὸς ἀκραγεῖς κύναςγρῦπας φύλαξαι, τόν τε μουνῶπα στρατὸνἈριμασπὸν ἱπποβάμον', οἳ χρυσόῤῥυτονοἰκοῦσιν ἀμφὶ νᾶμα Πλούτωνος πόρου·τούτοις σὺ μὴ πέλαζε.Prometheus, 802.
Thence it passed on to Pausanias, i. 24; Pomponius Mela, ii. 1; Pliny,Hist. Nat., vii. 2; Lucan,Pharsalia, iii. 280; and so on to Milton:—
"As when a gryphon through the wilderness,With winged course o'er hill or moory dale,Pursues the Arimaspian who by stealthHad from his wakeful custody purloinedThe guarded gold."Paradise Lost, ii. 944.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 335:Odoric mentions Juggernaut processions and the burning of widows; in Sumatra he observed cannibalism and community of wives; he found the kingdom of Prester John in Chinese Tartary; "but as regards him," says wise Odoric, "not one hundredth part is true of what is told of him as if it were undeniable." Yule'sCathay, vol. i. pp. 79, 85, 146.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 336:Colonel Yule gives a list of fourteen important passages taken bodily from Odoric by Mandeville.Op. cit.i. 28. It is very doubtful if that famous book, "Sir John Mandeville's Travels," was written by a Mandeville, or by a knight, or even by an Englishman. It seems to have been originally written in French by Jean de Bourgogne, a physician who lived for some years at Liège, and died there somewhere about 1370. He may possibly have been an Englishman named John Burgoyne, who was obliged some years before that date to flee his country for homicide or for some political offence. He had travelled as far as Egypt and Palestine, but no farther. His book is almost entirely cribbed from others, among which may be mentioned the works of Jacques de Vitry, Plano Carpini, Hayton the Armenian, Boldensele's Itinerary, Albert of Aix's chronicle of the first crusade, Brunetto Latini'sTrésor, Petrus Comestor'sHistoria scholastica, theSpeculumof Vincent de Beauvais, etc., etc. It is one of the most wholesale and successful instances of plagiarism and imposture on record. SeeThe Buke of John Mandevill, from the unique copy (Egerton MS. 1982) in the British Museum. Edited by G. F. Warner.Westminster, 1889. (Roxburghe Club.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 337:One piece of Pegolotti's advice is still useful for travellers in the nineteenth century who visit benighted heathen countries afflicted with robber tariffs: "And don't forget that if you treat the custom-house officers with respect, and make them something of a present in goods or money, they will behave with great civility and always be ready to appraise your wares below their real value."Op. cit.ii. 307.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 338:The works of all the writers mentioned in this paragraph, or copious extracts from them, may be found in Yule'sCathay, which comprises also the book of the celebrated Ibn Batuta, of Tangier, whose travels, between 1325 and 1355, covered pretty much the whole of Asia except Siberia, besides a journey across Sahara to the river Niger. His book does not seem to have attracted attention in Europe until early in the present century.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 339:Τὸν δὲ Ὠκεανὸν λόγῳ μὲν λέγουσι ἀπ' ἡλίου ἀνατολέων ἀρξάμενον γῆν περὶ πᾶσαν ῥέειν, ἔργῳ δὲ οὐκ ἀποδεικνῦσι. Herodotus, iv. 8.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 340:Καὶ γὰρ κατ' αὐτὸν Ἐρατοσθένη τὴν ἐκτὸς θάλατταν ἅπασαν σύρρουν εἶναι, ὥστε καὶ τὴν Ἑσπέριον καὶ τὴν Ἐρυθρὰν θάλατταν μίαν εἶναι. Strabo, i. 3, § 13.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 341:Bunbury,History of Ancient Geography, vol. i. p. 644.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 342:Strabo, ii. 3, § 4; xvii. 3, § 1.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 343:Καθάπερ δὲ καὶ τῆς Ἀσίας καὶ τῆς Λιβύης, καθὸ συνάπτουσιν ἀλλήλαις περὶ τὴν Αἰθιοπίαν, οὐδεὶς ἔχει λέγειν ἀτρεκῶς ἕως τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς καιρῶν, πότερον ἤπειρός ἐστι κατὰ τὸ συνεχὲς τὰ πρὸς τὴν μεσημβρίαν, ἡ θαλάττἢ περιέχεται. Polybius, iii. 38.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 344:Bunbury,op. cit.vol. ii. p. 15.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 345:See the map of Ptolemy's world, above, p.264.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 346:Ptolemy expressly declares that the equatorial regions had never been visited by people from the northern hemisphere: Τίνες δέ εἰσιν αἱ οἰκήσεις οὐκ ἂν ἔχοιμεν πεπεισμένως εἰπεῖν. Ἄτριπτοι γάρ εἰσι μέχρι τοῦ δεῦρο τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς καθ' ἡμᾶς οἰκουμένης, καὶ εἰκασίαν μᾶλλον ἄν τις ἢ ἱστορίαν ἡγήσαιτο τὰ λεγόμενα περὶ αὐτῶν.Syntaxis, ii. 6.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 347:Rawlinson'sHerodotus, vol. iii. p. 29, note 8.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 348:The story is discredited by Mannert,Geographie der Griechen und Römer, bd. i. pp. 19-26; Gossellin,Recherches sur la géographie des Anciens, tom. i. p. 149; Lewis,Astronomy of the Ancients, pp. 508-515; Vincent,Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, vol. i. pp. 303-311, vol. ii. pp. 13-15; Leake,Disputed Questions of Ancient Geography, pp. 1-8. It is defended by Heeren,Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr, etc., 3e aufl., Göttingen, 1815, bd. i. abth. ii. pp. 87-93; Rennell,Geography of Herodotus, pp. 672-714; Grote,History of Greece, vol. iii. pp. 377-385. The case is ably presented in Bunbury'sHistory of Ancient Geography, vol. i. pp. 289-296, where it is concluded that the story "cannot be disproved or pronounced to be absolutely impossible; but the difficulties and improbabilities attending it are so great that they cannot reasonably be set aside without better evidence than the mere statement of Herodotus, upon the authority of unknown informants." Mr. Bunbury (vol. i. p. 317) says that he has reasons for believing that Mr. Grote afterwards changed his opinion and came to agree with Sir George Lewis.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 349:In reading the learned works of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, one is often reminded of what Sainte-Beuve somewhere says of the great scholar Letronne, when he had spent the hour of his lecture in demolishing some pretty or popular belief: "Il se frotta les mains et s'en alla bien content." When it came to ancient history, Sir George was undeniably fond of "the everlasting No." In the present case his skepticism seems on the whole well-judged, but some of his arguments savour of undue haste toward a negative conclusion. He thus strangely forgets that what we call autumn is springtime in the southern hemisphere (Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 511). His argument that the time alleged was insufficient for the voyage is fully met by Major Rennell, who has shown that the time was amply sufficient, and that the direction of winds and ocean currents would make the voyage around southern Africa from east to west much easier than from west to east.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 350:"No trace of it could be found in the Alexandrian library, either by Eratosthenes in the third, or by Marinus of Tyre in the second, century before Christ, although both of them were diligent examiners of ancient records." Major,Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 90.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 351:Rawlinson'sHistory of Phœnicia, pp. 105, 418; Pseudo-Aristotle,Mirab. Auscult., 146; Velleius Paterculus, i. 2, § 6.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 352:Hanno,Periplus, in Müller,Geographi Græci Minores, tom. i. pp. 1-14. Of two or three commanders named Hanno it is uncertain which was the one who led this expedition, and thus its date has been variously assigned from 570 to 470B. C.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 353:For the determination of these localities see Bunbury,op. cit.vol. i. pp. 318-335. There is an interesting Spanish description of Hanno's expedition in Mariana,Historia de España, Madrid, 1783, tom. i. pp. 89-93.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 354:The sailors pursued them, but did not capture any of the males, who scrambled up the cliffs out of their reach. They captured three females, who bit and scratched so fiercely that it was useless to try to take them away. So they killed them and took their skins home to Carthage.Periplus, xviii. According to Pliny (Hist. Nat., vi. 36) these skins were hung up as a votive offering in the temple of Juno (i. e. Astarte or Ashtoreth: see Apuleius,Metamorph., xi. 257; Gesenius,Monumenta Phœnic., p. 168), where they might have been seen at any time before the Romans destroyed the city.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 355:Herodotus, iv. 43.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 356:The story is preserved by Strabo, ii. 3, §§ 4, 5, who rejects it with a vehemence for which no adequate reason is assigned.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 357:Pliny,Hist. Nat., ii. 67; Mela,De Situ Orbis, iii. 9.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 358:After the civil war of Sertorius (B. C.80-72), the Romans became acquainted with the Canaries, which, because of their luxuriant vegetation and soft climate, were identified with the Elysium described by Homer, and were commonly known as the Fortunate islands. "Contra Fortunatæ Insulæ abundant sua sponte genitis, et subinde aliis super aliis innascentibus nihil sollicitos alunt, beatius quam aliæ urbes excultæ." Mela, iii. 10.
Ἀλλά σ' ἐς Ἠλύσιον πεδίον καὶ πείρατα γαίηςἀθάνατοι πέμψουσιν, ὅθι ξανθὸς Ῥαδάμανθυς,τῆπερ ῥηΐστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν·οὐ νιφετὸς, οὔτ' ἂρ χειμὼν πολὺς οὔτε ποτ' ὄμβρος,ἀλλ' αἰεὶ Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνείοντας ἀήταςὨκεανὸς ἀνίησιν ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους.Odyssey, iv. 563.
Since Horace's time (Epod.vi. 41-66) the Canary islands have been a favourite theme for poets. It was here that Tasso placed the loves of Rinaldo and Armida, in the delicious garden where
Vezzosi augelli infra le verde frondeTemprano a prova lascivette note.Mormora l' aura, e fa le foglie e l' ondeGarrir, che variamente ella percote.Gerusalemme Liberata, xvi. 12.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 359:Just as our grandfathers used to read the Bible without noticing such points as the divergences between the books of Kings and Chronicles, the contradictions between the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, the radically different theories of Christ's personality and career in the Fourth Gospel as compared with the three Synoptics, etc.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 360:Bunbury,op. cit.vol. ii. pp. 492, 527. The name is used in different geographical senses by various ancient writers, as is well shown in Lewis'sAstronomy of the Ancients, pp. 467-481.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 361:The Romans, at least by the first centuryA. D., knew also of the shortness of northern nights in summer.
Arma quidem ultraLittora Invernæ promovimus, et modo captasOrcadas, ac minima contentos nocte Britannos.Juvenal, ii. 159.
See also Pliny,Hist. Nat., iv. 30; Martianus Capella, vi. 595; Achilles Tatius,XXXV.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 362:The reader will remember Virgil's magnificent description of a Scythian winter (Georg., iii. 352):—
Illic clausa tenent stabulis armenta; neque ullæAut herbæ campo apparent, aut arbore frondes:Sed jacet aggeribus niveis informis, et altoTerra gelu late, septemque assurgit in ulnas;Semper hiems, semper spirantes frigora Cauri.Tum Sol pallentes haud unquam discutit umbras;Nec cum invectus equis altum petit æthera, nec cumPræcipitem Oceani rubro lavit æquore currum.Concrescunt subitæ currenti in flumine crustæ;Undaque jam tergo ferratos sustinet orbes,Puppibus illa prius patulis, nunc hospita plaustris,Æraque dissiliunt vulgo, vestesque rigescuntIndutæ, cæduntque securibus humida vinaEt totæ solidam in glaciem vertêre lacunæ,Stiriaque impexis induruit horrida barbis.Interea toto non secius aëre ningit;Intereunt pecudes; stant circumfusa pruinisCorpora magna boum; confertoque agmine cerviTorpent mole nova, et summis vix cornibus exstant............................................Ipsi in defossis specubus, secura sub altaOtia agunt terra, congestaque robora, totasqueAdvolvere focis ulmos, ignique dedere.Hic noctem ludo ducunt, et pocula lætiFermento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis.Talis Hyperboreo Septem subjecta trioniGens effræna virûm Rhipæo tunditur Euro,Et pecudum fulvis velantur corpora sætis.
The Roman conception of the situation of these "Hyperboreans" and of the Rhipæan mountains may be seen in the map of Mela's world.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 363:"Huic medio terra sublimis cingitur undique mari: eodemque in duo latera, quæ hemisphæria nominantur, ab oriente divisa ad occasum, zonis quinque distinguitur. Mediam æstus infestat, frigus ultimas: reliquæ habitabiles paria agunt anni tempora, verum non pariter. Antichthones alteram, nos alteram incolimus. Illius situ ab ardorem intercedentis plagæ incognito, hujus dicendus est," etc.De Situ Orbis, i. 1. A similar theory is set forth by Ovid (Metamorph., i. 45), and by Virgil (Georg., i. 233):—
Quinque tenent cœlum zonæ; quarum una coruscoSemper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni;Quam circum extremæ dextra lævaque trahuntur,Cærulea glacie concretæ atque imbribus atris.Has inter mediamque, duæ mortalibus ægrisMunere concessæ Divûm; et via secta per ambas,Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 364:"Taprobane aut grandis admodum insula aut prima pars orbis alterius Hipparcho dicitur; sed quia habitata, nec quisquam circummeasse traditur, prope verum est."De Situ Orbis, iii. 7.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 365:"Taprobanen alterum orbem terrarum esse, diu existimatum est, Antichthonum appellatione."Hist. Nat., vi. 24.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 366:Geminus,Isagoge, cap. 13.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 367:Macrobius,Somnium Scipionis, ii. 8. Strabo (ii. 5, §§ 7, 8) sets the southern boundary of the Inhabited World 800 miles south of Syene, and the northern boundary at the north of Ireland.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 368:Another notion, less easily explicable and less commonly entertained, but interesting for its literary associations, was the notion of a mountain of loadstone in the Indian ocean, which prevented access to the torrid zone by drawing the nails from ships and thus wrecking them. This imaginary mountain, with some variations in the description, is made to carry a serious geographical argument by the astrologer Pietro d' Abano, in his bookConciliator Differentiarum, written about 1312. (See Major,Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 100.) It plays an important part in one of the finest tales in theArabian Nights,—the story of the "Third Royal Mendicant."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 369:Ferdinand Columbus tells us that this objection was urged against the Portuguese captains and afterwards against his father: "E altri di ciò quasi così disputavano, come già i Portoghesi intorno al navigare in Guinea; dicendo che, se si allargasse alcuno a far cammino diritto al occidente, come l' Ammiraglio diceva, non potrebbe poi tornare in Ispagna per la rotondità della sfera; tenendo per certissime, che qualunque uscisse del emisperio conosciuto da Tolomeo, anderebbe in giù, e poi gli sarebbe impossibile dar la volta; e affermando che ciò sarebbe quasi uno ascendere all' insù di un monte. Il che non potrebbono fare i navigli con grandissimo vento."Vita deli' Ammiraglio, Venice, 1571, cap. xii. The same thing is told, in almost the same words, by Las Casas, since both writers followed the same original documents: "Añidian mas, que quien navegase por vía derecha la vuelta del poniente, como el Cristóbal Colon proferia, no podria despues volver, suponiendo que el mundo era redondo y yendo hácia el occidente iban cuesta abajo, y saliendo del hemisferio que Ptolomeo escribiò, á la vuelta érales necesario subir cuesta arriba, lo que los navíos era imposible hacer." The gentle but keen sarcasm that follows is very characteristic of Las Casas: "Esta era gentil y profunda razon, y señal de haber bien el negocio entendido!"Historia de las Indias, tom. i. p. 230.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 370:
Mundus, ut ad Scythiam Rhipæasque arduus arcesConsurgit, premitur Libyæ devexus in austros.Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illumSub pedibus Styx atra videt Manesque profundi.Georg., i. 240.
For an account of the deference paid to Virgil in the Middle Ages, as well as the grotesque fancies about him, see Tunison'sMaster Virgil, 2d ed., Cincinnati, 1890.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 371:Or simply because a wrong course happened to be taken, through ignorance of atmospheric conditions, as in the second homeward and third outward voyages of Columbus. See below, pp.485,490.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 372:Navarrete,Discurso historico sobre los progresos del arte de navegar en España, p. 28; see also Raymond Lully's treatise,Libro felix, ó Maravillas del mundo(A. D.1286).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 373:See Humboldt'sKosmos, bd. i. p. 294; Klaproth,Lettre à M. de Humboldt sur l'invention de la boussole, pp. 41, 45, 50, 66, 79, 90. But some of Klaproth's conclusions have been doubted: "Pour la boussole, rien ne prouve que les Chinois l'aient employée pour la navigation, tandis que nous la trouvons dès le xiesiècle chez les Arabes qui s'en servent non seulement dans leurs traversées maritimes, mais dans les voyages de caravanes au milieu des déserts," etc. Sédillot,Histoire des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 130.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 374:Is it not a curious instance of human perversity that while customary usage from time immemorial has characterized as "acts of God" such horrible events as famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, on the other hand when some purely beneficent invention has appeared, such as the mariner's compass or the printing press, it has commonly been accredited to the Devil? The case of Dr. Faustus is the most familiar example.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 375:This version is cited from Major'sPrince Henry the Navigator, p. 58.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 376:Hüllmann,Städtewesen des Mittelalters, bd. i. pp. 125-137.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 377:Compare the remarks of Mr. Clark Russell on the mariners of the seventeenth century, in hisWilliam Dampier, p. 12.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 378:My chief authorities for the achievements of Prince Henry and his successors are the Portuguese historians, Barros and Azurara. The best edition of the former is a modern one, Barros y Couto,Decadas da Asia, nova edicão con Indice geral, Lisbon, 1778-88, 24 vols. 12mo. I also refer sometimes to the Lisbon, 1752, edition of theDecada primeira, in folio. The priceless contemporary work of Azurara, written in 1453 under Prince Henry's direction, was not printed until the present century; Azurara,Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista de Guiné, Paris, 1841, a superb edition in royal quarto, edited by the Viscount da Carreira, with introduction and notes by the Viscount de Santarem.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 379:Partly, perhaps, because Mela was himself a Spaniard, and partly because his opinions had been shared and supported by St. Isidore, of Seville (A. D.570-636), whose learned works exercised immense authority throughout the Middle Ages. It is in one of St. Isidore's books (Etymologiarum, xiii. 16, apud Migne,Patrologia, tom. lxxxii. col. 484) that we first find the word "Mediterranean" used as a proper name for that great land-locked sea.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 380:Ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ περὶ τῆς ἔξω στηλῶν λέγεται· δυσμικώτατον μὲν γὰρ σημεῖον τῆς οἰκουμένης, τὸ τῶν Ἰβήρων ἀκρωτήριον, ὃ καλοῦσιν Ἱερόν.] Strabo, ii. 5, § 14; cf. Dionysius Periegetes, v. 161. In reality it lies not quite so far west as the country around Lisbon.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 381:See Littré,Dictionnaire, s. v. "Talent;" Du Cange,Glossarium, "talentum, animi decretum, voluntas, desiderium, cupiditas," etc.; cf. Raynouard,Glossaire Provençale, tom. v. p. 296. French was then fashionable at court, in Lisbon as well as in London.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 382:The Portuguese proverb was "Quem passar o Cabo de Não ou voltará ounão," i. e. "Whoever passes CapeNonwill return ornot." See Las Casas,Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 173; Mariana,Hist. de España, tom. i. p. 91; Barros, tom. i. p. 36.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 383:An engraved copy of this map may be found in Major'sPrince Henry the Navigator, London, 1868, facing p. 107. I need hardly say that in all that relates to the Portuguese voyages I am under great obligation to Mr. Major's profoundly learned and critical researches. He has fairly conquered this subject and made it his own, and whoever touches it after him, however lightly, must always owe him a tribute of acknowledgment.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 384:See Bontier and Le Verrier,The Canarian, or, Book of the Conquest and Conversion of the Canaries, translated and edited by R. H. Major, London, 1872 (Hakluyt Soc). In 1414, Béthencourt's nephew, left in charge of these islands, sold them to Prince Henry, but Castile persisted in claiming them, and at length in 1479 her claim was recognized by treaty with Portugal. Of all the African islands, therefore, the Canaries alone came to belong, and still belong, to Spain.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 385:Perestrelo had with him a female rabbit which littered on the voyage, and being landed, with her young, at Porto Santo, forthwith illustrated the fearful rate of multiplication of which organisms are capable in the absence of enemies or other adverse circumstances to check it. (Darwin,Origin of Species, chap. iii.) These rabbits swarmed all over the island and devoured every green and succulent thing, insomuch that they came near converting it into a desert. Prince Henry's enemies, who were vexed at the expenditure of money in such colonizing enterprises, were thus furnished with a wonderful argument. They maintained that God had evidently created those islands for beasts alone, not for men! "En este tiempo habia en todo Portugal grandísimas murmuraciones del Infante, viéndolo tan cudicioso y poner tanta diligencia en el descubrir de la tierra y costa de África, diciendo que destruia el reino en los gastos que hacia, y consumia los vecinos dél en poner en tanto peligro y daño la gente portoguesa, donde muchos morian, enviándolos en demanda de tierras que nunca los reyes de España pasados se atrevieron á emprender, donde habia de hacer muchas viudas y huérfanos con esta su porfia. Tomaban por argumento, que Dios no habia criado aquellas tierras sino para bestias, pues en tan poco tiempo en aquella isla tantos conejos habia multiplicado, que no dejaban cosa que para sustentacion de los hombres fuese menester." Las Casas,Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 180. See also Azurara,Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guiné, cap. lxxxiii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 386:See below, vol. ii. pp. 429-431.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 387:"En el año de 1442, viendo el Infante que se habia pasado el cabo del Boxador y que la tierra iba muy adelante, y que todos los navíos que inviaba traian muchos esclavos moros, con que pagaba los gastos que hacia y que cada dia crecia más el provecho y se prosperaba su amada negociacion, determinó de inviar á suplicar al Papa Martino V., ... que hiciese gracia á la Corona real de Portogal de los reinos y señoríos que habia y hobiese desde el cabo del Boxador adelante, hácia el Oriente y la India inclusive; y ansí se las concedió, ... con todas las tierras, puertos, islas, tratos, rescates, pesquerías y cosas á esto pertenecientes, poniendo censuras y penas á todos los reyes cristianos, príncipes, y señores y comunidades que á esto le perturbasen; despues, dicen, que los sumos pontífices, sucesores de Martino, como Eugenio IV. y Nicolas V. y Calixto IV. lo confirmaron." Las Casas,Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 185. The name of Martin V. is a slip of the memory on the part of Las Casas. That pope had died of apoplexy eleven years before. It was Eugenius IV. who made this memorable grant to the crown of Portugal. The error is repeated in Irving'sColumbus, vol. i. p. 339.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 388:The first published account of the voyages of Cadamosto and Cintra was in thePaesi nouamente retrouati, Vicenza, 1507, a small quarto which can now sometimes be bought for from twelve to fifteen hundred dollars. See also Grynæus,Novus Orbis, Basel, 1532.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 389:It was in the course of these voyages upon the African coast that civilized Europeans first became familiar with people below the upper status of barbarism. Savagery and barbarism of the lower types were practically unknown in the Middle Ages, and almost, though probably not quite unknown, to the civilized peoples of the Mediterranean in ancient times. The history of the two words is interesting. The Greek word βάρβαρος, whence Eng.barbarian(=Sanskritbarbara, Latinbalbus), means "a stammerer," or one who talks gibberish, i. e. in a language we do not understand. Aristophanes (Aves, 199) very prettily applies the epithet to the inarticulate singing of birds. The namesWelsh,Walloon,Wallachian, andBelooch, given to these peoples by their neighbours, have precisely the same meaning (Kuhn'sZeitschrift, ii. 252); and in like manner the Russians call the GermansNyemetch, or people who cannot talk (Schafarik,Slawische Alterthumer, i. 443; Pott,Etym. Forsch., ii. 521). The Greeks called all men but themselves barbarians, including such civilized people as the Persians. The Romans applied the name to all tribes and nations outside the limits of the Empire, and the Italians of the later Middle Ages bestowed it upon all nations outside of Italy. Upon its lax use in recent times I have already commented (above, pp.25-35). The tendency to apply the epithet to savages is modern. The wordsavage, on the other hand, which came to us as the Old Frenchsauvageorsalvage(Ital.selvaggio,salvatico), is the Latinsilvaticus,sylvaticus,salvaticus, that which pertains to a forest and is sylvan or wild. In its earliest usage it had reference to plants and beasts rather than to men. Wild apples, pears, or laurels are characterized by the epithetsylvaticusin Varro,De re rustica, i. 40; and either this adjective, or its equivalentsilvestris, was used of wild animals as contrasted with domesticated beasts, as wild sheep and wild fowl, in Columella, vii. 2; viii. 12, or wolves, in Propertius, iii. 7, or mice, in Pliny, xxx. 22. (Occasionally it is used of men, as in Pliny, viii. 79.) The meaning was the same in mediæval Latin (Du Cange,Glossarium, Niort, 1886, tom. vii. p. 686) and in Old French, as "La douce voiz du loussignol sauvage" (Michel,Chansons de chatelain de Coucy, xix.). In the romance ofRobert le Diable, in the verses
Sire, se vos fustes SauvagesViers moi, je n'i pris mie garde, etc.,
the reference is plainly to degenerate civilized men frequenting the forests, such as bandits or outlaws, not to what we call savages.
Mediæval writers certainly had some idea of savages, but it was not based upon any actual acquaintance with such people, but upon imperfectly apprehended statements of ancient writers. At the famous ball at the Hotel de Saint Pol in Paris, in 1393, King Charles VI. and five noblemen were dressed in close-fitting suits of linen, thickly covered from head to foot with tow or flax, the colour of hair, so as to look like "savages." In this attire nobody recognized them, and the Duke of Orleans, in his eagerness to make out who they were, brought a torch too near, so that the flax took fire, and four of the noblemen were burned to death. See Froissart'sChronicles, tr. Johnes, London, 1806, vol. xi. pp. 69-76. The point of the story is that savages were supposed to be men covered with hair, like beasts, and Froissart, in relating it, evidently knew no better. Whence came this notion of hairy men? Probably from Hanno's gorillas (see above, p.301), through Pliny, whose huge farrago of facts and fancies was a sort of household Peter Parley in mediæval monasteries. Pliny speaks repeatedly of men covered with hair from head to foot, and scatters them about according to his fancy, in Carmania and other distant places (Hist. Nat., vi. 28, 36, vii. 2).
Greek and Roman writers seem to have had some slight knowledge of savagery and the lower status of barbarism as prevailing in remote places ("Ptolomée dit que es extremités de la terre habitable sont gens sauvages," Oresme,Les Éthiques d'Aristote, Paris, 1488), but their remarks are usually vague. Seldom do we get such a clean-cut statement as that of Tacitus about the Finns, that they have neither horses nor houses, sleep on the ground, are clothed in skins, live by the chase, and for want of iron use bone-tipped arrows (Germania, cap. 46). More often we have unconscionable yarns about men without noses, or with only one eye, tailed men, solid-hoofed men, Amazons, and parthenogenesis. The Troglodytes, or Cave-dwellers, on the Nubian coast of the Red Sea seem to have been in the middle status of barbarism (Diodorus, iii. 32; Agatharchides, 61-63), and the Ichthyophagi, or Fish-eaters, whom Nearchus found on the shores of Gedrosia (Arrian,Indica, cap. 29), were probably in a lower stage, perhaps true savages. It is exceedingly curious that Mela puts a race of pygmies at the headwaters of the Nile (see map above, p.304). Is this only an echo fromIliad, iii. 6, or can any ancient traveller have penetrated far enough inland toward the equator to have heard reports of the dwarfish race lately visited by Stanley (In Darkest Africa, vol. ii. pp. 100-104, 164)? Strabo had no real knowledge of savagery in Africa (cf. Bunbury,Hist. Ancient Geog., ii. 331). Sataspes may have seen barbarians of low type, possibly on one of the Canary isles (see description of Canarians in Major'sPrince Henry, p. 212). Ptolemy had heard of an island of cannibals in the Indian ocean, perhaps one of the Andaman group, visitedA. D.1293 by Marco Polo. The people of these islands rank among the lowest savages on the earth, and Marco was disgusted and horrified; their beastly faces, with huge prognathous jaws and projecting canine teeth, he tried to describe by calling them a dog-headed people. Sir Henry Yule suggests that the mention of Cynocephali, or Dog-heads, in ancient writers may have had an analogous origin (Marco Polo, vol. ii. p. 252). This visit of the Venetian traveller to Andaman was one of very few real glimpses of savagery vouchsafed to Europeans before the fifteenth century; and a general review of the subject brings out in a strong light the truthfulness and authenticity of the description of American Indians in Eric the Red's Saga, as shown above, pp.185-192.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 390:See Major'sIndia in the Fifteenth Century, pp. lxxxv.-xc.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 391:The greatest of Portuguese poets represents the Genius of the Cape as appearing to the storm-tossed mariners in cloud-like shape, like the Jinni that the fisherman of the Arabian tale released from a casket. He expresses indignation at their audacity in discovering his secret, hitherto hidden from mankind:—
Eu sou aquelle occulto e grande Cabo,A quem chamais vós outros Tormentorio,Que nunca á Ptolomeo, Pomponio, Estrabo,Plinio, e quantos passaram, fui notorio:Aqui toda a Africana costa acaboNeste meu nunca vista promontorio,Que para o polo Antarctico se estende,A quem vossa ousadia tanto offende.Camoens,Os Lusiadas, v. 50.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 392:Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; Nelle quali s' ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de' fatti dell' Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, suo padre: Et dello scoprimento, ch' egli fece dell' Indie Occidentali, dette Monde-Nuovo, hora possedute dal Sereniss. Re Catolico: Nuouamente di lingua Spagnuola tradotte nell' Italiana dal S. Alfonso Vlloa. Con. privilegio.In Venetia, m d lxxi.Appresso Francesco de' Franceschi Sanese.The principal reprints are those of Milan, 1614; Venice, 1676 and 1678; London, 1867. I always cite it asVita dell' Ammiraglio.[Back to Main Text]