128
LIFE A N D V O Y A G E S
OF
[Book III.
It was on Friday, the 3d of August, 1492, early in the morning, that Columbus set sail from the bar of Saltes, a small island formed by the arms of the Odiel, in front of the town of Huelva, steering in a southwesterly direction for the Canary islands, whence it was his intention to strike due west.
As a guide by
which to sail, he had prepared a map or chart, improved upon that sent him by Paulo Toscanelli.
Neither of those now exist,
but the globe or planisphere finished by Martin Behem in this year of the admiral's first voyage is still extant, and furnishes an idea of what the chart of Columbus must have been.
It exhibits
the coasts of Europe and Africa from the south of Ireland to the end of Guinea, and opposite to them, on the other side of the Atlantic, the extremity of Asia, or, as it was termed, India. Between them is placed the island of Cipango, or Japan, which, according to Marco Polo, lay fifteen hundred miles distant from the Asiatic coast.
In his computations Columbus advanced this
island about a thousand leagues too much to the east, supposing it to be about the situation of Florida ;* and at this island he hoped first to arrive. The exultation of Columbus at finding himself, after so many
account of this voyage, the author has made use of the journal contained in the work of Señor Navarrete, the manuscript history of Las Casas, the History of the Indies by Herrera, the Life of the Admiral by his son, the Chronicle of the Indies by Oviedo, the manuscript history of Ferdinand and Isabella by Andres Bernaldes, curate of Los Palacios, and the Letters and Decades of the Ocean Sea, by Peter Martyr ; all of whom, with the exception of Herrera, were contemporaries and acquaintances of Columbus.
These are the principal authori-
ties which have been consulted, though scattered lights have occasionally been obtained from other sources. * Malte-Brun, Geograph. Universelle, tom. ii. p. 283.