PARETO MAP OF 1455 157 rates Salvagio in so far as it intensifies savagery to diabolism. One is tempted to speculate as to whether any very cruel treat- ment from the natives had formed part of the experience of the visitors along that shore; but there is no known fact or assertion upon which to base such an idea. As to the delineation of the islands, it is quite evident that Bianco showed the same group as Beccario and Roselli so far as circumstances permitted; and there is no reason to believe that the islands for which he had no room would have differed from theirs in his showing, if admissible, any more than his Antillia differs; that is to say, hardly at all. Humboldt was so impressed by this map of Bianco that he took the pains of measuring upon it the distance of Antillia from Portugal, making this about two hundred and forty leagues: an unreliable test, one would say, for the distances over the western waste of waters probably were not drawn to scale nor supposed to approach exactness. For that matter, the interval between Portugal and the Azores, as shown on maps for nearly a hundred years, was greatly underestimated, and the discrepancy becomes more glaring as the islands lie farther westward, Flores and Corvo being conspicuous examples. We should naturally expect to find the West Indies reported much nearer than they really are by anyone mapping a record of them. Perhaps the explanation lies in a disposition of cartographers to expect and allow for a great deal of nautical exaggeration in the mariners' yarns that reached them. A careful man might come at last to believe in the existence of an island but doubt if it were really so very far away. THE PARETO MAP OF 1455 Pareto, 1455, has a very interesting and elaborate map 23 (Fig. 21) showing Antillia, Reylla, and I in Mar (the latter without name) in the orthodox size, shape, and position, but with a great gap between Antillia and I in Mar where Salvagio should be. Very likely it was there once. Perhaps this is another case of 2S Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 5.
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