OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 



already touched a portion of the continent of Asia when on 

 his first voyage he reached Cuba, in November. 1 492.* From 

 this point, as his son Don Fernando, and his friend the Cura 

 de los Palacios. relate, he proposed, if he had provisions enough, 

 ' to continue his course westward, and to return to Spain 

 either by water, by way of Ceylon (Taprobane) rodeando todo 

 la tierra de los Negros, or by land, through Jerusalem and 

 .Taiiii.'t Such were the projects by which the admiral, in 

 1494, proposed to circumnavigate the globe, four years before 

 ^ asoo de Gama, and twenty-seven years before Magellan and 

 ~:iau de Elcano. The preparations for Cabot's second 

 ge, in which he penetrated through blocks of ice to 67 

 30' north latitude, and endeavored to find a northwest passage 

 to Cathai (China), led him to think at " some future time of 

 an expedition to the north pole" (dlodel polo arctico).% The 

 more it became gradually recognized that the newly-discover- 

 ed land constituted one connected tract, extending from Lab- 

 rador to the promontory oIl Paria, and as the recently-found 

 map o( Juan de la Cosa (1500) testified, beyond the equator, 

 liir into the southern hemisphere, the more intense became the 

 desire of finding some passage either in the south or in the 

 north. Next to the rediscovery of the continent of America 

 and the knowledge of the extension of the new hemisphere 

 southward from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, discovered by 

 Garcia Jofre de Loaysa,4 the knowledge of the South Pacific, 



* In a portion of Columbus's Journal, Nov. 1, 1492, to which but little 

 attention has been directed, it is stated, " I have (in Cuba) opposite, 

 and near to me, Zayto y Guinsay (Zaitu* aud Quintay, Marco Polo, ii., 

 77) of the Gran Can." Navarrete, Viages y Detcubrim. de los Espa- 

 no.'es. t. i., p. 46. The curvature toward the south, which Columbus, 

 on his second voyage, remarked iu the most western part of the coast 

 of Cuba, had an important influence, as I have elsewhere observed, on 

 the discovery of South America, and on that of the Delta of the Orinoco 

 and Cape Paria. See Examen. Crit,, t. iv., p. 246-250. Angbiera 

 {Epist.. cUviii., ed. Amst., 1670, p. 96) writes as follows : ' Putat 

 (Colouus) regioiies has (Paris) esse Cubas contiguas et adhaT- 



iu quod utneque sint India? Gangetidis confine us ipsum " 



ue important manuscript of Andres Bernaldez, Cura de la villa 

 de los Palacios {HUloria de lot Reyes Catolicos, cap. 123). This hi 

 comprises the years from 1488 to 15 13. Bernaldez had received Colum- 

 bus into his house, in 1496, on his return from his second voyage. 

 Through the special kindness of M. Ternaux Com pans, to whom the 

 History of the Conquista owes much important elucidation, I was ena- 

 bled at Paris, in Dec, 1838, to make a free use of this manuscript, which 

 was iu the possession of uiv distinguished friend the historiographer 

 Don Juan Bautista Mufioz. ^Compare Fern. Colon, Vida del Almirante, 

 cap. 56.) I Examen Crit., t. iii., p. 244-248. 



$ Cape Horu was discovered by Francisco de Hoces iu February, 1526 

 Vol. II M 



