It Is Therefore Believed That It Was The Island
Of Taprobana, From Whence All Those Valuable Commodities Were Carried To
Jerusalem; and the ancients may have very justly called their discovery
the new world, to express its vast extent, because
It contained as much
land as was before known, and also because its productions differed so
much from those of our parts of the earth, or the old world. This
explanation agrees with the expressions of Seneca and St Jerome.
[1] Churchills Collection, V. 591. All that has been attempted in the
present article is to soften the asperity of the language, and to
illustrate the text by a few notes where these seemed necessary. - E.
[2] Trapobana, or rather Taprobana, is assuredly Ceylon, not Sumatra. - E.
SECTION II.
Of the Motives which led Columbus to believe that there were unknown
Countries.
The admiral Christopher Columbus had many reasons for being of opinion
that there were new lands which might be discovered. Being a great
cosmographer, and well skilled in navigation, he considered that the
heavens were circular, moving round the earth, which in conjunction with
the sea, constitute a globe of two elements, and that all the land that
was then known could not comprise the whole earth, but that a great part
must have still remained undiscovered. The measure of the circumference of
the earth being 360 degrees, or 6300 leagues, allowing 17 leagues to the
degree, must be all inhabited, since God hath not created it to lie waste.
Although many have questioned whether there were land or water about the
poles, still it seemed requisite that the earth should bear the same
proportion to the water towards the antarctic pole, which it was known to
have at the arctic. He concluded likewise that all the five zones of the
earth were inhabited, of which opinion he was the more firmly persuaded
after he had sailed into 75 degrees of north latitude. He also concluded
that, as the Portuguese had sailed to the southwards, the same might be
done to the westwards, where in all reason land ought to be found: And
having collected all the tokens that had been observed by mariners, which
made for his purpose, he became perfectly satisfied that there were many
lands to the westwards of Cabo Verde and the Canaries, and that it was
practicable to sail over the ocean for their discovery; because, since the
world is round, all its parts must necessarily be so likewise. All the
earth is so fixed that it can never fail; and the sea, though shut in by
the land, preserves its rotundity, without ever falling away, being
preserved in its position by attraction towards the centre of gravity. By
the consideration of many natural reasons, and by perceiving that not
above the third part of a great circle of the sphere was discovered, being
the extent eastwards from Cabo Verde to the farthest then known land of
India, he concluded that there remained much room for farther discoveries
by sailing to the westwards, till they should come to meet with those
lands then known, the ends whereof to the eastwards had not been yet
explored. In this opinion he was much confirmed by his friend Martin de
Bohemia[1], a Portuguese and an able cosmographer, a native of the island
of Fayal.
Many other circumstances concurred to encourage Columbus in the mighty
enterprize of discovery towards the west, by discoursing with those who
used to sail to the westwards, particularly to the islands of the Azores.
In particular, Martin Vincente assured him, that, having been on one
occasion 450 leagues to the westwards of Cape St Vincent, he took up a
piece of wood which was very artificially wrought, and yet was supposed
not to have been fashioned with tools of iron: And, because the wind had
blown many days from the west, he inferred that this piece of wood must
have drifted from some land in that direction. Peter Correa, who had
married the sister of Columbuses wife, likewise assured him, that he had
seen another piece of wood similarly wrought, which had been drifted by
the west winds upon the island of Puerto Santo; and that canes also had
been floated thither, of such a size that every joint could contain a
gallon of liquor. Columbus had farther heard mention made of these canes
by the king of Portugal, who had some of them, which he ordered to be
shewn to the admiral, who concluded that they must have been drifted from
India by the west wind, more especially as there are none such in Europe.
He was the more confirmed in this opinion, as Ptolemy, in the 17th chapter
of the first book of his cosmography, describes such canes as being found
in India. He was likewise informed by some of the inhabitants of the
Azores, that when the wind continued long and violent from the west and
north-west, the sea used to throw pine trees on the coasts of the isles of
Gracioso and Fayal, in which no trees of that sort grew. The sea once cast
two dead bodies on the coast of Flores, having very broad faces, and quite
different features from those of the Christians. Two canoes were seen at
another time, having several articles in them, which might have been
driven out to sea by the force of the wind while passing from one island
to another, and thence to the Azores. Anthony Leme, who had married in
Madeira, declared that he once run a considerable way to the westwards of
that island in his caravel, and fancied that he saw three islands; and
many of the inhabitants of Gomera, Hierro, and the Azores, affirmed that
they every year saw islands to the westwards. These were considered by
Columbus as the same with those mentioned by Pliny in his Natural History,
where he says, "That the sea to the northwards cuts off some pieces of
woods from the land; and the roots being very large, they drift on the
water like floats, and looked at a distance like islands."
In the year 1484, an inhabitant of the island of Madeira asked permission
from the king of Portugal to go upon the discovery of a country, which he
declared he saw every year exactly in the same position, agreeable to what
had been reported by the people of the Azores.
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