M., in presence of more than forty witnesses. All these sketches depictthe island as having its chief length from north to south, and formed oftwo unequal hills, the highest of these being at the north, they havingbetween them a depression covered with trees. The fact that this resemblesthe general form of Palma, one of the Canary Islands, has led to thebelief that it may have been an ocean mirage, reproducing the image ofthat island, just as the legends themselves reproduce, here and there, thetraditions of the "Arabian Nights."In a map drawn by the Florentine physician, Toscanelli, which was sent byhim to Columbus in 1474 to give his impression of the Asiatic coast,--lying, as he supposed, across the Atlantic,--there appears the island ofSt. Brandan. It is as large as all the Azores or Canary Islands or Cape deVerde Islands put together; its southern tip just touches the equator, andit lies about half-way between the Cape de Verde Islands and Zipangu orJapan, which was then believed to lie on the other side of the Atlantic.Mr. Winsor also tells us that the apparition of this island "sometimescame to sailors' eyes" as late as the last century (Winsor's "Columbus,"112).He also gives a reproduction of Toscanelli's map now lost, as far as canbe inferred from descriptions (Winsor, p. 110).The following is Matthew Arnold's poem:--SAINT BRANDAN Saint Brandan sails the northern main; The brotherhoods of saints are glad.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188