626 COSMOS. 



of Marco Polo's narratives in his possession during his first 

 voyage of discovery.* I have already shewn that Christopher 

 Columbus and his son Fernando make mention of the Geo- 

 graphy of Asia by ./Eneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II), but never 

 of Marco Polo or Mandeville. What they knew of Quinsay, 

 Zaitun, Mango and Zipangu may have been learnt from the 

 celebrated letter of Toscanelli in 1474, on the facility of reaching 

 Eastern Asia from Spain, and from the relations of Nicolo 

 de Conti, who was engaged during twenty-five years in travel* 

 ling over India and the southern parts of China, and not through 

 any direct acquaintance with the 68th and 77th chapters of 

 the second book of Marco Polo. The first printed edition of 

 these travels was no doubt the German translation of 1477, 

 which must have been alike unintelligible to Columbus and to 

 Toscanelli. The possibility of a manuscript copy of the nar- 

 rative of the Venetian traveller being seen by Columbus 

 between the years 1471 and 1492, when he was occupied by 

 his project of " seeking the east by the west," (buscar el 

 levante por el poniente, pasar a donde nacen las especerias, 

 navegando al occidente) cannot certainly be denied ;f but 

 wherefore in a letter written to Ferdinand and Isabella from 

 Jamaica, on the 7th of June, 1503, in which he describes the 

 coast of Veragua as a part of the Asiatic Ciguare near the 

 Ganges, and expresses his hope of seeing horses with golden 

 harness, should he not rather refer to the Zipangu of Marco 

 Polo, than to that of Pope Pius ? 



Whilst the diplomatic missions of Christian monks, and the 

 mercantile expeditions by land, which were prosecuted at a 

 period when the universal dominion of the Moguls had made 

 the interior of Asia accessible from the Dead Sea to the 

 Wolga, were the means of diffusing a knowledge of Khatai 

 and Zipangu (China and Japan) amongst the great sea-faring 



* Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron 

 por mar los Espaholes, t. i. p. 261 ; Washington Irving, History of the 

 life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1828, vol. iv. p. 297. 



f Examen crit. de Vhist. de la Geog., t. i. pp. 63 and 215; t. ii. 

 p. 350. Marsden, Travels of Marco Polo, pp. Ivii. Ixx. and Ixxv. The 

 first German Nuremberg version of 1477 (das puck des edeln Hitters un 

 landtfarers Marcho Polo] appeared in print in the lifetime of Colum- 

 bus; the first Latin translation in 1490, and the first Italian and Portu- 

 guese translations in 1496 and 1502. 



