As to the course pursued by Columbus after he reached Spain, there is also some uncertainty. This is owing to the impossibility of reconciling some of the statements of Fernando with many of the other statements found in the contemporaneous records. If the narrative of the son in regard to the course of the father is followed, the student will find himself in a labyrinth of difficulties. Fernando would have us believe that immediately after entering Spain his father went to the court of Medina Celi, and a little later had his famous experience at the monastery of La Rabida. But it is impossible to reconcile such a statement with the subsequent current of events. We know, as we shall presently see, that Columbus was two years in the house of the Duke of Medina Celi, and that at the end of that period he took a letter of introduction and commendation to Cardinal Mendoza at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. We know also that the visit to La Rabida was the cause of a letter being written which induced Columbus to take that journey to the court, which resulted in the ultimate adoption of his cause. The letter of Medina, moreover, assured the monarch that Columbus was on the point of taking his enterprise to the court of France. This assertion appears to be altogether incompatible with the supposition that the abode of Columbus with Medina Celi was in the early part of his residence in Spain. Not to present a tedious array of irreconcilable details, it is perhaps enough to say that if the statement of Fernando is once rejected, the way is, for the most part, easy and clear. If we once adopt the supposition that the abode with Medina Celi began in 1489, and that the visit to La Rabida was in September or October of 1491, we shall rest on the authority of Las Casas, and shall find that the difficulties in the way of accounting for the movements of Columbus are chiefly removed. Against this supposition, moreover, there is no evidence except the statement of Fernando, published not less than eighty years after the events it purports to describe. With this explanation let us endeavour to point out the course of Columbus in the light of the original evidence. Before we can understand the course that was taken, we must glance at the general condition of Spain.