Antilia, and the Island of Seven Cities, according to Behaim's map, are identical. See page 93 this volume; also a reputed letter of Toscanelli, about the existence of which Humboldt thinks there may be some doubt. The only tangible point in the traditionary history is the migration of seven bishops, driven from the Peninsula by the Moorish invasion in the eighth century, who took refuge there and built the Seven Cities. The history and location of this Island of the Seven Cities in the fifteenth century are similar to those of San Brandan Island. Galvano says a Portuguese ship was there in 1447. Brazil, Bracie, or Berzil, was another of these wandering isles, whose name has been preserved and applied to a rock west of Ireland, to one of the Azore islands, and to a country in South America. This name has been the theme of much discussion, which, so far as I know, leads to no result beyond the fact that the name of a valuable dye-wood known to the ancients was afterward applied to lands known or conjectured to produce such woods. _Humboldt_, _Exam. Crit._, tom. ii. pp. 214-45; _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._, pp. 7-10, and 35 et seq. Kunstmann attaches greater geographical importance to the fabulous isles than Humboldt, connecting them in a manner apparently not quite clear to himself with the previous discoveries of the Northmen. Thus stood facts and fancies concerning the geography of the world, when the greatest of discoverers arose and achieved the greatest of discoveries. * * * * * Although in the chapters following I speak more at length of the deeds of the Genoese and his companions, yet in order to complete this Summary it is necessary to mention them here. I shall attempt no discussion concerning the country, family, date of birth, or early life of Christopher Columbus. For the differences of opinion on these points, with numerous references, see _Harrisse_, _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, New York, 1866, p. 2 et seq. Born somewhere in Italy, probably Genoa, about 1435, he received something more than a rudimentary education, went to sea at the early age of fourteen, and in 1470, which is about the date of his coming to Portugal, had already an extensive experience in the navigation of the Mediterranean, and was skilled in the theory as well as the practice of his profession. We have already seen him with the Portuguese on the African coast, and with the English in Iceland. In fact, before his first voyage westward in 1492, he was practically acquainted with all waters then navigated by Europeans.