荷蘭人林氏侯登（Jan Huyghen van Linschoten）在印度趁替大主教工作之便收集了 大量的葡萄牙人與一些西班牙人的航海日誌，並在回國後將之編輯成書，刊行了《葡 萄牙人東方航海紀錄》，把這些珍貴而秘密的航海資訊公諸於世。這本書的出版間接促 使了荷蘭人以及後來英國人等前往亞洲各國探險、貿易以至開拓殖民地。該書部分航 海日誌所描述的航線涉及臺灣，多與中日之間的航程有關，亦有一份是從澳門至南美 洲的。這些曾途經臺灣本島的北端或南端的航線紀錄年代框架涵蓋1540 年代至1580 年代，所以亦提供了十六世紀中後期歐洲人描繪和稱呼該島可靠的一手資料。本文首 先回顧林氏侯登的生平和得以接觸葡萄牙人與西班牙人秘密檔案的因由，以至成書的 背景，簡單地介紹此書1595 年荷蘭文初版和1598 年英文譯本的情況；繼而分析一共 7 份航海日誌的先後時序和相關內容，最後在參閱當時的地圖和其他輔助文獻後探討 這些海誌與臺灣本島名稱的關係，尤其是「福爾摩沙」這個名字的起源，並提出一些 與近年研究推論不同的觀點，提供對此課題有興趣的讀者們參考。

The Dutch author and navigator Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, while being the secretary of the archbishop of Portuguese India in the 1580s, took advantage of his position to accumulate a large amount of valuable and secret Portuguese and Spanish “roteiros”/ rutters, and shared this information with many in Europe through the publication of his Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten in 1595. The appearance of this book and its several European translations encouraged many Dutch and later other Europeans to venture into Asia and enter the race for trade and colonization. To some extent, it also hastened the decline of the Portuguese and Spanish overseas empires. Some rutters in the book dated between the 1540s and the 1580s recorded voyages which passed by the northern or southern tips of the main island of Taiwan, the sightings of which they often recorded as these were important landmarks along the voyages. In the interest of sorting out the different legends and the true history related to the naming of Taiwan as “Formosa/Fermosa/Fremosa/Hermosa” Island (literally “Beautiful Island” in Portuguese or Spanish, modern or archaic), these rutters constitute useful 16th-century first-hand sources. After a brief introduction on the author Linschoten and his various books on navigation issued in the 1590s, this article analyses a total of seven relevant rutters from Reys-gheschrift in an attempt to determine both their recording dates and their contents related to Taiwan, and, finally, examines these rutters in the contexts of Portuguese and other European maps and some other supplementary primary sources to ascertain the history of the origin and timing of the name “Formosa”. Conclusions thus put forward differ somewhat in terms of timing from the prevailing legends on the matter, and, in particular, the “revisionist” views postulated recently by some which credited the naming to the Spanish instead of the Portuguese.

福爾摩沙／美麗島／臺灣、林氏侯登;《葡萄牙人東方航海紀錄》;亞洲的葡萄牙人;航海日誌;大航海時代

Formosa/“The Beautiful Island”/Taiwan; Jan Huyghen van Linschoten; Reys- gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers; Portuguese in Asia; Rutters/ “roteiros”; Age of Discovery