isfy your curiosity, it being as much as my time and business permit me now to write. However, I remain ever ready to satisfy and serve his highness to the utmost in all the commands that he shall lay upon me."

"The admiral, now believing that his opinion was excellently well grounded," says Ferdinand Columbus, "resolved to be governed by it, and to sail across the western ocean in quest of those countries. But being aware that such an undertaking was only becoming a monarch to espouse and to accomplish, he determined to propose it to the king of Portugal, because he was the latter's subject. And though King John, then reigning, gave ear to the admiral's proposals, yet he hesitated to accept them on account of the great burden and expense attending the exploration and conquest of the western coast of Africa, called Guinea. Little success had thus far rewarded this undertaking, nor had he been able to double the Cape of Good Hope, which name, some say, was given it instead of Agesingue, its proper designation, because that was the farthest they hoped to extend their explorations and conquests, or, as others will have it, because this cape gave them the expectation of better countries and navigation. However, the king had but little inclination to invest any more money in discoveries; and if he gave any attention to the admiral, it was in consequence of the excellent reasons he advanced to support his opinion, which arguments so far convinced the king that he had nothing else to do but to accept or to reject the terms which the admiral proposed. For the admiral, being a noble and magnanimous man, wished to make an agreement that would be of some personal 'Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. viii.

benefit and honor to himself, so that he would leave behind him a notable reputation and a respected family, such as became his achievements and memory. For this reason the king, by the advice of one Doctor Cazadilla,' whom he greatly esteemed, determined to send a caravel secretly to attempt that which the admiral had proposed to him; for if those countries were in this way discovered, he thought that he would not be obliged to bestow any great reward which might be demanded. Having quickly equipped a caravel, he sent it the way the admiral had proposed to go, for the vessel was carrying supplies to the islands of the Cape Verd group. But those he sent had not the knowledge, perseverance, and energy of the admiral. After wandering many days on the sea, they turned back to the islands of Cape Verd, laughing at the undertaking, and saying that it was unreasonable to think there should be any land in those waters. This being told to the admiral, * * * he determined to go to Castile [Spain]. But fearing that, if the king of Castile should not favor his undertaking, he would be forced to propose it to some other monarch, thereby consuming much time, he sent his brother Bartolomé Columbus, who was with him, to England.

On his way to England, Bartolomé happened to fall into the hands of pirates, who stripped him and his companions. For this reason, and being sick and poor in that country, it was a long time before he could deliver his message. It was not until he had obtained some money by making sea-charts that he began to make certain proposals to King Henry VII., then reigning, to whom he presented a map of the world. The king of England, having seen the map 'Diego Ortiz de Cazadilla, bishop of Ceuta.

*

and heard what the admiral offered to do for him, readily accepted the overture and ordered him to be sent for.

"I will not now relate how Bartolomé Columbus conducted himself in England, but will return to the admiral, who, about the end of the year 1484, stole secretly out of Portugal with his son Diego for fear of being detained by the king; for the king having seen how unsuited they were whom he had sent with the caravel, was inclined to restore the admiral to his favor, and desired that he should renew his proposals; but the king was not as eager to undertake their consideration as the admiral was to get away; therefore the king lost that good opportunity and the admiral entered Castile to try his fortune which was there to favor him. Leaving his son in a monastery, called La Rabida, near Palos, he went at once to the court of the catholic king, which was then at Cordova, where, being affable and an entertaining talker, he made friends of such persons as were most favorably inclined to his undertaking and fitted to persuade the king to espouse it. Among these was Luis de Santángel, an Aragonian gentleman, clerk of the allowances in the king's household, a man of great prudence and reputation. As the undertaking demanded an examination by enlightened men, and not meaningless words and favor, their highnesses intrusted the matter to the prior of Prado, afterward archbishop of Granada, and ordered him, together with some cosmographers, to make a thorough investigation of the project and to report their opinions respecting it.' But there was only a small number of cosmographers at that time, and those who were called together were not as enlightened as they should have

'This conclave of the learned men of Spain held its meetings in the Dominican convent of St. Stephen, in Salamanca,

been, nor would the admiral wholly explain his plans, for fear he might be served as he had been in Portugal and be deprived of his reward. For this reason the answers they gave their highnesses were as different as their judgments and opinions. Some said that inasmuch as no information concerning those countries had been obtained by the great number of experienced sailors living since the creation, which was many thousand years ago, it was not likely that the admiral should know more than all the seamen that were living or that had lived before that time. Others, who were more influenced by cosmographical reasons, said the world was so prodigiously great that it was incredible that a voyage of three years would carry him to the end of the East, where he proposed to go, and to substantiate this opinion they brought forward the statement of Seneca, who, in one of his works, by way of argument, asserts that many wise men disagreed about this question, whether or not the ocean were boundless, and doubted if it could be traversed; and if it were navigable, whether habitable lands would be found on the other side of the globe, and whether they could be reached. They added that only a small part of this terraqueous globe was inhabited, and that this was in our hemisphere, and that all the remainder was sea, and only navigable near the coasts and rivers.

Some admitted that learned men said it was possible to sail from the coast of Spain to the farthest part of the West. Others argued, as the Portuguese had done, about sailing to Guinea, saying that if any man should sail directly westward, as the admiral proposed, that he would not be able to return to Spain on account of the roundness of the globe, confidently believing that whosoever should go out of the hemisphere

known to Ptolemy would go downward, and that then it would be impossible to return, affirming that it would be like climbing a hill, which ships could not accomplish in the stiffest gale. Although the admiral properly answered all these objections, yet the more cogent his explanations were the less they comprehended him on account of their ignorance, for when a man grows familiar with false principles in mathematics for a long time he cannot perceive the true, because of the erroneous impressions which were first imprinted on his mind. In short, all of these men were governed by the Spanish saying, St. Augustine doubts it; for this holy man, in his twenty-first book, chapter ninth, on the city of God, asserts and considers that it is unreasonable to believe that there are antipodes, or any passage from one hemisphere to another.

"But as to the fable that there are antipodes-that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us—men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other; hence they say that the part which is beneath must be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled. For Scripture, which proves the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, gives no false information; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from the first man."-Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi operum. Tomus Septimus. Antwerpiæ. 1700. De Civitate Dei. lib. xvi. cap. ix. The works of Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Trans. by the Rev. Marcus Dods. Edinburgh. 1871.

Lactantius, another theologian, in the fourth century, argued in the same way: "Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that the plants and trees on the other side of the earth hang downward, and that men there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of them how they defend these monstrosities, how things do not fall away from the earth on that side, they reply that the nature of things is such that heavy bodies tend toward the centre, like the spokes of a wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the