44 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
I’uKTliGUBUE IN 
iusrm Seas 
Cajturs or 
Mauom. 
Spanish 
F-XPLOHATIOSS. 
The Cabots. 
Hope, and in May 1498 arrived at Calicut. Before twenty years had passed away 
tin Portuguese pilots had mapped out the hydrography of the Indian and Chinese seas 
-utluiently for the first requirements of navigation. The circumnavigation of Eastern 
Africa was completed; the Pied Sea as well as the Persian Gulf were recognised ; the 
peninsula of India was drawn in its true form, as well as the transgangetic peninsula ; and 
! s great part of the archipelagoes extending from Sumatra to the Moluccas and New 
Gain- . were visited. If it be remembered that these seas and shores were, we might say, 
absolutely unknown in Europe at the time Gama passed the south of Africa, and if we 
all the incorrect representations given on Ptolemy’s map and the maps of the fifteenth 
century, we shall appreciate the immense additions that the Portuguese made in so short 
a time to the map of the world, more particularly to the oceanic charts. 
When in 1511 Albuquerque carried Malacca by storm, a new centre of operations was 
reated in the extreme east. Portuguese vessels radiated from thence in all directions 
through the archipelagoes of Oceania and towards the coasts of China. The coasts of 
Sumatra and Java were surveyed; the Sunda and Philippine Islands, Japan, Borneo, 
Celebes, and the north-west of New Guinea were explored. 
Tae voyage of Columbus in 1492 was only the first step towards the discovery of the 
New World ; it took many years and many voyages to complete the discovery of America. 
Other expeditions, official and clandestine, crossed the Atlantic in rapid succession. 
While the Cabots and the Cortereals explored the coasts of North America from Labrador 
to Florida, Columbus visited many of the West Indian Islands and the north coast of 
South America. Pinzon and Solis with Vespucci landed at Honduras, and coasted 
aiou’. 1 the Gulf of Mexico ; 1 Pinzon explored the coast of South America to 8° south ; 
and Cabral was accidentally driven on the coast of Brazil in 1500, and explored from 12° 
to 16 south. This landfall of Cabral is interesting as showfing that, even without 
Columbus, the discovery of America could not have been long delayed. 
It ha- generally been held that Columbus lived and died in the belief that he had 
i' h*d the Asiatic continent. We know that during his second voyage he made his 
• row affirm before a notary that Cuba was a part of Asia, and that as late as 1503 
h v re to to the Spanish sovereigns that he had reached the province of Mango, near 
Cathay. In going west he believed he was approaching the mysterious realms of 
Pr* st«T John. Harrisse has, however, produced documentary evidence that some of 
( !ui. bus's companions and contemporaries, nay even Columbus himself, had clearly 
r g; b, as early as 1501, that the coasts of the New World tvere not the coasts of 
V • . n ar.<: Fi*ke spj/t.-ir to have satisfactorily explained the mystery about the first voyage of Vespucci ; 
... mi: 1. ! with i n nr, 1 Sola an pilot and cosmographer in 1497, explored the coasts of Honduras and Florida, and 
r« tarn* i OcUv . r 149S by way of Bermudas with 222 slaves on board (Vamhagen, Amerigo Vespucci : son caractere, 
• i < t.' (n. nr Icj in ins ■nthentiqu"'), su vie et sea navigations, Lima, 1865, and Le premier voyage de Amerigo 
\ ; ■ i <!■ fu aivcrr* t c xpliqne dans ses details, Vienna, 18C9 ; Fiske, The Discovery of America, chap, vii., London, 
ISOS). 
