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Updated: May 20, 2025
"Now, if my ship ever reaches Spain, why shouldn't I say that when Columbus failed to find land seven hundred leagues west of the Canaries, where he expected to find it, I persuaded him to accompany me still farther, and led him to Cipango."
Here an important observation must be made, showing the state of geographical knowledge at this period: viz. that Columbus now believed himself to have arrived at Asia, Cipango being the name given by Marco Polo to Japan.
The secretary read: The Genoese, Cristoforo Colombo, called in Spain Cristobal Colon, and in the Latin Christopherus Columbus, states and demands in substance as follows: Sailing westward he will discover for the King and Queen of the Spains the Indies and Cathay and Cipango, to the great glory and enrichment of these Sovereigns and the passing thereby of Spain ahead of Portugal, and likewise and above all to the great glory of Christ and of Holy Church.
And it was straightway reported in Europe that the Genoese captain had "found that way never before known to the east." The East, yet not the desired part of it, not Cipango, or the city of Quinsay, nor yet the rich Moluccas. These, however, Columbus never doubted, would be easily found. Others were less sanguine.
At last Pinzon comes and announces, to add to Christopher's uneasiness, that he has been searching in the Pope's library, in Rome, for information regarding that enormously rich Asiatic island called Cipango. As they all sit in the little cell at La Rabida, talking about the proposed western voyage of discovery, Pinzon cannot help throwing in a word occasionally about Cipango.
If many of the countries of Asia, surveyed by the travellers of the middle ages, had not been revisited since that epoch, we had carefully explored the whole anterior part of that continent, India had been revealed to us, we had even founded some establishments there, China had been touched by our missionaries, and Japan, that famous Cipango which had exercised so great an attraction for our travellers of the preceding age, was at length known to us.
On this he drew the coasts of Europe and Africa, from the south of Ireland to the end of Guinea, and opposite to them, on the other side of the Atlantic, the extremity of Asia, or rather India, as it was then called. Between them he placed the island of Cipango or Japan, which, according to Marco Polo, lay one thousand five hundred miles from the Atlantic coast.
Fifteen hundred miles from the shores of Mangi, according to Marco Polo, lay the great island of Zipangu, by some written Zipangri, and by Columbus Cipango. Marco Polo describes it as abounding in gold, which, however, the king seldom permits to be transported out of the island.
Finding these all abandoned, but with their colors flying, they instantly seized them, and, pushing off from the island, stood for the principal city of Cipango, into which, from the appearance of the colors, they were suffered to enter unmolested. Here they found few of the inhabitants besides women, whom they retained for their own use, and drove out all others.
The cacique was delighted to see that the Admiral was pleased with the gold that was brought to him, and he cheered him up by telling him that there was any amount in Cibao, which Columbus of course took for Cipango.
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