February 25, 2007

Imagine him, then, actually at Court, and having an audience of the King,

Filed under: explorers — chris @ 3:44 am

who could scarcely believe his ears
Imagine him, then, actually at Court, and having an audience of the King,
who could scarcely believe his ears. Here was a man, of whom he knew
nothing but that his conduct of a caravel had been well spoken of in the
recent expedition to Guinea, actually proposing to sail out west into the
Atlantic and to cross the unknown part of the world. Certainly his
proposals seemed plausible, but still–. The earth was round, said
Columbus, and therefore there was a way from East to West and from West
to East. The prophet Esdras, a scientific authority that even His
Majesty would hardly venture to doubt, had laid it down that only
one-seventh of the earth was covered by waters. From this fact Columbus
deduced that the maritime space extending westward between the shores of
Europe and eastern coast of Asia could not be large; and by sailing
westward he proposed to reach certain lands of which he claimed to have
knowledge. The sailors” tales, the logs of driftwood, the dead bodies,
were all brought into the proposals; in short, if His Majesty would grant
some ships, and consent to making Columbus Admiral over all the islands
that he might discover, with full viceregal state, authority, and profit,
he would go and discover them.

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