BELIEF IX ASIA 81 



The Behaim globe (Fig. 4) and the Alartellus map^® 

 indicate a great peninsula on the southeastern coast 

 of Asia, which does not appear on the Catalan atlas of 

 1375.41 Again, the Fra Mauro map of 1459^- is wholly 

 different from either the Catalan atlas or the Behaim 

 globe as regards the eastern coast. It is really incon- 

 ceivable that Harrisse should have meant what he 

 said. Of course Columbus had ideas about the eastern 

 coast of Asia; and it would appear that those ideas 

 were very nearly the ideas of Behaim, modified as to 

 longitude. 



Furthermore, Harrisse stresses the point that Co- 

 lumbus wrote of the coast of Paria as an immense 

 region hitherto unknown. ^^^ So it was. It was a 

 Nuevo Mundo, as Fiske points out,"^^ and as such it 

 is clearly marked on the Bartholomew Columbus map 

 (Fig. 5) — it was something which had not been de- 

 scribed by Marco Polo or anybody else. Columbus 

 never pretended that the Costa de Perlas was Asia. 

 To admit that it was new and hitherto unknown did 

 not in any way affect the question of Honduras being 

 a part of Asia, as viewed by Columbus in 1502. When 

 Pedro de Ledesma declared under oath that Colum- 

 bus sailed southwest from Jamaica in search of Asia, 

 Harrisse thinks he has positive proof that Columbus 

 did not then believe that he was actually exploring 



^o See, above, p. 64, footnote 15. 

 *i See, above, p. 20, footnote 25. 

 *2 See, above, p. 20, footnote 26. 

 « Harrisse, op. cit., p. 105. 

 "Fiske, op. cit.. Vol. 2, p. 117. 



