The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II)

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The descriptions given by Mandeville of the Grand Khan, of the province of
Cathay, and the city of Cambalu, are no less splendid than those of Marco
Polo. The royal palace was more than two leagues in circumference. The
grand hall had twenty-four columns of copper and gold. There were more
than three hundred thousand men occupied and living in and about the
palace, of which more than one hundred thousand were employed in taking
care of ten thousand elephants and of a vast variety of other animals,
birds of prey, falcons, parrots, and paroquets. On days of festivals there
were even twice the number of men employed. The title of this potentate in
his letters was "Khan, the son of God, exalted possessor of all the earth,
master of those who are masters of others." On his seal was engraved, "God
reigns in heaven, Khan upon earth."

Mandeville has become proverbial for indulging in a traveler's
exaggerations; yet his accounts of the countries which he visited have
been found far more veracious than had been imagined. His descriptions of
Cathay, and the wealthy province of Mangi, agreeing with those of Marco
Polo, had great authority with Columbus.

No. XXIII.

The Zones.

The zones were imaginary bands or circles in the heavens producing an
effect of climate on corresponding belts on the globe of the earth. The
polar circles and the tropics mark these divisions.

The central region, lying beneath the track of the sun, was termed the
torrid zone; the two regions between the tropics and the polar circles
were termed the temperate zones, and the remaining parts, between the
porlar circles and the poles, the frigid zones.

The frozen regions near the poles were considered uninhabitable and
unnavigable on account of the extreme cold. The burning zone, or rather
the central part of it, immediately about the equator, was considered
uninhabitable, unproductive, and impassable in consequence of the
excessive heat. The temperate zones, lying between them, were supposed to
be fertile and salubrious, and suited to the purposes of life.

The globe was divided into two hemispheres by the equator, an imaginary
line encircling it at equal distance from the poles. The whole of the
world known to the ancients was contained in the temperate zone of the
northern hemisphere.

It was imagined that if there should be inhabitants in the temperate zone
of the southern hemisphere, there could still be no communication with
them on account of the burning zone which intervened.

Parmenides, according to Strabo, was the inventor of this theory of the
five zones, but he made the torrid zone extend on each side of the equator
beyond the tropics. Aristotle supported this doctrine of the zones. In his
time nothing was known of the extreme northern parts of Europe and Asia,
nor of interior Ethiopia and the southern part of Africa, extending beyond
the tropic of Capricorn to the Cape of Good Hope. Aristotle believed that
there was habitable earth in the southern hemisphere, but that it was for
ever divided from the part of the world already known, by the impassable
zone of scorching heat at the equator. [346]

Pliny supported the opinion of Aristotle concerning the burning zones.
"The temperature of the central region of the earth," he observes, "where
the sun runs his course, is burnt up as with fire. The temperate zones
which lie on either side can have no communication with each other in
consequence of the fervent heat of this region." [347]

Strabo, (lib. xi.,) in mentioning this theory, gives it likewise his
support; and others of the ancient philosophers, as well as the poets,
might be cited to show the general prevalence of the belief.

It must be observed that, at the time when Columbus defended his
proposition before the learned board at Salamanca, the ancient theory of
the burning zone had not yet been totally disproved by modern discovery.
The Portuguese, it is true, had penetrated within the tropics; but, though
the whole of the space between the tropic of Cancer and that of Capricorn,
in common parlance, was termed the torrid zone, the uninhabitable and
impassable part, strictly speaking, according to the doctrine of the
ancients, only extended a limited number of degrees on each side of the
equator; forming about a third, or, at most, the half of the zone. The
proofs which Columbus endeavored to draw therefore from the voyages made
to St. George la Mina, were not conclusive with those who were bigoted to
the ancient theory, and who placed this scorching region still farther
southward, and immediately about the equator.

No. XXIV.

Of the Atlantis of Plato.

The island Atalantis is mentioned by Plato in his dialogue of Timaeus.
Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, is supposed to have traveled into Egypt. He
is in an ancient city on the Delta, the fertile island formed by the Nile,
and is holding converse with certain learned priests on the antiquities of
remote ages, when one of them gives him a description of the island of
Atalantis, and of its destruction, which he describes as having taken
place before the conflagration of the world by Phaeton.

This island, he was told, had been situated on the Western Ocean, opposite
to the Straits of Gibraltar. There was an easy passage from it to other
islands, which lay adjacent to a large continent, exceeding in size all
Europe and Asia. Neptune settled in this island, from whose son Atlas its
name was derived, and he divided it among his ten sons. His descendants
reigned here in regular succession for many ages. They made irruptions
into Europe and Africa, subduing all Libya as far as Egypt, and Europe to
Asia Minor. They were resisted, however, by the Athenians, and driven back
to their Atlantic territories. Shortly after this there was a tremendous
earthquake, and an overflowing of the sea, which continued for a day and a
night. In the course of this the vast island of Atalantis, and all its
splendid cities and warlike nations, were swallowed up, and sunk to the
bottom of the sea, which, spreading its waters over the chasm, formed the
Atlantic Ocean. For a long time, however, the sea was not navigable, on
account of rocks and shelves, of mud and slime, and of the ruins of that
drowned country.

Many, in modern times, have considered this a mere fable; others suppose
that Plato, while in Egypt, had received some vague accounts of the Canary
Islands, and, on his return to Greece, finding those islands so entirely
unknown to his countrymen, had made them the seat of his political and
moral speculations. Some, however, have been disposed to give greater
weight to this story of Plato. They imagine that such an island may really
have existed filling up a great part of the Atlantic, and that the
continent beyond it was America, which, in such case, was not unknown to
the ancients. Kircher supposes it to have been an island extending from
the Canaries to the Azores; that it was really ingulfed in one of the
convulsions of the globe, and that those small islands are mere shattered
fragments of it.

As a farther proof that the New World was not unknown to the ancients,
many have cited the singular passage in the Medea of Seneca, which is
wonderfully apposite, and shows, at least, how nearly the warm imagination
of a poet may approach to prophecy. The predictions of the ancient oracles
were rarely so unequivocal.

Venient annis
Saecula seris, quilms Oceanus
Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens
Patent tellus, Typhisque novos
Detegat orbes, nee sit terris
Ultima Thule.

Gosselin in his able research into the voyages of the ancients, supposes
the Atalantis of Plato to have been nothing more nor less than one of the
nearest of the Canaries, viz. Fortaventura or Lancerote.

No. XXV.

The Imaginary Island of St. Brandan.

One of the most singular geographical illusions on record is that which
for a long while haunted the imaginations of the inhabitants of the
Canaries. They fancied they beheld a mountainous island about ninety
leagues in length, lying far to the westward. It was only seen at
intervals, but in perfectly clear and serene weather. To some it seemed
one hundred leagues distant, to others forty, to others only fifteen or
eighteen. [348]On attempting to reach it, however, it somehow or other
eluded the search, and was nowhere to be found. Still there were so many
eye-witnesses of credibility who concurred in testifying to their having
seen it, and the testimony of the inhabitants of different islands agreed
so well as to its form and position, that its existence was generally
believed, and geographers inserted it in their maps. It is laid down on
the globe of Martin Behem, projected in 1492, as delineated by M. De Murr,
and it will be found in most of the maps of the time of Columbus, placed
commonly about two hundred leagues west of the Canaries. During the time
that Columbus was making his proposition to the court of Portugal, an
inhabitant of the Canaries applied to king John II for a vessel to go in
search of this island. In the archives of the Torre do Tombo [349] also,
there is a record of a contract made by the crown of Portugal with
Fernando de Ulmo, cavalier of the royal household, and captain of the
island of Tercera, wherein he undertakes to go at his own expense, in
quest of an island or islands, or Terra Firma, supposed to be the island
of the Seven Cities, on condition of having jurisdiction over the same
for himself and his heirs, allowing one tenth of the revenues to the king.
This Ulmo, finding the expedition above his capacity, associated one Juan
Alfonso del Estreito in the enterprise. They were bound to be ready to
sail with two caravels in the month of March, 1487. [350] The fate of
their enterprise is unknown.

The name of St. Brandan, or Borondon, given to this imaginary island from
time immemorial, is said to be derived from a Scotch abbot, who flourished
in the sixth century, and who is called sometimes by the foregoing
appellations, sometimes St. Blandano, or St. Blandanus. In the Martyrology
of the order of St. Augustine, he is said to have been the patriarch of
three thousand monks. About the middle of the sixth century, he
accompanied his disciple, St. Maclovio, or St. Malo, in search of certain
islands possessing the delights of paradise, which they were told existed
in the midst of the ocean, and were inhabited by infidels. These most
adventurous saints-errant wandered for a long time upon the ocean, and at
length landed upon an island called Ima. Here St. Malo found the body of a
giant lying in a sepulchre. He resuscitated him, and had much interesting
conversation with him, the giant informing him that the inhabitants of
that island had some notions of the Trinity, and, moreover, giving him a
gratifying account of the torments which Jews and Pagans suffered in the
infernal regions. Finding the giant so docile and reasonable, St. Malo
expounded to him the doctrines of the Christian religion, converted him,
and baptized him by the name of Mildum. The giant, however, either through
weariness of life, or eagerness to enjoy the benefits of his conversion,
begged permission, at the end of fifteen days, to die again, which was
granted him.

According to another account, the giant told them he knew of an island in
the ocean, defended by walls of burnished gold, so resplendent that they
shone like crystal, but to which there was no entrance. At their request,
he undertook to guide them to it, and taking the cable of their ship,
threw himself into the sea. He had not proceeded far, however, when a
tempest rose, and obliged them all to return, and shortly after the giant
died. [351] A third legend makes the saint pray to heaven on Easter day,
that they may be permitted to find land where they may celebrate the
offices of religion with becoming state. An island immediately appears,
on which they land, perform a solemn mass, and the sacrament of the
Eucharist; after which re-embarking and making sail, they behold to their
astonishment the supposed island suddenly plunge to the bottom of the sea,
being nothing else than a monstrous whale. [352] When the rumor circulated
of an island seen from the Canaries, which always eluded the search, the
legends of St. Brandan were revived, and applied to this unapproachable
land. We are told, also, that there was an ancient Latin manuscript in the
archives of the cathedral church of the Grand Canary, in which the
adventures of these saints were recorded. Through carelessness, however,
this manuscript has disappeared. [353] Some have maintained that this
island was known to the ancients, and was the same mentioned by Ptolemy
among the Fortunate or Canary islands, by the names of Aprositus, [354] or
the Inaccessible; and which, according to friar Diego Philipo, in his book
on the Incarnation of Christ, shows that it possessed the same quality in
ancient times of deluding the eye and being unattainable to the feet of
mortals. [355] But whatever belief the ancients may have had on this
subject, it is certain that it took a strong hold on the faith of the
moderns during the prevalent rage for discovery; nor did it lack abundant
testimonials. Don Joseph de Viera y Clavijo says, there never was a more
difficult paradox nor problem in the science of geography; since, to
affirm the existence of this island, is to trample upon sound criticism,
judgment, and reason; and to deny it, one must abandon tradition and
experience, and suppose that many persons of credit had not the proper
use of their senses. [356]

The belief in this island has continued long since the time of Columbus.
It was repeatedly seen, and by various persons at a time, always in the
same place and of the same form. In 1526 an expedition set off for the
Canaries in quest of it, commanded by Fernando de Troya and Fernando
Alvarez. They cruised in the wonted direction, but in vain, and their
failure ought to have undeceived the public. "The phantasm of the island,
however," says Viera, "had such a secret enchantment for all who beheld
it, that the public preferred doubting the good conduct of the explorers,
than their own senses." In 1570 the appearances were so repeated and
clear, that there was a universal fever of curiosity awakened among the
people of the Canaries, and it was determined to send forth another
expedition.

That they might not appear to act upon light grounds, an exact
investigation was previously made of all the persons of talent and
credibility who had seen these apparitions of land, or who had other
proofs of its existence.

Alonzo de Espinosa, governor of the island of Ferro, accordingly made a
report, in which more than one hundred witnesses, several of them persons
of the highest respectability, deposed that they had beheld the unknown
island about forty leagues to the northwest of Ferro; that they had
contemplated it with calmness and certainty, and had seen the sun set
behind one of its points.

Testimonials of still greater force came from the islands of Palma and
Teneriffe. There were certain Portuguese who affirmed, that, being driven
about by a tempest, they had come upon the island of St. Borondon. Pedro
Vello, who was the pilot of the vessel, affirmed, that having anchored in
a bay, he landed with several of the crew. They drank fresh water in a
brook, and beheld in the sand the print of footsteps, double the size of
those of an ordinary man, and the distance between them was in proportion.
They found a cross nailed to a neighboring tree; near to which were three
stones placed in form of a triangle, with signs of fire having been made
among them, probably to cook shell-fish. Having seen much cattle and sheep
grazing in the neighborhood, two of their party armed with lances went
into the woods in pursuit of them. The night was approaching, the heavens
began to lower, and a harsh wind arose. The people on board the ship cried
out that she was dragging her anchor, whereupon Vello entered the boat and
hurried on board. In an instant they lost sight of land; being as it were
swept away in the hurricane. When the storm had passed away, and the sea
and sky were again serene, they searched in vain for the island; not a
trace of it was to be seen, and they had to pursue their voyage, lamenting
the loss of their two companions who had been abandoned in the wood.
[357]

A learned licentiate, Pedro Ortiz de Funez, inquisitor of the Grand
Canary, while on a visit at Teneriffe, summoned several persons before
him, who testified having seen the island. Among them was one Marcos
Verde, a man well known in those parts. He stated that in returning from
Barbary and arriving in the neighborhood of the Canaries, he beheld land,
which, according to his maps and calculations, could not be any of the
known islands. He concluded it to be the far-famed St. Borondon. Overjoyed
at having discovered this land of mystery, he coasted along its spell-bound
shores, until he anchored in a beautiful harbor formed by the mouth of a
mountain ravine. Here he landed with several of his crew. It was now,
he said, the hour of the Ave Maria, or of vespers. The sun being set, the
shadows began to spread over the land. The voyagers having separated,
wandered about in different directions, until out of hearing of each
other's shouts. Those on board, seeing the night approaching, made signal
to summon back the wanderers to the ship. They re-embarked, intending to
resume their investigations on the following day. Scarcely were they on
board, however, when a whirlwind came rushing down the ravine, with such
violence as to drag the vessel from her anchor, and hurry her out to sea;
and they never saw any thing more of this hidden and inhospitable island.

Another testimony remains on record in manuscript of one Abreu Galindo;
but whether taken at this time does not appear. It was that of a French
adventurer, who, many years before, making a voyage among the Canaries,
was overtaken by a violent storm which carried away his masts. At length
the furious winds drove him to the shores of an unknown island covered
with stately trees. Here he landed with part of his crew, and choosing a
tree proper for a mast, cut it down, and began to shape it for his
purpose. The guardian power of the island, however, resented as usual this
invasion of his forbidden shores. The heavens assumed a dark and
threatening aspect; the night was approaching, and the mariners, fearing
some impending evil, abandoned their labor and returned on board. They
were borne away as usual from the coast, and the next day arrived at the
island of Palma. [358]

The mass of testimony collected by official authority in 1750 seemed so
satisfactory, that another expedition was fitted out in the same year in
the island of Palma. It was commanded by Fernando de Villabolos, regidor
of the island; but was equally fruitless with the preceding. St. Borondon
seemed disposed only to tantalize the world with distant and serene
glimpses of his ideal paradise; or to reveal it amidst storms to
tempest-tossed mariners, but to hide it completely from the view of all
who diligently sought it. Still the people of Palma adhered to their
favorite chimera. Thirty-four years afterwards, in 1605, they sent another
ship on the quest, commanded by Gaspar Perez de Acosta, an accomplished
pilot, accompanied by the padre Lorenzo Pinedo, a holy Franciscan friar,
skilled in natural science. St. Borondon, however, refused to reveal his
island to either monk or mariner. After cruising about in every direction,
sounding, observing the skies, the clouds, the winds, every thing that
could furnish indications, they returned without having seen any thing to
authorize a hope.

Upwards of a century now elapsed without any new attempt to seek this
fairy island. Every now and then, it is true, the public mind was agitated
by fresh reports of its having been seen. Lemons and other fruits, and the
green branches of trees which floated to the shores of Gomera and Ferro,
were pronounced to be from the enchanted groves of St. Borondon. At
length, in 1721, the public infatuation again rose to such a height that a
fourth expedition was sent, commanded by Don Caspar Dominguez, a man of
probity and talent. As this was an expedition of solemn and mysterious
import, he had two holy friars as apostolical chaplains. They made sail
from the island of Teneriffe towards the end of October, leaving the
populace in an indescribable state of anxious curiosity mingled with
superstition. The ship, however, returned from its cruise as unsuccessful
as all its predecessors.

We have no account of any expedition being since undertaken, though the
island still continued to be a subject of speculation, and occasionally to
reveal its shadowy mountains to the eyes of favored individuals. In a
letter written from the island of Gomera, 1759, by a Franciscan monk, to
one of his friends, he relates having seen it from the village of Alaxero
at six in the morning of the third of May. It appeared to consist of two
lofty mountains, with a deep valley between; and on contemplating it with
a telescope, the valley or ravine appeared to be filled with trees. He
summoned the curate Antonio Joseph Manrique, and upwards of forty other
persons, all of whom beheld it plainly. [359]

Nor is this island delineated merely in ancient maps of the time of
Columbus. It is laid down as one of the Canary islands in a French map
published in 1704; and Mons. Gautier, in a geographical chart, annexed to
his Observations on Natural History, published in 1755, places it five
degrees to the west of the island of Ferro, in the 29th deg. of N.
latitude. [360]

Such are the principal facts existing relative to the island of St.
Brandan: Its reality was for a long time a matter of firm belief. It was
in vain that repeated voyages and investigations proved its nonexistence;
the public, after trying all kinds of sophistry, took refuge in the
supernatural, to defend their favorite chimera. They maintained that it
was rendered inaccessible to mortals by Divine Providence, or by
diabolical magic. Most inclined to the former. All kinds of extravagant
fancies were indulged concerning it; [361] some confounded it with the
fabled island of the Seven Cities situated somewhere in the bosom of the
ocean, where in old times seven bishops and their followers had taken
refuge from the Moors. Some of the Portuguese imagined it to be the abode
of their lost king Sebastian. The Spaniards pretended that Roderick, the
last of their Gothic kings, had fled thither from the Moors after the
disastrous battle of the Guadalete. Others suggested that it might be the
seat of the terrestrial paradise, the place where Enoch and Elijah
remained in a state of blessedness until the final day; and that it was
made at times apparent to the eyes, but invisible to the search of
mortals. Poetry, it is said, has owed to this popular belief one of its
beautiful fictions, and the garden of Armida, where Rinaldo was detained
enchanted, and which Tasso places in one of the Canary islands, has been
identified with the imaginary St. Borondon. [362]

The learned father Feyjoo [363] has given a philosophical solution to
this geographical problem. He attributes all these appearances, which
have been so numerous and so well authenticated as not to admit of doubt,
to certain atmospherical deceptions, like that of the Fata Morgana, seen
at times, in the straits of Messina, where the city of Reggio and its
surrounding country is reflected in the air above the neighboring sea: a
phenomenon which has likewise been witnessed in front of the city of
Marseilles. As to the tales of the mariners who had landed on these
forbidden shores, and been hurried thence in whirlwinds and tempests, he
considers them as mere fabrications.

As the populace, however, reluctantly give up any thing that partakes of
the marvelous and mysterious, and as the same atmospherical phenomena,
which first gave birth to the illusion, may still continue, it is not
improbable that a belief in the island of St. Brandan may still exist
among the ignorant and credulous of the Canaries, and that they at times
behold its fairy mountains rising above the distant horizon of the
Atlantic.

No. XXVI.

The Island of the Seven Cities.

One of the popular traditions concerning the ocean, which were current
during the time of Columbus, was that of the Island of the Seven Cities.
It was recorded in an ancient legend, that at the time of the conquest of
Spain and Portugal by the Moors, when the inhabitants fled in every
direction to escape from slavery, seven bishops, followed by a great
number of their people, took shipping and abandoned themselves to their
fate, on the high seas. After tossing about for some time, they landed on
an unknown island in the midst of the ocean. Here the bishops burnt the
ships, to prevent the desertion of their followers, and founded seven
cities. Various pilots of Portugal, it was said, had reached that island
at different times, but had never returned to give any information
concerning it, having been detained, according to subsequent accounts, by
the successors of the bishops to prevent pursuit. At length, according to
common report, at the time that prince Henry of Portugal was prosecuting
his discoveries, several seafaring men presented themselves one day before
him, and stated that they had just returned from a voyage, in the course
of which they had landed upon this island. The inhabitants, they said,
spoke their language, and carried them immediately to church, to ascertain
whether they were Catholics, and were rejoiced at finding them of the true
faith. They then made earnest inquiries, to know whether the Moors still
retained possession of Spain and Portugal. While part of the crew were at
church, the rest gathered sand on the shore for the use of the kitchen,
and found to their surprise that one-third of it was gold. The islanders
were anxious that the crew should remain with them a few days, until the
return of their governor, who was absent; but the mariners, afraid of
being detained, embarked and made sail. Such was the story they told to
prince Henry, hoping to receive reward for their intelligence. The prince
expressed displeasure at their hasty departure from the island, and
ordered them to return and procure further information; but the men,
apprehensive, no doubt, of having the falsehood of their tale discovered,
made their escape, and nothing more was heard of them. [364]