Legendary islands of the Atlantic; a study in medieval geography

[Autolocus]

130 THE ISLANDS OF ZENO

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, 5 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

5 Recently on exhibition, but not accessible at present.



THE ESTOTILANDERS 131

by Beauvois 6 ), 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 Norse-
men seems very unlikely; but Nicol6 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, I553 7 (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

Orteliiis, in crediting the discovery of the New World to
the Norsemen, seems to identify Estotiland with Vinland. 8
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 Green-
land, 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,

* Eugene Beauvois: La d6couverte du nouveau monde par les irlandais, Nancy,
1877, P- 90.

7 Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika's in ihrer Bedeutung fur die
Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin, 1892; reference in atlas,
PI. 4, map 5-

8 A. M. Reeves: The finding of Wineland the Good, London, 1890, pp. 94-95-



132 THE ISLANDS OF ZENO

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 (Fig. 6) and Zaltieri's of I566, 10 both
of which represent Newfoundland as broken up into an archi-
pelago ; and the same may be said of Gastaldi's map illustrating
Ramusio. 11

9 A. E. Nordenskiold: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and
Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, PI. 27.

10 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 19, map 3.

11 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.



DISCREPANCIES IN FISHERMAN'S STORY 133

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, 13 a strait between Trinidad and the mainland South
America; but this seems a far-fetched and unsupported conjec-
ture; 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 Cortes 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 Nicolo 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 north-
ward than it actually did and had little notion of the great waste

12 Lucas, p. 124.

[Autolocus]

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.

[Autolocus]

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 dis-
tinctly 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 143

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 Nicold
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 Nicol6 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 achieve-
ments 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 An-
tilles. 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 inToscanelli's letter of 1474 to Columbus, 1
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, 2 but at least some
one wrote it and in it reflected the viewpoint of the time.

Nordenskiold in his elaborate and invaluable "Periplus" de-
clares: "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

1 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.

2 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 16gende, Paris, 1921, Ch. IX.



IDENTIFICATION OF ANTILLIA 145

marked must be reckoned as Americana." 3 The word "four-
teenth" is probably an accidental substitute for "fifteenth." The
reference to Behaim undoubtedly means the often-quoted in-
scription on his globe of 1492, which avers that "1414 a ship from
Spain got nighest it without being endangered." 4 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 in-
scription as to the time of this adventure. 6 He says it was dis-
covered 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 sterns 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. 6

Perhaps he meant delineations, like those we have yet to con-
sider, and not descriptions in words; or writings concerning these

5 A. E. Nordenskiold: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and
Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, P- i?7-

4 E. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe, London, 1908,
P- 77-

6 A. E. Nordenskiold: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartography,
transl. by J. A. Ekelof and C. R. Markham, Stockholm, 1889, p. 65 and PI. 32.

6 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.



146 ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES

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 in-
cluded 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, 7 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) 8 gives them the collective title of
Antilie, though calling the Queen of the Antilles Cuba, as now.
A later map, 9 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 men-
tioned, a Catalan map of the fifteenth century (obviously earlier
than the knowledge of the Portuguese rediscovery of Flores and

7 E. L. Stevenson: Marine World Chart of Nicolo de Canerio Januensis, 1502
(circa), 2 vols. (text, 1908, and facsimile in portfolio, 1007), Amer. Geogr. Soc. and
Hispanic Soc. of Amer., New York, 1907-08.

8 Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika's in ihrer Bedeutung fur die
Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin, 1892; see atlas, PL 8,
map 2.

[Autolocus]

9 Friedrich Kunstmann: Ueber einige der altesten Karten Amerikas, pp. 125-151
in his "Die Entdeckung Amerikas, nach den altesten Quellen geschichtlich dar-
gestellt," with an atlas: Atlas zur Entdeckungsgeschichte Amerikas, aus Hand-
schriften der K. Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek, der K. Universitaet und des Haupt-
conservatoriums 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.



A MAINLAND ANTILLIA 147

Corvo) 10 presents a duplicate delineation of most of the Azores,
giving the supposed additional islands a quite correct slant north-
westward 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" (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, con-
cerning an Antillia of the mainland. One of the maps 12 in the por-
tolan atlas in the British Museum known as Egerton MS. 2803
bears the word "Antiglia" running from north to south at a con-
siderable distance west of the mouth of the Amazon, apparently
about where would now be the southeastern part of Venezuela.
Also, the world map 13 in the same atlas (Fig. 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 sug-
gested 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.

"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 13 (Facsimile del planisfero del mondocono-
sciuto, in lingua catalana, del xv secolo), PI. 5.

11 [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la geographic, ou recueil d'anciennes cartes
europennes et orientales . . . Paris, [1842-62], PL X, i. In Santarem's atlas
(cf. Ch. IX, footnote 18), PL 31, the name is interpreted as "Atullis."

14 E. L. Stevenson: Atlas of Portolan Charts: Facsimile of Manuscript in British
Museum, Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 81, New York, 1911, folio Qa.

i=> Ibid., folio ib.



148 ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES

THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME

Naturally the origin of the word has been found a fascinating
problem. Ever since Formaleoni, 14 near the close of the eight-
eenth 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," "1," 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 16 that in the description
transmitted by Plato this outline is ascribed to a particular dis-
trict 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. 16
His choice is "Al-tin," Arabic for "the dragon." Undoubtedly

14 Vicenzio Formaleoni: Description de deux cartes anciennes drees de la Biblio-
theque de St. Marc a Venise, pp. 91-168 of the same author's "Essai sur la marine
ancienne des Venitiens," transl. by the Chevalier d'Henin.Venice, 1788; reference on
p. 122 and PI. III.

15 Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de 1'histoire de la geographic du
nouveau continent, et des progres de 1'astronomie nautique aux quinzieme et
seizieme siecles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39; reference in Vol. 2, p. 193. The other men-
tions of Humboldt in this chapter refer to the same volume, pp. 178-211, except
allusions to his correspondence with the Weimar librarian.

16 Ibid., p. 211.



HUMBOLDT'S HYPOTHESIS 149

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 I367 17 (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 Chris-
tian 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 coin-
cidence.

Humboldt admits that Antillia may be readily resolved into
two Portuguese words, ante and ilia (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

17 [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la geographic, ou recueil d'anciennes cartes
europeennes et orientales . . ., Paris, [1842-62], PI. X, i.



ISO ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES

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 ilia is the old
form of ilha, found in many maps, that either would naturally be
pronounced "illia," and that you cannot say "anteillia" or "anti-
illia" 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. Notwith-
standing 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

Nordenskiold, 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" 18 with the
anonymous map preserved in the Grand Ducal library in Weimar
and credited to I424. 19 But it seems that this map does not de-
serve 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 explana-
tion, 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 "bran-
dany" 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.

18 Periplus, p. 177.

13 W. H. Babcock: Indications of Visits of White Men to America before Co-
lumbus, Proc. igth Internatl. Congr. of Americanists, Held at Washington, Dec. 27-
j/, IQIS, [Smithsonian Institution,] Washington, D. C., 1917. map on p. 476.



BECCARIO MAP OF 1435 151

THE BECCARIO MAP OF 1426

The second map on Nordenskiold's New World list is "Be-
charius 1426," a Latinization of the surname of Battista Beccario
and at least not so weird a transformation as Humboldt's "Be-
clario 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 con-
clusive was omitted, and all attempts to remedy the error have
failed. But, if there were any inscription concerning recently dis-
covered 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 20 (Fig. 20). He gives the islands the collective
title of "Insulle a novo rep'te" (newly reported islands), which

20 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 Geograph-
ical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Societa Geografka Italiana, Rome, 1875; refer-
ence on PI. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does not contain the plates).



152



ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES




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.)



FOUR ANTILLES ON BECCARIO MAP 153

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 Colum-
bus and the narrative of Peter Martyr beginning with equiva-
lent 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 im-
possibly symmetrical details and some discrepancies as to indi-
vidual 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.

This map of Beccario had been somewhat neglected, with mis-
reading 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."

[Autolocus]

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



154 ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES

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 archipela-
goes, except that the comparative small ness 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 dif-
ferent 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 propor-
tions 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 ex-
tension. 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 equiva-
lent), 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 Is-
land" is an adequate rendering, the second word being under-
stood. 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



ROSELLI MAP OF 1468 155

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 con-
jectural, 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 Ilia, 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 Ba-
hama 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 I468, 21 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

E. L. Stevenson: Facsimiles of Portolan Charts Belonging to the Hispanic
Society of America, Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 104, New York, 1916, PI. 2.



I 5 6 ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES

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 orig-
inal 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 gen-
eral 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.

[Autolocus]

THE BIANCO MAP OF 1436

The Bianco map of I436 22 (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 Nordenskiold 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 corrobo-

22 A. E. Nordenskiold, Periplus, PL 20. Cf. also Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 4, map 2.



PARETO MAP OF 1455 157

rates Salvagio in so far as it intensifies savagery to diabolism.
One is tempted to speculate as to whether any very cruel treat-
ment 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 23
(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

2S Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 5.



158



ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES




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.)



BENINCASA MAP OF 1482 159

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).

THE BENINCASA MAP OF 1482

Benincasa's map of I482 24 (Fig. 22) presents Salvagio as Sal-
uaga, and I in Mar without name, but omits Reylla, both name and
figure. The islands shown are in their accepted form and arrange-
ment, 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. Sev-
eral of them, like Antillia, begin with "An," perhaps another illus-
tration 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, 25 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

24 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 4.
2i See footnotes 18 and 19.



i6o



ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES




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

Salvagio is given plainly and fully, with the letter S quite con-
spicuous. I cannot read more of the name on the photograph;
but the Weimar librarian reads San on the original, being uncer-
tain 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 develop-



LAON GLOBE OF 1493 161

ment. The other differences between this map and its predeces-
sors 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.

THE LAON GLOBE OF 1493

The Laon globe, 26 1493, though mainly older, certainly had
room enough, but it appears to have formed part of some mech-
anism 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 ex-
ample Giraldi I426, 27 Valsequa 1 439, 28 and Fra Mauro I459, 29 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 un-
willing to commit themselves.

28 A. E. Nordenskiold, Facsimile-Atlas, p. 73, map in text.

27 Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 8 (Facsimile del Portolano di Giacomo Giraldi di
Venezia dell' anno 1426).

28 Original in Majorca. A good copy is owned by T. Solberg, Register of Copy-
rights, Washington, D. C.

21 Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 15 (Facsimile del Mappamondo di Fra Mauro
dell' anno 1457 [i459])-

[Autolocus]

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.

[Autolocus]

166 CORVO

the eighth century to the twelfth. Edrisi, 4 greatest of Arab geog-
raphers, 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 Rica, which is "the isle of the birds" (Djazirato
'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 I367 6 (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 ex-
perience.

ANCIENT MEMORIALS

But Corvo has even more ancient traditions and associations,
Diodorus Siculus, 6 in the first century before the Christian era,
wrote of a great Atlantic island, probably Madeira, which the

4 Edrisi's "Geography," in two versions, the first based on two, the second on
four manuscripts, viz.: (i) P. A. Jaubert (translator): Geographic d'Edrisi, traduite
de 1'Arabe en Francais, 2 vols. (Recueil de Voyages et de Memoires public par la
Society de Geographic, Vols. 5 and 6), Paris, 1836 and 1840; reference in Vol. I,
p. 201; (2) R. Dozy et M. J. De Goeje (translators): Description de 1'Afrique et de
L'Espagne par Edrisi: Texte arabe public pour la premiere fois d'aprds les man. de
Paris et d 'Oxford, Leiden, 1866, pp. 63-64.

5 [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la geographic, ou recueil d'anciennes cartes
europeennes et orientales .... Paris, [1842-62], PI. X, I. Also W. H. Babcock:
Early Norse Visits to North America, Smithsonian Misc. Colls,, Vol. 59, No. 19,
Washington, D. C., 1913, Pis. i and 2.

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. Rhodo-
mannus, and F. Ursinus, transl. by G. Booth, Esq., 2 vols., London, 1814; reference
in Vol. i, Bk. 5, Ch. 2, pp. 308-309.



ANCIENT MEMORIALS 167

Etrurians coveted during their period of sea power; but the Car-
thaginians, 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 explana-
tion of the extraordinary story repeated by Humboldt 7 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 8
and compared with those on coins in the collection of the Prince
Royal of Denmark. It seems to be agreed that they were cer-
tainly Phoenician coins of North Africa, partly Carthaginian.

It has been suggested 9 that they may have been left by Nor-
man 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

7 Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de 1'histoire de la geographic du
nouveau continent et des progres de 1'astronomie nautique aux quinzieme et
seizieme sicles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 237-240.

8 Del G6theborgska Wetenskaps och Witterhets Samhallets Handlingar, Vol. i, 1778,
pp. 106-108, and P1.6. See also Moedas phenicias e cyrenaicas encontradas em 1749
na ilha do Corvo, Archive dos Azores, Vol. 3, pp. 11-113.

Conrad Malte-Brun: Precis de geographic universelle, 8 vols., Paris, 1810-29;
reference in Vol. i of that edition, constituting "L'Histoire de la Geographic," 1810,
p. 596.



168



CORVO



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 ques-
tion. But at least it seems most probable that Phoenicians occu-
pied 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 10 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. 11 The
Pizigani map of 1367, it will be remembered, shows (Fig. 2) near
where Corvo should be the colossal figure of a saint warning mar-
iners backward, with a confused inscription declaring westward
navigation impracticable beyond this point by reason of obstruc-
tions and announcing that the statue is erected on the shore of

Edrisi, (Dozy and De Goeje), p. I.

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

[Autolocus]

EQUESTRIAN STATUES 169

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 moun-
tain 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 pedes-
tal which was of the same kind of stone as the statue. Underneath some
unknown characters were carved in the rock. 12

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 13 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 uncer-
tainty about these stories of very early observations by untrained
men, recorded at last, as the result of a long chain of transmis-
sions: but they tend more or less to corroborate the other evi-
dences 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 14 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 conspicu-
ously in their coinage. Nothing in the enterprising character of
the Phoenician people is opposed to the idea of incitement to ex-
ploration 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

u Humboldt, Examen critique, Vol. 2, p. 227.

w Andre Thevet: La cosmographie universelle, 2 vols., Paris, IS7S; reference in
Vol. 2, p. 1022.

14 The Geography of Strabo, transl. by H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer (Bonn's
Classical Library), 3 vols., London, 1854; reference in Vol. i, pp. 255-257.



170 CORVO

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 hun-
dred 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 re-
specting 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 pro-
jecting 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 inter-
preted it thus; and was here inspired with the desire to commence his
great researches. 18

Captain Boid was wrong in his derivation of the name Corvo, as
we have seen; wrong also, in another way, in despising the "super-
stitions" 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.

15 Captain Boid: A Description of the Azores, or Western Islands, London, 1834,
PP. 316-317-

[Autolocus]

NEED OF EXPLORATION 171

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. 16

NEED OF EXPLORATION

There seems still a good deal of vagueness about the matter,
and Corvo might well be given a thorough overhauling for ves-
tiges 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 indica-
tion 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 is-
lands is about the same in all. The form of Corvo varies from the
pear shape of the Laurenziano map (i35i), 17 and another shape 18

16 Borges de F. Henriques: A Trip to the Azores or Western Islands, Boston,
1867, pp. 35-36.

17 Theobald Fischer, Portfolio 5, PI. 4.

18 Idem, Portfolio 7, PI. 4.



172



CORVO



not much later slightly resembling an indented segment of a
circle, to the three-lobed or clover-leaf form which was ac-
cepted as the final convention or standard and first clearly ap-
pears in the great Catalan atlas 19 of 1375, repeated by Beccario
I 435 20 > Benincasa I482 21 , 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,



1


3


4


6


4 Jnsule.de corvi


Insula de corvi man n is
liconigi ^


ilia da corvi marinis
<V liconigi


1


PO*TOLANO LAURENZ1ANO-
OAODIANO/I35I


%San Gtorgio


CATALAN MAP
15 CENTURY


BENINCASA
1482


2


5


7

t Corvo


%yde corvi marini
ft liconigi


ILl.Colombi
JT Insula .

de Brazil


tf Corvo marim
liconigi


fll Ho res


ANONYMOUS PORTOLAN
14" CENTURY


CATALAN ATIAS

Mv


BECCARIO
1435


MODERN MAP

laio



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.)

[Autolocus]

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.

19 A. E. Nordenskiold, Periplus, PI. n (not shown on Fig. 5).

20 Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del medioevo e dei
secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da italiani o trovati nelle biblio-
teche d'ltalia, 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 Societa Geografica Italiana, Rome,
1875; reference on PI. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does not contain the
plates). Also Babcock, Early Norse Visits to North America, PI. 4. See our Fig. 20.

21 Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika's in ihrer Bedeutung fur die
Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin, 1892; reference in atlas,
PI. 4. See our Fig. 22.



NEED OF EXPLORATION 173

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 cen-
tury:

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 ter-
races, 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. 22

25 Borges de F. Henriques, pp. 35-36.

[Autolocus]

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 recur-
rent facts of minor cataclysms among them.

The next oldest instance, perhaps, is supplied by Ruysch's map
of I5O8, 1 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 Gunnbjorn'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

1 A. E. Nordenskiold: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartography,
transl. by J. A. Ekelof and C. R. Markham, Stockholm, 1889, PI. 32.



DISCOVERY OF BUSS 175

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 engulf-
ment 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 southeast-
ward 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. 2

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 Wi-
ars, a passenger in the Emmanuel, otherwise called the Busse of
Bridgewater," repeated in Miller Christy's admirable little trea-
tise on the subject. 3 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 2$ leagues long. There was much ice near it. He
gives no suggestion of fertility, woods, or fields.

*E. J. Payne, edit.: Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America: Select
Narratives from the Principal Navigations of Hakluyt, Ser. i, Hawkins, Frobisher,
Drake, 2cl edit.. Oxford, 1893. P- 183. Cf. ako E. VV. Dahlgren's note in Proc. and
Trans. Nova Scoiian Inst. of Set., Vol. IT, 1002-06, p. 551.

1 Miller Christy: On "Busse Island," in C. C. A. Gosch: Danish Arctic Expe-
ditions 1605 to 1620, Bk. I: Expeditions to Greenland, Hakluyt Soc. Publs.. ist
Series, Vol. 96, London, 1897, Appendix B, pp. 164-202; reference on p. 167.



176



BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS



' / i V \ V




FIG. 24 Map of Buss Island from John Seller's "English Pilot," probably 1673.
(After Miller Christy's photographic facsimile.)



DISAPPEARANCE FROM MAP 177

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 167 1. 4
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 ac-
companied by a brief descriptive narrative which may be at-
tributed 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 I745 5 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, 6 with scientific support of a sub-

4 Miller Christy, pp. 171 and 173.

6 Nieinve 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 i).

8 H. S. Poole: The Sunken Land of Bus, Proc. and Trans. Nova Scotian Inst. of
Set., Vol. ii, 1902-06, pp. 193-198. See also: Sir John Murray and R. E. Peake:



178 BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS

marine range in 53 N. and 35 W., really ocean-bottom moun-
tains 8,000 feet high between Ireland and Newfoundland, re-
ported 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 destruc-
tion and disappearance are the islands of imported diabolism,
appearing on maps now and then through the centuries. Bianco's
"The Hand of Satan" (i436 7 ; 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 De-
mons," 8 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 Gunn-
bjorn's skerries, exhibits two Insulae Demonium near the
middle of the dreaded Ginnungagap passage between Labra-
dor 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, 9 makes a
single island of them, "marked Y. de Demones", and brings it

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.

7 A. E. Nordenskiold: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and
Sailing Directions, transl. in F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, PI. 20.

8 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- 60-6 1.

3 Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika's in ihrer Bedeutung fur die
Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin, 1892; reference in atlas,
PI. 16.



ISLANDS OF DEMONS



179




<*




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.)

nearer the eastern front of Labrador below Hamilton Inlet.
Agnese 10 in the same century enlarges it greatly but still keeps it
just off the Labrador coast. The Ortelius map of 1570" (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 I569 12 keeps the islands plural beside the upper tip
of Newfoundland, approximating Gastaldi's position. There

10 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 23.

" Nordenskiold, Facsimile-Atlas, PI. 46.

u 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, Pis. 3 and 9. See also: [E. F.] Jomard: Les
monuments de la geographic, ou recueil d'anciennes cartes europeennes et orientates
. . ., Paris, [1842-62], PI. XXI, 2.



i8o BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS

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.

[Autolocus]

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 Incor-
porado (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 I546 13 (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) 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 out jutting 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

13 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 17.

14 Friedrich Kunstmann: Die Entdeckung Amerikas, nach den altesten 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 Kunst-
mann, Karl von Spruner, Georg M. Thomas, Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences,
Munich, 1859; reference in atlas, PI. 13.



DACULI AND BRA 181

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 off-
spring 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 I325 15 (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. No-
body can mistake the rightly located Man, Bofim, and Brascher
(the Blaskets). Insula Sau must be Skye, though with the out-
line 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

18 Alberto Magnaghi: La carta nautica costruita nel 1325 da Angelino Dalorto,
with facsimile, Florence, 1898 (published on the occasion of the Third Italian Geo-
graphical Congress). Cf. also: idem: II mappamondo del genovese Angellinus de
Dalorto (1325): Contribute 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 meta del secolo XIV,Riv,Geosr. Italiana,Vo\.4, 1897, PP- 282-294 and 361-369



182 BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS

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 hap-
pened 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 after-
ward current concerning the island.

To review a few later but still very early maps : Dulcert, I339, 16
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 I35I, 17 makes more changes than Dul-
cert among these islands and leaves unnamed the one which by
position seems meant for Bra, or Barra. Daculi is largely ex-
panded and named Insul Dach indistinctly.

The Pizigani map of I367 18 (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 hono quo morit may." Perhaps

Nordenskiold, Periplus, PI. 8.

17 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.

18 [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la geographic, ou recueil d'ancicnntb cartes
europeennes et orientales. . . . Paris, [1842-62], PI. X, i.



DACULI AND BRA 183

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 ex-
tended to Daculi.

Pareto's fine map of I455 19 (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 pari-
untur sed quando est eorum tempus pariendi feruntur foras in-
sulla 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 H35 20
(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

18 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 5.

20 Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del medioevo e dei
secoli delle grand! scoperte marittime construiti da italiaiii o trovati nelle biblioteche
d'ltalia, Part II (pp. 280-390) of "Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della
Geografia in Italia," published on the occasion of the Second International Geo-
graphical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Societa. Geografica Italiana, Rome, 1875;
reference on PI. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does not contain the plates).



184 BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS

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 ex-
tensively 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 (I569), 21 the Hakluyt map of 1587 illus-
trating Peter Martyr, 22 and the map of Mathias Quadus (1608). *

This is not the place to enlarge on the Helluland, Mark-
land, and Vinland of the Norsemen beginning with the eleventh
century, as this theme has been dealt with elsewhere. 24 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 con-
ception 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. Eugene Beauvois located it con-
jecturally about the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. 25 Dr. Gus-
tav Storm, on the other hand, thought it was merely Iceland
misunderstood , 26

21 Drei Karten von Gerhard Mercator, Berlin, 1891 Reference on,Weltkarte,Pl. 13.

22 Nordenskiold, Facsimile-Atlas, map 82 on p. 131.
Ibid., PI. 49.

24 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. u, 1921, pp. 265-282; and Chapters VII and VIII, above.

25 Eugene Beauvois: La decouverte du nouveau monde par les irlandais, Nancy,
1875.

^Gustav Storm: Studies on the Vineland Voyages, Mimoires Soc. Royale dts
Antiquaires du Nord (Copenhagen), N. S., 1884-89, pp. 307-370.



STOKAFIXA 185

STOKAFIXA

Perhaps the latter explanation is the best yet given of the
mysterious island Scorafixa, or Stokafixa, in Andrea Bianco's
map of 1436." It has sometimes been understood as Newfound-
land, which bore long afterward the name Bacalaos, the equiva-
lent 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 Stoka-
fixa 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, dis-
tributing its name and attributes rather liberally in legend and
on the maps. Humboldt incidentally mentions Ttle des Morues
(ile 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; 38 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.

27 Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de 1'histoire de la geographic du
nouveau continent et des progres de 1'astronomie nautique aux quinzie'me et sei-
zieme siecles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39; reference in Vol. 2, p. 107.

^Theobald Fischer: Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten italieni-
schen Utsprungs, i vol. of text and 17 portfolios containing photographs of maps,
Venice, 1877-86; reference in Portfolio 9 (Facsimile dell' Atlanta di Andrea Bianco
dell' anno 1436), PI. 7.

[Autolocus]

186 BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS

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 com-
memorating 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 re-
ported accordingly. Of such origin, perhaps, are I. de Garcia,
Y Neufre, Y d'Hyanestienne, Lasciennes, and divers others scat-
tered 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 posi-
tively as below, here or elsewhere, I do not mean to be offensively
dogmatic but to present concisely my own deductions from evi-
dence 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-encum-
bered 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 Atlan-
tic 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 under-
stood, it would be, presumably, but not necessarily, the carto-
graphic 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.



i88 SUMMARY

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.



INDEX



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) identifica-
tion, 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. "6, 119

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

Athens and Atlantis, i, 33

Atlantic continental mass, theory of
Termier, 19

Atlantic submarine banks, 24

Atlantis, Antillia and, 148; improbabil-
ity of existence, 18; invasion of the
Mediterranean, 16; location and
size, 17; Plato's account, 3, n, 32,
187; Sargasso Sea as, 29; sub-
mergence, 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 con-
nection, 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, HI, 184

Bahamas, 155, 163, 188

Barra, 181, 183

Basques, 8

Beauvois, Eugene, 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,
iSi. 153; Daculi on, 183; reproduc-
tion 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.), 1795
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;



LEGENDARY ISLANDS



Brazil (continued)

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 verson, 34;
explanations of Brendan narratives,
35; exploration 34, 48, 187; prob-
able 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 , 2 1 ; 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 Antonic 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. 06, 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 Chris-
topher 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,
1 80; Seven Cities (island) on, 75

Devil Rock, 91

Diodorus Siculus, i, 4, 16, 42, 166

Disko, 184

Dragons, 37, 83, 149

Drogio, first mention, 124, 127; mean-
ing, 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, Encorpo-

rade (Incorporado), 180
Equestrian statues, 168
Eric the Red, 101, 108, 109, 115
Eskimos, no, in
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



INDEX



193

[Autolocus]

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

169

Fischer, Joseph, 6 1, 105, 116, 139
Fischer, Theobald. 44, 45, 46, 47, 56, 57.

84, 86, 92, 114, 122, 147, 161, 165,

172, 182, 185
Fixlanda, 06, 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
I57O, 99; as a peninsula, 105; on
Sigurdr Stefansson map, 106;
Thorlaksson map of 1606 (ill.), 98;
on Zeno map of 1558, 105, 139

Greenlanders, early explorations, 109

Grocland, 184

Gunnbjorn'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 settle-
ment of Greenland, 102, 109, no.
115, 116; suggestion of two Wine-
lands, 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 dis-
covery and relations, 101; on Zeno
map of 1558, 141

Ilia 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; various
mythical and scattered, 174

Italians, exploration, 8

Jamaica, 163, 188
Janvier, T. A., 30
Jomard, E. F., 8, 30, 43, 55, 7O. 83. 147.

149, 166, 179, 182
Jomard, E. F., 8
Jonsson, Finnur, 102-103
Jowett, Benjamin, n, 18

Karlsefni, Thorfinn, 109, US, 116;

geography of narrative and later

records, 117
Kilda, St.. 142, 183
Kjalarness, 116, nS
Kohl, J. G., 139



194



LEGENDARY ISLANDS



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

Kriimmel, 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 settle-
ments, 103; Nicolay of 1560, 62;
Ortelius of 1570, 77; Pareto of 1455,
158; Pizigani of 1367, 40-41; Ptol-
emy of 1513, 82; Prunes of 1553, 88;
Sargasso Sea, 28; Stefansson of
1500, 107; Thorlaksson 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; New-
foundland as, 114, 188; Nova Scotia
as, 118; on Sigurdr Stefansson map,
116; Zeno narrative and, 122



Martyr, Peter, d'Anghiera, "Dec-
ades," 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
I57O, 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-
i?8

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, 12 1 ; Greenland on, 98; Mayda on
87; Newfoundland on, 132; repro-
duction of section (ill.), 62

Nordenskiold, A. E., on Antillia, 144;
"Bidrag," 61, 96, 120, 139, I4 1 ;
"Facsimile- Atlas," i, 48, 71, 75, 9O,
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, in

Nova Scotia as Markland, 118



INDEX



195



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 I4SS, Antillia on, 157;
Daculi on, 183; reproduction of sec-
tion (ill.), 158

Payne, E. J., 175

Perseus, 16, 17

Peter Martyr. See Martyr, Peter

Phoenicians, Corvo and, 167; early
explorations, i, 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, n, 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, 7L 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, 100-
no

Ruysch map of 1508, Antillia inscrip-
tion, 145; island destroyed by com-
bustion, 174

St. Anne, 180, 181
St. Brendan. See Brendan
St. Kilda, 142, 183

St. Lawrence, Gulf of, possible identifi-
cation of Brazil (island) with, 59



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

1 88

St. X, 180
Saintly islands, 180
Salvagio, 188; on Beccario map of

*435, 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, in
Sol berg, T., 57, 161
Soley, J. C., 30, 31
Spanish Friar. See Book of the Spanish

Friar
Stefansson (Sigurdr) map of 1500 (?),

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, in, 184
Strabo, 42, 169
Straumey, 188
Straumfiord, 188
Submarine banks, 24
Sylvanus map of 1511, Brazil (island)

on, 65



196



LEGENDARY ISLANDS



Tachylyte, 23

Termier, Pierre, on Atlantis, 14; theory

of ancient Atlantic continent, 19, 21,

23

The vet, Andr6, 169
Thorlaksson map of 1606, reproduction

(ill.), 98
Tobago, 99
Torfaeus' "Gronlandia," 96-97, 98,

106, 107, n6
Toscanelli, Paolo, 69, 144
Trouveres, 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 Tradi-
tion," 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,
ISO, 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, 1 16. See also Vin-
land

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, S3

Zaltieri map of 1566, 61, 87, 98, 132

Zeno, Antonio and Nicolo, 9, 124.

Zeno, Nicolo, the younger, 124, 134,
I3S, 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; discrepan-
cies of the fisherman's story, 133;
geographical implication, 129; Lu-
cas* study, 137; Major's study, 136;
Markland and, 122; narrative
quoted, 128






Babcock, William Henry
100 Legendary islands of the

B3 Atlantic



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