40 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 



anything had been seen it was only rocks or mayhap 

 floating islands, such as the ancients had described. 

 From this it might be argued that Columbus was 

 acquainted with the Atlantic for about 300 miles 

 at least west of the Madeiras. According to the 

 deposition of Alonzo Velez Allid,^ one Pero Vasquez 

 de la Frontera had talked with both Coiumbus and 

 Pinzon concerning the western sea. He told them 

 that "when they arrived among the grasses {kier- 

 has), it would be necessary to follow a straight road 

 because it was impossible not to find land." This 

 Pero Vasquez de la Frontera, according to the testi- 

 mony, was a sailor who had been on a westward voy- 

 age under the auspices of an Infant of Portugal to 

 find India. He said that in order to reach India it 

 was necessary to brave the obstacle of the grasses. 

 Because this had not been done the Infant of Portu- 

 gal had failed to reach the Indies. ^° These grasses, 

 or hierhas, in the ocean seem to be nothing more or 

 less than what is called the Sargasso Sea. In that 

 case direct knowledge of the Atlantic was available 

 for over a thousand miles west of the Madeiras and 

 the Canaries, for the bulk of the Sargasso Sea is not 

 west of the Azores. It is in the belt of calms and no 

 ocean currents, its densest area lying between the 



9 Deposition of Alonzo Velez AUid, Nov. i, 1532 : "Que cuando Uegasen 

 a las dichas hierbas . . . salvo que siquiesen la via derecha porque 

 era imposible el no dar en la tierra" (Cesareo Fernandez Duro: Colon y 

 Pinzon: Informe relative a los pormenores de descubrimiento del Nuevo 

 ]Mundo presentado a la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, 1883, 

 pp. 234-235). 



10 Fernandez Duro, op. cit., pp. 234-235. 



