s now. We know he was entirely wrong in his conjecture. "Pliny
and others," he says, "thought the world spherical, because on their
part of it it was a hemisphere." They were ignorant of the section over
which he was sailing, which he considers to be that of a pear cut in
the wrong way. His demonstration is, that in similar latitudes to the
eastward it is very hot and the people are black, while at Trinidad or
on the mainland it is comfortable and the people are a fine race of men,
whiter than any others whom he has seen in the Indies. The sun in the
constellation of the Virgin is over their heads, and all this comes from
their being higher up, nearer the air than they would have been had they
been on the African coast.

With this curious speculation he unites some inferences from Scripture,
and goes back to the account in the Book of Genesis and concludes that
the earthly Paradise was in the distant east. He says, however, that
if he could go on, on the equinoctial line, the air would grow more
temperate, with greater changes in the stars and in the water. He does
not think it possible that anyone can go to the extreme height of the
mountain where the earthly Paradise is to be found, for no one is to be
permitted to enter there but by the will of God, but he believes that in
this voyage he is approaching it.

Any reader who is interested in this curious speculation of Columbus
should refer to the "Divina Comedia" of Dante, where Dante himself held
a somewhat similar view, and describes his entrance into the terrestrial
paradise under the guidance of Beatrice. It is a rather curious fact,
which discoverers of the last three centuries have established, that the
point, on this world, which is opposite the city of Jerusalem, where all
these enthusiasts supposed the terrestrial Paradise would be found, is
in truth in the Pacific Ocean not far from Pitcairn's Island, in the
very region where so many voyagers have thought that they found the
climate and soil which to the terrestrial Paradise belong.

Columbus expresses his dissent from the recent theory, which was that
of Dante, supposing that the earthly Paradise was at the top of a
sharp mountain. On the other hand, he supposes that this mountain rises
gently, but yet that no person can go to the top.

This is his curious "excursion," made, perhaps, because Columbus had the
time to write it.

The journal now recurs to more earthly affairs. Passing out from the
mouth of