There are reasons for believing that Columbus's idea of finding the lands of the Grand Khan was strengthened, about the year 1471, by the discovery that the Guinea coast extended south of the equator. In the year 1474 the advice of the celebrated astronomer, Paul Toscanelli, was sought, and the preparation of the map or sailing-chart by Toscanelli seems to have supplied the necessary equipment for Columbus's daring and successful attempt in the year 1492 to explore the Western Ocean. A copy of Toscanelli's sailing-chart will be found at page 80. In the year 1492 Martin Behem, or Behaim, made a terrestrial globe which, as will be seen by a comparison with Toscanelli's sailing-chart, was founded upon Toscanelli's ideas.

It has been well said, that from the East streams the light focussed into science by the West ("Ex Oriente lux, ex Occidente lex "). From Eastern sources came the incentive for the desire to reach the mysterious Ophir. From contact with Constantinople and its commerce, the Italian States received their knowledge of the stores of Eastern wealth. And from these Italian States came the men whose undaunted courage was due to that knowledge of their superiority which strengthens men for great enterprises. They were well aware that they had no rivals in maritime experience. At the opportune moment there arose a genius who was anxious to satisfy the cravings of men quickened for discovery. Prince Henry of Portugal was well aware of the superiority of the seamen of the Italian States, and he took into his employ a number of Venetians, Genoese, and Florentines. The prince died in 1463, at his favourite retreat at Sagres on

Cape Vincent, without the satisfaction of seeing the circumnavigation of Africa. In the Italian republics it began to dawn upon the merchants and traders that the monopoly of their commercial intercourse with the East, which was the source of their supremacy as well as of their opulence, was now in real danger. And in the whirligig of events which then, as now, formed food for the cynic and the scoffer, it was perceived that the maritime republics were being drawn upon for the materials which would, in all probability, be the means of transferring their maritime supremacy to the growing power of the Western nations.

And eventually Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, and John Cabot, "another Genoese, like Columbus,' were the men whom fate had selected for those enterprises which eventually destroyed the supremacy of the Italian republics./

CHAPTER I

IN the fifteenth century, as the outgrowth of numerous traditions which appeared at intervals in various forms, and were frequently the subjects of new variations, an idea had become fixed in the minds of all sorts and conditions of men in several of the kingdoms of Europe, that certain islands known as St. Brandon, otherwise "St. Brandan," or "St. Brendan," or "St. Brendon," or island of "San Boranden " "Brasil," otherwise "Brazil," or "O'Brasile"; "Antillia," or “ Antilia, otherwise "The Seven Cities, or "The Island of the Seven Cities,"-that these and other islands,1 some with and some without

1 One of the phantom islands, which was called Satanaxio, or Satanatio, was supposed to be an island connected with the hand of Satan. The origin of the belief has been attributed to an ancient Italian legend, to the effect that in a part of India a great hand rose every day from the sea and carried off a certain number of persons to the depths of the ocean. The Arabians have, so it is said, a similar tradition. In all probability the story permeated through Europe from some Eastern source.

In the Ptolemy map of 1482, published at Ulme, in the Sexta Tabula Asiæ, there appears an island of Demons, "Insula Demonum." Later on this island was found a place in the newlydiscovered American Waters. Biddle, in his Memoir, pp. 250, 251, says: "Ortellius, on whose map the 'Insula Demonum' figures with St. Brandon, etc., places it not very far from Hudson Strait. Ramusio, in his text, would give it a local habitation about half-way between that strait and Newfoundland, but in constructing the map which accompanies his third volume he seems to have thought a great

names, had an actual existence in the Atlantic Ocean. Some of these traditions may be traced back to a distant period of time. They were believed in alike by princes and paupers, philosophers and fools, landsmen and seamen, map makers and chart constructors, practical men and romantic women. Exaggerated unrealities had taken firm hold of the popular mind.

It was

possessed by a dream that these visionary Hesperian islands were situated in a delightful tropical region of perpetual summer;1 that they were lands which contained untold gold, precious stones, and sparkling gems; elysian fields, cool and refreshing groves, streams and fountains of water 2 which conferred perennial youth and vigour; precious trees, aromatic perfumes and spices, gracious beauties and exquisite felicities—a blissful mundane paradise !

gulf a much fitter place, and it therefore occupies_a_conspicuous station in the 'Golfo Quadrado,' or St. Lawrence. It is about five times as large as Newfoundland, from which it is divided by a narrow strait. On it demons are seen, as well flying as on foot, with nothing to protect them from a climate, so little suited to their former habits, but a pair of wings and a ridiculously short tail; yet they are made, poor devils! to appear happy, and even sportive."

1 "Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but lies

Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns

And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea."

2 According to a popular tradition as to the "Garden of the Hesperides," there existed a fountain of perpetual youth the waters of which restored to bloom and vigour all who bathed therein, be they ever so old or wrinkled.

It was the supposed existence of an island which contained a fountain, by bathing in the waters of which perpetual youth would be acquired, that prompted Juan Ponce de Leon, a Spanish cavalier, to set out in search of the imaginary island, with the result that he made what was then supposed to be the discovery, but which in reality was the re-discovery of a portion of territory to which he (Juan Ponce de Leon) gave the name of Florida, because it was discovered at the time of the floral feast of the Roman Catholic Church (Pascua Florida).