o
Santo, an island off Madeira. Columbus visited the island, and employed
his time in making maps and charts for a livelihood, while he pored over
the logs and papers of his deceased father-in-law, and talked with old
seamen of their voyages and of the mystery of the Western seas. About
this time, too, he seems to have arrived at the conclusion that much of
the world remained undiscovered, and step by step to have conceived
that design of reaching Asia by sailing west which was to result in the
discovery of America. In 1474 we find him expounding his views to Paolo
Toscanelli, the Florentine physician and cosmographer, and receiving the
heartiest encouragement.

These views he supported with three different arguments, derived from
natural reasons, from the theories of geographers, and from the reports
and traditions of mariners. "He believed the world to be a sphere," says
Helps; "he underestimated its size; he overestimated the size of the
Asiatic continent. The farther that continent extended to the east, the
nearer it came round toward Spain." And he had but to turn from the
marvelous propositions of Mandeville and Aliaco to become the recipient
of confidences more marvelous still. The air was full of rumors, and the
weird imaginings of many generations of mediaeval navigators had taken
shape and substance, and appeared bodily to men's eyes. Martin Vicente,
a Portuguese pilot, had found, 450 leagues to the westward of Cape St.
Vincent, and after a westerly gale of many days' duration, a piece of
strange wood, sculptured very artistically, but not with iron. Pedro
Correa, his own brother-in-law, had seen another such waif near the
Island of Madeira, while the King of Portugal had information of great
canes, capable of holding four quarts of wine between joint and joint,
which Herrera declares the King received, preserved, and showed to
Columbus. From the colonists on the Azores Columbus heard of two men
being washed up at Flores, "very broad-faced, and differing in aspect
from Christians." The transport of all these objects being attributed to
the west winds and not to the gulf stream, the existence of which was
then totally unsuspected. West of the Azores now and then there hove in
sight the mysterious Islands of St. Brandan; and 200 leagues west of the
Canaries lay somewhere the lost Island of the Seven Cities, that two
valiant Genoese had vainly endeavored to discover, and in search of
which, yearly, the merchants