OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 641 



24th of June, 1497, on the coast of Labrador, between 56 

 and 58 north latitude. It has already been noticed that 

 this inhospitable region had been visited by the Icelander Lief 

 Erikson, five hundred years earlier. 



Columbus attached more importance on hi s third voyage to 

 the circumstance of finding pearls in the islands of Margarita 

 and Cabagua, than to the discovery of the tierra jirme, for he 

 continued firmly persuaded to the day of his death, that he 

 had already touched a portion of the continent of Asia, when 

 on his first voyage he reached Cuba, in November, 1492.* 

 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) rode- 

 ando todo la tierra de los Negros, or by land, through Jerusa- 

 lem and Jaffaf." Such were the projects by which the admiral, 

 in 1494, proposed to circumnavigate the globe, four years 

 before Vasco de Gama, and twenty- seven years before Magellan 

 and Sebastian de Elcano. The preparations for Cabot's second 

 voyage, in which he penetrated through blocks of ice to 

 67 30' north latitude, and endeavoured to find a north- west 



* In a portion of Columbus' 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 (Zaitun and Quinsay, Marco Polo, 

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

 noles, t. i. p. 46. The curvature towards the south, which Columbus on 

 his second voyage remarked in 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. pp. 246-250. Anghiera 

 (Epist., clxviii. ed. Amst. 1670, p. 96) writes as follows: " Putat 

 (Colonus) regiones has (Pariaa) esse Cubaa contiguas et adhaerentes : ita 

 quod utrseque sint Indiae Gangetidis continens ipsum " 



*t* See the important manuscript of Andres Bernaldez, Cura de la villa 

 de los Palacios (Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, cap. 123). This history 

 comprises the years from 1488 to 1513. Bernaldez had received Colum- 

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

 Through the special kindness of M. Ternaux-Compans, to whom the 

 History of the Conquista owes much important elucidation, I was 

 enabled at Paris, in Dec. 1838, to make a free use of this manuscript, 

 which was in the possession of my distinguished friend the historio- 

 grapher, Don Juan Bautista Mufioz. (Compare Fern. Colon, Vida del 

 Almirante, cap, 56.) 



2 T 



