the Fort of D'Elmina, to follow up the suggestion of Alonzo Gonzales pointing out the southern Africans as articles of commerce. We readily comprehend, then, the exultation with which a new region was heard of, where the inhabitants seemed to be of a gentle temper, and of physical powers such as to excite the admiration of the Venetian Ambassador. That Cortereal on the subsequent visit fell a sacrifice to the just exasperation of the people whose friends and relatives-men, women, and children-he had perfidiously carried off, is very probable, and the shores of America were thus saved from witnessing all the horrors that have marked the accursed traffic in the other hemisphere.

The impressions made on the natives, of dread and detestation, seem not to have been speedily effaced. Verrazani, twenty-two years afterwards, passed along the coast from Florida to the latitude of 50 degrees, and it is curious to follow his narrative in connexion with our knowledge of Cortereal's base conduct, and its probable consequences to himself, and the brother who went to seek him. Verrazani speaks, in warm terms, of the kind and cordial reception he every where experienced in the first part of his route, and in the latitude of 41° 40' he remained for a considerable time (see his Narrative in Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 420). As he proceeds further North, we recognise the coincidence of his description of the country with that of Cortereal.

"Piena di foltissime selve; gli alberi dellequali erano abeti, cipressi et simili chi si generano in regioni fredde” (“full of thick woods, consisting of fir, cypress, and other similar trees of cold countries"). And so of the dress of the inhabitants, "Vestono di pelli d'orso et lupi cervieri et marini et d'altri animali" ("they clothe themselves with the skins of the bear, the lucerne, the seal, and other animals"). He is struck with the change of character, "Le genti tutte sons difformi dall' altre et quanto i passati erano d'apparenza gentili tanto questi erano di rozzezza et vitii pleni" ("the people differ entirely from the others, and in proportion as those before visited were apparently gentle, so were these full of rudeness

and malevolence"). With vehement cries they forbade him to land ("continuamente gridando che alla terra non ci approssimassimo"), and a party which went on shore was assailed with the war-whoop and a flight of arrows (" et quando scendevamo al lito ci tiravano con li loro archi mettendo grandissimi gridi").

CHAP. V.

CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH HAVE LED TO ERRORS AS TO THE VOYAGE OF CORTEREAL-THE PORTUGUESE MAPS-ISLE OF DEMONS-THE FRAUD OF MADRIGANON IN THE "ITINERARIUM PORTUGALLENSIUM"-MR BARROW'S CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF VOYAGES, &C.-DR LARDNER'S CYCLOPÆDIA-THE EDINBURGH CABINET LIBRARY.

HAVING determined the extent of Cortereal's progress to the North, it is time to advert to the circumstances which have conspired to pervert the history of his voyage.

There is yet extant a letter from Robert Thorne of Bristol, addressed from Seville, as early as the year 1527, to the English Ambassador, Doctor Ley (Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 214), in which he sends to the ambassador "a little Mappe or Carde of the World," with a great many curious remarks. It is here that he speaks of his father as one of those who had set forth the expedition of England, and of the happy consequences, "if the mariners would then have been ruled and followed their pilot's mind" (p. 219). Adverting to the controversy pending between Portugal and Spain, he declares that the islands in dispute belong to Spain, "as appeareth by the most part of all the Cardes by the Portingals, save those which they have falsified of late purposely" (p. 218). After speaking of the possessions of Spain in the new world, he says, "which maine land or coast goeth northwards, and finisheth in the land that we found which is called here Terra de Labrador" (p. 216).

Thus a quarter of a century before the time of Ramusio, and half a century before that of Ortelius, we find the mapmakers of the country most renowned for nautical skill, and the sciences connected with it detected in falsification as national interest, or vanity, might prompt. It appears, further, that in the very quarter to which attention is now directed

there had been, already, an invasion of the English pretensions so well concerted as to give currency to the spurious appellation, even among the rivals of the Portuguese, though it excited the indignation of Thorne who was old enough to remember all about the voyages of discovery set forth from his native city.

Another source of the absurdities which deform the early maps of this region, is found in that love of the marvellous and the terrible which, in all ages, has delighted to people remote and unknown countries with monsters and prodigies. The first discoveries of the Portuguese gave a new direction to vulgar wonder, and the exaggerations and falsehoods which ministered to it; and amongst other fictions it was pretended that there existed an island, the peculiar residence of Demons and fatal to all who approached it. No Map could venture to refuse this tribute to popular credulity, and, accordingly, in the celebrated edition of Ptolemy, published at Ulme in 1483, we find the "Insula Demonum" occupying a place in the Sexta Tabula Asix.

Just as these regions were becoming so well known, as rather to bring discredit on such tales, the New World was discovered, and abundant scope allowed to the fancy, particularly in the North, without much peril of detection. A difficulty seems to have been experienced at first in selecting a judicious site for the interesting emigrants. The island, saved from the wreck of their fortunes in the old world, is bandied about in all directions by Cosmographers with little regard to that good old saying which, without recommending unnecessary commerce with the Evil One, yet makes it a point of honesty to give him his due in unavoidable transactions. Ortelius, on whose map the "Insula Dæmonum" figures with St Brandon, Frisland, and all the other silly, or fraudulent fabrications of that day, places it not very far from Hudson's 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 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.

It is time, however, to turn from this, comparatively harmless, foolery to the deliberate fraud, already adverted to, on the part of Madriganon, in his pretended translation of the Paesi, &c." into Latin, in a book entitled "Itinerarium Portugallensium," published at Milan in 1508 (cap. cxxvi. fol. lxxx.).

“Ut igitur nova anni præsentis intelligatis scitote hic esse eam triremem quam superiore anno Rex Portugalliæ Serenissimus expediverat versus Aquilonem præfecto Gaspare Corterato qui nobis refert continentem invenisse distantem ad M. duo milia inter Chorum et Favonium hactenus toti pene orbi incompertam terram; cujus latus aiunt ad milliaria prope DCCC percurrisse, nec tamen finis compertus est quispiam; ideo credunt Continentem non Insulam esse, regioque videtur esse conjuncta cuidam plagæ alias a Nostris peragratæ quasi sub ipso Septentrione eousque celox tamen non pervenit ob congelatum æquor et ingruentes cælo nives. Argumento sunt tot flumina quæ ab illis montibus derivantur quod videlicet ibi magna vis nivium existat: arguunt propterea insulam non posse tot flumina emittere: Aiunt præterea terram esse eximie cultam. Domos subeunt ligneas quas cooperiunt pellibus ac coriis piscium: Huc adduxerunt viros septem sexus utriusque. In celoce vero altera quam præstolamur in horas advehuntur quinquaginta ejus regionis incola. Hi si proceritatem corporis, si colorem, si habitudinem, si habitum spectes cinganis non sunt absimiles. Pellibus piscium vestiunt et lutrarum et eorum imprimis qui instar vulpium pillosas habent pelles; eisque utuntur hieme pilo ad carnes verso ut nos; at æstate ritu contrario; neque eas consuunt aut concinant quovis modo, verum uti fert ipsa bellua eo modo utuntur, eis armos et brachia præipue tegunt; inguina vero fune ligant multiplici, confecto ex piscium nervis. ViHentur propterea silvestres homines, non sunt tamen inverecundi et corpora habent abilissima si brachia, si armos, si crura respexeris, ad simetriam sunt omnia. Faiem stigmate compungunt inuruntque notis multiiugis instar indorum, sex vel acto tigmatibus prout libuerit; hunc morem sola voluptas moderatur: Loquuntur quiem sed haud intelliguntur, licet adhibiti fuerint fere omnium linguarum interretes: Eorum plaga caret prorsus ferro; gladios tamen habent sed ex acuminato pide. Pari modo cuspidant sagittas quæ nostris sunt acuminatiores: Nostri inde tulerunt ensis confracti partem inauratam; quæ Italiæ ritu sabrifacta videbatur: uidam puer illic duos orbes argenteos auribus appensos circumferebat qui haud bie cœlati more nostro visebantur: cælaturam Venetam imprimis præseferentes; ibus rebus non difficulter adducimur Continentem esse potius quam Insulam, quia