One Martin Vicente, a pilot in the service of the king of Portugal, related to the admiral, that, being once 450 leagues to the westward of Cape St Vincent, he had found a piece of wood most curiously curved, but not with iron; and seeing that the winds had blown for many days previously from the west, he conjectured that the carved wood must have been drifted from some island in that direction. One Peter Correa, who had married a sister of the admirals wife, told him of having seen another piece of wood which had been brought to the island of Porto Sancto by the same westerly wind, and of certain drifted canes, so thick that every joint was large enough to contain four quarts of wine. These he alleged to have shewn to the king of Portugal, and as there were no such canes in our parts of the world, he believed that the winds must have wafted them from some distant islands in the west, or else from India: More especially as Ptolemy, in the first book of his cosmography, and chapter 17. says, that such canes grow in the eastern parts of India; and some of the islanders, particularly those in the Azores, informed Correa that when the west wind blew long together, the sea sometimes drove pine trees on the islands Gratioso and Fayal, where no such trees were otherwise to be found. He was likewise told that the sea had cast upon the island of Flores, another of the Azores, the dead bodies of two men, having very broad visages, and very different in their appearance from Europeans.
It was likewise reported to the admiral that the people about Cape Verga had once seen some almadias or covered boats, which it was believed had been driven thither by stress of weather while going from one of these supposed islands in the west to another island. One Anthony Leme, who was married and settled in the island of Madeira, told the admiral that, having once made a considerable run to the westward, he had descried three islands. To this information, however, he gave little credit, as by his own account Leme had not sailed above 100 leagues to the west, and might have been deceived by some rocks; or what he had seen might have been some of those floating islands, called Aguades by the sailors, of which Pliny makes mention in the 97th chapter of the first book of his natural history. Pliny says that some spots of land are seen in the northern parts of the ocean on which there are deep-rooted trees, and that these parcels of land are carried about like floats, or islands swimming upon the water. Seneca, in his third book, endeavouring to give a probable reason for the existence of such islands, alleges that there are certain rocks so light and spongy in their substance, that islands in India which are composed of such do actually swim upon the water. Therefore, even if it were actually the case that Leme had seen the three islands, the admiral, was of opinion that they must have been of that kind, such as those called the islands of St Brandan are supposed to be, where many wonders are reported to have been seen. Accounts have also been propagated of other islands, which are continually burning, and which lie far to the northward15.
Juventius Fortunatus mentions an account of two floating islands considerably to the west, and more southward than those of Cape Verd. These and such like reports, might induce several of the inhabitants of Ferro and Gomera, and of the Azores, to affirm that they saw islands towards the west every year; of which they were so thoroughly convinced, that many reputable persons swore that it was true. The same Fortunatus relates, that a person came from Madeira to Portugal in the year 1484, to beg a caravel from the king in which he might go in quest of an island which he made oath that he saw every year, and always after the exact same manner; with whom others agreed, who declared that they had seen the same land from the Azores.
On these grounds, in all the former maps and charts, certain islands were placed in that direction. In his book concerning the wonderful things of nature, Aristotle informs us of a report, that some Carthaginian merchants had sailed across the Atlantic to a most beautiful and fertile island, of which we shall give a more particular account hereafter. Some Portuguese cosmographers have inserted this island in their maps under the name of Antilla; though they do not agree with Aristotle in regard to its situation, yet none have placed it more than 200 leagues due west from the Canaries and Azores. This they assert to be certainly the island of the seven cities, which is said to have been peopled by the Portuguese in the year 714, at the time when Spain was conquered by the Moors. At that time, according to the legend, seven bishops with their people sailed to this island, where each of them built a city; and, that none of their people might ever think of returning to Spain, they burnt their ships with all the tackling, and destroyed every thing that was necessary for navigation. There are who affirm that several Portuguese mariners have been to that island, but could never find their way back to it again. It is said particularly, that in the time of Don Henry, infant of Portugal, a Portuguese ship was driven by stress of weather upon this island of Antilla, where the men went on shore, and were led by the islanders to a church, that they might see whether they were Christians and observed the ceremonies of the Roman worship; and perceiving that they did, the islanders requested them to remain till their lord should return, who happened to be then absent, but who would be very kind to them, and give them many presents. But the master and seamen were afraid of being detained, and suspected that the islanders had no mind to be discovered, and might burn their vessel; wherefore they sailed back to Portugal, hoping to be rewarded for their discovery by Don Henry. But he reproved them severely, and ordered them to return quickly; wherefore the master and all his crew escaped from Portugal with their ship, and never returned. It is likewise reported, that while the master and seamen of this vessel were at church in the foresaid island, the boys of the ship gathered sand for the cook room, a third part of which was found to be pure gold.
Among others who set out to discover this island was one Jattes de Fiene, whose pilot Peter Velasquez, of the town of Palos de Moguer, told the admiral in the monastery of St Mary de la Rabida, that they sailed 150 leagues south-west from Fayal, and discovered the island of Flores in their return, to which they were led by observing numbers of birds to fly in that direction, and because these were land birds they concluded that they were making for land, as they could not rest upon the waters. Leaving Flores, they sailed so far to the north-east, that they came to Cape Clear in the west of Ireland, where they met with a stiff western gale and yet a smooth sea, whence they concluded that there must be land in that direction by which the sea was sheltered from the effects of the west wind; but it being then the month of August, they did not venture to proceed in search of that supposed island, for fear of winter. This happened about forty years before the discovery of the West Indies.
The foregoing account was confirmed to the admiral by the relation of a mariner whom he met with at Port St Mary, who told him that, once in a voyage to Ireland he saw that western land, which he then supposed to be a part of Tartary stretching out towards the west, but could not come near it on account of bad weather. But it is probable that this must have been the land now called Bacallaos, or Newfoundland. This was farther confirmed by what was related to him by one Peter de Velasco of Galicia, whom he met with in the city of Murcia in Spain: who, in sailing for Ireland, went so far to the north-west, that he discovered land far to the west of Ireland; which he believes to have been the same which one Femaldolmos endeavoured to discover in the following manner, as set down in my fathers writings, that it may appear how some men build great and important matters upon very slight foundations. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, in his natural history of the Indies, says that the admiral had a letter in which the Indies were described by one who had before discovered them; which was by no means the case, but only thus: Vincent Diaz, a Portuguese of Tavira, on his return from Guinea to the Tercera islands, and having passed the island of Madeira, which he left to the east, saw, or imagined that he saw something which he certainly concluded to be land. On his arrival at Tercera, he told this to one Luke de Cazzana, a Genoese merchant, his friend, and a very rich man, and endeavoured to persuade him to fit out a vessel for the conquest of this place: This Cazzana agreed to, and obtained a license from the king of Portugal for the purpose. He wrote accordingly to his brother Francis de Cazzana, who resided at Seville, to fit out a vessel with all expedition for Diaz; but Francis made light of the matter, and Luke de Cazzana actually fitted out a vessel from Tercera, in which the before named pilot sailed from 120 to 130 leagues, but all in vain, for he found no land. Yet neither he nor his partner Cazzana desisted from the enterprize till death closed their hopes. The before mentioned Francis de Cazzana likewise informed the admiral, that he knew two sons of the pilot who discovered the island of Tercera, named Michael and Jasper Cortereal, who went several times in search of that land, and at last perished one after the other in the year 1502, without having ever been heard of since, as was well known to many credible persons.
15
This report must have proceeded from some very erroneous account of Iceland, as it is the only place in the northern part of the Atlantic which contains a volcano. –E.