Manro Lived In The Reign Of Alphonso The Fifth, That Is Between
1438 And 1480; The Whole Of This Map, Therefore, Is Prior To Diaz And Gama,
Two Celebrated Portuguese Navigators.
Consequently, if it can be proved
that the map obtained by Dr. Vincent is genuine, it must have existed
previous to the Portuguese discoveries.
The proof of the genuineness of the
map is derived from the date on the planisphere, 1459; the internal
evidence on the work itself; and the fact that Alphonso, or Prince Henry of
Portugal, who died in 1463, received a copy of this map from Venice, and
deposited it in the monastery of Alcobaca, where it is still kept. The sum
paid for this copy, and the account of expenditure, are detailed in a MS.
account in the monastery of St. Michael.
The third, and by far the most important part of Dr. Vincent's
dissertation, examines what the map contains respecting the termination cf
Africa to the south. On the first inspection of the map it is evident, that
the author has not implicitly followed Ptolemy, as he professes to do. The
centre of the habitable world is fixed at Bagdat. Asia and Europe he
defines rationally, and Africa so far as regards its Mediterranean coast.
He assigns two sources to the Nile, both in Abyssinia. On the east coast of
Africa, he carries an arm of the sea between an island which he represents
as of immense size, and the continent, obliquely as far nearly as the
latitude and longitude of the Cape of Good Hope. This island he calls Diab,
and the termination on the south, which he makes the extreme point of
Africa, Cape Diab.
The great object of Mauro, in drawing up this map, was to encourage the
Portuguese in the prosecution of their voyages to the south of Africa. This
is known to be the fact from other sources, and the construction of the
map, as well as some of the notices and remarks, which are inserted in its
margin, form additional evidence that this was the case. Two passages, as
Dr. Vincent observes, will set this in the clearest light. The first is
inserted at Cape Diab; "here," says the author, about the year 1420, "an
Indian vessel, on her passage across the Indian ocean was caught by a
storm, and carried 2000 miles beyond this Cape to the west and south-west;
she was seventy days in returning to the Cape." This the author regards as
a full proof that Africa was circumnavigable on the south.
In the second passage, inserted on the margin, after observing that the
Portuguese had been round the continent of Africa, more than 2000 miles to
the south-west beyond the Straits of Gibraltar; that they found the
navigation easy and safe, and had made charts of their discoveries; he
adds, that he had talked with a person worthy of credit, who assured him he
had been carried by bad weather, in an Indian ship, out of the Indian
Ocean, for forty days, beyond Cape Sofala and the Green Islands, towards
the west and south-west, and that in the opinion of the astronomer on
board, (such as all Indian ships carry,) they had been hurried away 2000
miles. He concludes by expressing his firm belief that the sea surrounding
the southern and south-eastern part of the world is navigable; and that the
Indian Sea is ocean, and not a lake. We may observe, by the bye, that in
another passage inserted in the margin, he expressly declares that the
Indian ships had no compass, but were directed by an astronomer on board,
who was continually making his observations.
It is evident that the two accounts are at variance, as the first asserts
that the passage was round Cape Diab, at the termination of Africa, and the
second that it was round Cape Sofala, fifteen degrees to the north of the
extremity of this quarter of the world: but without attempting to reconcile
this contradiction, it is abundantly evident that Mauro, by noticing the
Portuguese navigators, as having reached 2000 miles to the south of
Gibraltar, and adding that 2000 miles more of the coast of Africa had been
explored by an Indian ship, meant to encourage the further enterprises of
the Portuguese, by the natural inference that a very small space of
unsailed sea must lie between the two lines, which were the limits of the
navigation of the Portuguese and Indian vessel. The unexplored space was
indeed much greater than Mauro estimated and represented it in his map to
be; but, as Dr. Vincent remarks, his error in this respect manifestly
contributed to the prosecution of the Portuguese designs, as the error of
the ancient geographers, in approximating China to Europe, produced the
discovery of America by Columbus.
We have dwelt thus long on the map of Mauro, as being by far the most
important of the maps of the second description, or those in which were
inserted real or supposed discoveries. The rest of this description require
little notice.
A map of the date of 1346, in Castilian, represents Cape Bojada in Africa
as known, and having been doubled at that period. A manuscript, preserved
at Genoa, mentions that a ship had sailed from Majorca to a river called
Vedamel, or Rui Jaura (probably Rio-do-Ouro,) but her fate was not known.
The Genoese historians relate that two of their countrymen in 1291,
attempted to reach India by the west; the fate of this enterprize is also
unknown. The Canary Islands, the first discovery of which is supposed to
have taken place before the Christian era, and which were never afterwards
completely lost sight of, being described by the Arabian geographers,
appear in a Castilian map of 1346. Teneriffe is called in this map Inferno,
in conformity with the popular notion of the ancients, that these islands
were the seat of the blessed. In a map of 1384, there is an island called
Isola-di-legname, or the Isle of Wood, which, from this appellation, and
its situation, is supposed by some geographers to be the island of Madeira.
It would seem that some notions respecting the Azores were obscurely
entertained towards the end of the fourteenth century, as islands nearly in
their position are laid down in the maps of 1380.
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