CHAPTER II.

NAMES OF RECENT ORIGIN.

Colonization of America-Greenland-Leif Ericson-Columbus-Religious feeling in the Names given by the Spaniards and by the Puritans-SalemProvidence-The Quaker Colony-Native Indian Names- The Elizabethan worthies: Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, Hudson, Drake, and Gilbert-Adventures of Captain Smith-The French plantations-The Dutch in North and South America-Magalhaens-Spanish and Portuguese discoveriesThe Dutch in the South Seas-New Zealand and New Holland-Recent Arctic discoveries.

THE peopling of the Eastern Hemisphere is an event of the distant past. The names upon the map of Europe have remained there, most of them for ten, many of them for twenty, centuries. To study them is a task full of difficulties; for they are mostly derived from obscure or unknown languages, and they have suffered more or less from the phonetic changes of so many years. But with the New World the case is different. The colonization of America has been effected during the modern historic period, the process of name-giving is illustrated by numerous authentic documents, and the names are derived from living languages. Just as the best introduction to the study of geology is the investigation of recent formations, abounding in the remains of still existing organisms, so we may fitly commence our present task by an examination of what we may call the tertiary deposits of America and Australia, which are still in process of formation; and we shall then be better prepared to explore the Wealden and other secondary formations of the Teutonic Period, and the still older primary Celtic strata-Silurian, Cambrian, and Devonian. We shall find that the study of the more recent names throws much light on those

natural laws which have regulated the nomenclature of Europe; and the investigation is, moreover, full of interest, from the numerous associations with the names of the bold conquistadors and the daring seamen whose enterprise has added another continent to the known world.

By means of the names upon the map, we may trace the whole history of the successive stages by which the white men have spread themselves over the Western World. We may discover the dates at which the several settlements were founded, we may assign to each of the nations of Europe its proper share in the work of colonization, and, lastly, we may recover the names of the adventurous captains who led their little bands of daring followers to conquer the wilderness from nature, or from savage tribes.

The name of GREENLAND is the only one which is left to remind us of the Scandinavian settlements which were made in America during the tenth century. The discoveries of Leif,

son of Eric the Red, have been forgotten, and the Norse names of Vinland (Massachusetts), Markland (Nova Scotia), Helluland it mikla (Labrador), and Litla Helluland (Newfoundland), have been superseded, and now survive only in the memory of the curious.

Without disparagement of the claims of Leif Ericson to the discovery of the New World, we may regret that the names of the city of COLOMBUS and of the district of COLUMBIA form the only memorials of the bold Genoese adventurer; and we may wish that the name of the entire continent had been such as to keep constantly in memory the exploits of Christopher Columbus rather than of those of Amerigo Vespucci. Alexander von Humboldt1 has, indeed, vindicated Vespucci from the charge of trickery or forgery which Las Casas attempted to fasten upon him; and we must, therefore, regard the name of AMERICA as an unfortunate mistake rather than as an inglorious and successful fraud.

The deep religious feeling of the earlier voyagers is well illustrated by the names which they bestowed upon their discoveries. The first land descried by Columbus was the island of SAN SALVADOR. From day to day he held on, in

1 Cosmos, vol. ii. note 457.

spite of the threats of his mutinous crew, who threatened to throw the crazy visionary into the sea. With what vividness does this name of San Salvador disclose the feelings with which, on the seventieth night of the dreary voyage, the brave Genoese caught sight of what seemed to be a light gleaming on some distant shore; how vividly does that name enable us to realize the scene when, on the next day, with a humble and grateful pride, he set foot upon that NEW WORLD of which he had dreamed from his boyhood, and, having erected the symbol of the Christian faith and knelt before it, he rose from his knees and proclaimed, in a broken voice, that the land should henceforth bear the name of San Salvador-the Holy Saviour, who had preserved him through so many perils!

We cannot but reverence the romantic piety which chequers the story of the violence and avarice of the conquistadors. When unknown shores were reached, the first thought of those fierce soldiers was to claim the lands as new kingdoms of their Lord and Master, and to erect forthwith His symbol, the SANTA CRUZ, the VERA CRUZ, names which mark upon our maps so many of the earliest settlements of the Spaniards and Portuguese.

The name of SAN SEBASTIAN, the first Spanish colony founded on the continent of South America, forms a touching memorial of the perils which beset the earlier colonists. On disembarking from the ships, seventy of the Spaniards were killed by the poisoned arrows of the Indians; on which account the dangerous spot was put under the special pro tection of the martyr, who, by reason of the circumstances of his death, might be supposed to feel a personal and peculiar sympathy with those who were exposed to the like sufferings. So too the name of the LADRONES, the "Robbers' Islands," commemorates the losses of Magalhaens' crew from the thievish propensities of the natives; and the name of SIERRA LEONE, the "Lion's range," records the terrors of the Portuguese discoverers at the nightly roaring of the lions in the mountains which fringe the coast.

As in the case of many great men, there seems to have been a sort of mysticism underlying the piety of Columbus. On his third voyage he discerned three mountain-peaks rising

from the waters, and supposed that three new islands had been discovered. On a nearer approach, it was found that the three summits formed one united land-a fact which the admiral recognised as a mysterious emblem of the Holy Trinity, and therefore bestowed upon the island the name of LA TRINIDAD, which it still retains. So the huge mountain mass of ST. KITTS, bearing on its shoulder a smaller pyramid of black lava, took in the imagination of Columbus the form of the giant St. Christopher bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ.

The Spaniards were devout observers of the festivals of the Church, and this circumstance often enables us to fix the precise day on which great discoveries were made. Thus FLORIDA, with its dreary swamps, is not the "Flowery Land," as it is sometimes thought to be; but its name records the fact that it was discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon on Easter Sunday a festival which the Spaniards call Pascua Florida, from the flowers with which the churches are then decked. The island of DOMINICA was discovered on a Sunday-dies Dominica. NATAL was discovered by Vasco de Gama on Christmas-day-dies Natalis. THE VIRGIN ISLES, a numberless group, were discovered by Columbus on the day sacred to St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins. The town of ST. AUGUSTINE, the oldest in the United States, was founded on St. Augustine's-day by Melendez, who was sent by Philip II. of Spain on the pious mission of exterminating a feeble colony of Huguenot refugees, who were seeking, on the coast of Florida, that religious liberty which was denied them in their native land. The log of the exploring expedition sent out by the Portuguese in 1501 is written on the Brazilian coast, and can be easily deciphered by the aid of the Roman calendar. The explorers reached S. Roque on Aug. 16th, Cape S. Augustin on Aug. 28th, Rio de S. Miguel on Sept. 29th, Rio de S. Jeronymo on Sept. 30th, Rio de S. Francisco on Oct. 10th, Rio das Virgens on Oct. 21st, Rio de Santa Lucia on Dec. 15th, Cape S. Thome on Dec. 21st, S. Salvador de Bahia on Dec. 25th, Rio de Janeiro on Jan. 1st, Angra dos Reis on Jan. 6th, and the Island of S. Sebastião on Jan. 20th.

The islands of ASCENSION and ST. HELENA, the river ST.

LAWRENCE, and other places too numerous to mention, thus date the day of their discovery by their names.

A religious feeling equally intense with that which dictated the names bestowed by the Spanish discoverers, but very different in character, is evinced by the names which mark the sites of the earlier Puritan colonies in North America.

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SALEM was intended to be the earthly realization of the New Jerusalem, where a New Reformation," of the sternest Calvinistic type, was to inaugurate a fresh era in the history of the world, and a strict discipline was to eradicate every frailty of our human nature from this City of the Saints. If the "Blue Laws" of the neighbouring town of Newhaven, given by Hutchinson, are authentic, they afford a curious picture of life in this Puritan Utopia. They enact, under severe penalties:"That no one shall be a freeman unless he be converted. "That no one shall run on the Sabbath, or walk in his garden. "That no one shall make beds, cut hair, or shave, and no woman shall kiss her children on the Sabbath.

"That no one shall make mince-pies, or play any instrument, except the trumpet, drum, and Jews'-harp.

"That no food or lodging shall be given to any Quaker or other heretic."

The laws of Massachusetts assigned the penalty of death to all Quakers, as well as to "stubborn and rebellious sons," and to all "children, above sixteen, who curse or smite their natural father or mother," and to persons guilty of idolatry, witchcraft, or blasphemy.

These laws, breathing the spirit of Christianity as understood by the Puritan exiles for conscience' sake, quickly bore their fruit. Roger Williams, a noble-hearted man, who, strange to say, had been chosen to be minister at Salem, dared to affirm the heresy that "the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus," and that "no man should be bound to worship against his own consent." For maintaining these heterodox opinions, which struck at the root of the New England system of polity, Williams had sentence of exile pronounced against him. He wandered forth into the snows of a New England winter: "for fourteen weeks," he says, "he