I own, that it is not impossible to traverse the high seas without a compass, and that very resolute people might have undertaken to seek after the new world by conducting themselves simply by the stars. The Astrolabe being known to the ancients, it might strike them they could leave France or Spain, and sail to the west, by keeping the polar star always to the right, and by frequent soundings might have kept nearly in the same latitude; without doubt the Carthaginians, of whom Aristotle makes mention, found the means of returning from these remote countries by keeping the polar star to the left; but it must be allowed that a like voyage would be looked upon as a rash enterprize, and that consequently we must not be astonished that the ancients had not even conceived the project. Previous to Christopher Columbus's expedition, the Azores, the Canaries, and Madeira were discovered. It was remarked, that when the west winds lasted a long time, the sea brought pieces of foreign wood on the coast of these islands, canes of unknown species, and even dead bodies, which by many marks were discovered to be neither European nor African. Columbus himself remarked, that on the side of the west certain winds blew only a few days, and which he was persuaded were land winds; but although he had all these advantages over the ancients, and the knowledge of the compass, the difficulties still to conquer were so great, that there was only the success he met with which could justify the enterprise. Suppose, for a moment, that the continent of the new world had been 1000 or 1500 miles farther than it in fact is, a thing with Columbus could neither know nor foresee, he would not have arrived there, and perhaps this great country might still have remained unknown. This conjecture is so much the better founded, as Columbus, although the most able navigator of his time, was seized with fear and astonishment in his second voyage to the new world; for as in his first, he only found some islands, he directed his course more to the south to discover a continent, and was stopt by currents, the considerable extent and direction of which always opposed his course, and obliged him to direct his search to the west; he imagined that what had hindered him from advancing on the southern side was not currents, but that the sea flowed by raising itself towards the heavens, and that perhaps both one and the other touched on the southern side. True it is, that in great enterprises the least unfortunate circumstance may turn a man's brain, and abate his courage. FOOTNOTES: [163:A] Vide Herodotus, lib. iv. [167:A] See the Hist. of the Acad. Ann. 1725. [170:A] See the collection of Northern Voyages, page 200. [173:A] Vide Pliny, Hist. Nat. Vol. I. lib. 2. [175:A] See the ancient relations of travels by land to China, page 53 and 54.