134 THE ISLANDS OF ZENO
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 charac-
teristic 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 Nicol6
Zeno "the compiler" as their author, since they embody observa-
tions 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 ZENO NARRATIVE ITSELF 135
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 diffi-
dently 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 incor-
rectness. Perhaps the only thing that remains to be said in
favor of the story is that if it were wholly the invention of
Nicolo 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 Nicol6, being an
adventurous wanderer like many of his countrymen, was ship-
wrecked 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 Green-
land, of which this elder Nicolo 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
I 3 6 THE ISLANDS OF ZENO
and incidental delay, and served with him four years, when
Nicol6 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 extra-
neous matter of illustration and ornament, which the later
Nicold 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 monas-
WORK OF F. W. LUCAS 137
tery 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 Nicolo Zeno had any map of a former generation
to restore; styling his own keenly critical and exhaustive pro-
duction "an indictment," and branding the book under considera-
tion 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
138 THE ISLANDS OF ZENO
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." 13 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. Nicol6 knew of vol-
canoes 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.
11 Lucas, p. 74-
i
THE ZENO MAP 139
THE ZENO MAP
A glance at the Zeno map (Fig. 19) discloses a good approxima-
tion 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 fif-
teenth-century maps showing Greenland have been discovered in
various libraries, notably four by Nordenskiold, 14 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 German us (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. 15 Sharing an
error common to Clavus and all successors of his school, Zeno con-
nected 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 prob-
ably 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 16 that the fisherman's story may be a mere re-
flection of the general American knowledge of Greenlanders,
and this might call for the presence of one of the Zeni in Green-
land 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.
14 A. E. Nordenskiold, Periplus, text maps 34 and 35, on pp. 85 and 87, and PI.
32; idem: Facsimile-Atlas, PI. 30. The first three maps are also reproduced in
idem: Bidrag till Nordens aldsta Kartografi, Stockholm, 1892, Pis. 3, 1,2.
18 Joseph Fischer: The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America with Special Re-
lation to Their Early Cartographical Representation, transl. by B. H. Soulsby,
London, 1903, pp. 71 and 72 and Pis. 1-6.
w J. G. Kohl: A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North Aincncu,
Particularly the Coast of Maine, from the Northmen in 900 to the Charter of Gilbert
in 1578 (Documentary History of the State of Maine, Vol. l), Colls. Maine Hist.
Soc., 2d Ser., Portland, 1869, p. 105.
140 THE ISLANDS OF ZENO
As Nicold Zeno followed the disciples of Claudius Clavus in
outlining Greenland, so he took for his guide Mattheus Prunes'
map of I553 17 in dealing with the more eastern islands. Po-
danda or Porlanda (Pomona, the main island of the Orkneys) and
Neome (Fair Island) are in both (Figs. 19 and 12). Prunes dis-
places these islands to a position west, instead of south, of south-
ern Shetland (Estiland or Esthlanda), and Zeno simply canies
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. 18 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
(i5O2) 19 and in the life of Columbus ascribed to his son Ferdi-
nand. 20 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.
17 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 4, map 5-
18 [M. F.J Santarem: Atlas compose de mappemondes, de portulans, et de cartes
hydrographiques et historiques depuis le Vie jusqu'au XVII e sifecle . . . devant
servir de preuves a 1'histoire de la cosmographie et de la cartographic pendant le
Moyen Age .... Paris, 1842-53, PI. 9 (Quaritch's notation).
" 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 i.
20 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 Ital-
ian 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.
FRISLAND 141
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 21 Cone shown in Fig.
naming Iceland "Fislanda," and the notable Catalan map of
about I480 22 (Fig. 7), first copied by Nordenskiold, which shows
Greenland as an elongated rectangular "Ilia 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
( J 553; 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 south westward in
imitation of Greenland and seeming to derive its geography there-
from. 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,
21 E. L. Stevenson: Atlas of Portolan Charts: Facsimile of Manuscript in British
Museum, Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 81, New York, 1911, folios ib and 8b.
22 A. E. Nordenskiold: Bidrag till Nordens Sldsta Kartografi, Stockholm, 1892,
PI. S-
142 THE ISLANDS OF ZENO
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.
