“On this account they returned to Portugal, hoping to be rewarded by the prince for what they had done. He reproved them severely and bid them return at once to the island, but the master through fear ran away from Portugal with the ship and men. It is reported that while the seamen were at church on the island the ship-boys gathered sand for the cook-room, the third part of which they found to be pure gold.... Seneca, in his fourth book, tells us that Thucydides[122] speaks of an island called Atlantica, which in the time of the Peloponnesian war was entirely, or the greater part of it, submerged; whereof Plato also makes mention in his Timæus.”[123] While Columbus resided at Lisbon obtaining information from geographers and seamen respecting the feasibility of sailing westward to Cathay, he entered into correspondence with Paolo Toscanelli, a Florentine physician and astronomer.[124] The latter sent him a copy of a letter which he had written in Latin to Ferdinand Martinez, a prebendary of Lisbon. The communication addressed to Columbus, is dated Florence, June 25, 1474. As translated the letter is as follows: “To Christopher Colon, Paul, the physician, wishes health. “I apprehend your noble and earnest desire to sail to those parts where spices grow, and therefore, in answer to your letter, I send another, which some time ago I wrote to a friend of mine, in the service of the king of Portugal, before the wars of Castile, in answer to one he wrote me by his highness’s command, upon the same subject. I also send you a sea-chart similar to the one I sent him, which may satisfy your inquiries. The copy of that letter is the following: “To Ferdinand Martinez, canon of Lisbon, Paul, the physician, wishes health.