There is a parallel to the two Brazils of his map in the two series of
Azores on that of Bianco (1448).[212] The latter cartographer retained
the original Italian-discovered series, inaccurately aligned north
and south, but showed also farther afield the islands of Portuguese
rediscovery, properly slanted northwestward, omitting only Flores
and Corvo, which the rediscoverers had not yet found or at least had
not yet brought to his notice. Another map of about the same period
makes the same double showing--certainly a curious compromise between
conservatism and progressiveness.
THE ZENO NARRATIVE
There is perhaps no other news of Markland before it became
Newfoundland, unless we may put some glimmer of faith in the
much-discussed Zeno narrative[213] (Ch. IX), which embodies the tale of
an Orkney islander wrecked on the shore of Estotiland (perhaps the name
was first written Escociland--Scotland) a little before the opening
of the fifteenth century. He professed to have found there a people
having some of the rudiments of civilization and carrying on trade with
Greenland, but ignorant of the mariner’s compass. The picture given
is not incredible and perhaps receives some support from the really
notable works known to have been executed by the Beothuks[214] of
Newfoundland in their later and feebler, though not quite their latest
days--such as extensive deer fences, to give their hunters the utmost
benefit from the annual migrations. Granted a certain infusion of Norse
blood, or even without it, there is perhaps nothing stated of the
Escocilanders which may not have been true. As to the name, it is no
more strange than Nova Scotia, which still occupies the coast just to
the south, and it may have been applied in the same spirit.
Very early in the history of European colonization this Markland--which
by its outjutting position was accused of being a New-found-land,
again and again with varying designations during the ill-recorded
centuries--took under the latter name the position, which it still
holds, of the very earliest of the English colonies of the New World.
CHAPTER IX
ESTOTILAND AND THE OTHER ISLANDS OF ZENO
Some of the well-known mythical or dubious map islands of the North
Atlantic make their entry into cartography very early indeed,
apparently as the contribution or record of otherwise forgotten
voyages, though we cannot say with certainty precisely when or how;
others, long afterward, were the products of mirage, ocean-surface
phenomena, or mariners’ fancies working under the suggestion of saintly
or demoniacal legends amid the hazes and perils of little-known seas,
the precise time of their origin remaining uncertain. As a rule the
latter class were less persistent on the maps and are geographically
rather unimportant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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