COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

612 COSMOS.
the opposite coast, Helluland it mi/cfa, Mar/eland and the good
Vinland, and if he connected this knowledge of a neighbouring
continent with those projects which had already engaged his
attention since 1470 and 1473, his voyage to Thule (Iceland)
would have been made so much the more a subject of consideration
during the celebrated law- suit regarding the merit of
ail earlier discovery, which did not end till 1517, since the
suspicious fiscal officer mentions a map of the world (mappa
mundo] Avhich had been seen at Rome by Martin Alonzo
Pinzon, and on which the New Continent was supposed to be
marked. If Columbus had desired to seek a continent of
which he had obtained information in Iceland, he would
assuredly not have directed his course south-wr est from the
Canary Islands. Commercial relations were maintained
between Bergen and Greenland until 1484, and, therefore, until
seven years after Columbus" voyage to Iceland.
Wholly different from the first discovery
nent in the eleventh century, its re-discovery by Christopher
Columbus and his explorations of the tropical regions of America,
have been attended by events of cosmical importance, and
by a marked influence on the extension of physical views.
Although the mariners who conducted this great expedition at
the end of the fifteenth century, were not actuated by the
of the New Conti-
design of attempting to discover a new quarter of the world,
and although it would appear to be proved that Columbus and
Amerigo Vespucci died in the firm conviction that they had
merely touched on portions of Eastern Asia,* yet the expedi-
* See the proofs, which I have collected from trustworthy documents^
for Columbus, in the Examen crit., t. iv. pp. 233, 250, and 261, and for
Vespucci, t. v. p. 182-185. Columbus was so fully convinced that Cuba
was part of the continent of Asia, and even the south part of Khatai
(the province of Mango), that on the 12th of June, 1494, he caused all
the crews of his squadron (about 80 sailors) to swear that they were convinced
he might go from Cuba to Spain by land, "que esta tierra de Cuba
fue&e la tierra. lirme al comienzo de las Indias y fin &, quien en estaspartes
quisiere venir de Espaila'por tierra"); and that "if any who now swore
io should at any future day maintain the contrary, they would have to
expiate their perjury, by receiving one hundred stripes, and having the
tongue torn out." (See Information del Escribano publico, Fernando
Perez de Luna, in Navar**te, Viagcs y Desc,ubrimientos de los Espanoles,
t. ii. pp. 143, 149.) Vvhen Columbus was approaching the island
of Cuba on his first expedition, he believed himself to be opposite the