1467- CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 31 



wliicli, since the return of Marco Polo, had become 

 "^ famihar as household words." It is true that the 

 cosmographers of those days had carried China 

 much beyond its real extent to the eastward, and, 

 as Herrera observes, '' the more it extended to the 

 east, the nearer it must approach to the Cape de 

 Verd islands." Columbus could not be ignorant 

 of this ; and indeed so much were the discoveries 

 made by him considered as a part of Asia, that they 

 had the name of the " Indies" immediately be- 

 stowed on them : and it became necessary, on de- 

 tecting the mistake, to distinguish the two coun- 

 tries by the names of the East and the West Indies. 

 And thus, as IMajor Rennel has justly observed, 

 ^' the splendid discoveries of Columbus were 

 prompted by a geographical error of most extra- 

 ordinary magnitude.'** 



The whole story of Behaim's discovery seems to 

 have had its origin in a passage of Pigafetta's 

 narrative, which is certainly remarkable : " The 

 Captain General (Magelhanes) knew that he 

 must make his passage through a strait much con- 

 cealed, as he had seen on a chart, in the depot of 

 the king of Portugal, made by that most excellent 

 man Martin de Boemia ;" wdiich might also receive 

 an additional colour from the assertion of Herrera, 

 that Magellan was in possession of a terrestrial 

 globe, made by Behaim, to assist him in directing 

 his course to the south seas ; and that Columbus 



* Geog. of Herodotus, p. 685. 



