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I have always read that the world, both land and water, was spherical, as the authority and researches of Ptolemy and all the others who have written on this subject demonstrate and prove, as do the eclipses of the moon and other experiments that are made from east to west, and the elevation of the North Star from north to south.

— Christopher Columbus Letter to the Sovereigns (1498)

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When there are such lands there should be profitable things without number.

The two Christians met on the way many people who were going to their towns, women and men, with a firebrand in the hand, herbs to drink the smoke thereof, as they are accustomed.

Here the people could stand it no longer and complained of the long voyage; but the Admiral cheered them as best he could, holding out good hope of the advantages they would have.

"Thanks be to God," says the Admiral; "the air is soft as in April in Seville, and it is a pleasure to be in it, so fragrant it is."

Your Highnesses have an Other World here, by which our holy faith can be so greatly advanced and from which such great wealth can be drawn.

Letter to the Sovereigns (1498)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Christopher Columbus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.