zana, a Genoese
merchant, his friend, and a very rich man, and endeavoured to persuade him
to fit out a vessel for the conquest of this place: This Cazzana agreed to,
and obtained a license from the king of Portugal for the purpose. He wrote
accordingly to his brother Francis de Cazzana, who resided at Seville, to
fit out a vessel with all expedition for Diaz; but Francis made light of
the matter, and Luke de Cazzana actually fitted out a vessel from Tercera,
in which the before named pilot sailed from 120 to 130 leagues, but all in
vain, for he found no land. Yet neither he nor his partner Cazzana
desisted from the enterprize till death closed their hopes. The before
mentioned Francis de Cazzana likewise informed the admiral, that he knew
two sons of the pilot who discovered the island of Tercera, named Michael
and Jasper Cortereal, who went several times in search of that land, and
at last perished one after the other in the year 1502, without having ever
been heard of since, as was well known to many credible persons.

If all that has been said above concerning so many imaginary islands and
continents appears to be mere fable and folly, how much more reason have
we to consider that as false which Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo conceits in
his Natural History of the Indies, "That there was another discoverer of
this navigation of the ocean, and that the Spaniards held anciently the
dominion of these lands." He pretended to make out this assertion from
what Aristotle wrote concerning the island of Atalantis, and Sebosus of
the Hesperides. Thus, looking upon his own imagination as a certain
standard of truth, he affirms upon the judgment of some persons whose
writings I have duly weighed and attentively examined. I should have
omitted to enlarge on this subject, to avoid tiring the reader, and that I
might not be obliged to condemn the opinions of others, were it not that
many persons, to detract from the honour and reputation of the admiral,
have made great account of these notions. Besides, it appeared that I
should not fully perform my duty by merely recounting with all sincerity
and truth, the motives and incitements which inclined the admiral my
father to undertake his unparalleled enterprize, if I should suffer what I
know to be a manifest falsehood to pass uncensured. Wherefore, the better
to detect the mistake of Oviedo, I shall first state what Aristotle has
said on this subject, as related by F. Theophilus de Ferra