CHAP. VI.

DIFFUSIVE MISCHIEF OF THE ITINERARIUM PORTUGALLENSIUM-GRYSÆUS —MEUSEL-FLEURIEU—HUMBOLDT, &c.

THE perversion by Madrignanon has passed into the earliest and most esteemed Collections of Voyages and Travels, and thus exercised a mischievous influence on more recent works.

In the Novus Orbis of Grynæus published at Basle, in 1532, the Letter of Pasquiligi is given (p. 138) according to the version of the Itinerarium; and so in the edition of that work published in the same year at Paris (p. 121), and in the Basle Edition of 1555 (p. 99). Everywhere, indeed, we are presented with lamentable proofs of the blind confidence reposed in it, even as to other matters. Thus, the "Biographie Universelle" (art. Cadamosto) sharply rebukes Grynæus for having stated 1504, instead of 1454, as the year in which Cadamosto represents himself to have been at Venice previous to his voyage. The Itinerarium (cap. ii.) is the source of this error. The explanation does not, it is true, relieve Grynæus from censure. The mistake appears in the Basle Edition of the Novus Orbis of 1532 (page 5), in the Paris Edition of the same year (p. 3), and is not corrected in that of Basle in 1555 (p. 2).

So implicitly has Madrignanon been followed, that Meusel (Biblioth. Hist., original Leipsic Ed. vol. ii. part ii. p. 318) not only gives the year 1504, but finding a statement, on the same page, by Cadamosto as to his age, makes a calculation accordingly, and gravely informs us that the voyager must have been born in 1483-just, in fact, twenty-nine years after the expedition! Meusel finds out afterwards, in some way, that he was wrong, and throws the blame (vol. iii. p. 159, 160), like the "Biographie Universelle," on Grynæus.

Even in translating the title of that chapter of the "Paesi," (book 6, cap. cxxvi.) which contains the letter of Pasquiligi, the Itinerarium commits a blunder, that has been, in the same manner, perpetuated. In the original it runs thus: "Copia de una Lettera de Domino Pietro Pasqualigo Oratore della Illustrissima Signoria in Portugallo scripta (a soi fratelli) in Lisbona adj. xix. Octobrio, &c." The words indicating the address we have placed within a parenthesis, in order to mark, with more distinctness, the manner in which it is plain they must be read and understood. The place, as well as the time, mentioned are parts of the date of the letter, for Pasquiligi is obviously conveying intelligence from Lisbon, where Cortereal had arrived, to his brothers in Italy. Not attending to a matter so obvious, the Itinerarium (fol. lxxix.) represents the personages addressed as residing in Lisbon, "ad germanos suos in Ulisbona commorantes!" This absurdity also is copied into the Novus Orbis (Basle Ed. of 1532, p. 138; Paris Ed. same year, p. 121; and the Basle Ed. of 1555, p. 99).

Such, then, is the unhappy fate of a modern reader. By the writers who minister to his instruction it is deemed a wonderful effort to go back to the Novus Orbis of 1555. To consult the carlier editions of 1532 would be considered quite an affectation of research. Yet on reaching that distant point, it is plain we cannot read a single line without a distressing uncertainty whether it may not merely reflect the dishonesty, or ignorance, of an intermediate translator, instead of the meaning of the original work.

The question how far the author of the "Paesi" was indebted to previous publications, now finally lost, for part of his materials, particularly as to the first four books, is one of much curiosity, and with regard to which a great deal has been said by many learned critics who had plainly never examined any one of its pages; but the inquiry would here be irrelevant, as it is not pretended that the Letter of Pasquiligi and the others addressed to persons in Italy, given in Book Sixth, had ever before appeared in print. The remarks prepared on that point arc, therefore, withheld, as they would

unwarrantably swell a part of the subject which has already expanded beyond its due proportion.

The name Labrador or Laborer, connected with the perversion by the Itinerarium of "very populous" into "admirably cultivated," has led to a singular medley of errors in all the accounts of Cortereal's voyage. It would require a volume to exhibit them, but a reference to a few of the more recent writers will show how completely all the sources of information within their reach had been poisoned. Thus M. Fleurieu, in his Introduction to the Voyage de Marchand (tom. i. p. 5), says:

"En 1500 ou 1501 Gaspar de Cortereal, Portugais, homme de naissance partit de Lisbone, arriva a Terre Neuve, en visita la cote orientale, se presenta á l'embou chure du fleuve Saint Laurent, decouvrit au-dessus du cinquantieme Parallile une Terre qu'il nomma de Labrador parce qu'il la jugea propre au labourage et a la culture, parvint, enfin, remontant vers le Nord á l'entreé d'un Detroit auquel il imposa le nom de Detroit d'Anian et qui plus de cent ans aprés fut appellé Detroit de Hudson, &c."

It is to be regretted that Baron Humboldt (Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne, Lib. iii. ch. viii.) should have hastily given an incidental sanction to a passage replete with errors of every description.

Mr Barrow, with that wary caution which is generally the result of long official training, does not dwell on this perplexing point, but others have rushed in where he dared not tread:

"That part of it which being on this side of the 50th degree of N. latitude he thought was still fit for tillage and cultivation he named Terra de Labrador" (Forster, p. 450). "He arrived at Conception Bay in Newfoundland, explored the East Coast of that Island, and afterwards discovered the River St Lawrence. To the next country which he discovered he gave the name of Labrador, because from its latitude and appearance it seemed to him better fitted for culture than his other discoveries in this part of America." (Kerr's Collection of Voyages, &c. vol. xviii. p. 354.) "He appears first to have reached Newfoundland, whence pushing to the North he came. to that great range of Coast to which from some very superficial observation he gave the name of Labrador or the Laborers Coast" (Historical Account of Discoveries and Travels in North America, &c. by Hugh Murray, Esq. vol. i. p. 69).

Mr Barrow must have a further hearing (p. 41).

"To this evidence may also be added that of Ramusio, whose accuracy in such

So the Biographie Universelle (art. Cortereal), "Ce detroit auquel il donna le nom d'Anian a recu depuis celui d'Hudson."

matters is well known. The following extract is taken from his discourse on Terra Firma and the Oriental Islands:-'In the part of the New World which runs to the North-West, opposite to our habitable Continent of Europe, some navigators have sailed, the first of whom, as far as can be ascertained, was Gaspar Cortereal, a Portugueze, who arrived there in the year 1500 with two Caravels, thinking that he might discover some strait through which he might pass by a shorter voyage than round Africa, to the Spice Islands. They prosecuted their voyage in those seas until they arrived at a region of extreme cold; and in the latitude of 60° North they discovered a river filled with Ice (such is Mr Barrow's translation of Ramusio's word neve], to which they gave the name of Rio Nevado,—that is, Snow River. They had not courage however to proceed farther, all the coast which runs from Rio Nevado to Porto das Malvas (Mallow Port), which lies in 56° and which is a space of two hundred leagues, &c. &c.' ”

The claims of Ramusio (who has merely put into words the representation of the Portuguese maps) to extraordinary accuracy, may be judged of by the assertion made at the outset of the foregoing Extract. He states Cortereal to be the first of whom he had heard as penetrating into this Northern region; yet on the very same page which thus conducts that navigator to 60° he represents Cabot to have advanced to 67°, and in the previous volume he had fixed the date of the latter enterprise as even earlier than the truth will warrant. Thus he is convicted of the plainest inconsistency, without drawing to our aid the fact just established, from the earliest and best authority, that Cortereal was defeated in an effort to reach that very Northern Region which had been discovered the year before.

The force of the other proofs establishing the discrepance between Ramusio's account and that of the Venetian Ambassador, is obscured by Mr Barrow's method of presenting the subject. He quotes, at first, as will be seen on referring to his volume, just enough to exhibit a progress, in seeming coincidence with Pasquiligi's Letter, and then turns to other matters. He does not revert to Ramusio until the reader's attention is diverted from the measurement of distances, which occurs as the first test, and even in the end he suppresses a part of Ramusio's statement on that subject. The limited distance is exhausted, as we see, between 60° and 56°, and here then would seem to be that region which Cortereal, on account of its amenity and smiling groves, denominated Green

land. But Mr Barrow's theory, and all the authorities, require that Cortereal should visit the River St Lawrence. Whatever scepticism may exist as to his having penetrated into Hudson's Bay, no doubt can

"occur in regard to the St Lawrence. Even without specific evidence, it might safely have been concluded; that as a passage to India was the grand object of research, so large an opening as is presented by the mouth of this river could not have escaped examination. Independent, however, of this general reasoning, the evi dence furnished by Ramusio is decisive. In describing the principal places on that coast, he says, that beyond Capo de Gabo (Cattle Cape), which is in 54°, it runs two hundred leagues to the Westward, to a great river called St Lawrence, which some considered to be an arm of the sea, and which the Portuguese ascended to the distance of many leagues." (Barrow, p. 43.)

Thus we find the distance between 56° and 54° entirely thrown out of view, and yet there remains a computation of four hundred leagues of coast examined by Cortereal, viz., two hundred from Rio Nevado to 56°, and two hundred more from 54° to the St Lawrence. To meet this demand we have in the original only between six and seven hundred miles, increased by Madrignanon to almost eight hundred!

The river laden with snow (carico de Neve), and hence called Rio Nevado, is, doubtless, the St Lawrence, if indeed the name and the circumstances be not mere fiction. Mr Barrow, however, considers it to be Hudson's Strait, and finds a probability in "all the collateral circumstances of the Narrative," that the Portuguese on this occasion "actually entered Hudson's Bay" (p. 42). Now it will surely be considered rather singular that a person familiar with the miniature streams of Portugal, should thus misapply epithets, even if we suppose him to have erroneously regarded the Strait as terminating in itself, and as thus forming a great Bay or Gulf; yet Mr Barrow is persuaded that Cortereal called the Strait Snow River, after he had ascertained it to be neither River, Bay nor Gulf, but a mere medium of communication between different parts of the ocean!

On the map of Ortelius the Northern Coast of America is studded with Portuguese names. The Letter of Thorne furnishes a satisfactory clew to this nomenclature. The fidelity of the representation of Hudson's Bay is too striking to have