There
Were, However, Circumstances Which Soon Led The Discoverers To Doubt Of The
Truth Of The First Conceived Opinion.
The Portuguese had visited no part of
Asia, either continent or island, from the coast of Malabar to China,
On
which they had not found natives highly civilized, who had made
considerable progress in the elegant as well as the useful arts of life,
and who were evidently accustomed to intercourse with strangers, and
acquainted with commerce. In all these respects, the New World formed a
striking contrast: the islands were inhabited by savages, naked,
unacquainted with the rudest arts of life, and indebted for their
sustenance to the spontaneous productions of a fertile soil and a fine
climate. The continent, for the most part, presented immense forests, and
with the exception of Mexico and Peru, was thinly inhabited by savages as
ignorant and low in the scale of human nature as those who dwelt on the
islands.
The natural productions and the animals differed also most essentially from
those, not only of India, but also of Europe. There were no lemons,
oranges, pomegranates, quinces, figs, olives, melons, vines, nor sugar
canes: neither apples, pears, plumbs, cherries, currants, gooseberries,
rice, nor any other corn but maize. There was no poultry (except turkeys),
oxen, sheep, goats, swine, horses, asses, camels, elephants, cats, nor
dogs, except an animal resembling a dog, but which did not bark. Even the
inhabitants of Mexico and Peru were unacquainted with iron and the other
useful metals, and destitute of the address requisite for acquiring such
command of the inferior animals, as to derive any considerable aid from
their labour.
In addition to these most marked and decided points of difference between
India and the newly discovered quarter of the globe, it was naturally
inferred that a coast extending, as America was soon ascertained to do,
many hundred miles to the northward and to the southward of the equator,
could not possibly be that of the Indies. At last, in the year 1513, a view
of the Grand Ocean having been attained from the mountains of Darien, the
supposition that the New World formed part of India was abandoned. To this
ocean the name of the South Sea was given.
In the mean time, the Portuguese had visited all the islands of the Malay
Archipelago, as far as the Moluccas. Portugal had received from the Pope a
grant of all the countries she might discover: the Spaniards, after the
third voyage of Columbus, obtained a similar grant. As, however, it was
necessary to draw a line between those grants, the Pope fixed on 27-1/2 deg.
west of the meridian of the island of Ferro. The sovereigns, for their
mutual benefit, allowed it to 370 leagues west of the Cape Verd islands:
all the countries to the east of this line were to belong to Portugal, and
all those to the west of it to Spain. According to this line of
demarcation, supposing the globe to be equally divided between the two
powers, it is plain that the Moluccas were situated within the hemisphere
which belonged to Spain.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 286 of 524
Words from 148997 to 149517
of 273188
