destruction.

Now that we know the sort of men and ships that were to take part in
this mighty enterprise, let us see the sort of charts and maps and
instruments our navigator carried along; for until one understands these
somewhat, one cannot realize the bravery it took to set out across the
Atlantic in 1492. First, as to maps. Now that this world of ours has
been so thoroughly explored that every bit of land and water is named
and accurately noted, it is difficult for us to understand how the
inaccurate, incomplete, fifteenth-century map could have been of any use
whatever to an explorer. But we must always remember that our Genoese
had a rich imagination. Our maps leave nothing to the imagination,
either of the man who makes them or of us who look at them. Fifteenth-
century maps, on the contrary, were a positive feast for the fifteenth-
century imagination! Their wild beasts and queer legends fascinated as
well as terrified. Their three distinct Indies, two in Asia and one in
Africa, offered every sailor who was intrepid enough a chance to reach
that region of wealth. The latest and most accurate map, marking the
Portuguese discoveries, would really have been helpful to any one who
had not the "Go West" idea so firmly fixed in his mind; but in that one
direction it marked no routes farther than the Madeiras and the Azores.
All beyond these islands was wholly imagination.

It was the same with the sea-charts; no soundings or currents were
marked. As to instruments, there were the lodestone and the compass,
which had been known and used for several centuries; and the astrolabe,
a recent improvement on the primitive quadrant for taking the altitude
of the sun. The hourglass was the time measurer. In short, in that
wonderful fifteenth century, when the surface of the world was doubled,
there was nothing scientific about navigation.