Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/98

 58 THE QUEST FOR INDIA BY SEA instruments. " It was in Portugal," writes Ferdinand Columbus of his illustrious father, " that the admiral began to surmise that if the Portuguese sailed so far south, one might also sail westwards and find land in that direction." This surmise was strengthened by the " Imago Mundi " of Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, who had copied the passages which supplied the inspiration to Columbus almost word for word from Roger Bacon's AN OLD PICTURE OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. " Opus Majus " written 143 years before. It received confirmation from the travels of Marco Polo, and from the chart and letter of Toscanelli which reached Colum- bus while at Lisbon. Columbus had made up his mind, but the spirit of Prince Henry the Navigator no longer inspired the Portuguese counsels. The mathematical board, to whom the new king, John II, referred the project in 1482, discredited it on scientific grounds. The king himself had political reasons for doubting whether a western route to India, even if found, would be advan-