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.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 43 of 789
Words from 11559 to 11842 of 219607