Of the voyages of the ancients, properly so called, that is, of such as preceded the fall of the Roman Empire at the end of the fourth century, I shall here say little. These maritime expeditions, confined for the most part to the Mediterranean, though extending for some distance along the coasts of the Indian and Atlantic oceans, with occasional voyages designedly or accidentally prolonged to more distant islands, and it may be continents, come down to us through antique histories, cosmographies, and poems, so mixed with vague hypothetical and mythological conceptions, that the most searching investigation is often unable to separate fact from fable. There are multitudes of classic and mediæval legends adopted by Tasso, Pulci, and other Italian poets, such, for example, as that which makes the Greek wanderer Ulysses the pioneer of western adventure, which in a sober treatise are scarcely worthy of mention. Turning to the dawn his vessel's poop, this son of Laertes, it is said, passed Gibraltar, the bound ordained by Hercules not to be overstepped by man, and, as Dante tells us, sailed for the Happy Isles of the unknown Atlantic, unrestrained by son, or father, or even Penelope's ever-weaving web of love.

A little journey was a wonderful exploit before the time of Christ—instance the immortal fame achieved by Hanno, the Carthaginian, in visiting the west coast of Africa, b. c. 570; by Herodotus, in making the excursion of Egypt and India, b. c. 464-456; by Pytheas, in his voyage to the British Isles, b. c. 340; by Nearchus, in descending the Indus, b. c. 326; by Eudoxus, in his attempt to sail round Africa, b. c. 130; by Cæsar, in undertaking the conquest of Gaul, b. c. 58; by Strabo, in penetrating Asia some thirty or forty years later. After the Christian era Pausanias, a Roman, in 175 wrote a guide-book of Greece; Fa Hian, a Chinese monk, went westward into India in the year 400 or thereabout; Cosmas Indicopleustes travelled in India a century and a half later and wrote a book to prove the world square, and the universe an oblong coffer; Arculphe wrote of the Holy Land about 650; an Englishman, Willibald, made the tour of southern Europe and Palestine, setting out from Southampton in 721; in 851 went Soliman from Persia to the China sea. So it has been said.

Indeed, the writings of Herodotus indicate that, over two thousand years before Dias and Vasco da Gama, Africa was circumnavigated by a fleet of Phœnician ships sent by Pharaoh Necho down the Red Sea with orders to return to Egypt by way of the Pillars of Hercules. A Persian, Sataspes, endeavored to accomplish the voyage from the other direction, but failed. Plato's island of Atlantis, founded by the god Neptune, was of great size, "larger than Asia and Libya together, and was situated over against the straits now called the Pillars of Hercules." The climate and soil were so good that fruits ripened twice every year. There were metals, with elephants and other animals in abundance. Upon a mountain was a beautiful city with gold and ivory palaces, having gardens and statues. Unfortunately in time the sea swallowed up this island, so that it could scarcely have been America.

So far as these voyages and strange tales concern the possible knowledge of America by the ancients, I have already discussed them in my Native Races of the Pacific States. Therein is mentioned a theory which has found many advocates, and to which I will again briefly allude in this place. It is that at the beginning of the Christian era America was visited by the Apostle St Thomas. He was accompanied by a number of fellow-laborers in the ministry, who preached the gospel and planted the Christian religion in America. The theory is ably advocated in the excellent work of Rev. W. Gleeson, The History of the Catholic Church in California. The principal arguments advanced may be briefly stated as follows: First, that the whole tenor of Scripture teaching is in favor of the supposition that the gospel was preached to all the world from the beginning, rather than after the lapse of several centuries. Second, that at a date fixed by Mexican hieroglyphics as a little before the middle of the first century after Christ, a celebrated personage, certainly the most remarkable in Mexican mythology, came from the north. He is represented as a white man, with flowing beard, clad in a long white robe, adorned with red crosses, head uncovered, and a staff in his hand. This was the Quetzalcoatl, whom the Mexicans afterward worshipped, and whose return was so anxiously looked for by them. See Torquemada, Monarq. Ind. Third, that to him popular tradition ascribes the worship paid to the cross, the practice of confession, and in a word all the customs found on the arrival of the Spaniards to be nearly identical with those of the Christian religion. Veytia, Hist. Ant. de Mexico. Fourth, that the name Quetzalcoatl is synonymous with that of St Thomas. See Native Races, v. 26. Fifth, that Quetzalcoatl promised on his departure to return at some future day with his posterity and resume the possession of the empire, and that day was looked forward to with general confidence, Prescott's Conq. Mex., and that a general feeling prevailed at the time of Montezuma that the period of his return had arrived. Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mex. Sixth, that there were at the convent of Nijapa, in the province of Oajaca, hieroglyphs containing all the principal doctrines of the Christian religion, and the coming of the Apostle to the country. Id.

Sahagun, who wrote at the time of the conquest, speaks of the general belief in this prophecy, and assures us that on the arrival of the Spaniards they repeatedly offered them divine honors, believing that their god Quetzalcoatl had returned. Conq. Mex., i. chap. iii.

"It is then undeniably true," says Gleeson, Catholic Church in Cal., 185, "that a popular tradition existed in the country respecting a prophecy made by Quetzalcohuatl, in which was foretold the future arrival of whites on the coast; and this, while it proves the reality of the man, and his character as a teacher of religion, also proves the still more important and appreciable fact of his being a Christian, and of western origin; for, it was clearly set forth in the prophecy, that the persons who should come would be whites, and of the same religion as he. The time also seems to have been specified by the Apostle, if we are to judge by the expression that they were expecting him every day. And, indeed, Boturini assures us that the time mentioned in the Mexican hieroglyphics was that in which the Christians arrived. The year ce acatl was that foretold by Quetzalcohuatl, and in that year the Spaniards landed in the Country." On ancient voyages and cosmography see also Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 125-206.

It is the results of ancient voyages, the point of geographical knowledge attained by ancient civilization in its most advanced stage and by it bequeathed to the Dark Age, and not the voyages themselves, with which we have to do at present. This knowledge is found for the most part embodied in the system of Ptolemy, the Alexandrian geographer of the second century, whose works became the standard text-books, and holding their prominence for fourteen hundred years were not superseded as late as the sixteenth century, but were republished from time to time, with additions, setting forth the results of new discoveries. In this manner twenty-one editions appeared during the first half of that century. Nor was even Ptolemy the originator of this prolonged system. One hundred and fifty years before him was the Greek geographer Strabo, who gave descriptions of countries and peoples, fixing his localities usually by itinerary distances; and to this work of Strabo's, Ptolemy added a century and a half of progress, and determined his localities by astronomical observation. The work of Pomponius Mela, the Roman geographer who wrote probably somewhat later than Strabo, is regarded as no improvement on that of his predecessor.

Ptolemy's World was nearly all in the north temperate zone, embracing about fifty degrees of latitude and one hundred and twenty of longitude. The Fortunate Isles, now called the Canaries, were known to Ptolemy, and by him used as a western limit or first meridian. This, and as a nucleus of poetic myths, seem to have been their only use; as Muñoz says, Hist. del Nuevo Mundo, p. 30: "Fuera de este uso apenas aprovecharon sino para entretenir ociosas imaginaciones con fábulas de poetas." The eastern limit was vaguely located in the region beyond the Ganges; actually in about 100° east longitude. On the south were included the African coasts of the Mediterranean and Red Sea, with the southern coasts of Arabia and India proper—the term India being then applied indefinitely to all eastern lands, including even parts of Africa—thus fixing the southern bound at about 30° north latitude in the west, and 10° in the east. Northward the limit may be placed a little above 60°, within which falls the southern part of the Scandinavian peninsula, then supposed to be an island, and also the island of Thule, the location of which is disputed, some claiming it to have been Iceland, others the Faroe Islands, and others the Shetland Islands. But Ptolemy's latitudes were all some ten degrees too far north, while in his longitudes he went still further astray; since, reckoning from the Canaries as his first meridian, he made his last meridian 180°, when it should have been 120°, and thus by narrowing half the circumference of the globe some sixty degrees he made the world nearly one third less than it really is. Authorities differ, however, as to what were Ptolemy's ideas. But more of this hereafter. On the opposite page is a map in which the world as known in these times is left white, the shaded portions being the result of subsequent discoveries down to the last half of the fifteenth century. A map of Ptolemy's World, reduced to its true proportions, may be seen in Goselin, Recherches sur la géographie systématique et positive des anciens, tom. iv., Paris, 1813.

Within these limits, then, geographical knowledge was confined at the end of the fourth century; limits not sharply defined, but indefinite and wavering according to ages, to the directions of conquest, and to distances from Mediterranean centres. Beyond these limits was a realm of darkness peopled by strange beings, creatures of poetic fancy or crude conjecture. Just as the wonder-land of Homer to contemporaneous eastern Greeks, was Italy, with its strange waters inhabited by very strange beasts, and Sicily, and neighboring isles, where were the Satyrs, and the gigantic one-eyed Cyclops eating milk and mutton and men, so to later teachers were the strange seas beyond. On the north was an impenetrable region of eternal ice; on the south, an equatorial zone of burning heat; a barrier of frost on the one side and of fire on the other, both equally uninhabitable to the European man, and cutting off all communication with possible habitable lands elsewhere. The burning zone, however, seems to have been a popular idea, rather than a part of the system taught by Ptolemy, who, indeed, held that Africa extended south-east and north-east toward the eastern parts of Asia, making of the Indian Ocean an immense gulf not connected with the Atlantic on the west. Strabo and other geographers who preceded Ptolemy gave Africa approximately its correct shape; traditions of its circumnavigation even were kept alive, in spite of Ptolemy's theory, influencing geographic thought not a little during the fifteenth century. Irving is of opinion, Columbus, vol. iii. p. 440, that modern authors consider the knowledge of the ancients concerning Africa much less extensive than has been generally supposed; but Major, Prince Henry, p. 89 et seq., accepts a circumnavigation of Africa in the seventh century b. c., and also Hanno's voyage far down the African coast, placing the date of the latter 570 b. c. Among the philosophers of western Europe no definite hypotheses appear to have been advanced as to the extent of land beyond the known region; as to the ideas of the Arabs and Buddhist priests concerning the matter it is difficult to determine. See Kohl's Hist. Discov., p. 149; Draper's Intellectual Development, p. 451, New York, 1872. Beyond the Fortunate Isles to the west stretched a Mare Tenebrosum, or Sea of Darkness, as early writers express it, separating the known western coast from the far unknown east. In this dark sea tradition planted islands at various points, reiterating the fact of their existence so often that names and locations were finally given them on maps, though the islands themselves have never yet been found. Except these fabulous islands, there was little thought of land between the coasts of Europe and Asia. Compare maps in this volume; also George Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i. p. 6, Boston, 1870; D'Avesac, in Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 1845, tom. cv. p. 293; tom. cvi. p. 47.

To sum up the geographical knowledge of the ancients, we have first, the sphericity of the earth surmised, although its size was vaguely conceived and underrated; secondly, the positive knowledge of Europeans limited to the unshaded portion of the map on page 73; thirdly, divers theories respecting the conformation of southern Africa; fourthly, a mare oceanum stretching westward to the unknown Asiatic shore, with hypothetical islands intervening, and expressed opinions that this sea was navigable, and that possibly India might be reached by sailing westward. These ideas, vague as they seem, were held only by the learned few; the world of the ignorant reached scarcely beyond the horizon of their actual experience. Not until long after its actual circumnavigation, in the sixteenth century, was the popular mind able to grasp the idea of the earth's sphericity.

We come now to mediæval times, when from the fifth to the fifteenth century the cosmographical as well as all other knowledge of the ancients lay well-nigh dormant; to the people a land of darkness as well as a sea, though in some few colleges and convents these things were thought of. "Ces ténèbres," says Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. p. 59, "s'étendaient sans doute sur les masses; mais, dans les couvens et les colléges quelques individus conservaient les traditions de l'antiquité." Upon this world of darkness light first broke from the far north, the voyages of the Scandinavians from the ninth to the twelfth centuries being the aurora borealis of maritime discovery. These Northmen, as in their expeditions Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes were indiscriminately called, by their warlike propensities made themselves known and feared along the shores of Europe at an early date; but their western discoveries were known only to themselves; at all events, no trace of distant voyages to the west are found in the records of their neighbors. It is only quite recently that the sagas of the Northmen were brought to the attention of European scholars; and when the Danish bishop, Müller, published his bibliography of the sagas, 3 vols., Copenhagen, 1817-1820, these narratives were held to be more fiction than fact. Even so late a writer as George Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. i. pp. 5, 6, says that the story of colonization by the Northmen "rests on narratives, mythological in form, and obscure in meaning; ancient, yet not contemporary," and that "no clear historic evidence establishes the natural probability that they accomplished the passage." Irving, Columbus, vol. iii. pp. 432-5, considers the matter "still to be wrapped in much doubt and obscurity." Both of these authors, however, seem to have considered only the evidence presented by Malte-Brun and Forster. Since their time proofs beyond question have established the authenticity of these voyages of the Northmen. The sagas on American discoveries are preserved in the archives at Copenhagen, with a collection of other historical data, reaching down to the fourteenth century, the date of their completion. It is true that they deal somewhat in the marvellous—they would not be authentic else, written at that time—but they contain tales no more wonderful or monstrous than the writings of more southern nations. See an account of the Copenhagen documents and the examination of their authenticity in De Costa's Pre-Columbian Discov. Am., pp. i-lx. Two nearly contemporary ecclesiastical histories—that of Adam of Bremen, 1073, and Ordericus Vitalis, about 1100—describe briefly the western lands of the Northmen. Further reference, Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 32; Rafn, Antiquitates Am., p. 337; Kohl's Hist. Discov., p. 76.

Vague notions were not wanting of communication with America before the time of the Northmen, but these, whatever they were, are now to us pure speculation and may be omitted here. Passing over a general movement by which before the middle of the ninth century the Northmen appear to have broken through their former bounds, and to have extended their plundering raids in all directions, taking possession of the Shetland and Faroe islands and even of the north of Britain, we come to the first definite adventure westward.

[a. d. 860-4.] Two bold men, Naddod and Gardar, in one of their coast-island cruises, were driven from their course to the north-west and discovered Iceland, called by one Snowland, and by the other Gardar Island. Kohl, Hist. Discov., p. 61, dates both voyages 860; Forster gives 861 to Naddod's; other authors place the former in the year 860, and the latter in 864.

[874.] Ingolf made a settlement in Iceland at a point still called by his name. Other immigrants followed, and a flourishing colony was founded. The Northmen found on the island Irish priests, who had come there at a time not definitely known, but who immediately abandoned the country to the new settlers. Within twenty years thereafter Iceland was fairly well inhabited. De Costa, Pre-Columbian Discov. Am., pp. xxii-iv., makes the date a. d. 875.

[876.] One Gunnbjörn, an Icelandic colonist, is reported to have seen accidentally, from a distance, the coast of Greenland. Kohl dates this voyage 877.

[982-6.] Eric the Red, banished from Iceland for murder in 982, sailed west, found land, remained there three years, and returned, naming the country Greenland to attract settlers. In 985, or 986, he sailed again with a larger force, this time founding a settlement to which other adventurers resorted. Of the first voyage Kohl makes no mention.

[983.] One of the sagas contains a report by an Irish merchant that one Are Marson was carried in a storm to Whiteman's Land "in the Western Ocean, opposite Vinland, six days' sail west of Ireland." Rafn thinks this may have been that part of America in the vicinity of Florida; others make it the Azores. There are also vague reports of later voyages to the same land by Björn Asbrandson in 999, and by Gudleif in 1027. In the present stage of investigation the proof is insufficient to establish an Irish pre-Scandinavian discovery of America.

[990.] In this year, or, as De Costa makes it, in 986, Biarne, sailing from Iceland in search of his father, who had previously gone to Greenland, was carried far to the south-west, to within sight of land, undoubtedly America, which he coasted north-east for several days and returned to Greenland. Three points particularly noticed on the new coast are conjectured by Kohl to have been Cape Cod, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.

[1000.] Leif, son of Eric the Red, sailed from Greenland south-west in search of the lands seen by Biarne, reached the same in reverse order, landing probably at Newfoundland, which he named Helluland (Stony Land); Nova Scotia, he called Markland (Woodland); and passing round Cape Cod, made a settlement, named after himself, Leifsbudir, at some point on Narragansett Bay. He called this country Vinland from the fact that vines were found there, and the name was afterwards applied to the whole region extending northward to Markland. In the spring of 1001 Leif returned to Greenland with a cargo of grapes and wood.

[1002-5.] Thorwald, another of Eric's sons, sailed with one vessel to Vinland, where Leif had landed, and lived there through the winter by fishing. Early in 1003 he explored the country westward in boats, and in the spring of 1004 doubled Cape Cod, naming it Kialarnes (Ship's Nose), and perished in a battle with the Skraellings, or Indians, at some point on the shore of Massachusetts Bay. His companions spent the winter at Leifsbudir and returned to Greenland in 1005.

[1008.] In the spring of 1008 Thorfinn Karlsefne sailed from Greenland with three vessels to Helluland—which name was applied not only to Newfoundland but to the region north of that point—and thence along the coast to Nova Scotia, and to Cape Cod. Here the party divided, Thorhall, the hunter, in attempting to explore northward, being driven by a storm to Ireland, while Thorfinn spent the winter farther south near Leifsbudir, where a son was born to him. After an unsuccessful search for Thorhall by one vessel, a third winter was spent in Vinland, and in 1011 Thorfinn returned to Greenland, leaving perhaps a small colony. De Costa, Pre-Columbian Discov. Am., pp. 48-76, makes the date of this voyage 1007-10.

[1012.] Helge, Finboge, and Eric's daughter Freydisa, who had before visited America with her husband, sailed to Vinland, and such as were not killed in the internal dissensions of the party returned to Greenland in 1013. The records of this expedition are very slight. De Costa's date is 1011-12.

[1035.] Adam of Bremen speaks of Frisian or German navigators who about the year 1035 landed on an island beyond Iceland, where the inhabitants were of great size, and were accompanied by fierce dogs—perhaps the Eskimos.

[1121.] After the expeditions that have been mentioned, concerning each of which the sagas contain one or more accounts, no farther regular reports have been preserved; but various voyages are briefly alluded to in different records, as though trips to the new regions of Vinland were no longer of sufficient rarity to be specially noticed. Such allusions refer to voyages made in 1121, 1285, 1288, 1289, 1290, and 1357. After 1357 no more is heard of the western lands. The settlements were gradually abandoned both in Vinland and Greenland, as the power of the Northmen declined, and so far as can be known, even their memory was buried in the unread records of former greatness. On Scandinavian discoveries, besides Rafn and De Costa, see Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 32; Kohl's Hist. Discov., pp. 61-85 and 478; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 88-128; Abstract of Rafn, in Journal Lond. Geog. Soc., 1838, vol. viii. pp. 114-29.

Thus after this play of northern lights upon the western horizon for four or five centuries, enterprise in that direction languished, and finally the Sea of Darkness lapsed into its primeval obscurity. Nevertheless the deeds of the Scandinavians must have become more or less known to other parts of Europe, for the spirit of uneasiness which sent these Northmen across their western waters sent them also—particularly the Danes—eastward in the Holy Crusades. It would be well for the student to examine the works of Adam of Bremen, and Ordericus Vitalis, who beside these pre-Columbian voyages describe also the Crusades. Moreover, Iceland had Catholic bishops and was therefore in communication with Rome, where the discoveries of the Northmen must have been known. Rafn, Antiquitates Am., pp. 283, 292, and De Costa, Pre-Columbian Discov. Am., pp. 106-109, give translations from Scandinavian archives of contemporaneous descriptions of the earth in which these New World discoveries of the Northmen are included. Sailing charts and maps of the new discoveries must have been drawn by the Northmen, for although none of them were preserved, yet in Torfæus, Grœnlandia antiqua, Hauniæ, 1706, made by Icelandic draughtsmen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in Ptolemy's Geography, edition of 1482, is information of certain things contained in no other charts of the period extant, which must therefore have been partially compiled from Scandinavian sources.

It is not to be supposed that the Northmen imagined that they had found a new continent; very naturally to them Greenland, Helluland, Markland, and Vinland were but the western continuation of Europe. It is to this belief, as well as to the prevailing apathy and skepticism of the age concerning matters beyond the reach of positive knowledge, that the strange fact of the loss of all trace of these discoveries is due.

The exact results of these ancient expeditions, and their influence on the subsequent revival of maritime enterprise, form a difficult and as yet undecided point in the discussion of this subject. Kunstmann gives particular attention to this matter, and attaches more importance to northern voyages and their connection with later expeditions than most other authors; still it has not yet been proved that Prince Henry, Toscanelli, or Columbus in the fifteenth century had any knowledge of north-western discoveries.

[1096-1271.] The Crusades—as expeditions, but chiefly for their results—deserve a brief mention in this connection. When in the seventh century Palestine passed from Christian to Mahometan hands, in which possession it has remained with but temporary interruptions to the present time, Christian pilgrimages to the Holy City for a few centuries were allowed, and to some extent protected. By successive changes of dynasty, however, power was transferred from the Arab to the Turkish branch of the Mahometans, so that in the eleventh century Christian pilgrims were cruelly oppressed, and hindered from their pious visits to the tomb of Christ. Roused at first by the exhortations of Peter the Hermit, Italy, France, England, and Germany sent armies of the undisciplined and fanatical rabble to avenge the insults to their faith, and wrest the Holy City from the power of barbarian heretics. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century nine expeditions were undertaken eastward in the prosecution of this work. Jerusalem was several times taken and retaken, but finally the Crescent was successful in resisting the encroachments of the Cross, and the Crusades failed in their visionary purpose. Still the continued migration of vast multitudes, from different nations through strange and distant lands, contributed much to increase popular knowledge of the world, to arouse fresh interest in regions hitherto little known, and to excite curiosity respecting the countries still further to the east. Meanwhile, commerce received an impetus from the work of furnishing supplies to the crusaders; so that these expeditions are included by modern writers as prominent among the causes which led to the coming revival of civilization.

[1147.] During the twelfth century few maritime expeditions are reported deserving of notice. At some not very clearly defined date before 1147, eight Arabs, the Almagrurins, are said to have sailed thirty-five days south-west from Lisbon with the intention of exploring the Sea of Darkness. At the end of the thirty-five days they found and named an Isle of Sheep, and twelve days farther south reached another island peopled by red men. They are said to have found there a man who spoke Arabic. Upon the whole the claim to a discovery of any part of America in this voyage should be slight. If the voyage be authentic, the land reached was perhaps the Canary Islands; some say those of Cape Verde.

[1160-73.] Benjamin de Tudela, a Spanish Jew, travelled for thirteen years in India, bringing back considerable information respecting Chinese Tartary and the islands of the Indian Ocean. D. Benjamini, Itinerarium ex versione Montani, Antwerp, 1575; Itinerarium D. Benjaminis, Leyden, 1633; Travels of Benjamin, Son of Jonas, London, 1783.

[1170.] In this year is placed the reported voyage of Madoc, a Welsh prince, who, sailing to the west and north from Ireland, landed on an unknown shore. He afterward returned to this new country with ten ships with the intention of colonizing, but was never again heard of. This voyage rests on very slight authority, but has claimed importance by reason of reports, long believed, of the existence in various parts of America of Welsh-speaking Indian tribes. These reports, like scores of others referring the Americans to European relationships, proved groundless. To say the least, the voyage of Madoc must be considered doubtful. The most ancient Discouery of the West Indies by Madoc the sonne of Owen Guyneth, Prince of North-wales, in the yeere 1170; taken out of the history of Wales, in Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 1.

[1246 et seq.] In the middle of the thirteenth century the desire to extend Christianity was encouraged by rumored conversions already made in the dominions of the Mogul, and especially by the report of a powerful Christian monarch, Prester John, who had reigned somewhere in the interior of Asia. This report led to the sending of several priests as missionaries to the far East. Carpini in 1246, and Ascelino in 1254, Italian Franciscans, penetrated to the region now known as Chinese Turkestan. About the same time, 1253 according to Hakluyt, Rubruquis, also a Franciscan, from Brabant, traversed the central Asiatic deserts. He was the first to present a definite idea of the position of Tartary and Cathay. A notice of his travels was given in the writings of Roger Bacon in 1267. Toward the end of this century Odorico, of the same order, visited Persia, India, and finally China, remaining three years in Peking. Viaggio del Beato Frate Odorico di Porto Maggiore del Frivli fatto nell'Anno MCCCXVIII (half a century later than above), in Ramusio, tom. ii., fol. 254. See also Hakluyt's Voy., vol. i. pp. 21-117; vol. ii. pp. 39, 53; Navarrete, Col. Viages, tom. i. pp. ix. x.

[1250-95.] Nicolo and Maffio Polo, Venetian brothers, left Venice in 1250 on a trading trip north-eastward. Passing north of the Caspian Sea, they spent three years at Bokhara, and afterward in 1265, proceeded to the court of Kublai Khan at Kemenfu in Chinese Tartary, whence they returned in 1269, intrusted with a mission to the Pope. In 1271 they again set out, taking with them Marco, son of Nicolo. They revisited the Tartar court, where they spent seventeen years, and returned by sea down the Chinese and Indian coasts to Ormuz in Persia and thence overland to Constantinople, reaching Venice in 1295. Marco seems to have been a great favorite at the eastern court, where he was intrusted with missions in all directions. By means of his own travels and by reports of the natives from all sections whom he met, he gained an extensive knowledge of China and adjoining countries, including the numerous islands of the coast, chief among which was Zipangu, or Japan. From his memoranda, he afterwards wrote in prison, a full account of his eastern travels, which was copied and widely circulated in manuscript. See Hakluyt Society, Divers Voyages, Introd., p. lii., London, 1850, for an account of printed editions of Polo's work. Its authenticity and general reliability are now admitted, though doubtless errors have been multiplied by copyists. This journey of Marco Polo was by far the most important, for revising geography, of any undertaken during the middle ages. From this time the coasts of Asia were laid down on maps and described with tolerable accuracy by cosmographers. De i Viaggi di Messer Marco Polo, Gentil 'hvomo Venetiano, in Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 2-60; Marco Polo de Veniesia de le meravegliose cose del mondo, Venice, 1496; Marci Pauli veneti de regionibus orientalibus libri tres, Cologne, 1671.

The Venetians were the most enterprising navigators of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They reached England at an early date,—Estancelin, Recherches, pp. 114-16, Paris, 1832—and not improbably extended their commercial operations still farther north, Iceland being at the time a flourishing republic with Catholic bishops. Kohl's Hist. Discov., pp. 92-4. No details however are preserved of any particular one of these voyages, nor of such as may have been directed toward Cape Non, the southern limit of oceanic navigation. Some time during this century a Moor, Ibn Fatimah, was driven by storms from Cape Non down past Cape Blanco, and his adventure was recorded in an Arabian geography.

[1291.] Doria and Vivaldi, Genoese, undertook a voyage down the African coast with a view of reaching India, and were last heard of at a place called Gozora. On this voyage, which rests on several authorities, has been founded a claim that the Italians preceded the Portuguese in passing Cape Bojador. Major, Prince Henry, pp. 99-110, concludes from an examination of all the documents that there are no grounds for this claim, although admitting the voyage and its purpose, in fact everything but its success. Gozora was probably Cape Non. Kohl regards this expedition as uncertain. One of the documents gives the date as 1281; from which circumstance Kohl and Humboldt erroneously make of it two voyages. D'Avesac, in Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 1845, tom. cviii. p. 45, has the date 1285. Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 30-1, speaks of Genoese expeditions and the rediscovery of the Canaries during this century.

[1306.] On a map made by the Venetian Sanuto in 1306, Africa is represented as surrounded by the sea, but there is no evidence that the geography of that region is derived from any actual observations. The map simply shows one of the two theories then held respecting the shape of southern Africa.

[1332 et seq.] Sir John Mandeville, an English physician, between 1332 and 1366, travelled in eastern parts, including the Holy Land, India, and China. On his return he wrote in three languages an account of his adventures, with descriptions of the countries visited. See Hakluyt Soc., Divers Voy., Introd. p. xliii. His work corroborates that of Marco Polo, and although full of exaggerations, and probably tampered with by copyists in respect to adventures and anecdotes, "yet," says Irving, "his accounts of the countries which he visited have been found far more veracious than had been imagined." Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. iii. pp. 128-38; Travels of Sir John Mandeville, London, 1725.

[1341 et seq.] As we have seen, the Canaries were known to the ancients, and made by Ptolemy the western limit of the world; but subsequently they were nearly forgotten until rediscovered and visited, perhaps several times, toward the middle of the fourteenth century, by the Portuguese. There is a definite account of one of these voyages. Two vessels were sent there by the King of Portugal in 1341, and nearly all the islands of the group visited, but no settlement was made. Before this, Luis de la Cerda represented to the Pope the existence of such islands, and received by a bull of lordship of them, with the title of Prince of Fortune. The king of Portugal claimed in 1345 to have sent out previous expeditions to the islands. The project of Cerda proved a failure and no colony was founded. Voyages to the Canaries became quite frequent before the end of the century. Galvano, Discoveries, London, 1862; and in Collection of Curious Voyages, London, 1812, p. 10; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 30-1; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 1-4. Major, Prince Henry, pp. 139-45, dates the bull 1334.

[1346.] In August, 1346, Jaime Ferrer, a Catalan navigator, sailed from Majorca in the Mediterranean to search down the African coast for the Rujaura, or River of Gold, and never was heard from. This is proved by a document in the Genoese archives, and by an inscription on a Catalan map of 1375. Major shows this to have been an expedition in search of an unknown or imaginary river of gold, whose supposed existence rested on ancient traditions that a branch of the Nile flowed into the Atlantic, and which belief was strengthened by the gold brought from Guinea by the Arabs. Humboldt understands this Rujaura to have been the Rio d'Ouro below Cape Bojador, an inlet named later by the Portuguese; and he also states that Ferrer actually reached that point; but of this there seems to be no evidence.

[1351 et seq.] The Azores appear to have been discovered by the Portuguese early in this half century, appearing on a map of 1351. There is however no account of the voyage by which this discovery was made, although there is a tradition of a Greek who was there cast away in 1370. On a Genoese map of the same date the Madeira group is shown, having probably been discovered by Portuguese ships under Genoese captains early in the fourteenth century.

[1364.] By Villault de Bellefond, Relation des costes d'Afrique, Paris, 1669, it is stated that the Dieppese in 1364 made a voyage round Cape Verde, and far beyond, establishing trading-posts, which were repeatedly visited in the following years. On this account, repeated by many writers—Estancelin, Recherches, p. 72; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. p. 285—is founded the French claim of having preceded the Portuguese in passing Cape Bojador and occupying the gold coast. Major, Prince Henry, pp. 117-33, maintains by strong proofs that this voyage rests on no good authority, and that the French occupation of that coast is of much later date.

[1380.] Nicolo Zeno, a Venetian, sailing northward for England, was driven in a storm still farther north, and landed on some islands in possession of the Northmen, which he named Friesland, but which are supposed to have been the Faroe group. Kindly received by the people, he sent to Venice for his brother, and both spent there the rest of their lives, making frequent excursions to neighboring islands, and gaining a knowledge of other more distant lands known to the Northmen, including two countries called Drogeo and Estotiland, lying to the southward of Greenland, which countries the Frieslanders claimed once to have visited. Nicolo died in 1395, and Antonio in 1404, after writing an account of their adventures, which, with a chart, he sent to a third brother, Carlo. The manuscript was preserved by the family and first published under the title Dei Commentarii del viaggio in Persia, etc., Venezia, 1558. After passing the ordeal of criticism the work is generally accepted as a faithful report of actual occurrences, though embellished, like all writings of the time, with fable. Dello Scoprimento dell' Isola Frislanda Eslanda, en Grovelanda, et Icaria, in Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 230-4; Hakluyt's Voy., vol. iii. pp. 121-8; Bos, Leben der See-Helden, pp. 523-7; Cancellieri, Notizie di Colombo, pp. 48-9; Lelewel, Géog. du moyen âge, tom. iii. pp. 74 et seq. Irving, however, Columbus, vol. iii. pp. 435-40, sees in this voyage only another of "the fables circulated shortly after the discovery of Columbus, to arrogate to other nations and individuals the credit of the achievement," while Zahrtmann, Remarks on the Voy. to the Northern Hemisphere, ascribed to the Zeni of Venice, in Journal of the Geog. Soc., vol. v. pp. 102-28, London, 1835, claims that the whole account is a fable.

The chart by the brothers Zeni, published with the manuscript, is of great importance as the first known map which shows any part of America. It contains internal evidences of its own authenticity, one of which is that Greenland is much better drawn than could have been done from other or extraneous sources even in 1558. I give from Kohl's fac-simile a copy of the map, omitting a few of the names.

There can be little doubt that the countries marked Estotiland, Drogeo, and Icaria—possibly Nova Scotia, New England, and Newfoundland—owe their position on this chart to the actual knowledge of America, obtained either by a fishing-vessel wrecked there, as stated by the Zeni, or from a tradition preserved since the time of the Northmen. The lines of latitude and longitude were not on the original manuscript chart, but were added by the editors in 1558. Lelewel, Géog. du moyen âge, tom. iii. pp. 79-101, Bruxelles, 1852; Kohl's Hist. Discov., pp. 97-106.

At an unknown date, probably near the end of the thirteenth century, Robert Machin, an Englishman, eloped with a lady in his own vessel from Bristol. He steered for France, but was driven by a tempest to the island of Madeira, where both died. Some of the crew escaped to the African coast, where they were taken prisoners, but afterward were redeemed by the Spaniards, to whom one of them related the discovery of Madeira, his account leading to its rediscovery. Major concludes, "that henceforth the story of this accidental discovery of Madeira by Machin must be accepted as a reality," but the date cannot be fixed. That of 1344 often assigned to the voyage results from a misreading of Galvano. Beside Galvano, Discov., pp. 58-9, see Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. ii. p. 1672; The Voyage of Macham, an English man, wherein he first of any man discovered the Iland of Madera, in Hakluyt, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 1; Curious and Ent. Voy., p. 13; Major's Prince Henry, p. 67; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 4.

[1402.] At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Jean de Betancourt with a company of Norman adventurers conquered Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands. He afterward became tributary to the crown of Castile, and by the aid of the Spanish government obtained possession of other islands of the group, establishing there a permanent colony. Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo Mundo, pp. 30-33; Peter Martyr, dec. i. cap. i., gives the date 1405; Galvano, Discov., p. 60; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 6; Pinkerton's Col. Voy., vol. xvi. pp. 808-15.

We enter now a new epoch in maritime discovery. Hitherto, if we exclude the voyages of the Northmen, there had been no attempt worthy the name of systematic ocean exploration. In the words of Major, "the pathways of the human race had been the mountain, the river, and the plain, the strait, the lake, the inland sea," but now a road is open through the trackless ocean, "a road replete with danger, but abundant in promise." Portugal, guided by the genius of Prince Henry the Navigator, was the first to shake off the lethargy which had so long rested on Europe. For some time past the Portuguese had been gradually eclipsing the Italians in maritime enterprise; but not until a prince leaves the pleasures of youth for the perils of the sea, throwing his life into the cause with all the ardor of a devotee, does ocean navigation become anything more than private commercial speculation, with now and then some slight aid from governments. True, others had undertaken the voyage round Africa, but Portugal was perhaps the first to make it. As D'Avesac remarks, Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1846, tom. cx. p. 161: "Les Portugais ne s'y engagèrent point les premiers; mais seuls ils y persevérèrent, et les premiers ils atteignirent le but." Born in the year 1394, at a time when under his father, John, Portugal was already casting wistful glances over the Sea of Darkness, Prince Henry devoted his early life to geographical studies and his later life to discovery. Leaving the pomp and luxury of his father's court, he removed to the coast of Algarve, and from the dreary headland of Sagres let fly his imagination along the unknown shores of Africa. Drawing to him such young noblemen as were willing to share his labors, he established a school of navigation, giving special care to the study of cartography and mathematics. The geographical position of his native land was to the Portuguese, in regard to oceanic adventure, not unlike that of the Italians in regard to Mediterranean navigation. Several causes united to inspire this prince with so noble an ambition. He desired to promote geographical science; to test the theories and traditions of the day; to know the truth concerning the disputed question of the form and extent of southern Africa; to turn the flow of riches, the gold and spices and slaves of India, from Italy into his own country. Nor was this last stimulant lessened by the fact that of late, by reason of Mahometan encroachments on Christian dominions, the old avenues of eastern traffic via the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf, or by the Red Sea and caravans across the deserts, were yearly becoming more insecure, and this too at a time when the taste for eastern luxuries was constantly increasing. Yet other incentives were Christian rivalry and Christian zeal. Spain had carried the cross to the Canaries; rumors kept coming in of Prester John and his Christian kingdom, now supposed to be in Africa instead of in Asia. Prince Henry moreover was grand master of the Order of Christ, and it behooved him to be stirring. Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. xxvi.; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 33-4.

[1415.] Prince Henry began his voyages along the coast of Africa about the year 1415, at which time João de Trasto was sent with vessels to the Canaries. It was Henry's custom to despatch an expedition almost every year, endeavoring each time to advance upon the last, and so finally attain the end of the mystery—whereat the nobles grumbled not a little about useless expense. Obviously progress southward at this rate was very slow, and many years elapsed before Cape Bojador was passed and unknown seas were entered. Major's Prince Henry, pp. 64-65.

[1416-28.] Meanwhile Pedro, Henry's brother, travelled extensively, journeying through the Holy Land, visiting Rome, Babylon, and even England. Fortunately he found at Venice a copy of Marco Polo's work, and brought it home to Prince Henry. Galvano's Discov., pp. 66-7; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 11, 12.

[1418.] Gonzalez and Vaz, who were sent this year by Prince Henry on the regular annual expedition, were driven from their course and rediscovered Porto Santo. Galvano, Discov., pp. 62-4; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 11, 12; Curious and Ent. Voy., pp. 14, 15.

[1419.] Nicolo di Conti, Venetian, spent twenty-five years in India, Mangi, and Java, returning in 1444, and confirming many of Polo's statements. Discorso sopra il Viaggio di Nicolo di Conti Venetiano, in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 373. Twice in 1419, if we may credit Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. xxvi., did Prince Henry's ships pass seventy leagues beyond Cape Non.

[1420.] Gonzalez again embarks from Portugal intending to plant a colony, and guided by one Morales, a survivor of Machin's voyage, rediscovered Madeira. Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. pp. xxvi-vii.; Major's Prince Henry, pp. 73-7; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 13; Galvano's Discov., pp. 63-4; Aa, Naaukeurige Versameling, tom. i. pt. ii. p. 16. On a certain map dated 1459 is a cape supposed to be Good Hope, with the statement that in 1420 an Indian junk had passed that point from the east; but for this no authority is given.

1431.] The Formigas and Santa María islands of the Azore group were this year discovered by Cabral. Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 15, makes the date August 15, 1432. For details of the discovery and settlement of all the eastern Atlantic islands, see idem, pp. 1-25.

[1434-6.] Gil Eannes, after an unsuccessful attempt in the preceding year, succeeded in 1434 in doubling Cape Bojador for the first time. Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, p. 34, makes the date 1433, and Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. xxvii., 1423. In 1435 Eannes with Baldaya passed fifty leagues beyond the cape, and in 1436 Baldaya advanced to a point fifty leagues beyond the inlet since known as Rio d'Ouro.