The Voyage of the Verrazzano | Page 4

AND LUSCIOUS GRAPES OF WHICH THEY ATE, tasting not unlike their own; and from whence they carried off a boy about eight years old, for the purpose of taking him to France. Coasting thence northeasterly for one hundred leagues, SAILING ONLY IN THE DAY TIME AND NOT MAKING ANY HARBOR in the whole of that distance, they came to a pleasant situation among steep hills, from whence a large river ran into the sea. Leaving, in consequence of a rising storm, this river, into which they had entered for a short distance with their boat, and where they saw many of the natives in their CANOES, they sailed directly EAST for eighty leagues, when they discovered an island of triangular shape, about ten leagues from the main land, EQUAL IN SIZE TO THE ISLAND OF RHODES. This island they named after the mother of the king of France. WITHOUT LANDING UPON IT, they proceeded to a harbor fifteen leagues beyond, at the entrance of a large bay, TWELVE LEAGUES BROAD, where they came to anchor and remained for fifteen days. They encountered here a people with whom they formed a great friendship, different in appearance from the natives whom they first saw,--these having a WHITE COMPLEXION. The men were tall and well formed, and the women graceful and possessed of pleasing manners. There were two kings among them, who were attended in state by their gentlemen, and a queen who had her waiting maids. This country was situated in latitude 41 Degrees 40' N, in the parallel of Rome; and was very fertile and abounded with game. They left it on the 6th of May, and sailed one hundred and fifty leagues, CONSTANTLY IN SIGHT OF THE LAND which stretched to the east. In this long distance THEY MADE NO LANDING, but proceeded fifty leagues further along the land, which inclined more to the north, when they went ashore and found a people exceedingly barbarous and hostile. Leaving them and continuing their course northeasterly for fifty leagues FURTHER, they discovered within that distance thirty-two islands. And finally, after having sailed between east and north one hundred and fifty leagues MORE, they reached the fiftieth degree of north latitude, where the Portuguese had commenced their discoveries towards the Arctic circle; when finding their provisions nearly exhausted, they took in wood and water and returned to France, having coasted, it is stated, along an UNKNOWN COUNTRY FOR SEVEN HUNDRED LEAGUES. In conclusion, it is added, they had found it inhabited by a people without religion, but easily to be persuaded, and imitating with fervor the acts of Christian worship performed by the discoverers.
The description of the voyage is followed by what the writer calls a cosmography, in which is shown the distance they had sailed from the time they left the desert rocks at Madeira, and the probable size of the new world as compared with the old, with the relative area of land and water on the whole globe. There is nothing striking or important in this supplement, except that it emphasizes and enforces the statements of the former part of the letter in regard to the landfall, fixes the exact point of their departure from the coast for home again at 50 Degrees N. latitude, and gives seven hundred leagues as the extent of the discovery. The length of a longitudinal degree along the parallel of thirty-four, in which it is reiterated they first made land, and between which and the parallel of thirty- two they had sailed from the Desertas, is calculated and found to be fifty-two miles, and the whole number of degrees which they had traversed across the ocean between those parallels, being twelve hundred leagues, or forty-eight hundred miles, is by simple division made ninety-two. The object of this calculation is not apparent, and strikes the reader as if it were a feeble imitation of the manner in which Amerigo Vespucci illustrates his letters. A statement is made, that they took the aim's altitude from day to day, and noted the observations, together with the rise and fall of the tide, in a little boat, which was "communicated to his majesty, in the hope of promoting science." It is also mentioned that they had no lunar eclipses, by means of which they could have ascertained the longitude during the voyage. This fact is shown by the tables of Regiomontanus, which had been published long before the alleged voyage, and were open to the world. The statement of it here, therefore, does not, as has been supposed, furnish any evidence in support of the narrative, by redeem of its originality. Such is the account, in brief; which the letter gives of the origin, nature and extent of the alleged discovery; and as it assumes to be the