80 PRETENDED VOYAGE OF MALDONADO. [1588. 



fabrication of a later date.* Whether the fabrication, as it un- 

 doubtedly is, proceeded from Maldonado, or from some other 

 person, is of no importance at the present day. A few extracts 

 will serve to show its general character, and to bring to view the 

 opinions entertained in Europe, during the seventeenth century, 

 with regard to the northern parts of America. 



After stating the advantages which Spain might derive from a 

 northern passage between the two oceans, and the injury which she 

 might sustain, were it left open to other nations, Maldonado proceeds 

 thus to describe the voyage : — 



" Departing from Spain, — suppose from Lisbon, — the course 

 is north-west, for the distance of 450 leagues, when the ship will 

 have reached the latitude of 60 degrees, where the Island of 

 Friesland f will be seen, commonly called File, or Fule : it is an 

 island somewhat smaller than Ireland. Thence the course is west- 

 ward, on the parallel of 60 degrees, for 180 leagues, which will 

 bring the navigator to the land of Labrador, where the strait of that 

 name, or Davis's Strait, begins, the entrance of which is very wide, 

 being somewhat more than 30 leagues : the land on the coast of 

 Labrador, which is to the west, is very low ; but the opposite side 

 of the mouth of the strait consists of very high mountains. Here 

 two openings appear, between which are these high mountains. 

 One of the passages runs east-north-east, and the other north- 

 west ; the one running east-north-east, which is on the right hand, 

 and looks towards the north, must be left, as it leads to Greenland, 

 and thence to the Sea of Friesland. Taking the other passage, and 

 steering north-west 80 leagues, the ship will arrive in the latitude 



* See a review, supposed to be written by Barrow, of the manuscript found at 

 Milan by Carlo Amoretti, in the London Quarterly Review for October, 1816. A 

 translation of the most material parts of that paper may be found in Burney's 

 History of Voyages in the Pacific, vol. 5, p. 167. A translation of the whole of the 

 Madrid document, with copies of the maps and plans annexed to it, is given by 

 Barrow, at the conclusion of his Chronological History of Voyages in the Arctic 

 Regions. See, also, the Introduction to the Journal of Galiano and V aides, p. 49. 

 The reviewer above mentioned " suspects this pretended voyage of Maldonado to be 

 the clumsy and audacious forgery of some ignorant German, from the circumstance 

 of 15 leagues to the degree being used in some of the computations;" but the 

 courses are not laid down with so much exactness in the account, as to warrant the 

 assertion that 15 leagues are employed, instead of 17£, which would have been the true 

 subdivision of the degree of latitude in Spanish leagues. 



t An island of this name was long supposed to exist near the position here assigned 

 to it, on the faith of an apocryphal account of some voyages which were said to 

 have been made in the North Atlantic about the year 1400, by the brothers Antonio 

 and Nicolo Zeno, of Venice. Friesland has been, by some, considered as identical 

 with the Feroe Islands. 



