owledge in arithmetic, geometry,
and astronomy, and both genius and skill to draw maps and charts of this
world, with its cities, rivers, islands, and ports, all in their proper
places and proportions. During my whole life, I have endeavoured to see
and understand all books of cosmography, history, and philosophy; by which
my understanding hath been enlightened so as to enable me to sail from
Europe to the Indies, and God hath inclined me to put this design into
execution. Filled with this desire I came to your highnesses; and after
all who had heard an account of my proposed undertaking had rejected it
with scorn and contempt as visionary and impracticable; in your highnesses
alone I found judgment to believe in the practicability of my proposal,
and constancy and spirit to put it into execution."

In another letter, written in January 1495 from Hispaniola, to their
Catholic majesties, in illustration of the errors and mistakes common in
voyages and the piloting of ships, he thus writes, "I was formerly sent to
Tunis by King _Renee_, whom God hath since taken to himself, to take the
galeasse called Fernandina; and, when near the island of St Peter off
Sardinia, I was informed that the Fernandina was accompanied by two ships
and a carack. This intelligence dismayed my people, who refused to proceed
in the enterprize, and demanded to go back to Marseilles for another ship
and more men. Finding that it was impossible to go on against their
inclinations, without a stratagem, I pretended to yield to their desires;
but having altered the card of the ships compass, I set sail when it was
late, under pretence of making for Marseilles. But next morning at
day-break, when all on board believed we had been sailing for Marseilles,
we found ourselves close in with Cape Carthagena[3]."

In a memorandum or observation tending to prove that all the five zones
are habitable by the experience of navigation, he thus writes: "In
February 1467, I sailed an hundred leagues beyond Thule, or Iceland, the
northern part of which is 73 degrees distant from the equinoctial, and not
63 degrees as some suppose; neither does it lie upon the line where
Ptolemy begins the West, but considerably more to the westwards. To this
island, which is as large as England, the English carry on trade,
especially from the port of Bristol. When I was there the sea was not
frozen, but the tides were so great that in some places it rose and fell
twenty-six fathoms[4]