ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 457 



Portuj^uese, tlien ))y tlie Spaniards, or vice versa, and 

 some of them even returnetl from tlieir second masters to 

 their first : this greatly complicates the problem of the 

 nationality of the original explorer. 



I have noted one or two points of resemblance between 

 the French MS. charts and that of Juan de la Cosa ; 

 and that pilot may have been the anthoi- of the northern 

 portion of the chart, from the vicinity of Cape St, 

 Koque westwards. The West Indian Islands included in 

 the chart may have been touched at in the outward or home- 

 ward voyage of the hydrographer, and were well known to 

 Juan de la Cosa from his connection with Columbus. In 

 Alonzo d'Hojeda's voyage with De la Cosa as his ])ilot, from 

 May, 1499 to June, 1500, the ship of the commander was 

 wrecked, and d'Hojeda reached San Domingo in a small 

 boat on the 5tli September, 1499. As the outward voyage 

 from Cadiz to the American coast only occupied 42 days, it 

 is possible that d'Hojeda may have reached the Bay of 

 Honduras, been there wrecked, and afterwards reached San 

 Domingo, all between 27tli June and 5th September. If 

 the portion of the chart in question does emanate from 

 De la Cosa the shipwreck (and probable loss of compass) might 

 account for the inaccuracy in the direction given to the coast 

 of Honduras. 



The illustrations with which the Dauphin and the other 

 MS. maps are enriched are an addition of the colourist ; for 

 such illustrations are never present in simple hydrographic 

 charts. Moreover the illustrations in some of them, as in 

 that of Desceliers of 1 550, do not in all cases refer to the 

 countries where they occur, but to quite other parts of the 

 world. It is very doubtful whether the illustrations were 

 copied from original drawings at all ; those of Desceliers 

 (1550), for example, are mere figments of the artist's brain 

 based upon the tales of travellers. Such are the group of 

 dog-headed beings representing the inhabitants of Angania 

 or the Andaman Islands, according with the account of 

 Marco Polo (ed. Panthier, cap. clxvii.) ; whilst the group of 

 sun and ox worshippers represents the cults ascribed to the 

 Javanese by Varthema (Travels, Hakluyt Soc, 1863, pp. 

 251-2), The illustrations of the Harleyan Map are suf- 

 ciently I'eal to be based upon the descriptions by Vespucci 

 and Pigafetta of what they sa^v in Central and South 

 America, Vespucci pientioiis pigs and deer amongst the 



