Charles Raymond Beazley

“ Again, the queen began to criticize severely the shipment of Indians from the new-found lands to Spain. And once more, there was no doubt that the colony itself, whatever the cause, had not prospered so well as might have been desired. Ferdinand’s support of Columbus had never been very hearty, and his inclination to supersede the Genoese now prevailed over the queen’s friendliness. Accordingly, on the 21st of May 1499, Francisco Bobadilla was appointed governor and judge of Hispaniola during royal pleasure, with authority to examine into all complaints. ”

“ This rediscovery of the far western archipelago, and the expeditions which, even within Prince Henry’s life (as in 1452) pushed still deeper into the Atlantic, seem to show that the infante was not entirely forgetful of the possibility of such a western route to Asia as Columbus attempted in 1492, only to find America across his path. ”

“ LEIF ERICSSON [Leifr Eiriksson] (fl. 999–1000) , Scandinavian explorer, of Icelandic family, the first known European discoverer of “Vinland,” “Vineland” or “Wineland, the Good,” in North America. He was a son of Eric the Red (Eirikr hinn raudi Thorvaldsson) , the founder of the earliest Scandinavian settlements—from Iceland—in Greenland (985) . In 999 he went from Greenland to the court of King Olaf Tryggvason in Norway, stopping in the Hebrides on the way. On his departure from Norway in 1000, the king commissioned him to proclaim Christianity in Greenland. ”

“ On the 13th of April 1769, he reached Tahiti, where he observed the transit on the 3rd of June. From Tahiti he sailed in quest of the great continent then supposed to exist in the South Pacific, explored the Society Islands, and thence struck to New Zealand, whose coasts he circumnavigated and examined with great care for six months, charting them for the first time with fair accuracy, and especially observing the channel (“Cook Strait”) which divided the North and South Islands. ”

“ At last Dampier, leaving Davis, went on board Swan’s ship, and proceeded with him along the northern parts of Mexico as far as southern California. Swan then proposed, as the expedition met with “bad success” on the Mexican coast, to run across the Pacific and return by the East Indies. They started from Cape Corrientes on the 31st of March 1686, and reached Guam in the Ladrones on the 20th of May; the men, having almost come to an end of their rations, had decided to kill and eat their leaders next, beginning with the “lusty and fleshy” Swan. ”

“ In the first part of his chronicle Gomez tells how, no long time after the disastrous expedition of the Danish nobleman “Vallarte” (Adalbert) in 1448, he was sent out in command of three vessels along the West African coast, accompanied by one Jacob, an Indian interpreter, to be employed in the event of reaching India. After passing the Rio Grande, beyond Cape Verde, strong currents checked his course; his officers and men feared that they were approaching the extremity of the ocean, and he put back to the Gambia. ”

“ In spite of some extraordinary blunders in topography and history, his observant and detailed record, marked by evident good faith, is among the most valuable of medieval documents relating to Palestine: it is also important in the history of the Russian language, and in the study of ritual and liturgy (from its description of the Easter services in Jerusalem, the Descent of the Holy Fire, &c.) . Several Russian friends and companions, from Kiev and Old Novgorod, are recorded by Daniel as present with him at the Easter Eve “miracle,” in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. ”

“ In 1554 Mercator published his great map of Europe in six sheets, three or four of which had already been pretty well worked out at Louvain; a copy of this was rediscovered at Breslau in 1889. Herein, though still greatly under Ptolemy’s influence, Mercator begins to emancipate himself; thus Ptolemy’s 62° for the length of the Mediterranean, reduced to 58° in the globe of 1541, he now cuts down to 53°. On the 28th of October 1556 he observed an eclipse at Duisburg; in 1563 he surveyed Lorraine, at the request of Duke Charles, and completed a map of the same (Lotharingiae descriptio) ”

“ The climate proved unhealthy; the colonists were greedy of gold, impatient of control, proud, ignorant and mutinous; and Columbus, whose inclination drew him westward, was doubtless glad to escape the worry and anxiety of his post, and to avail himself of the instructions of his sovereigns as to further discoveries. On the 2nd of February 1494 he sent home, by Antonio de Torres, that despatch to their Catholic highnesses by which he may be said to have founded the West Indian slave trade. He established the mining camp of San Tomaso in the gold country of Central Hispaniola ”

“ Either before going out to Malabar as bishop, or during a later visit to the west, Jordanus probably wrote his Mirabilia, which from internal evidence can only be fixed within the period 1329–1338; in this work he furnished the best account of Indian regions, products, climate, manners, customs, fauna and flora given by any European in the Middle Ages—superior even to Marco Polo’s. In his triple division of the Indies, India Major comprises the shorelands from Malabar to Cochin China ”

“ His three Egyptian journeys, immediately after the Turkish conquest, all probably fell between 1517 and 1520; on one of these he ascended the Nile from Cairo to Assuan. As he was returning from Egypt about 1520 he was captured by pirates near the island of Gerba, and was ultimately presented as a slave to Leo X. The pope discovered his merit, assigned him a pension, and having persuaded him to profess the Christian faith, stood sponsor at his baptism, and bestowed on him (as Ramusio says) his own names, Johannes and Leo. ”