240 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



is turning the fact is apparent that the Tanais was supposed by every- 

 body for 100 3'ears after Cabot to be north of Bristol. Take La Cosa's 

 map and follow the east and west line running through the great bend of 

 the river. It passes to the north of Scotland and far north of the Cavo 

 deYnglaterra ; nor will it help if the coast be wheeled up at right angles 

 on the pivot of the last flag, for then the Cavo Descubierto, which the 

 archbishop admits to be the landfall on Capo Breton, is still north of the 

 bend of the Tanais and north of Scotland as laid down by La Cosa. The 

 same is evident on the Cabot map of 1544 and on the great Dauphin map 

 of 1546. 



The passage in Soncino's letter which is the subject of this digression 

 reads as follows : Et andando verso el levante ha passato assai el paese 

 del Tanais. This is translated by Markham : "And pi'oceeding towards 

 " the east he has passed as far as the country of the Tanais." Weare 

 translates, " Has passed much of the country of the Tanais." Harrisse 

 makes it, " Has passed far beyond the country of the Tanais." He states 

 that the country of the Tanais "was a well defined coast bordering the 

 " eastern seaboard of Asia." It seems to me a little strong to call it 

 " a well defined coast " on the east of Asia, but it is nearer the truth than 

 to place it in European Kussia and to inclose it in the bend of the river 

 Don. I have given the Italian, and the reader may translate it for him- 

 self. It seems easy enough, and I had no hesitation in following Mark- 

 ham's translation, but the coasting along the region Soncino called the 

 country of the Tanais will allow any reasonable extension of the word 

 assai. The coasting is not said to be north and south, and Avas, as I have 

 tried to show, east and west from Cape Race to Cape Breton, and applies 

 to longitude and not to latitude. 



A few words are necessary about Tana — the oppidum Tanais of the 

 Latin version of Ptolemy at 54° 40'. There has always been a city at 

 the mouth of the Don, and this one was called Tana by the Genoese, who 

 had factories there until twenty-two years before 1497. It had been the 

 chief western enti'ance to the dominion of the Grand Khan, and, although 

 destroyed by Jenghis Khan, had been rebuilt. It was taken by the 

 Turks" under Mohammed II. in 1471, and the Black sea was in 1475 

 absolutely closed to all Christian powers, so that it was not so likely to 

 be referred to as a standard of latitude as any of the large commercial 

 cities of western Europe ; and, indeed, it is of itself unlikely that a local- 

 ity in the heart of the continent, the haunt of semi-barbarous tribes of 

 Sclavs or Mongols, inclosed in the bend of a Russian river, should be a 

 standard of either latitude or longitude for a discovery upon the sea- 

 board across the western ocean. ^ 



I return, then, to the ground I took up in 1894, and I repeat that the 

 country of the Tanais was an indefinite region corresponding to the 

 ancient Scythia and the medieval Tartary, and that it was generally 

 understood so in the manuals and books of the Middle Ages, of which 

 figure 18 is a general type ; that it was not in Europe, but in Asia ; that 

 the Tanaitœ of Ptolemy, if they ever existed as a distinct people, had 

 been wiped out of human memory for a thousand years before 1497, 

 as Soncino must have known ; for Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, Mongols of 

 every conceivable race had swept over that country because it was the 

 gateway through which the hordes of Asia had pi*ecipitated themselves 

 upon Europe from the remotest period. 



