THE FABLED ISLANDS.

7

the Seven Cities further to the north. This island had not disappeared from the maps as late as 1755, when a French geographer placed it upon his chart. With both of these islands there were associated marvellous stories. Concerning the first, it was related that St. Brandan, a Scotch or Irish abbot of the sixth century, sailed out into the great ocean in search of an island of which he had heard that enjoyed the delights of Paradise, but was inhabited by infidels. Before he arrived at the spot, he found, on another island, the body of a giant lying in a sepulchre. This he resuscitated, and the giant, after giving accounts of the sufferings of Jews and Pagans in the infernal regions, was converted and baptized. He told the saint that he knew the island for which he was seeking, and undertook to direct him to it. The search proved unsuccessful; but the island that the people of the Canaries supposed they could see from their shores, long bore the name of St. Brandan.* At a later period it was the subject of much grave official inquiry, and so satisfactory was the evidence of its existence, that in 1526, 1570, 1605, and even 1721, expeditions were actually sent to search for it, though it always refused to be discovered.

The Island of the Seven Cities was connected with the Moorish conquest of Spain, in the eighth century, when the inhabitants fled in all directions. Seven bishops, with a great number of people, founded seven cities on a large island in the ocean. Mariners were found who related that they had actually visited the

* See Longfellow's "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," page 372; also poems by Matthew Arnold and Denis Florence McCarthy, on St. Brandan; and the appendix to Irving's "Columbus,” vol. iii p. 403.

island; and their story of the strange inhabitants gained much currency. The island was laid down on the maps under the name of Antilla.

Romance had connected itself also with the island of Maderia, which was said to have been discovered by an Englishman, who in the reign of Edward III. (about 1350) had fallen in love with a maiden above him in social importance. The marriage being impossible in England, the lovers took ship surreptitiously, intending to land in France; but after a voyage of fourteen days found themselves in a country of Arcadian loveliness. A tempest destroyed their vessel, leaving the lovers alone in a strange land. The lady died, reproaching herself at being the cause of the misfortune, and her lover soon followed her to the grave.

GENVEN.

MBVS

PHORVS

In this age of romance, at about the middle of the fifteenth century, there appeared from the obscurity of an humble social position, a young Italian seaman who was destined to revolutionize the world. He was inured to hardship, and had passed the apprenticeship of a

rigid discipline on board a ship engaged in predatory warfare against the enemies of Genoa. He had studied geography, geometry and astronomy in the great school of Pavia, and in the northern and southern seas, for he had sailed to Iceland, and a hundred leagues beyond it,* curious to know if that frozen land.

Humbolt asserts that in Scandanavia Columbus learned traditions which confirmed him in his views regarding a Western continent.

THE DISCOVERER'S PREPARATION.

9

were inhabited, and had visited the gold coast of Guinea. He appears to us at the age of about thirtyfive, in the city of Lisbon, tall, well formed and muscular, with hair prematurely white — a man of dignified demeanor and the air of authority. Italy had held up the torch of learning during the ages of darkness, and had carried the civilizing influence of commerce to other parts; but at this time the court of Portugal was the most attractive to one of the spirit of Columbus, for Prince Henry, the third son of John the Great, known as "the Navigator," had made the country foremost among the powers of Europe in enlarging the scope of geographical knowledge.

Columbus married the daughter of a noted Italian navigator, Palestrello, and through this connection added to his opportunities for knowledge of the sort that he had before most loved. He studied the rude maps at his disposal, listened to the stories of romantic travellers, and read the prophecies in the Bible of the universal diffusion of the gospel. This inspired him with a desire to recover the holy sepulchre and to carry the gospel to the countries to the eastward. he looked westward, and thought of the

Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea,

As

he yearned to sail in that direction also, confident that he should arrive at the famed island of Cipango (Japan), and the country of the great Cham. He considered the stories of the islands of St. Brandan and of the Seven Cities as mere illusions, charming as they were to the fancy; but he did not give up a hope of being able to get near the confines of the Terrestrial Paradise.