157 - “Really, Miss Henderson!”

There´s a certain type of children´s literature that just positively requires a map at the end paper of the book. The map is there either to show an itinerary that is crucial to the story, or to enhance the ´piratesque´quality of the work – or both. This map is an example from a children´s book called ´Really, Miss Henderson´ from 1945. As you can see, the War had cost the lives of many, many good illustrators (unless this was an active attempt at creating a ´naive´-style map). I have never heard of the book, so if I had to surmise the story from this map alone, I´d guess that:

• a group of British eccentrics (women and men, most of whom in the military) was shipwrecked in a small, isolated archipelago in the South Seas called the Pongawabu Islands.
• One island is important because it has a freshwater well, but also dangerous because there are cannibals and at least one serpent – deadly, one supposes. This situation generates much of the tension and action in the story:
• Major Crick and Miss Henderson are stuck on Cod Island, together with a rather large mouse. Imagine the hilarious and semi-romantic storylines one could come up with, using only these ingredients.
• An unnamed island holds a cask of brandy and may thus be partially responsible for the sightings of mermaids by Colonel Farquhar, not to mention the flying pig.
• On an outlying island, there is a case of sardines. The shipwreck survivors have to get over their differences and band together to obtain the food that will sustain them during their ordeal.
• The lady in distress is very mysterious because of her immodest dress sense. She might be a native maiden, but then a very pale one. Surely,she can´t be English! Maybe she´s French?This map was found here at fulltable.com, a site that collects some interesting examples of end paper maps in books.

156 - China’s 1418 World Map

The Turks have Piri Reis, whose 1513 map shows parts of America and Antarctica with astonishing and, in the case of Antarctica, frankly inexplicable accuracy. The Chinese have this map to demonstrate that the story of how the ‘West’ discovered the World is only one of many versions of the very earliest form of globalisation.

The map is similar to many present-day Chinese world maps in that it positions at the centre of the map China (which used self-confidently to refer to itself as the “Middle Kingdom”), and not Europe. It states that it is a 1763 copy of a fifteenth-century original. Chinese characters written beside the map say it was drawn by Mo Yi Tong and copied from a map made in the 16th year of the Emperor Yongle, or 1418.

The double dating of this map implies that America was explored and mapped by the Chinese at least 70 years before Columbus made landfall in what he then still thought was India. Furthermore, it shows Africa and Australia in fairly accurate detail. Europeans only stumbled across Australia after 1600.

This map supports the controversial claim that a Chinese mega-flotilla under an admiral named Zheng He sailed around the world in 1421. Zheng He is an historical figure, and he is known to have visited South East Asia, India and Africa - his explorations span a 30-year period from 1405 to 1435. However, the claim that he visited America is not sufficiently proven, many experts hold.

Zheng He´s discovery of America is defended in Gavin Menzies’ book ‘1421 – The Year China Discovered the World’. But the story behind this map only works if one supposes an even earlier Chinese discovery of America - as the map predates Zheng He´s trip by three years. The Chinese admiral´s American voyage would therefore be to re-visited lands that were discovered earlier by Chinese explorers, or by himself.

This map was in the news at the beginning of 2006. It had been bought for $500 in Shanghai in 2001 by a Mr Liu Gang, a Chinese map collector. He at first suspected it to be a fake and only became aware of its possible significance after reading Mr Menzies’ book.

News reports in January 2006 stated the map would be examined to check the age of paper and ink. But even if it were proven the map was made in 1763, this would still not prove it wasn’t a contemporary forgery…

Tests on this map were supposed to be finished in February 2006, but I haven’t heard a peep since. A bad sign? It might not have been significant if the map were real, but the British Isles aren´t marked on this map. If it were a forgery, could it be a snub bythe (supposedly Chinese) forger at that little kingdom at the edge of the world that came to rule the waves and a quarter of the globe´s land surface, thus stealing mighty China´s thunder?

Another anomaly: California is presented as an island, which is a particularly European cartographic misconception, as it not only follows from the shape of the Baja California peninsula, but also from a Spanish literary tradition of an island called California,way out west (see post #71 on this blog on that very subject).