PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES 



second ship, and only one, is expected, and Pasqualigo calls 

 it the commander's caravel (caravella capitania). We may 

 readily suppose that it is the arrival of the same ship that 

 is alluded to by the two ministers (no importance need be 

 attached to the discrepancy of dates, since we see that 

 Pasqualigo alters the date of his ship's arrival from one letter 

 to the other). They may both have heard of fifty natives 

 having been captured, of which they had seen some (seven, 

 for instance) ; but while Cantino understood that the whole 

 fifty had arrived, Pasqualigo thought that only the seven 

 he had seen had come, while the other fifty were expected 

 on the next ship. Considerable weight must be attached to the 

 fact that in the legend on the Cantino map, which must evi- 

 dently have been drawn from Portuguese documents, only one 

 ship is mentioned as having returned. The chief difficulty is 

 that this is in direct conflict with the king's later letters patent 

 to Miguel. We should then have to suppose that the statement 

 in this document as to three ships having sailed and two 

 returned is due to a clerical error or a lapse of memory, which 

 may seem surprising. But the question is, after all, of minor 

 importance. The main point is that Caspar Cortereal's ship never 

 returned. 



In estimating the degree of trustworthiness or accuracy to 

 be attributed to Pasqualigo's and Cantino's statements about 

 the voyage, it must be remembered that they are both only 

 repeating what they have heard said on the subject in a lan- 

 guage not their own, and that when the letters were written 

 they had probably seen no chart of the voyage or of the new 

 discoveries. Cantino says that he was present when the 

 captain of the ship gave his account to the king, and that 

 he is writing down everything that was then said; so that 

 perhaps he had only heard the narrative once, and without 

 a chart, which easily explains his obvious errors; it is no 

 difficult matter to fall into gross errors and misunderstandings 

 in reproducing the account of a voyage which one hears in 

 this way told even in one's own language. Pasqualigo does 



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