The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 | Page 4

of the Mines in Española 382 Seizure
of Columbus's Papers 383
LETTERS OF COLUMBUS ON THE FOURTH VOYAGE 385
INTRODUCTION 387 Voyage to Española 389 A Terrible Storm 390
Storms on the Coast of Central America 391 Anxieties and Misfortunes
of Columbus 392 Arrival at Veragua 394 Evidence that Columbus had
reached the Extremity of Asia 395 Marinus's Views of the Extent of the
Earth Confirmed 396 Exploring the Coast of Veragua 398 Recurrences
of Storms 399 Excursion into the Interior of Veragua 401 Difficulties
with the Natives 402 Columbus's Vision 403 Decides to return to Spain
405 Columbus arrives at Jamaica 406 No one else knows where to find
Veragua 407 Some Features of the Country 408 The Arts of the Natives
409 The Gold brought to Solomon from the Far East 412 The Recovery
of Jerusalem 413 Retrospect. Columbus's Justification 415 His
Distressing Plight in Jamaica 418
ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF THE VOYAGES OF JOHN CABOT

EDITED BY PROFESSOR EDWARD G. BOURNE
INTRODUCTION 421
LETTER OF LORENZO PASQUALIGO TO HIS BROTHERS
ALVISE AND FRANCESCO, MERCHANTS IN VENICE 423
THE FIRST LETTER OF RAIMONDO DE SONCINO, AGENT OF
THE DUKE OF MILAN, TO THE DUKE 424
THE SECOND LETTER OF RAIMONDO DE SONCINO TO THE
DUKE OF MILAN 425
DESPATCH TO FERDINAND AND ISABELLA FROM PEDRO DE
AYALA, JUNIOR AMBASSADOR AT THE COURT OF ENGLAND,
JULY 25, 1498 429

MAPS AND FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION
PAGE 1. MAP SHOWING THE ROUTES, OUTWARD AND
RETURN, OF THE FOUR VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS 88
2. FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE FOLIO (FIRST)
EDITION OF THE SPANISH TEXT OF COLUMBUS'S LETTER,
DATED FEBRUARY 15, 1493, TO SANTANGEL, DESCRIBING
HIS FIRST VOYAGE. From the original (unique) in the New York
Public Library (Lenox Building) 262
3. THE NEW WORLD IN THE CANTINO CHART OF 1502,
SHOWING THE STATE OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE AT
THE TIME OF THE DEATH OF COLUMBUS 418

ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF THE VOYAGES OF THE
NORTHMEN

INTRODUCTION
The important documents from Norse sources that may be classed as
"Original Narratives of Early American History" are the Icelandic sagas
(prose narratives) that tell of the voyages of Northmen to Vinland.
There are two sagas that deal mainly with these voyages, while in other
Icelandic sagas and annals there are a number of references to Vinland
and adjacent regions. These two sagas are the "Saga of Eric the Red"
and another, which, for the lack of a better name, we may call the
"Vinland History of the Flat Island Book," but which might well bear
the same name as the other. This last history is composed of two
disjointed accounts found in a fine vellum manuscript known as the
Flat Island Book (Flateyjar-bok), so-called because it was long owned
by a family that lived on Flat Island in Broad Firth, on the northwestern
coast of Iceland. Bishop Brynjolf, an enthusiastic collector, got
possession of this vellum, "the most extensive and most perfect of
Icelandic manuscripts," and sent it, in 1662, with other vellums, as a
gift to King Frederick III. of Denmark, where it still is one of the great
treasures of the Royal Library.
On account of the beauty of the Flat Island vellum, and the number of
sagas that it contained (when printed it made 1700 octavo pages), it
early attracted the attention of Old Norse collectors and scholars, and
hence the narrative relating to Vinland that it contained came to be
better known than the vellum called Hauk's Book, containing the "Saga
of Eric the Red," and was the only account of Vinland that received any
particular attention from the scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries The Flat Island Book narrative was also given first place in
Rafn's Antiquitates Americanæ (Copenhagen, 1837). This ponderous
volume contained all the original sources, but it has given rise to much
needless controversy on the Norse voyages, for many of the author's
conclusions were soon found to be untenable. He failed to winnow the
sound historical material from that which was unsubstantiated or
improbable. And so far as the original sources are concerned, it was
particularly unfortunate that he followed in the footsteps of seventeenth
and eighteenth century scholars and gave precedence to the Flat Island
Book narrative. In various important respects this saga does not agree

with the account given in the "Saga of Eric the Red," which modern
scholarship has pronounced the better and more reliable version, for
reasons that we shall consider later.
The Flat Island Book consists of transcripts of various sagas made by
the Icelandic priests Jon Thordsson and Magnus Thorhallsson. Very
little of their lives is known, but there is evidence to show that the most
important portion of the copying was completed about 1380. There is,
however, no information concerning the original from which the
transcripts were made. From