Note 407 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

Of La Cosa, who is said to have been of Basque origin, we know but little. Peter Martyr tells us that his “cardes” were esteemed, and mentions finding a map of his in 1514 in Bishop Fonseca’s study. We know he was with Columbus in his expedition along the southern coast of Cuba, when the Admiral, in his folly, made his companions sign the declaration that they were on the coast of Asia. This was during Columbus’ second voyage, in 1494; and Stevens (Notes, etc.) claims that the way in which La Cosa cuts off Cuba to the west with a line of green paint—the conventional color for “terra incognita”—indicates this possibility of connection with the main, as Ruysch’s scroll does in his map. The interpretation may be correct; but it might still have been drawn an island from intimations of the natives, though Ocampo did not circumnavigate it till 1508. The natives of Guanahani distinctly told Columbus that Cuba was an island, as he relates in his Journal. Stevens also remarks how La Cosa colors, with the same green, the extension of Cuba beyond the limits of Columbus’ exploration on the north coast in 1492. La Cosa, who had been with Ojeda in 1499, and with Rodrigo de Bastidas in 1501, was killed on the coast in 1509. Cf. Enrique de Leguina’s Juan de la Cosa, estudio biográfico (Madrid, 1877); Humboldt’s Examen critique and his Cosmos, Eng. tr. ii., 639; De la Roquette, in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris, Mai, 1862, p. 298; Harrisse’s Cabots, pp. 52, 103, 156, and his Les Cortereal, p. 94; and the references in Vol. III. of the present History, p. 8.