BELIEF IN ASIA 87 



Whatever mystery there was about the location of 

 Veragua, it is certain that the Columbus brothers, 

 Christopher and Bartholomew, shared each other's 

 ideas in regard to the new discoveries, in view of the 

 fact that they had made the fourth voyage together. 

 Bartholomew removed whatever mystery there was 

 when, in Rome after Christopher's death to solicit 

 the assistance of the Pope in persuading the Spanish 

 court to organize a new expedition to colonize the 

 lands discovered on that voyage, he gave friar Jerome 

 of San Giovanni in Laterano a description and map of 

 Veragua, the equivalent of w^hich map von Wieser 

 found on the margin of a copy of Christopher's letter 

 on the fourth voyage written in Jamaica on July 7, 

 1503.^9 This map (Fig. 5) shows Veragua as a part 

 of Asia. Veragua (''beragnia" on Fig. 5) is a part of 

 an isthmus connecting Asia and Tvlondo Novo. It 

 separates the Atlantic Ocean from the Magnus Sinus. 

 The map and the letter certainly prove Columbus' 

 Asiatic interpretation of the discoveries on the fourth 

 voyage. The alleged mystification put forward by 

 Thacher is a slight reason, to say the least, on which 

 to throw overboard all the positive assertions of 

 Columbus. 



In another place Thacher says:^° 



The reader by this time . . . must be convinced that 

 the Admiral was no longer in doubt as to the character 

 of his discovery. He knew that he had disclosed another 



'^ von Wieser, op. cit., pp. 4, 5, and 8. 

 60 Thacher, op. cit.. Vol. 2. p. 568. 



