TRAVELS AND VOYAGES. 



GG3 



nels, and Spain was so much occupied with the 

 ft.oors of Grenada, that the enthusiastic Columbus 

 could no where obtain a hearing for his plan of 

 seeking a new way to India towards the west. The 

 Spanish queen Isabella finally gave him her sup- 

 port, and he put his project in execution. Oct. 12, 

 1492, he came in sight of land, which proved to be 

 an island (the island of Guanahani, or St Salvador). 

 On his third voyage, in 1498, he reached the main 

 land. About the same time (1497), Sebastian Ca- 

 bot, an Englishman, discovered the coasts of North 

 America, from Labrador to Virginia. In 1500, 

 Cabral, driven by a storm, discovered Brazil ; Bas- 

 tidas discovered Terra Firma, and Cortereal visited 

 Labrador and Hudson's bay. In 1512, Ponce de 

 Leon discovered Florida, and Balbao crossed the 

 isthmus of Darien, and came in sight of the Pacific 

 ocean. It was now first known that a new con- 

 tinent had been discovered, separated from Asia by 

 a vast ocean, in which it was deemed probable a 

 second new world might exist. The learned 

 Florentine Amerigo Vespucci (who died at Seville, 

 1512) now made Europe acquainted with the char- 

 acter of the newly-discovered countries by his de- 

 scription. In 1519 efc seq., Fernando Magellan 

 sailed round the southern extremity of America, 

 through the straits named from him, and discovered 

 the western passage to the Indies. By degrees the 

 interior of America emerged from obscurity; Cor- 

 tez and Pizarro, Almagro, Carder and Orellana, 

 made the most important discoveries respecting it, 

 from 1525 to 1541. More accurate information 

 respecting the northern and eastern parts of Ame- 

 rica was furnished from 1559 to 1616 by Francis 

 Drake, Frobisher, Heemskerk, Hudson and Baffin. 

 Whether Asia was connected with America was as 

 yet unknown ; but, in 1648, the Cossack Semen 

 Deshnew proceeded from the river Kolyma, around 

 the peninsula of the Tchouktsches, through Beer- 

 ing's straits, to the mouth of the Anadir. What 

 had been rendered tolerably clear by this voyage 

 was reduced to a certainty, in 1726, by captain 

 Beering, who proceeded from the river of the 

 Kamtschadales, through the straits named from 

 him, to the peninsula of the Tchouktsches. This 

 was confirmed by several subsequent voyagers, and 

 by Cook, in his third voyage. They and Vancou- 

 ver explored more particularly the western coast of 

 America. The North American revolutionary war 

 made the country still more known ; and much in- 

 formation was diffused respecting South America 

 by the missionaries, such as the Jesuit Dobrizhofer, 

 in Paraguay. The most light, however, has been 

 shed on that part of the western continent by the 

 travels of Alexander von Humboldt, the prince of 

 Neuwied, and those of several Englishmen and 

 Germans in Brazil. 



The expeditions of discovery into the interior of 

 Africa have been less productive. The Portuguese 

 explored those countries only which were situated 

 near the coast, in the prosecution of their commerce 

 with India. Prior to Vasco da Gama, the western 

 coast was explored, and after him the eastern coast 

 (since 1497) ; but they did not discover the Red 

 sea till the sixteenth century, although they were 

 acquainted with Abyssinia See Damien da Goes, 

 De Rebus JEthiopicis, etc. (Cologne, 1574). 

 Egypt was visited by pilgrims, but the knowledge 

 of it remained, nevertheless, very imperfect. The 

 south cape of Africa was particularly explored, 

 indeed, by the Dutch ; but farther to the north, 

 the Swedes Spannann and Thunberg first pene- 



trated, afterwards Levaillant, and, finally, Lichtcn- 

 stein. James Bruce travelled to Abyssinia and 

 Nubia, 1768 1773; and his account of the sources 

 of the Nile was confirmed by Salt in 1809. A 

 comprehensive plan for exploring the interior of 

 Africa was projected, and has been hitherto pursued 

 by the African association, formed in England in 

 1788. Under the patronage of this association, 

 Mungo Park, Laing, Clapperton, the Landers, and 

 others, have each successfully explored large portions 

 of the interior of Africa, but have all eventually fal- 

 len victims to their efforts in the cause. Much light 

 has been thrown upon particular countiies by the 

 travels of Burckhardt, Bowditch, Mollien, Camp- 

 bell, as well as those of lord Valentia and Salt to 

 Abyssinia, those of Belzoni, Gau, Menu von Minu- 

 toli, to Egypt, and those of J. R. Pacho toCyrene, 

 in 1824. In April, 1828, Caillie, a young French 

 traveller, is alleged to have reached, and to have 

 resided for some time in, Timbuctoo (see Timbuc 

 too'), and the Landers, in 1830, traced the Niger, 

 and discovered that it emptied it self into the Bight 

 of Benin. See Africa, and Niger. 



Asia was first visited by the Portuguese, but 

 subsequently chiefly by the English and Russians. 

 As early as 1498, Vasco da Gama discovered the 

 coast of Malabar; and, before 1542, almost all the 

 south coast, with its islands, and even Japan, were 

 discovered by the Portuguese. But the coast alone 

 was known, till, in the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, the English laid the foundation of their 

 dominion in India, by which the interior of Asia 

 has been opened to civilized Europe. Farther to 

 the north, the Russians undertook important ex- 

 peditions. In 1577, Siberia was explored by the 

 Cossack captain Jermak Timosejeff and the Rus- 

 sian merchant Stroganoff. In 1639, Kopiloff 

 reached the eastern coast of Asia, and soon after, 

 Kamtschatka was discovered. Since 1745, the 

 Kurile, and the Aleutian, or Fox islands, on the 

 coast of America, have come to light ; and in the 

 north of Asia, Miiller, Gmelin, Lepechin, Giilden- 

 sta'dt, Falk, and, above all, Pallas, have made the 

 most important expeditions, under the patronage of 

 the Russian government. After Laperouse had al- 

 ready accurately determined the north-eastern 

 coasts of Siberia, the Russians explored the Cau- 

 casus and the Caspian sea, by means of Garber, 

 Reineggs, Klaproth, Parrot, and Engelhardt ; 

 Golownin described his residence in Japan. The 

 other regions of Asia also became better known ; 

 Arabia, by the travels of Carsten Niebuhr, who 

 visited it under the direction of the Danish govern- 

 ment, in 1761, to add to the means for illustrating 

 the Bible ; Persia, chiefly by those of J. Chardin, 

 from 1664 to 1677, and, of late, by those of 

 Morier and Ouseley ; Cabul by Elphinstone ; 

 Syria and Palestine, by means of pilgrims and 

 explorers of antiquities. But the north parts of 

 India Thibet, and the interior of the great East 

 Indian islands, are still little known. In the 

 Southern ocean, the Portuguese suspected the ex- 

 istence of a new world ; and the French jurist Bo- 

 dinus, in his Introduction to History, in 1610, gives 

 five grand divisions of the world Europe, Asia, 

 Africa, America, and Australia. In 1511 the Por- 

 tuguese reached New Guinea; arid Magellan, in his 

 circumnavigation of the earth, likewise visited the 

 Southern ocean. But these discoveries, like those 

 of Mendoza, Mindana, and Guiros (1568 1605), 

 remained for the most part unimproved, till the 

 Dutch, in 1615. sent out Lemaire, Schouten, IIci 



