OCEANIC DISCOVERIES 251 



John Mandevi]le. He describes India and China, Ceylon and 

 Sumatra. The comprehensive scope and the individuahty of 

 his narratives (hke the itineraries of Balducci Pigoletti and 

 the travels of Roy Gonzalez de Clavijo) have contributed con- 

 siderably to increase a disposition toward a great and general 

 intercourse among different nations. 



It has often, and with singular pertinacity, been maintain 

 ed, that the admirable work of the truthful Marco Polo, and 

 more particularly the knowledge which it diffused regarding 

 the Chinese ports and the Indian Archipelago, exercised great 

 influence on Columbus, who is even asserted to have had a 

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

 first voyage of discovery.* I have already shown that Chris- 

 topher Columbus and his son Fernando make mention of the 

 Geography of Asia by ^neas Sylvius (Pope Pius II.), but 

 never of Marco Polo or Mandeville. What they know of 

 Quinsay, Zaitun, Mango, and Zipangu, may have been learn- 

 ed from the celebrated letter of Toscanelh in 1474 on the fa- 

 cility of reaching Eastern Asia from Spain, and from the re- 

 lations of Nicolo de Conti, who was engaged during twenty- 

 five years in traveling 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 un- 

 intelligible to Columbus and to Toscanelh. The possibility 

 of a manuscript copy of the narrative of the Venetian trav- 

 eler 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), can 

 not certainly be denied ;t 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 rath- 



* Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descuhrimientos que HiciSron 

 for mar los Espanoles, t. \., p. 261 ; Washington Irving, History of the 

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



t Examen Crit. de V Hist, de la Giog., t. i., p. 63 and 215; t. ii., p. 

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

 first German Nuremberg version of 1477 {Das huch des edeln R'Uters un 

 landtfarers Marcho Polo) appeared in print in the life-time of Columbus, 

 the first Latin translation in 1490, and the first Italian and Portuguesfl 

 translations in 1496 and 1502. 



