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i62 ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES

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 rep-
resent. Thus the i astern, 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 1 5OO, 30 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

* Krctschmer, atlas, PI. 7.



IDENTITY OF ANTILLIA WITH ANTILLES 163

Abaco, coast along Florida and Cuba, and visit Jamaica, return-
ing out of sight, or with little notice, of the Haitian coast and
barely passing an islet or two of the Bahamas, which, if not suffi-
ciently 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 un-
canny, 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 sepa-
rated 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 rela-
tion to regions beyond, though possibly only to the entangling
Sargasso Sea of weeds, which would lie next in order south-
westward (Fig. i), 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



ORIGIN OF NAME 165

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, 1 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 Tene-
rife of the Canaries to Sao 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, 2 attributed to 1351 may even have been sug-
gested by it, as some things seem to indicate. The Friar's voy-
ages 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 col-
lectively, the plural form "insule" being used to introduce it.
Both names appear on the Catalan map of I375. 3 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 some-
what free translation from the older Moorish seamen and
cartographers, who dominated this part of the outer ocean from

1 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 1 4th century, published for the first tune with notes by Marcos Jimenez de
la Espada in 1877, translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham, Hakluyt Soc.
Publs., 2nd Sen, Vol. 29, London, 1912; reference on p. 29.

'Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten italieni-
schen Ursprungs, i 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), PI. 4.

'A. E. Nordenskiold: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and
Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, PI. n. Our reproduc-
tion (Fig. 5) does not extend far enough south to show the islands.