The Spanish Letter of Columbus to Luis de Sant` Angel: Escribano de Racion of the Kingdom of Aragon Dated 15 February 1493 (Classic Reprint), Quaritch Bernard

In the first half Of the fourteenth century, the world was made acquainted, by Marco Polo, with lands beyond the ken Of Ptolemy, and men who studied geography learned that an ocean bounded Asia on the East, as an ocean bounded Europe on the West. With this knowledge, a Spirit Of exploration was evoked which became incarnate, soon after the beginning of the fifteenth century, in Prince Henry Of Portugal. The efforts Of the Portuguese in that century, to reach and turn the southern limit of Africa, so as to win by sea a passage to the golden shores of India - lost since the time Of Alexander the Great, save in the glimpses afforded by Arab merchants and by Marco Polo stimulated so keenly the desire for geographical discovery, that its fascination has not yet become inoperative.

Under the influence of that spirit, a Genoese mariner whom we call Christopher Columbus, set his heart upon traversing the ocean which he imagined lay between Europe and Cathay, order to find a Western passage to India, as the Portuguese were seeking the Eastern. His hopes were not realised, for he found what he had not sought; but his efforts were crowned with the achievement so enthusiastically lauded in the first sentence Of this preface, when he discovered the West Indies on Thursday, October 1lth, 1492.

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