the other pole, and saw
four stars Not seen before, since the time of our first parents: Joyous
appeared the heavens for their glory. Oh, northern lands are widowed
Since deprived of such a sight."

It appears to me that the poet wished to describe in these verses, by the
four stars, the pole of the other firmament, and I have little doubt,
even now, that what he says may be true. I observed four stars in the
figure of an almond, which had but little motion, and if God gives me
life and health I hope to go again into that hemisphere, and not to
return without observing the pole. In conclusion, I would remark that we
extended our navigation so far south that our difference of latitude from
the city of Cadiz was sixty degrees and a half, because, at that city,
the pole is elevated thirty-five degrees and a half, and we had passed
six degrees beyond the equinoctial line. Let this suffice as to our
latitude. You must observe that this our navigation was in the months of
July, August, and September, when, as you know, the sun is longest above
the horizon in our hemisphere, and describes the greatest arch in the
day and the least in the night. On the contrary, while we were at the
equinoctial line, or near it, within four to six degrees, the difference
between the day and the night was not perceptible. They were of equal
length, or very nearly so.

As to the longitude, I would say that I found so much difficulty in
discovering it that I had to labor very hard to ascertain the distance I
had made by means of longitude. I found nothing better, at last, than to
watch the opposition of the planets during the night, and especially that
of the moon, with the other planets, because the moon is swifter in her
course than any other of the heavenly bodies. I compared my observations
with the almanac of Giovanni da Monteregio, which was composed for the
meridian of the city of Ferrara, verifying them with the calculations in
the tables of King Alfonso, and, afterward, with the many observations I
had myself made one night with another.

On August 23, 1499--when the moon was in conjunction with Mars, which,
according to the almanac, was to take place at midnight, or half an hour
after--I found that when the moon rose to the horizon, an hour and a half
after the sun had set, the planet had passed in that part of the east. I
observed that the moon was about a degree and some minutes farther east
than Mars, and at midnight she was five d