re insufficient
instruments from which to ascertain the truth, and that the demarcation
could not be determined by them. They begged insistently that other
methods of eclipses and fixed stars be sought, not taking into
account, as we have said, that these are causes for great delay; for
the consideration of such eclipses, and the movement of the moon,
and its visual conjunction with any fixed star, and all other like
mathematical considerations can at present be of no advantage to us,
_because of our being limited to such a brief period as two months_,
in examining and determining this matter. From this [the short time]
it is seen that it was not the intention of those sending us that such
expedients should be sought or pursued. It can be well said from the
above that he who has a poor proof, shows in detail the witnesses to
that fact, and therefore, we shall demonstrate in the following more
fully and specifically that the said distance is not what they assert,
and that all reason, every document, and all experience contradict it.

First it is proved that they have on their part, lessened the number
of degrees, for the voyage from Guinea _to_ Calicut is shown to be
greater than they assert or show, because from the time those lands
were discovered until now, the said Portuguese have been shortening
and lessening the said distance. [This assertion is proved by the
various discoveries eastward made by the Portuguese navigators from the
time of the Infante Don Enrique, (Prince Henry the Navigator) namely,
Cadamosto, the Venetian; Antonieto, the Genoese; Pedro Zinzio; Diego
Cano; Bartolome Diaz; and Vasco da Gama. [185] The distances navigated
by these men are given as they themselves recorded them.] Therefore
with apparent reason the _Itinerario Portugallensium_, translated
from Portuguese into Latin by Archangelo Madrignano, and which was
printed in 1508, [186] in chapter sixty, reckons a distance of three
thousand eight hundred leagues, or fifteen thousand miles from Lisbona
to Calicut, and declares in the last chapter that it is a three months'
voyage from Calicut to Zamotra.

_Item._ the said distance is proved to be much greater, as we assert,
because of certain persons who traveled through and navigated the
lands and seas eastward from the sea Rojo [Red Sea] and recorded
their voyages at a time when there was no suspicion of a discussion
like the present. [Geronimo de Santisteban, a Genoese, is given as
an example