DID COLUMBUS BELIEVE THAT HE 



REACHED ASIA OX HIS FOURTH 



VOYAGE? 



The question to be considered here is whether 

 Columbus did or did not think that he had reached 

 the eastern coast of Asia on his fourth voyage. 

 That he beheved he had reached Asia has been main- 

 tained by John Fiske, A. E. Nordenskiold, and 

 Henry Vignaud.^ Justin Winsor, Henry Harrisse, 



1 John Fiske : The Discovery of America, With Some Account of 

 Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest, 2 vols., Boston, 1892; 

 reference in Vol. i, p. 510. 



A. E. Nordenskiold: Peri plus: An Essay on the Early History of 

 Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, 

 p. 100. 



Henry Vignaud : Toscanelli and Columbus, London, 1902, pp. 215-216. 

 Vignaud is not so positive in his "Histoire critique de la grande entre- 

 prise de Christophe Colomb," 2 vols., Paris, 191 1 (see Vol. i, p. 3, and 

 Vol. 2, pp. 364, 455. 484, and 494), as in his earlier work. While he still 

 credits Columbus with the belief that he had reached the confines of 

 Asia, he quotes a long list of contemporary' writers (Vol. 2, pp. 287-317^ 

 and cartographers (pp. 317-321) to show that Columbus stood almost 

 alone in this opinion. 



Other writers who take this view are: 



Washington Irving: The Life and Voyage? of Christopher Columbus, 

 3 vols., New York, 1828, Book 7, Ch. 4. 



W. H. Prescott: History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the 

 Catholic, 3 vols., Boston, 1838, Part II, Ch. 9. See also his "History of 

 the Conquest of Mexico," 3 vols., New York, 1843. Book 2, Ch. i. 



Sir Arthur Helps: The Spanish Conquest in America, 4 vols., London. 

 1856-61 (Vol. I, p. 95); new edit., edited by M. Oppenheim, 4 vols.. 

 London, 1900-04 (Vol. i, p. 57). 



J. G. Kohl: A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North 

 America, Particularly the Coast of Maine, from the Northmen in 990 

 to the Charter of Gilbert in 1578, constituting Vol. i of the "Docu- 



