the Azores. He had passed to the coast of Guinea, visited the mouth of the Golden River, el Rio d'oro, sojourned at the fortress of St. George of the Mine; extending, thus, the domain of his experience and the scale whence to draw his comparisons.
Pedro Correa informed him of his having seen at the island a piece of wood delicately worked, and pushed towards the shore by the western wind, as if it had come from the other side of the ocean. At the Azores, Pedro had learned that by the west winds the waves had pushed to the coasts of Graciosa and of Fayal some large pine-trees of an unknown species. He was informed that at the Isle of Flowers there were found on the strand two corpses, whose features were different from those of the islanders. It was pretended that barks had been met with, full of men of an unknown race. An officer of the Portuguese marine, Martin Vincente, told him that at a distance of four hundred and fifty leagues from Europe, towards the west, he had drawn from the waves a piece of wood perfectly sculptured, which a western breeze had for several days pushed in sight of his vessel. Another seaman, Antonio Leme, who had married at Madeira, informed him, that having sailed directly for the west, he had seen three islands at the extremity of the western line.
This information, which has been considered as having a great influence on the determinations of Columbus, was only a stimulant to his attention. These reports had no solidity, no cohesion, among themselves, and therefore they had no influence on his decisions. And he who collected them knew how to assign them their just value.
In the first place, he considered the islands of which Leme spoke as pure optical illusions. He supposed that at most they must be rocks, which, seen at a certain angle and in certain atmospheric conditions, might have simulated the appearance of land; or rather, that they were some of those floating islands covered with trees mentioned by certain authors, and among others by Pliny and Juventius
