talk of the western
islands too, of the western ocean, of the new astrolabe which the German
Muller of Konigsberg, or Regiomontanus, as they called him in Portugal,
had modified and improved. And if there was sometimes an evening walk,
it would surely be towards the coast or on a hill above the harbour, with
a view of the sun being quenched in the sea and travelling down into the
unknown, uncharted West.

CHAPTER VII

ADVENTURES BODILY AND SPIRITUAL

Columbus had not been long in Portugal before he was off again to sea,
this time on a longer voyage than any he had yet undertaken. Our
knowledge of it depends on his own words as reported by Las Casas, and,
like so much other knowledge similarly recorded, is not to be received
with absolute certainty; but on the whole the balance of probability is
in favour of its truth. The words in which this voyage is recorded are
given as a quotation from a letter of Columbus, and, stripped of certain
obvious interpolations of the historian, are as follows:--

"In the month of February, and in the year 1477, I navigated as far
as the island of Tile [Thule], a hundred leagues; and to this
island, which is as large as England, the English, especially those
of Bristol, go with merchandise; and when I was there the sea was
not frozen over, although there were very high tides, so much so
that in some parts the sea rose twenty-five 'brazas', and went down
as much, twice during the day."

The reasons for doubting that this voyage took place are due simply to
Columbus's habit of being untruthful in regard to his own past doings,
and his propensity for drawing the long bow; and the reason that has been
accepted by most of his biographers who have denied the truth of this
statement is that, in the year 1492, when Columbus was addressing the
King and Queen of Spain on his qualifications as a navigator, and when he
wished to set forth his experience in a formidable light, he said nothing
about this voyage, but merely described his explorations as having
extended from Guinea on the south to England on the north. A shrewd
estimate of Columbus's character makes it indeed seem incredible that,
if he had really been in Iceland, he should not have mentioned the fact
on this occasion; and yet there is just one reason, also quite
characteristic of Columbus, that would account for the suppression.
It is just possible that when he was at Thule, by which he m