It is worth while examining at what particular spot in the Bahama Islands this station was made. It excites our utmost curiosity. We see it placed, audaciously enough, in the very heart of King Ferdinand's newly acquired insular dominion, north of the large island of Isabella, and facing a large tract of coast to the west, covered with unknown names, and presenting an outline that corresponds with nothing in that direction. It is the picture of the same coast that appeared in the first editions of the Ptolemy, the one that Ruysch's Ptolemy of 1508 indicated as the last western point touched by King Ferdinand's vessels, a coast however, strange to note, that had remained entirely unknown to Castile's. great cartographer La Cosa. Up to the finding of the Cantino chart the identification of this coast has been a puzzle. We believe that clear light may now be had on the subject, and must beseech the reader patiently to follow a comparison between the three maps of the Antillas, that of La Cosa, that of Cantino and the modern map, for which purpose we furnish the adjoining diagrams, 1, 2, 3. The interesting result will be reached thereby, that King Joam II. was far better informed about the distant west than King Ferdinand himself, that the shape and the proportions of the great Antillas are far more correctly represented, and the groups of the Bahama Islands more distinctly discriminated by the Portuguese hydrographers; all this implying on their part much cautious and silent labor, and a long sojourn, as indicated by the entry of the stella maris in the Bahama channels.

Let us begin with a comparison between La Cosa's and the modern map of la Española or Haiti. La Cosa

gives Haiti's axis nearly the length of that of Cuba, while it is in reality not quite half as long. The Cantino chart shows the proportions much better taken: Cuba

I and Haiti=2/3. On Cantino's outline of Haiti we miss the great western bay with its island of Gonave, as also the capes of Tiburon and San Nicolas, which are pretty well rendered by La Cosa. Such important features would surely not have escaped the Portuguese pilots and hydrographers if they had only dared to show their sails so near the thickly populated Spanish island. Nevertheless, the Portuguese knew of the existence of this bay. We find it drawn on Cantino's map on the north coast with the island of Gonave, whilst on the other hand Tortuga island, which is quite forgotten by La Cosa, stands in Cantino in its correct place. All these little points tend to show that the Portuguese hydrographers were in a sense independent of the Spanish surveys. Where the former had no chance to make their own survey, their representation grows defective, where they had free scope they surpass the Spaniards.

This point will be still more clearly shown when we pass to an examination of Cuba. It will be noticed, at the first glance, that the relative positions of the three islands, Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, are so correctly represented on our chart that they almost appear to have been taken from a modern survey. La Cosa makes the mistake of pushing the western cape of Haiti far below the eastern end of Cuba, while the two points, in reality, lie due north and south, as they are placed on the Portuguese chart.

One of the most striking proofs, however, that the Portuguese had sound information as to the true dimen

sions and shape of Cuba will be found by taking a glance at its western end. La Cosa gives to this end of the island the form of a hook bent to the south. Although our modern maps do not show these curving lines, La Cosa's design is still not so unfaithful to nature as it has been judged to be. He undoubtedly imagined the Island of Pines was a continuation of the mainland of Cuba, to which belief he was induced on account of the numberless large and small coral islands that obstruct the channel. The Portuguese chart also shows the same hook-shaped western end, but in addition to it a large peninsular body, which the copyist of the chart, for reasons later to be explained, chose to draw bending towards the north instead of the west, the true direction. It follows that this whole western tract of Cuba, from Havana to Cape San Antonio, which to-day is known to many of our readers by the name of Vuelta de Abajo, was still in the year 1500 unknown to its legitimate owners, but known and accurately surveyed by their spying rivals. Whatever mischief these intended to perpetrate, whatever information they wished to gather as to the extent and nature of King Ferdinand's Indian domain in the far west, they were able to work with full knowledge. Cuba, at this epoch, was still a desert. Only its southern coast, as we may learn from La Cosa's chart, had been surveyed, and its harbors and capes provided with names. The whole northwest, accessible from the Stella maris by deep waters, lay open at the mercy of the pirate.

But on which of the many Bahama Islands are we to look for their hiding-place?

The answer to this question can only be found after