Note 196 — Chapter VII

“It is curious,” says my father, “how inveterate is the mistake in question. Columbus expected to reach Cathay more quickly by sailing westward, but was stopped by the American continent. The projectors of the 'Darian Scheme' hoped to enrich themselves by making their settlement a great entrepot between Europe and the East Indies; and Macaulay, in his interesting narrative of the enterprise ('History of England,' vol. v. p. 200), considers their mistake to consist mainly in the assumption that Spain would permit a settlement on its territory; but it seems not to have occurred to him that, in any event, the scheme was intrinsically hopeless, seeing that the old route by the Cape of Good Hope, besides avoiding the cost and delay of transhipment, surpasses the Darian route even in shortness” (“Life,” ii. 292). It is also well known that the discoverer of certain rapids on the great river St Lawrence believed himself to be nearing the country of Confucius when he called them “La Chine.”