In several early maps, before thetime of Columbus, the Madeira Islands appear as "The Fortunate Islands ofSt. Brandan," and on the famous globe of Martin Behaim, made in the veryyear when Columbus sailed, there is a large island much farther west thanMadeira, and near the equator, with an inscription saying that in the year565, St. Brandan arrived at this island and saw many wondrous things,returning to his own land afterwards. Columbus heard this island mentionedat Ferro, where men declared that they had seen it in the distance. Later,the chart of Ortelius, in the sixteenth century, carried it to theneighborhood of Ireland; then it was carried south again, and was supposedall the time to change its place through enchantment, and when Emanuel ofPortugal, in 1519, renounced all claim to it, he described it as "TheHidden Island." In 1570 a Portuguese expedition was sent which claimedactually to have touched the mysterious island, indeed to have found therethe vast impression of a human foot--doubtless of the baptized giantMildus--and also a cross nailed to a tree, and three stones laid in atriangle for cooking food. Departing hastily from the island, they lefttwo sailors behind, but could never find the place again.Again and again expeditions were sent out in search of St. Brandan'sisland, usually from the Canaries--one in 1604 by Acosta, one in 1721 byDominguez; and several sketches of the island, as seen from a distance,were published in 1759 by a Franciscan priest in the Canary Islands, namedViere y Clarijo, including one made by himself on May 3, 1759, about 6A.
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