[Note 2:  This pilot and cosmographer has already been mentioned.  In 1515 he was commissioned to explore the coast south of Brazil, but, as has been related, he was unfortunately killed during that expedition.  To just what voyage Peter Martyr here refers is not quite clear.]

Let us now discourse a little concerning the variety of polar degrees.  Although this continent extends from east to west, it is nevertheless so crooked, with its point bending so much to the south, that it loses sight of the polar star, and extends seven degrees beyond the equinoctial line.  This extremity of the continent is, as we have already said, within the limits of Portuguese jurisdiction.  In returning from that extremity towards Paria, the north star again becomes visible; the farther the country extends towards the west, the nearer does it approach the pole.  The Spaniards made different calculations up to the time when they were established at Darien, where they founded their principal colony; for they abandoned Veragua, where the north star stood eight degrees above the horizon.  Beyond Veragua the coast bends in a northerly direction, to a point opposite the Pillars of Hercules; that is, if we accept for our measures certain lands discovered by the Spaniards more than three hundred and twenty-five leagues from the northern coast of Hispaniola.  Amongst these countries is an island called by us Boinca, and by others Aganeo; it is celebrated for a spring whose waters restore youth to old men.[3] Let not Your Holiness believe this to be a hasty or foolish opinion, for the story has been most seriously told to all the court, and made such an impression that the entire populace, and even people superior by birth and influence, accepted it as a proven fact.  If you ask me my opinion on this matter, I will answer that I do not believe any such power exists in creative nature, for I think that God reserves to himself this prerogative, as well as that of reading the hearts of men, or of granting wealth to those who have nothing; unless, that is to say, we are prepared to believe the Colchian fable concerning the renewal of AEson and the researches of the sibyl of Erythraea.

[Note 3:  The reference is to the fabulous waters of eternal youth in quest of which Juan Ponce de Leon set forth.  The country is Florida.]

We have now discoursed sufficiently of the length and the breadth of this continent, of its rugged mountains and watercourses, as well of its different regions.

It seems to me I should not omit mention of the misfortunes that have overtaken some of our compatriots.  When I was a child, my whole being quivered and I was stirred with pity in thinking of Virgil’s Alchimenides who, abandoned by Ulysses in the land of the Cyclops, sustained life during the period between the departure of Ulysses and the arrival of AEneas, upon berries and seeds.  The Spaniards of Nicuesa’s colony of Veragua would certainly have esteemed berries