2 KNOWLEDGE OF NORTH PACIFIC 



But this was not the only vague information the cartographers 

 had to go on. The credulous were as eager as ever to hear of 

 islands with golden streets, and they accepted as a fact every 

 baseless rumor which helped to confirm them in their belief. One 

 of these rumors was that in the year 1582, or thereabouts, a 

 Spanish vessel in going from Manila eastward ran into a storm 

 which drove her to an island situated in latitude 37 30' N. and 

 some 400 miles east of Japan. The inhabitants of this island were 

 hospitable and rich to such an extent that even the pots and pans 

 were made of gold and silver. 



Vizcaino and Vries 



The Spanish government attached enough importance to 

 current gossip to send Sebastian Vizcaino from Mexico in search 

 of the rumored El Dorado. He spent the autumns of 161 1 and 

 161 2 in cruising north, south, and east of Japan without, how- 

 ever, being able to locate the prize. In the meantime the Dutch 

 traders heard the story, and they in turn became interested. In 

 1639 the Dutch East India Company instructed Mathijs Quast 

 and Abel Janszoon Tasman to find the gold island, but all their 

 efforts were in vain. Four years later the company sent another 

 expedition in command of Maerten Gerritszoon Vries. He sailed 

 north and east of Japan, sighting the island of Yezo without, how- 

 came ever, being able to determine either its shape or its size, and 

 among (what are now known as) the Kurile Islands. One of these 

 he named State Island and the other (which he thought to be 

 part of the American continent) Company Land. But neither 

 gold nor silver did Vries find, though he sailed north to Sakhalin, 

 south to Formosa, and east 460 miles from Japan. The Vries 

 discoveries were put on the map by Jansson in 1650. The pre- 

 ceding year (1649) another cartographer, Texeira by name, 

 published a map on which he marked the discoveries (in the early 

 part of the seventeenth century) of a certain Juan de Gama just 

 about where Vries placed his Company Land, that is to say be- 

 tween latitude 40 and 45 N. (Fig. 1). 



