48
LIFE
A N D V O Y A G E S OF
[BOOK
I.
CHAPTER V.
GROUNDS ON W H I C H COLUMBUS FOUNDED HIS BELIEF OF THE EXISTENCE OF UNDISCOVERED LANDS IN THE WEST.
IT has been attempted, in the preceding chapters, to show how Columbus was gradually kindled up to his grand design by the spirit and events of the times in which he lived.
His son Fer
nando, however, undertakes to furnish the precise data on which his father's plan of discovery was founded.* “ He does this,” he observes, “ to show from what slender argument so great a scheme was fabricated and brought to light; and for the purpose of satis fying those who may desire to know distinctly the circumstances and motives which led his father to undertake this enterprise.“ As this statement was formed from notes and documents found among his father's papers, it is too curious and interesting not to deserve particular mention.
In this memorandum he
arranged the foundation of his father's theory under three heads: 1. The nature of things.
2 . The authority of learned writers.
3. The reports of navigators. Under the first head, he set down as a fundamental principle, that the earth was a terraqueous sphere or globe, which might be traveled round from east to west, and that men stood foot to foot, * Hist, del Almirante, cap. 6, 7, 8.