114 CONXEPTIOXS OF COLUMBUS 



If, now, we look further, we find on the Canerio 

 chart, -^ possibly of a little later date than the 

 Cantino, that, on the triangular mainland west of 

 what would correspond to the farthest navigation on 

 the southern coast of Cuba made by Columbus on 

 his second voyage, the land turns southward and a 

 delta with three openings appears there as a con- 

 spicuous feature of the coast (Fig. 9). Correspond- 

 ing with this feature, Peter Martyr states,-^ in his 

 account of the fourth voyage of Columbus, "that 

 within a distance of eight leagues he discovered three 

 rivers of clear water, upon whose banks grew canes 

 as thick round as a man's leg." The Canerio delta, 

 according to Varnhagen,^^ is that of the Mississippi; 

 but, if intended for the Mississippi, it strangel}^ ap- 

 pears on the western instead of the northern coast of 

 the gulf. If, howe\-er, this continental land repre- 

 sents Cuba, which Columbus believed to be the 

 mainland of Asia (as on the configuration of the 

 Behaim globe-^ and the Martellus map"), then all is 

 clear and simple. As we have seen in the preceding 

 study (p. 70 and PI. II), the northeastern coast of 

 Cuba was the eastern coast of Cathay ; the southern 



23 See, above, footnote i. For other reproductions see those mentioned 

 below in footnote 31, second paragraph. The date of this map is uncertain. 

 Stevenson dates it about 1502 ; the writer believes it is not earher than 1504. 



24 F. A. MacNutt, transl. and edit.: De Orbe Novo: The Eight Decades 

 of Peter Martyr D'Anghera, 2 vols.. New York, 1912; reference in V^ol. i, 

 p. 319- 



25 Varnhagen, \^espuce, p. 30. 



26 E. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe, London, 

 1908, with facsimile of gores of globe. 



2' Reproduced in Nordenskiold, Peri plus, p. 123. 



