PORTUGUESE AND SPANIARDS 73 



temperate and agreeable than in any other region known 

 to us." 



Let us understand the situation. What Amerigo had The 

 done was to sail down a considerable part of the East coast 

 of the continent we call South America. What he thought Anti- 

 he had done was to discover a great continent standing in p< 

 relation to Asia somewhat as, in fact, Australia actually 

 stands to Asia. He believed also that this " Antarctic " 

 continent was the " fourth part of the world " of which 

 mediaeval cosmographers, copying the ancients, had 

 written. Christian Fathers, like Isidore, while allowing 

 that it was likely that this continent existed, had declared 

 the statement that it was inhabited by "Antipodes" to be 

 " a fable." Amerigo had actually discovered the continent, 

 the very existence of which had been a matter of conjecture 

 and dispute. " Henceforth," remarked a writer (Peter 

 Martyr), "you will know the Antipodes as you know your 

 own house ! " Amerigo was able to show you that it 

 was a rich country, thickly populated " by myriads of 

 Antipodes," in condition so healthy that some of them lived 

 to be one hundred and fifty years old ! He agreed with 

 Dante and with Columbus, that, if the terrestrial paradise 

 is anywhere to be found on the earth, it cannot be far from 

 this region. 



Cipango, then, and Cathay had been discovered ; or, 

 at all events, they could not be far away. And to the South 

 of them had been discovered this huge New Antarctic World. 

 There still remained the problem, how to get to India by 

 this western routed The place to look for was the Straits 

 of Malacca. Columbus thought he had found it in what we 

 call the Isthmus of Panama ; but that turned out to be a 

 mistake ; though still in the I520's Cortes believed that a 

 strait would there be found, and in 1520 the map-maker 

 Schoner actually marked this strait in his map, with Japan 

 a few miles away from the western side. Vespucci's idea was 

 to look for the Straits of Malacca to the South of his 

 " Mundus Novus." His search also failed. But in 1513 

 Balboa saw from a peak in Darien a sea of unknown extent, 

 the " Sea of the South." And in 1519 Magellan, the little 



