referred to a later date than either; for some of the old inhabitants, it seems, are impressed with the idea that Lord Baltimore had once intended to erect saw-mills in the neighbourhood of Port de Grasse, vestiges of which are said still to remain. It is an interesting subject, of which some more certain information it is to be hoped will speedily be procured.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

1467.

The extraordinary discoveries of the Portugueze, but that of all others which opened them a route to India round the Cape of Good Hope, aroused the cupidity of some of, and the curiosity of all, the nations of Europe, and excited that spirit of enterprize in England, which, though it might sometimes languish, was never wholly extinguished; and which, indeed, is not likely ever to be extinguished so long as any part, however obscure or remote, of this globe we inhabit remains to be discovered. The Italians were the most skilful navigators of those days; and among the foreigners who had engaged in the Portugueze service was a Genoese by birth, named CHRISTOVAL COLON or CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, who, at the early age of fourteen, had betaken himself to a seafaring life, and had made considerable progress in geometry, cosmography and astronomy. His first voyage, after leaving the Mediterranean, appears to have been into the

northern seas, in which it is stated, in a memorandum written by himself, that he had visited Iceland, to which a considerable trade was then carried on, particularly by the northern nations and among others by England, principally on account of its valuable fisheries. It is even

said that he proceeded beyond this island, and advanced several degrees within the polar circle, but on what service and for what purpose does not appear. It would have been satisfactory to know whether it was a mere trading voyage, or a voyage of discovery, that led this celebrated navigator into those inhospitable regions; but there is little reason to hope that any further information will ever be obtained on this head. His subsequent grand discovery is too well known to be repeated, where it would be misplaced; but a word may be said on some recent attempts to rob this celebrated navigator of one of the greatest and most important discoveries recorded in the annals of navigation.

Doctor Robertson complains, and with a proper feeling for the honour of this great man, that some of the Spanish authors, with the meanness of national jealousy, have endeavoured to detract from the glory of his grand enterprize, by insinuating that he was led to the discovery of the new world, not by his own inventive or enterprizing genius, but by information which he had received from

* Life of Columbus.

some old pilot whose name or nation is not even mentioned, and that some German authors had ascribed the honour of the discovery of America to their countryman Martin Behaim, a native of Nuremberg. This early geographer studied under the celebrated John Muller, better known by the name of Regiomontanus. He accompanied Diego Cam in his voyage of discovery along the coast of Africa in 1483, and settled on the island of Fayal, where he established a colony of Flemings, having obtained a grant of it from the regent of Portugal. In 1492 he returned to Nuremberg, to visit his native country and family; and there made a map of the globe, which is still preserved in the library of that city. Of this map Dr. Robertson procured a copy, as published by Doppelmayer, from which, he observes, "the imperfection of cosmographical knowledge is manifest. Hardly one place is laid down in its true situation. Nor can I discover from it any reason to suppose that Behaim had the least knowledge of any region in America.”* He states, indeed, that he delineates an island, to which he gives the name of St. Brandon; but that he suspects it to be a mere imaginary island which had been admitted into some ancient maps on no better authority than the legend of the Irish St. Brandon or Brendan, whose story is so childishly fabulous as to be unworthy of any notice; and he concludes that the account of his having discovered any part

Robertson's Hist. of Amer. vol. i. p. 368.

of the new world appeared to him to be merely conjectural. Indeed it is most unlikely that such a discovery of Behaim either would or could be concealed; the éclat which attended that of Columbus is alone sufficient to disprove the pretensions set up for Behaim.

Though the map of Behaim was constructed from the writings of Ptolemy, Pliny and Strabo, and from the modern travels of Benjamin of Tudela, Carpini, Rubruquis, and especially of Marco Polo, yet the discoveries of the Portugueze had made no inconsiderable addition to the knowledge of the globe, and a grand step in progressive geography. His countrymen, however, not satisfied with what Behaim had sedulously collected and digested, have gone beyond the Spaniards in their attempt to rob Columbus of the honour of his discovery; and by fabricated documents to transfer the merit of it to Behaim. According to the pretensions set up by them, he not only made the discovery of that part of America which is now called Brazil, but anticipated Magelhanes in that of the strait which bears his name; nay, he even anticipated the intention of Magelhanes by naming the natives Patagonians, because the extremities of their bodies were covered with a skin which resembled the paws of a bear rather than the hands and feet of human beings;* all of which is

* "Our Captain-general, Magaglianes," says Pigafetta, “gave to these people the name of Patagoni—because they wore on their

extracted from pretended letters of Behaim himself, written in 1486, and preserved in the archives of Nuremberg; and from these, it would further appear, that "Martin Behaim, traversing the Atlantic ocean for several years, examined the American islands, and discovered the strait which bears the name of Magellan, before either Christopher Columbus or Magellan sailed those seas; whence he mathematically delineated, on a geographical chart, for the king of Lusitania, the situation of the coast around every part of that famous and renowned strait, long before Magellan thought of his expedition." It would require better support, than that they have hitherto met with, to make such clumsy fabrications pass current in the world.* It was not at all necessary for Columbus to receive any information from Behaim; he was too well acquainted with the nature of the sphere not to know that India could be approached by proceeding to the west as well as to the east, if no other land should be found to intervene; and it is quite evident, from all his endeavours to pass to the East Indies by a western route, that the continuity of the continent of America was entirely new to, and wholly unexpected by, him. His hope had been to find a direct passage to Cathay and Zipangu, names

feet the hairy skin of the guanaco, which gave them the appearance of bears' feet."

* Paper by Citizen Otto, in Amer. Phil. Trans. vol. ii. Nicholson's Journals, vol. ii. and iii. Sup. to Ency. Britt.