THE TREASURE REVEALED 205 



they rose 26 braccia and fell as much in depth/' Stefansson 

 says that this was an open winter in the north. Columbus may 

 certainly be off on his latitude, but the rest of the record fits. 



We are following the Ocean River from east to west at its 

 southern extremity beyond the Canaries. Others besides 

 Columbus had planned western voyages but, most of them — 

 like those of Nuremberg who planned to send Martin Behaim 

 on a voyage similar to that of Columbus — favored too north- 

 erly a course. Martin would probably not have made it bucking 

 the westerly winds from the Azores, but there is a surprising 

 similarity between his basic information and that of Colum- 

 bus, as Behaim's globe of the world illustrates. They both 

 spoke of driftwood evidence of western lands. They both felt 

 certain that Cathay lay just beyond a narrow Atlantic, and 

 that the Orientals would rejoice to be subject to Europeans. 

 They both drew heavily on Toscanelli, as he did on Marco 

 Polo. Behaim's project, proposed for him by the German 

 astronomer Muntzer to Dom Joao II of Portugal, was made in 

 ignorance of the fact that a few months previously Columbus 

 had already returned with news of the western world. The dual 

 project shows how ready men's minds were for the venture — 

 waiting only for leadership. Even Martin Alonzo Pinzon of 

 Palos, one of Columbus' colleagues, who later betrayed his 

 friendship, claimed that in the Vatican Library he had read 

 of a voyage in earlier times by the Queen of Sheba westward 

 to the islands of Cypangu or Japan. Whether rumor or fancy 

 or fact now lost to light, the word was in the air, and the 

 pull of the great unknown river of the ocean west of Gibraltar 

 was as strong in men's minds as the current itself pulling at 

 the great round-bottom craft lumbering from the Canaries 

 into the sunset. 



Columbus was a man of religious conviction and a man 

 of persistent, obstinate purpose, so much so that after four 

 voyages and fourteen hard years of covering the islands and 



