Particularly In Great
Quantities Of All Sorts Of Spice, And In Great Store Of Jewels.
It will
likewise be very grateful to the kings and princes of those parts, who are
exceedingly desirous to
Have intercourse and trade with the Christians;
whether that some of them are inclined to become Christians, or else
desire to communicate with the wise and learned men of Europe, as well in
regard to religion, as in all the sciences, by reason of the extraordinary
accounts they have received of the kingdoms and governments and learning
of our part of the world. On all which accounts, and others which might be
alleged, it is reasonable that your own magnanimity, and the whole
Portuguese nation, ever renowned for great men, and memorable in all their
undertakings, should be eagerly bent upon performing this voyage."
By this letter, as has been before observed, the admiral was greatly
encouraged to go upon his discovery, although the learned physician was
mistaken in believing that Cathay and the empire of the great Cham was the
first land to be met with in sailing towards the west; for experience has
made it appear, that the distance from the West Indies to that country is
greater than from Europe to the West Indies.
The third and last motive by which the admiral was incited to the
discovery of the West Indies, was the hope of finding in his way to India
some very beneficial island or continent, from whence he might the better
be enabled to pursue his main design. This hope was founded upon the
authority and opinion of many wise and learned men, who believed that the
greatest part of the surface of the terraqueous globe was composed of land,
or that there certainly was more earth than sea. If that were the case, he
concluded that, between the coast of Spain and the then known bounds of
India, there must be many islands and a great extent of continent
interposed, which experience has since demonstrated to be true. In this
opinion he was confirmed by many fabulous stories which he had heard from
sailors and others who had sailed to the islands and western coast of
Africa, and to Madeira; and as these testimonies, though false, tended to
confirm the purpose he had so long and ardently cherished, they the more
readily gained his assent; and, to satisfy the curiosity of such as are
curious in these matters, I shall here relate them.
One Martin Vicente, a pilot in the service of the king of Portugal,
related to the admiral, that, being once 450 leagues to the westward of
Cape St Vincent, he had found a piece of wood most curiously curved, but
not with iron; and seeing that the winds had blown for many days
previously from the west, he conjectured that the carved wood must have
been drifted from some island in that direction. One Peter Correa, who had
married a sister of the admirals wife, told him of having seen another
piece of wood which had been brought to the island of Porto Sancto by the
same westerly wind, and of certain drifted canes, so thick that every
joint was large enough to contain four quarts of wine.
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