"FLORIDA" ON CANTINO MAP 97 



navigator might well have distributed on an unknown 

 coast discovered by him." 



The Cuban hypothesis is also rejected by Har- 

 risse, after a discussion^ which, on account of the 

 points it brings up, may be quoted at some length : 



Another interpretation has been lately advanced. It 

 is to the effect that the continental coast line which 

 emerges from the north-western side of the Cantino 

 planisphere is Cuba, although that island already figures 

 on the map in its own proper place among the Antilles. 

 Thus far, not a particle of evidence has been adduced in 

 support of the assertion. We will, nevertheless, ex- 

 amine this bare averment with as much care as if it re- 

 posed on facts, documents, or cogent reasons. 



It will be shown hereafter that, when the Cantino chart 

 was made, cartographers, in Spain as well as in Portugal, 

 properly considered Cuba as an island. They depicted 

 it as such on their maps as early as the year 1500, with 

 many names and an outline sufficiently exact to warrant 

 the belief that the data used by those map-makers were 

 originally obtained de visit. 



Christopher Columbus at first also believed in the in- 

 sularity of Cuba, as in his Journal he invariably men- 

 tions it as ''la isla de Cuba." But he soon afterwards 

 changed his opinion, and, June 12, 1494, compelled his 

 officers and crews to declare that Cuba was a continent. 

 January 14, 1495, and even at a later period, he con- 

 tinued to profess such an erroneous belief. And, as we 

 shall show hereafter, Columbus being alone of that 

 opinion, if the configuration which we are discussing ever 

 was intended to represent the island of Cuba it must 

 have been borrowed from one of his early maps. 



3 Harrisse, Discovery of North America, pp. 83-85. 



