CATALAN WORLD MAPS 49 



half of the continent in general resembles that of the other 

 Catalan charts, but the north-western coast embodies some 

 details of contemporar}^ Portuguese voyages as far as 'C. ude' 

 (Cape Verde) and 'C. groso'. From this evidence, the map is 

 usually dated about 1450. Near the gulf are the Mountains of 

 the Moon, from which five rivers flow northwards to a lake 

 on the 'western Nile'. This lake probably represents the area 

 around the Upper Niger liable to inundation ; Dr. Kimble has 

 pointed out that these rivers may well represent the five main 

 sources of the Niger. These Mountains of the Moon are stated 

 to be on the Equator, and the streams are called the 'riu de 

 lor'. We may therefore assume that the headwaters of the 

 Niger marked the approximate limit of knowledge in this 

 region, and it is not improbable that reports of the sea to the 

 south had been received. These may have induced the carto- 

 grapher to accept the western gulf of Ptolemy, but to enlarge 

 it considerably. The name 'river of gold' recalls the inscription 

 on the Catalan Atlas. The portrayal of the interior thus goes 

 back at least to 1375. Apart therefore from a small portion of 

 the coastline, the map owes nothing to Portuguese exploration. 



Some surprise has been expressed that a map of 1450 

 should contain relatively up-to-date details with antiquated 

 ideas in other areas, and this has produced some rather in- 

 volved explanations. Taking into consideration the lack of 

 details and names in the southern regions of Africa, we may 

 plausibly conjecture that, as an exception to the usual con- 

 servatism, the draughtsman, in Africa at least, had removed 

 all the detail for which he had no evidence, to obtain a frame- 

 work on which to insert the latest Portuguese discoveries. It 

 must remain debatable whether the outline of the southern 

 extremity represents some knowledge of the Cape. The outline 

 may be entirely imposed by the frame of the map: at the most, 

 it may reflect the kind of report that we find on Fra Mauro's 

 map. 



The merit of the Catalan cartographers lay in the skill with 

 which they employed the best contemporary sources to modify 

 the traditional world picture, never proceeding further than 

 the evidence warranted. In the same spirit they removed from 

 the map most of the traditional fables which had been accepted 



D 



