"With all the deference that is due to your excellency's superior wisdom and experience, I would state that therein lies the very point of our difference. I deem it by no means certain that your ships have touched the territories of the grand khan at all, but rather land that has hitherto been alike unknown to him and to us. Thousands of leagues may yet intervene between that land and his dominions, whether of sea or earth remains to be discovered; and I judge in this wise as well from the accounts of cosmographers who have written on the subject, as from the description of the barbarous natives which you yourself have fallen in with in recent discoveries. "The accounts of those who have penetrated to distant regions of the East lead us to understand that the subjects of the grand khan live in the midst of the most profuse wealth and luxury, and bedeck themselves with superfine garments, gold, and jewelry. These people, however, are wild and naked, little if any superior to the beasts, and cannot, I think, be in any wise connected with a monarch of such magnificence. My own thoughts carry me to the conviction that there exists near unto the lands you have visited an immense country, which may possibly belong to and be part of the grand khan's dominions, though I doubt if such be the case. Marco Polo himself speaks of an island lying far out in the ocean which washes the eastern shores of Asia--the great Cipango, abounding in riches and precious stones, which has never been subdued by the sovereign of Cathay, although he has made attempts to conquer it. This island I deem it necessary to discover, in the first place; then, even after it is circumnavigated or passed over--and the last may be the easier way--a voyage of long duration will still have to be accomplished before the empire of Cathay is reached. When I speak of a passage over this unknown island, I do so in view of its great extent, as I estimate it to be of such size that it might more properly be designated _Terra Firma_,[9] being, according to my calculations, as large as, if not larger than, the whole of Europe. And herein do I estimate most highly the worth of the discoveries which your excellency has made, and their importance to this realm, as it will now be comparatively easy to pass the lands you have fallen in with by sailing either in a more northerly or a more southerly direction, in either case striking the country I have in my mind."