The parts of the world (North America and South America), known to Europeans, Asians and Africans after the voyages of Christopher Columbus in distinction to the Old World which was known to the Europeans prior to Columbus' expeditions. Since their arrival in the new World, the East India Trading Company had been charting the territory and researching the most effective trade routes. Lord Cutler Beckett made it his duty to fill in the blank areas on the world map. Thomas Faye had obtained, by way of an expert Company cartographer, small reproductions of the large-scale world map created in Beckett's office. In the map's early stages, the New World was hardly recorded - like a great and wonderful beast emerging from a thick fog, ready and waiting to be tamed.