A map of the date of 1346, in Castilian, represents Cape Bojada in Africa
as known, and having been doubled at that period. A manuscript, preserved
at Genoa, mentions that a ship had sailed from Majorca to a river called
Vedamel, or Rui Jaura (probably Rio-do-Ouro,) but her fate was not known.
The Genoese historians relate that two of their countrymen in 1291,
attempted to reach India by the west; the fate of this enterprize is also
unknown. The Canary Islands, the first discovery of which is supposed to
have taken place before the Christian era, and which were never afterwards
completely lost sight of, being described by the Arabian geographers,
appear in a Castilian map of 1346. Teneriffe is called in this map Inferno,
in conformity with the popular notion of the ancients, that these islands
were the seat of the blessed. In a map of 1384, there is an island called
Isola-di-legname, or the Isle of Wood, which, from this appellation, and
its situation, is supposed by some geographers to be the island of Madeira.
It would seem that some notions respecting the Azores were obscurely
entertained towards the end of the fourteenth century, as islands nearly in
their position are laid down in the maps of 1380.
In the library of St. Marc, at Venice, there is a map drawn by Bianco, in
1436. In it the ancient world is represented as forming one great
continent, divided into two unequal parts by the Mediterranean, and by the
Indian Ocean, which is carried from east to west, and comprises a great
number of islands.
Pages:
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579