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 appear

ance of bears' feet."

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

which, since the return of Marco Polo, had become "familiar as household words." It is true that the cosmographers of those days had carried China much beyond its real extent to the eastward, and, as Herrera observes, "the more it extended to the east, the nearer it must approach to the Cape de Verd islands." Columbus could not be ignorant of this; and indeed so much were the discoveries made by him considered as a part of Asia, that they had the name of the "Indies" immediately bestowed on them; and it became necessary, on detecting the mistake, to distinguish the two countries by the names of the East and the West Indies. And thus, as Major Rennel has justly observed, "the splendid discoveries of Columbus were prompted by a geographical error of most extraordinary magnitude."

The whole story of Behaim's discovery seems to have had its origin in a passage of Pigafetta's narrative, which is certainly remarkable: "The Captain General (Magelhanes) knew that he must make his passage through a strait much concealed, as he had seen on a chart, in the depot of the king of Portugal, made by that most excellent man Martin de Boemia;" which might also receive an additional colour from the assertion of Herrera, that Magellan was in possession of a terrestrial globe, made by Behaim, to assist him in directing his course to the south seas; and that Columbus

*Geog. of Herodotus, p. 685.

was confirmed in his opinion of a western navigation by Martin de Bohemia, his friend.*

JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOTA. 1496.

JOHN CABOTA or CA BOT, a citizen of Venice, came over to England with his son Sebastian, then a boy, (besides two other sons,) and settled in Bristol. Being a skilful pilot and intrepid navigator, Henry VII., disappointed in the hope of engaging Columbus, through the misfortunes of his brother Bartholomew, encouraged Cabota to make discoveries by granting him a patent, in virtue of which he had leave to go in search of unknown lands, and to conquer and settle them; the king reserving to himself one-fifth part of the profits. The patent bears date the 5th March, 1496, being the eleventh year of Henry's reign, and is granted to him by name, and to his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius. There is a sad disagreement in the date of the voyage in which Newfoundland is supposed to have been discovered; and there is no possible way of reconciling the various accounts collected by Hakluyt, and which amount to no less a number than six, but by supposing John Cabota to have made one voyage, at least, previous to the date of the patent, and some time between that and the date of the return of Columbus.t

*Herrera, Dec. i. See Burney's History of Voyages and Discoveries, vol. i. p. 3.

+ Either in the year 1594 or 1595.