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yours, I send you another letter which, some days since, I wrote to a friend of mine, a servant of the King of Portugal before the wars of Castile, in answer to another that he wrote me by his highness's order, upon this same account. And I also _send you another sea-chart_, like the one I sent to him, which will satisfy your demands. This is a copy of the letter: "_'To Ferdinand Martinez, Canon of Lisbon, Paul the Physicist wishes health._ "'I am very glad to hear of the familiarity you enjoy with your most serene and magnificent king, and though I have very often discoursed concerning _the short way there is from hence to the Indies_, where the spice is produced, by sea (which I look upon to be shorter than that you take by the coast of Guinea), yet you now tell me that his highness would have me make out and demonstrate it, so that it may be understood and put in practice. "'Therefore, though I could better show it to him with a globe in my hand, and make him sensible of the figure of the world, yet I have resolved, to make it more easy and intelligible, to show the way on a chart, such as is used in navigation, and therefore I send one to his majesty, made and drawn with my own hand, wherein is set down the _utmost bounds of the earth, from Ireland in the west to the farthest parts of Guinea_, with all the islands that lie in the way; opposite to which western coast is described the beginning of the Indies, with the islands and places whither you may go, and how far you may bend from the North Pole towards the Equinoctial, and for how long a time--that is, how many leagues you may sail before you come to those places most fruitful in spices, jewels, and precious stones. "'Do not wonder if I term that country where the spice grows, _West_, that product being generally ascribed to the _East_, because those who sail westward will always find those countries in the west, and those who travel by land eastward will always find those countries in the east! The straight lines that lie lengthways in the chart show the distance there is from west to east; the others, which cross them, show the distance from north to south. I have also marked down in the chart several places in India where ships might put in, upon any s
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