Of a foolish fellow, who imagined himself to be an admirable reasoner, yet was illogical whenever he spoke two words, he said: "This person exemplifies the Greek definition of man, as a 'logical animal.'" When on his deathbed, he composed this epitaph, which was subsequently engraved on his tomb: HERE LIE THE BONES OF PHILIP OTTONIERI. BORN FOR VIRTUE AND GLORY, HE LIVED IDLE AND USELESS, AND DIED IN OBSCURITY; NOT WITHOUT A KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE AND HIS OWN DESTINY. _DIALOGUE BETWEEN CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND PIETRO GUTIERREZ._ _Columbus_. A fine night, friend. _Gutierrez_. Fine indeed; but a sight of land would be much finer. _Col_. Decidedly. So even you are tired of a life at sea. _Gut_. Not so. But I am rather weary of this voyage, which turns out to be so much longer than I expected. Do not, however, think that I blame you, like the others. Rather, consider that I will, as hitherto, do all I can to help you in anything relating to the voyage. But just for the sake of some talk I wish you would tell me candidly and explicitly, whether you are as confident as at first about finding land in this part of the world; or if, after spending so much time to no purpose, you begin at all to doubt. _Col_. Speaking frankly as to a friend who will not betray me, I confess I am a little dubious; especially because certain evidences during the voyage, which filled me with hope, have turned out deceitful; for instance, the birds which flew over us from the west, soon after we left Gomera, and which I considered a sure sign of land not far distant. Similarly, more than one conjecture and anticipation, made before setting out, regarding different things that were to have taken place during the voyage, have failed of realisation. So that at length I cannot but say to myself, "Since these predictions in which I put the utmost faith have not been verified, why may not also my chief conjecture, that of finding land beyond the ocean, be also unfounded?" It is true this belief of mine is so logical, that if it be false, on the one hand it would seem as if no human judgment could be reliable, except such as concern things actually seen, and touched; and on the other hand, I remember how seldom reality agrees with expectation. I ask myself, "What ground have you for believing that both hemispheres resemble each other, so that the western, like the eastern, is part land and part water? Why may it not be one immense sea? Or instead of land and water, may it not contain some other element? And, supposing it to have land and water like the other, why may it not be uninhabited? or even uninhabitable? If it be peopled as numerously as our hemisphere, what proof have you that rational beings are to be