Pinzons if they had seen the polar star to the south, they said that they had seen no star resembling the polar star of our hemisphere, but they did see entirely different stars,[5] and hanging on the higher horizon a thick sort of vapour which shut off the view.  They believe that the middle part of the globe rises to a ridge,[6] and that the antarctic star is perceptible after that elevation is passed.  At all events they have seen constellations entirely different from those of our hemisphere.  Such is their story, which I give you as they told it. Davi sunt, non Oedipi.[7]

[Note 2:  Meaning the Canaries in which the ancients placed the Garden of the Hesperides.  From them Ptolemy began to reckon longitude.  The names Hesperia, Hesperides, Hesperus, etc., were used to indicate the west; thus Italy is spoken of by Macrobius:  illi nam scilicet Graeci a stella Hespero dicunt Venus et Hesperia Italia quae occasui sit; Saturnalium, lib. i., cap. iii.  Ptolemy likewise says:  Italia Hesperia ab Hespero Stella quod illius occasui subjecta sit, and again in his Historia tripartita, lib. viii:  Quum Valentinianus Imperator as oras Hesperias navigaret, id est ad Italiam, et Hispaniam.  Elsewhere the same author mentions the islands off the west coast of Africa, of which he received some vague information as:  Incognitam terram qui communi vocabulo Hesperi appellantur Ethiopes.  Pliny, Strabo, in the last chapter De Situ Orbis, Diodorus, and others make similar usage of the terms.  St. Anselm, De Imagine Mundi, lib. i., cap. xx., Juxta has, scilicet Gorgonas Hesperidum ortus; Pomponius Mela, lib. iii. cap. ix., x., xi.]

[Note 3:  The sub-equatorial regions of Africa had already been visited by numerous navigators since the time of Prince Henry of Portugal, and the fact that they were inhabited was well known to the Spaniards.]

[Note 4:  Plato, Cicero, Aristotle, Anaxagoras, Mela, and others were amongst those who believed in the existence of the Antipodes.]

[Note 5:  Aristotle, De Caelo et Terra, ii., 14.  The constellation of the Southern Cross was known from the writings of the Arab geographers.]

[Note 6:  First noted by Columbus in a letter written from Hispaniola in October, 1498.]

[Note 7:  Davus sum non Oedipus, Andria, Act I, Scene II.  The quotation, transposed by Martyr from the singular into the plural number, is from Terrence, Davus being a comic character in the comedy of Andria.]

On the seventh day of the calends of February, land was finally discovered on the horizon.[8] As the sea was troubled, soundings were taken and the bottom found at sixteen fathoms.  Approaching the coast they landed at a place where they remained two entire days without seeing a single inhabitant, though some traces of human beings were found on the banks.  After writing their names and the name of the King,