coast of opulent Mangi?[565]

[Footnote 564: As a Greek would have said, [Greek: epeiros], a
continent.]

[Footnote 565: Bernaldez, _Reyes Catolicos_, cap. cxxvii, Mr.
Irving, in citing these same incidents from Bernaldez, could
not quite rid himself of the feeling that there was something
strange or peculiar in the Admiral's method of interpreting
such information: "Animated by one of the pleasing illusions of
his ardent imagination, Columbus pursued his voyage, with a
prosperous breeze, along the supposed continent of Asia."
(_Life of Columbus_, vol. i. p. 493.) This lends a false colour
to the picture, which the general reader is pretty sure to make
still falser. To suppose the southern coast of Cuba to be the
southern coast of Toscanelli's Mangi required no illusion of an
"ardent imagination." It was simply a plain common-sense
conclusion reached by sober reasoning from such data as were
then accessible (i. e. the Toscanelli map, amended by
information such as was understood to be given by the natives);
it was more probable than any other theory of the situation
likely to be devised from those data; and it seems fanciful to
us to-day only because knowledge acquired since the time of
Columbus has shown us how far from correct it was. Modern
historians abound in unconscious turns of expression--as in
this quotation from Irving--which project modern knowledge back
into the past, and thus destroy the historical perspective. I
shall mention several other instances from Irving, and the
reader must not suppose that this is any indication of
captiousness on my part toward a writer for whom my only
feeling is that of sincerest love and veneration.]

[Sidenote: The "people of Mangon."]

[Sidenote: The Golden Chersonese.]

Under the influence of this belief, when a few days later they landed in
search of fresh water, and a certain archer, on the lookout for game,
caught distant glimpses of a flock of tall white cranes feeding in an
everglade, he fled to his comrades with the story that he had seen a
party of men clad in long white tunics, and all agreed that these must
be the people of Mangon.[566] Columbus sent a small company ashore to
find them. It is needless to add that