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. These he alleged to
have shewn to the king of Portugal, and as there were no such canes in our
parts of the world, he believed that the winds must have wafted them from
some distant islands in the west, or else from India: More especially as
Ptolemy, in the first book of his cosmography, and chapter 17. says, that
such canes grow in the eastern parts of India; and some of the islanders,
particularly those in the Azores, informed Correa that when the west wind
blew long together, the sea sometimes drove pine trees on the islands
Gratioso and Fayal, where no such trees were otherwise to be found. He was
likewise told that the sea had cast upon the island of Flores, another of
the Azores, the dead bodies of two men, having very broad visages, and
very different in their appearance from Europeans.
It was likewise reported to the admiral that the people about Cape Verga
had once seen some almadias or covered boats, which it was believed had
been driven thither by stress of weather while going from one of these
supposed islands in the west to another island. One Anthony Leme, who was
married and settled in the island of Madeira, told the admiral that,
having once made a considerable run to the westward, he had descried three
islands. To this information, however, he gave little credit, as by his
own account Leme had not sailed above 100 leagues to the west, and might
have been deceived by some rocks; or what he had seen might have been some
of those floating islands, called Aguades by the sailors, of which Pliny
makes mention in the 97th chapter of the first book of his natural history.
Pliny says that some spots of land are seen in the northern parts of the
ocean on which there are deep-rooted trees, and that these parcels of land
are carried about like floats, or islands swimming upon the water. Seneca,
in his third book, endeavouring to give a probable reason for the
existence of such islands, alleges that there are certain rocks so light
and spongy in their substance, that islands in India which are composed of
such do actually swim upon the water. Therefore, even if it were actually
the case that Leme had seen the three islands, the admiral, was of opinion
that they must have been of that kind, such as those called the islands of
St Brandan are supposed to be, where many wonders are reported to have
been seen. Accounts have also been propagated of other islands, which are
continually burning, and which lie far to the northward[8].
Juventius Fortunatus mentions an account of two floating islands
considerably to the west, and more southward than those of Cape Verd.
These and such like reports, might induce several of the inhabitants of
Ferro and Gomera, and of the Azores, to affirm that they saw islands
towards the west every year; of which they were so thoroughly convinced,
that many reputable persons swore that it was true.
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