is performed, it
will be to powerful kingdoms, and to most noble cities and
provinces, rich, and abounding in all things we stand in
need of, particularly all sorts of spice in great
quantities, and stores of jewels. This will, moreover, be
grateful to those kings and princes who are very desirous to
converse and trade with Christians, or else have
communication with the wise and ingenious men in these
parts, as well in point of religion as in all sciences,
because of the extraordinary account they have of the
kingdoms and government of these parts. For which reasons,
and many more that might be alleged, I do not at all wonder
that you, who have a great heart, and all the Portuguese
nation, which has ever had notable men in all undertakings,
be eagerly bent upon performing this voyage."

In these letters we have outlined by Toscanelli the very voyage that
Columbus took in 1492, eighteen years after he had received this
precious information. In his journal of that voyage he makes mention
of "_the islands marked on the chart_"; he was constantly seeking the
island of Atlantis, and hoped eventually to arrive at the great and
noble city of Quinsai, as well as at Cipango and Cathay. As for the
"Grand Khan"--of whom he had been informed by Toscanelli, who obtained
his information from Marco Polo's works--he not only sent an embassy
in search of him, when in Cuba, but was looking for him throughout all
his voyages.

It is well known that Columbus was not aware that he had really
discovered a new world, but to the end of his days believed he had
merely arrived at the eastern coast of India. So persistent was he in
this belief that he falsified documents, and forced his crew to swear
to what they did not know--namely, that Cuba was a continent, and not
an island! He believed he had arrived at Cipango, when he heard the
Indian word, _cibao_, on the coast of Hispaniola; and he says, in a
letter written to Luis Santangel in 1493, "In Espanola there are
gold-mines, and thence to terra firma, as well as thence to the Grand
Khan, everything is on a splendid scale." Also, "When I arrived at
Juana [Cuba], I followed the coast to the westward, and found it so
extensive that I considered it must be a continent and a _province of
Cathay_!"

Columbus, it has been said by some investigators, was a man of one
idea--and that idea not his own! "It is impossible," says W