LIFE OF COLON, BY HIS SON.

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fet fail when it was late, and next morning at break of day we found onrfeives nearCape Cartegna, all aboard thinking we had certainly been failing for Marfeilles.” Inthe fame manner in a memorandum, or obfervation, he made to fhow that all the fivezones are habitable, and proving it by experience in navigation, he fays, “ In February1467, I failed myfelf an hundred leagues beyond Thule (Ifeland), whofe northern partis feventy-three degrees diftant from the equinoctial, and not fixty-three degrees asfome will have it to be ; nor does it lie upon the line where Ptolemy’s Weft begins,but much more to the weftwards ; and to this ifland, which is as big as England, theEnglifh trade, efpecially from Briftol. At the time when I was there, the fea was notfrozen, but the tides were fo great, that in fome places it fwelled twenty-fix fathoms,and fell as much.” The truth is, that the Thule Ptolemy fpeaks of lies where he fays,and this by the moderns is called Frizeland. And then to prove that the equinoctial,or land under it, is habitable, he fays, “ I was in the fort of St. George de la Mira,belonging to the King of Portugal , which lies under the equino&ial, and 1 am a witnefsthat it is not uninhabitable, as fome would have it.” And in his book of his firftvoyage, he fays he faw fome mermaids on the coaft of Menegueta, but that they arenot fo like ladies, as they are painted. And in another place he fays, “ I ob-ferved feveral times in failing from Lifbon to Guinea , that a degree on the earth,anfwers to fifty-fix miles and two thirds.” And farther, he adds, that in Scio, anifland of the Archipelago , he faw maftic drawn from fome trees. In another placehe fays, “ I was upon the fea twenty-three years, without being off it any time worththe fpeaking of; and I faw all the eaft and all the weft, and may fay towards the north,or England, and have been at Guinea ; yet I never faw harbours for goodnefs likethofe of the Weft Indies.” And a little farther he fays that he took to the fea atfourteen years of age, and ever after followed it. And in the book of the fecondvoyage, he fays, “ I had got two fhips, and left one of them at Porto Santo, for acertain reafon that occurred to me, where fhe continued one day, and the next dayafter I joined it at Lifbon, becaufe I light of a ftorm and contrary winds at fouth-weft,and fhe had but little wind at north-eaft which was contrary.” So that from thefeinftances we may gather how much experience he had in fea affairs, and how manycountries and places he travelled before he undertook his difcovery.

CHAP. V. — The Admiral’s ' coming into Spain , and how he made himfelf known in ■Portugal , which was the Caufe of his difcovering the Weft Indies.

AS concerning the caufe of thq admiral’s coming into Spain , and his being addictedto fea affairs, the occafion of it was a famous man of his name and family, called Colon,,renowned upon the fea, on account of the fleet he commanded againft infidels, andeven in his own country, infomuch that they made ufe of his name to frighten thechildren in the cradle; whofe perfon and fleet it is likely were very confiderable, be-caufe he at once took four Venetian galleys, whofe bignefs and ftrength I fhould nothave believed, had I not feen them fitted out. This man was called Colon the Younger,to diftinguifh him from another who was a great feaman before him. Of which Colon the Younger, Marc Antony Sabellicus , the Livy of our age, fays in the eighth book ofhis tenth decade, that he lived near the time when Max.milian, fon to the EmperorFrederic the Third, was chofen King of the Romans: Jerome Donato was lent am-baffador from Venice into Portugal , to return thanks in the name of the republic to

King