including a view of 'previous Discoveries. 227 
in much perplexity, and been considered even as wholly inex- 
plicable. We are convinced, that it originated in a very diffe- 
rent quarter of the world from that to which navigators have 
been accustomed to refer it. In the earliest maps, Anian is deli- 
neated as the most eastern country of Asia, and it occupies the 
position of Cachmehina, which has always, with the natives, 
borne the title of Anann To understand how the separating 
Strait of Asia and America could be placed here, we must at- 
tend to the train of ideas which prevailed at that infant era of 
geographical knowledge. The American islands, when first 
discovered, were still viewed as part of the East Indies, in 
search of which the voyage of Columbus was undertaken* 
Even after they were proved to belong to a great mass of con- 
tinent, that continent was supposed to be attached to, and to 
form the eastern boundary of Asia. The influence of those 
ideas may be clearly traced in a series of very curious maps de- 
lineated in the commencement, and even in the middle of the six- 
teenth century, at Venice, then the centre of nautical informa- 
tion ; and which are preserved in the King’s Library. In the 
earliest of these maps, Asia and America are joined throughout 
their whole mass ; and in one of them Cathay is even placed 
on the Gulf of Mexico. Under the influence of these impres- 
sions, it is easy to conceive how the early East Indian naviga- 
tors, on coming to Anam or Cochinchina, where the coast first 
decidedly changes from east and west to south and north, might 
imagine that they were now between the two continents, and 
would soon come to the division between them, which might 
be named by anticipation the Strait of Anian. In one of the 
maps above mentioned, this Strait is represented as running up 
across the whole breadth of the two continents. The progress 
of navigation proved that no such Strait existed here ; but still 
the idea was rooted in the mind of geographers, and they trans- 
ferred it farther and farther north, till they reached the frozen 
extremities oi Asia. It is not probable, however, that this im- 
pression was founded even upon the most remote tradition of 
Behring’s Straits. The derivation above given, seems confirmed 
by the circumstance, that the idea of the Strait of Anian was 
always combined, not with that of a bleak and wintry passage, 
but of a smiling and fertile region, and even of gold ; which 
p o 
I 
