270 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP 



extremity of the Iberian peninsula. Toscanelli, in his 

 correspondence with the Admiral, diminished the breadth of 

 the ocean in a manner still more singular and more favour- 

 able to his plans. He made the distance by sea from 

 Portugal to China only 52 of longitude, leaving, according 

 to the ancient saying of Esdras, six-sevenths of the earth dry. 

 Columbus, in a letter which he addressed to Queen Isabella 

 from Hayti immediately after the accomplishment of his 

 third voyage, shewed himself the more inclined towards this 

 view, because it was the same which had been defended by 

 the man whom he regarded as the highest authority, Cardinal 

 d'Ailly, in his "Imago Mundi." ( 421 ) 



Six years after Balboa sword in hand and advancing up 

 to Ms knees in the waves had claimed possession of the 

 entire South Sea for Castille, and two years after his head 

 had fallen by the hand of the executioner in the revolt 

 against the tyrannical Pedrarias Davila, ( 422 ) Magellan 

 appeared in the Pacific (27 November 1520), and navigated 

 the wide ocean for more than ten thousand geographical 

 miles; by a singular fatality seeing only, before discover- 

 ing the Marianas, (his Islas de los Ladrones or de las Velas 

 Latinas), and the Philippines, two small uninhabited islands 

 (the Desventuradas or Unfortunate islands), one of winch, if 

 we might trust his journal and ship's reckoning, would be 

 to the East of the Low Islands, and the other a little to the 

 South West of the Archipelago of Mendana. ( 423 ) Sebastian 

 de Elcano, after the murder of Magellan in the island of Zebu, 

 completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in the ship 

 Victoria, and received for his armorial bearings a terrestrial 

 globe, with the glorious inscription : " Primus circumdedisti 

 me/' He entered the harbour of San Lucar in September 

 1-522 ; and before an entire year had elapsed, we find the 



