LEGENDS OF THE CABOT MAP 449 



without cliild'.-en is usually elected, and if after being elected he should begot any, at 

 once they dey)ose him ; and wlien they elect him they give hiin thirty counsellors ; and 

 that the said king can condenm no one if the majority of his said thirty counsellors are 

 not agreed with him, and that afterwards the said condemned man can api)eal to the 

 peojile, which thereu])on selects seventy judges, who examine his case, and if they find 

 that he was wrongly sentenced they set him free, and those counsellors who agreed in 

 condemning him are deprived of their offices and are held infamous forever after. 



Inscription of the author- ivith certain reasons for the variation ivhich the needle y the 

 compass malces with the north star. 



N° 17. Sebastian Cabot, captain and pilot-major of his Sacred C'gesarean Catholic 

 Majesty, the Emperor Don Carlos, fifth of the name, and King.^ our lord, made- this 

 figure projected on a plane in the year of the birth of our Saviour desus Clu'ist 1044, 

 drawn by degrees of latitude and' longitude, with its winds," as a navigating chart, 

 imitating in part Ptolemy* and in part the modern discoverers both Spanl-ih and Por- 

 tuguese, and* partly discovered by his father and jjartly by himself, by which you 

 may navigate as by a navigating chart, bearing in mind the variation which the needle 

 of the compass makes with the north star. For example, you wish to set out from 

 Cape St. Vincent in order to make Cape Finisterre ; you will give order.? to steer your 

 siiip to the north according to the needle of the compass, and you M'ill strike within 

 the said cape, but your real course, which your ship made, was to the north, (pnirter 

 northeast because your compass-needle northeasts you a quarter at the said Cape of 

 St. Vincent, so that commanding your ship to be steered north by the compass-needle, 

 your course will be north, quarter northeast ; and in the same way sailing from Salme- 

 diua, which is a shoal as you go out of San Lucar de Barrameda, to go to the point of 

 Naga on the island of Teneriffe you will give orders to steer southwest by the needle 

 and you will make the said point of Kaga because it is situated on the navigating 

 cliart, but your course will not be to the southwest inasmuch as your compass-needle 

 northeasts you a \\ide quarter point at Salmedina, but your course will be southwest, 

 a wide quarter south ; so that you may say that sailing from St. Vincent to the north 

 your course will be north, quarter northeast, and sailing from Salmedina to the south- 

 west j^our course will be south w 'st, quarter south, and so consequently you will do in 

 every other part of this universe, watching the variation which the said needle oi the 

 compass makes with the north star, for the said needle does not turn or stay fixed to 

 the north in every place, as the vulgar think, since the magnet-stone, as it appears, 

 has not the power to make it turn to the north in every place, but, as is seen and 

 acquired by experience, it has only the power to make it reznain stable and fixed in one 

 pUice, wherefore it must jjoint necessarily in a straight line whatever wind you may 

 have, and not in a curved line, and this cause brings about the said variation ; for if 

 the needle were to tui-n to tlie north ahvays and in every place, there would be no 

 variation, for then it would follow a curved line, because you would always be on one 

 parallel, which cannot be when you go in a straight line on a sphere ; and you must 

 notice tliat the further youmove"from the meridian on which the needle points directly 

 north, towards the west or east, so much the more will your compass move from the 

 noi'th, that is, from the flower-de-luce in it which marks the north : wherefore it clearly 

 appears that the said needle points along a straight line and not a curved line ; and 

 j'ou must know that the meridian wlsere the flower-de-luce of the needle points directly 

 north is aljout thirty-five^ leagues from Flores, the last island of the Azores towards 

 the west, according to the opinion of certain experts, because of the great experience 

 which they have of this, on account of the daily navigation which is made toward the 

 West, to "the Indies of the Ocean. The said Scl)astia.n Cabot," sailing towards the 

 west, found himself in a place* where northeast quarter north [of the compass] stood 

 directly north, on account of which observations aforesaid it appears clearly that defects 

 and variations which the said needle of the compass makes with the north star really 

 exist. 



Pliny in the second booh, chapter 79, '' writes : — 



N° 18. That from Cadiz and the columns of Hercules, sailing around Spain and 

 Gaul, the whole west was sidled over. The greater part of the northern ocean was 



1 of Spain. 2 laid the Inst touch to me (this map). 



3 so wi?cb', .«0 exactly. 4 the GeoRrapher. 



•5 and likewise the experience and labors of th" long nautical lite of the most honest man John 

 Cabot, a Venetian by birth ; and the knowledge of the sars and of the art of navif-'.-ition of Sebas- 

 tian hi.s most learned son and my author, who discovered some part of the world which had Ions 

 been unknown to us. 



6 thirty. 1 my author. 8 came to ii sea and shore. 



7 fPliny. lih. 2, cap. 67. There is no Latin for this on the map. In Chytneus, where it is num- 

 bered 19, the Latin is copied directly from Pliny, 1. c, and not translated from the Spanish.] 



Sec. II., 1897. 26. 



