[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Except he kept maintaining that he was right if only they had let him sail a little bit further he would have reached India. When it became obvious that he had not (on his third voyage I think) he then announced that he had discovered Eden.

If he was not mistaken then he did an awful good job of pretending he was.

[Hiddigeigei]

Harmless Teddy Bear, he sold it to the Spanish King and Queen as a shortcut to India to get funding and wanted funding to go back. There are reports that before his first voyage he learn about the American Continent from a Chinese ambassador in Venice, spoke to an Englishman who followed the Basque fishing fleet to the Grand Banks and dried their catch on the mainland, knew of the Viking New World sagas, etc.