Note 426-1 — THE VOYAGES OF JOHN CABOT

No satisfactory explanation of this can be given. Bellemo, in the Raccolta Colombiana, pt. III., vol. I., p. 197, interprets this sentence to mean that Cabot showed on the globe the place he had reached on the voyage and then to that statement the remark is added, referring to earlier journeys, “and going toward the east he has passed considerably beyond the land of the Tanais.” Tanais is the Latin name for the Don, and at the mouth of the Don was the important Venetian trading station of La Tana. Cf. Biggar, Voyages of the Cabots and Corte-Reals, pp. 33-34, note. Biggar dissents from this interpretation. I would offer the conjecture that “the land of the Tanais” stands for the land of Tana. In Marco Polo the kingdom of Tana, on the western side of India, is described as powerful and having an extensive commerce. See Marco Polo, pt. III., ch. XXX. Raimondo, if unfamiliar with Marco Polo, would understand La Tana by Tana and then naturally assume that “the country of Tana” was a slip for “country of the Tanais.” Cabot on the other hand might have heard of Tana when in Mecca without getting any very definite idea of its location except that it was far to the East in India. The phrase “toward the East,” like the one earlier in the letter “toward the Oriental regions,” is used of the ultimate destination, not the direction, and of the destination as a known spot always thought of in Europe as “the East.”