"The mass of testimony collected by official authority in 1570 seemed so satisfactory that another expedition was fitted out in the same year in the island of Palma. It was commanded by Fernando de Villalobos, regidor of the island, but was equally fruitless with the preceding. St. Borondon seemed disposed only to tantalize the world with distant and serene glimpses of his ideal paradise, or to reveal it amid storms to tempest-tossed mariners, but to hide it completely from the view of all who diligently sought it. Still, the people of Palma adhered to their favorite chimera. Thirty-four years afterward, in 1605, they sent another ship on the quest, commanded by Gaspar Perez de Acosta, an accomplished pilot, accompanied by the Padre Lorenzo Pinedo, a holy Franciscan friar, skilled in natural science. San Borondon, however, refused to reveal his island to either monk or mariner. After cruising about in every direction, sounding, observing the skies, the clouds, the winds, every thing that could furnish indications, they returned without having seen any thing to authorize a hope. "Upward of a century now elapsed without any new attempt to seek this fairy island. Every now and then, it is true, the public mind was agitated by fresh reports of its having been seen. Lemons and other fruits, and the green branches of trees, which floated to the shores of Gomara and Ferro, were pronounced to be from the enchanted groves of San Borondon. At length, in 1721, the public infatuation again rose to such a height that a fourth expedition was sent, commanded by Don Gaspar Dominguez, a man of probity and talent. As this was an expedition of solemn and mysterious import, he had two holy friars as apostolical chaplains. They made sail from the island of Teneriffe toward the end of October, leaving the populace in an indescribable state of anxious curiosity. The ship, however, returned from its cruise as unsuccessful as all its predecessors. "We have no account of any expedition being since undertaken, though the island still continued to be a subject of speculation, and occasionally to reveal its shadowy mountains to the eyes of favored individuals. In a letter written from the island of Gomara, 1759, by a Franciscan monk to one of his friends, he relates having seen it from the village of Alaxera, at six in the morning of the third of May. It appeared to consist of two lofty mountains, with a deep valley between, and on contemplating it with a telescope, the valley or ravine appeared to be filled with trees. He summoned the curate, Antonio Joseph Manrique, and upward of forty other persons, all of whom beheld it plainly.[210]