44 A PEELIMINAEY CEITIQUE OP THE TERRA AUSTRALIS LEGEND. 



Psittacorum " — because they found these birds there iu 

 incredible number ; some of them exceed a cubit and a half in 

 length, and are of many colours ; we have seen two, so that 

 there is no doubt of the truth of it. When the sailors saw 

 this coast, they believed it to be a continent, because they 

 sailed for two thousand miles without coming to the end of 

 it. Numerous naked and rather handsome men inhabit 

 this country. Novus Orbis, cap. cxxv. Uxem2)lum Uierarum 

 cumsdam Cretici. 



This new land, discovered by Cabral, was, owing to the 

 inaccuracy of the translator, located in a quite erroneous 

 direction. If the ships were driven on it by a south-west 

 wind, it must have lain to the east of their route, and it was 

 placed by Mercator and other geographers west of the Cape of 

 (rood HojDe and on a parallel somewhat south of it, and appears 

 in Mercator's Magna orbis terrce descriptio ; Duisberg, 1569, 

 reproduced by Jomard, Mommients de Geographie, No. XXL, 

 under the name Psittacorum Regio, with an explanatory note 

 to the effect that it was discovered by the Portuguese when 

 on their way to Calicut they were driven upon it by a south- 

 west wind. Where the Novus Orbis has " lebegio vecti vento," 

 Mercator's map has "libegio vento appulsi." Cornells de 

 Jode says nothing about the direction of the wind, but simply 

 that the Psittacorum Regio, which he places S.W. of the 

 Cape of Good Hope, was so called by the Portuguese on. 

 account of the incredible size of these birds in that country, 

 and on another map that the Portuguese in rounding the 

 Cape have seen "this southern land" (the Terra Australis") 

 extending opposite, but have not yet explored it — " sed 

 nondum imploravere." Cornells de Jode. — Speculum orbis 

 terrarum. Antwerp, 1593. The maps entitled Orbis universalis 

 descriptio, 1589, and Hemispherium ab cequinoctiali linea ad 

 circulum poli antarctici. 



A blind adhesion to Mercator led subsequent cartographers 

 to include this Land of Parrots in maps of various languages 

 down to a comparatively recent date. M. d'Avezac mentions 

 several of them. Relation du Capitaine de^ Gonneville, p. 20. 

 note ; p. 22, p. 22, note. 



This Southern Regio Psittacorum had, however, a synonym 

 in a quite different part of the world. Johann Schoner's 

 globe of the year 1520 bears the inscription " JLinerica •yeZ 

 Brasilia sive Papagalli Terra," placed between 10 deg. and 

 20 deg. S.; Petrus Apianus places in a similar position the 

 legend " JBrasilici sive Paragalli." Cogniti orbis tabula. 

 Ingolstadt, 1530. How comes it that lands so far apart as 

 Brazil and the legendary Terra Australis should be brought 

 into conjunction ? The answer is to be found in comparing 

 the letter of Cretico, as translated in the Novus Orbis, with the 

 version in the Paesi, published twenty-five years earlier. We 



