I Cannot Certainly Determine Whether He Ever
Went To Mina Or Guinea During The Life Of This Wife.
But while he resided
in Portugal he seriously reflected on the information he had thus received;
and concluded, as the Portuguese had made discoveries so far to the
southward, it was reasonable to conclude that land might be discovered by
sailing to the westwards.
To assist his judgment, he again went over the
cosmographers which he had formerly studied, and considered maturely the
astronomical reasons which corroborated this new opinion. He carefully
weighed likewise the information and opinions on this subject of all with
whom he conversed, particularly sailors. From an attentive consideration
of all that occurred to him, he at length concluded that there must be
many lands to the west of the Canary and Cape de Verd islands; and that it
must be perfectly possible to sail to and discover them. But, that it may
distinctly appear by what train of arguments he came to deduce so vast an
undertaking, and that I may satisfy those who are curious to know the
motives which induced him to encounter so great danger, and which led him
to his great discovery, I shall now endeavour to relate what I have found
among his own papers respecting this matter.
The motives which induced my father to undertake the discovery of the West
Indies were three. Natural reason, authority of authors, and the testimony
of sailors. From natural reason my father concluded that the whole sea and
land of this world composed a globe or sphere, which might assuredly be
gone round, so that men should stand with their feet directly against the
feet of other men, in any precisely opposite parts whatever. Secondly,
he took it for granted upon the authority of approved authors that a great
portion of our globe had been already travelled over and explored; and
that it now only remained to discover the whole, so as to make known what
was contained in the vacant space which remained, between the eastern
boundaries of India which were known to Ptolemy and Marinus, and those our
newly discovered western parts of the coast of Africa and the Azores and
Cape Verd islands, the most westerly which were yet known. Thirdly, he
concluded that this still unknown space, between the eastern limits known
to Marinus and the Cape Verds, could not exceed a third part of the
circumference of the globe; since Marinus had already described 15 hours
towards the east, out of the 24 parts or hours into which the
circumference of the world is divided by the diurnal course of the sun;
and therefore to return in an easterly direction to the Cape Verd islands
from the limits discovered by Marinus, or to proceed westerly from these
islands to meet the eastern limits of Marinus, required only to pass over
about 8 parts in 24 of the circumference of the earth[1].
He reckoned, fourthly, that as the cosmography of Marinus had given an
account of fifteen hours or parts of the circumference of the globe
eastwards, and had not yet attained to a knowledge of the eastern
extremity of the land, it followed of course that this eastern extremity
must be considerably beyond those known limits; and consequently, that the
farther it extended eastwards, so much the nearer it must approach to the
Cape Verd islands, or the then known western limits of the globe: And, if
this space were sea, it might be easily sailed over in a short time; and
if land, that it would be much sooner discovered by sailing to the west,
since it must be much nearer to these islands in that direction. To this
may be added what is related by Strabo in his Fifteenth Book, that no army
ever penetrated to the eastern bounds of India, which according to Ctesias
is as extensive as all the rest of Asia. Onesicritus affirms that India is
a full third part of the world; and Nearchus says that it is four months
journey in a straight line from west to east. Pliny, in the 17th Chap, of
his 6th Book, says that India is a third part of the earth, and that
consequently it must be nearer Spain in the western than in the eastern
direction.
The fifth argument which induced the admiral to believe that the distance
in a western direction to India was small, was taken from the opinion of
Alfragranus and his followers, who computed the circumference of the
globe as much less than all other cosmographical writers, as they only
allowed 56-2/3 miles to a degree of longitude. Whence my father inferred,
that the whole globe being small, the extent of that third part which
remained to be discovered must necessarily be proportionally small
likewise; and might therefore be sailed over in a short time. And, as the
eastern bounds of India were not yet discovered, and must lie considerably
nearer us towards the west, he therefore considered that the lands which
he might discover in his proposed expedition westwards might properly be
denominated the Indies. Hence it appears how much Roderick the archdeacon
of Seville was wrong in blaming the admiral for calling those parts the
Indies which were not so. But the admiral did not call them the Indies as
having been seen or discovered by any other person; but as being in his
opinion the eastern part of India beyond the Ganges, to which no
cosmographer had ever assigned any precise limits, or made it to border
upon any other country farther to the east, considering those unknown
parts of eastern India to border on the ocean. And because he believed
those countries which he expected to discover formed the eastern and
formerly unknown lands of India, and had no appropriate name of their own,
he therefore gave them the name of the nearest known country, and called
them the West Indies. He was, so much the more induced to choose this
appellation that the riches and wealth of India were well known, and he
thereby expected the more readily to induce their Catholic Majesties to
accede to his proposed undertaking, of the success of which they were
doubtful; by saying that he intended to discover the way to India by the
west:
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