The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 Part 19

[118-1] It should be "about nine o'clock." The original is _a horas de tercia_, which means "at the hour of tierce," _i.e._, the period between nine and twelve.

[119-1] _Panizo_, literally "panic gra.s.s." Here Columbus seems to use the word as descriptive of maize or Indian corn, and later the word came to have this meaning. On the different species of panic gra.s.s, see Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_ (index under _panic.u.m_.)

[120-1] Rather, "since it is noon."

[120-2] Port Clarence in Long Island. (Markham.)

[121-1] Rather, "beds and hangings." The original is _paramentos de cosas_, but in the corresponding pa.s.sage in his _Historia_, I. 310, Las Casas has _paramentos de casa_, which is almost certainly the correct reading.

[121-2] "These are called Hamacas in Espanola." Las Casas, I. 310, where will be found an elaborate description of them.

[121-3] For ornament. Las Casas calls them caps or crowns, I. 311.

[121-4] Rather: "mastiffs and beagles." Las Casas, I. 311, says the Admiral called these dogs mastiffs from the report of the sailors. "If he had seen them, he would not have called them so but that they resembled hounds. These and the small ones would never bark but merely a grunt in the throat."

[121-5] The _castellano_ was one-sixth of an ounce. Las Casas, I. 311, remarks: "They were deceived in believing the marks to be letters since those people are wont to work it in their fas.h.i.+on, since never anywhere in all the Indies was there found any trace of money of gold or silver or other metal."

[123-1] Crooked Island (Markham.)

[123-2] Cape Beautiful.

[125-1] "The Indians of this island of Espanola call it _iguana_." Las Casas I. 314. He gives a minute description of it.

[126-1] The names in the Spanish text are Colba and Bosio, errors in transcription for Cuba and Bohio. Las Casas, I. 315, says in regard to the latter: "To call it Bohio was to misunderstand the interpreters, since throughout all these islands, where the language is practically the same, they call the huts in which they live _bohio_ and this great island Espanola they called Hayti, and they must have said that in Hayti there were great _bohios_."

[126-2] The name is spelled Quinsay in the Latin text of Marco Polo which Columbus annotated.

[127-1] One or two words are missing in the original.

[128-1] The translation here should be, "raised the anchors at the island of Isabella at Cabo del Isleo, which is on the northern side where I tarried to go to the island of Cuba, which I heard from this people is very great and has gold," etc.

[128-2] These two lines should read, "I believe that it is the island of c.i.p.ango of which marvellous things are related."

[128-3] The exact translation is, "On the spheres that I saw and on the paintings of world-maps it is this region." The plural number is used in both cases. Of the globes of this date, _i.e._, 1492 or earlier, that of Behaim is the only one that has come down to us. Of the world maps Toscanelli's, no longer extant, may have been one, but it is to be noted that Columbus uses the plural.

[129-1] Columbus's conviction that he has reached the Indies is registered by his use from now on of the word "Indians" for the people.

[130-1] This should be, "The mouth of the river is 12 fathoms deep and it is wide enough," etc.

[131-1] _Bledos._ The French translators give _cresson sauvage_, wild cress, as the equivalent.

[131-2] Las Casas, I. 320, says Columbus understood "that from these to the mainland would be a sail of ten days by reason of the notion he had derived from the chart or picture which the Florentine sent him."

[131-3] Baracoa (Las Casas); Puerto Naranjo (Markham); Nipe (Navarrete); Nuevitas (Thacher).

[132-1] Punta de Mulas. (Navarrete.)

[132-2] Punta de Cabanas. (Navarrete.)

[132-3] Puerto de Banes. (Navarrete.)

[132-4] Puerto de las Nuevitas del Principe. (Navarrete.)

[132-5] Las Casas, I. 321, has "many heads well carved from wood."

Possibly these were totems.

[133-1] Las Casas, I. 321, comments, "These must have been skulls of the manati, a very large fish, like large calves, which has a skin with no scales like a whale and its head is like that of a cow."

[133-2] "I believe that this port was Baracoa, which name Diego Velasquez, the first of the Spaniards to settle Cuba, gave to the harbor of Asumpcion." Las Casas, I. 322.

[133-3] Near Granada in Spain.

[133-4] Nuevitas del Principe. (Navarrete.)

[133-5] "Alto de Juan Danue." (Navarrete.)

[134-1] Rio Maximo. (Navarrete.)

[134-2] See above, p. 91.

[134-3] Rather, "The text here is corrupt." Las Casas, I. 324, gives the same figures and adds, "yet I think the text is erroneous." Navarrete says the quadrants of that period measured the alt.i.tude double and so we should take half of forty-two as the real alt.i.tude. If so, one wonders why there was no explanation to this effect in the original journal which Las Casas saw or why Las Casas was not familiar with this fact and did not make this explanation. Ruge, _Columbus_, pp. 144, 145, says there were no such quadrants, and regards these estimates as proofs of Columbus's ignorance as a scientific navigator.

[134-4] In Toscanelli's letter Cathay is a province in one place and a city in another.

[134-5] Boca de Carabelas grandes. (Navarrete.)

[135-1] Punta del Maternillo. (Navarrete.)

[135-2] Las Casas says, I. 326. "I think the Christians did not understand, for the language of all these islands is the same, and in this island of Espanola gold is called _caona_."

[136-1] The last words should be, "distant from the one and from the other." Las Casas, I. 327, says: "Zayton and Quisay are certain cities or provincias of the mainland which were depicted on the map of Paul the physician as mentioned above." These Chinese cities were known from Marco Polo's description of them. This pa.s.sage in the Journal is very perplexing if it a.s.sumes that Columbus was guided by the Toscanelli letter. Again a few days earlier Columbus was sure that Cuba was c.i.p.ango, and now he is equally certain that it is the mainland of Asia a.s.serted by Toscanelli to be 26 s.p.a.ces or 6500 Italian miles west of Lisbon, but the next day his estimate of his distance from Lisbon is 4568 miles. It would seem as if Columbus attached no importance to the estimate of distances on the Toscanelli map which was the only original information in it.

[137-1] _Cf._ p. 134, note 3.

[137-2] The true distance was 1105 leagues. (Navarrete.)

[138-1] _Contramaestre_ is boatswain.

[138-2] "_Bohio_ means in their language 'house,' and therefore it is to be supposed that they did not understand the Indians, but that it was Hayti, which is this island of Espanola where they made signs there was gold." Las Casas, I. 329.

[138-3] Columbus understood the natives to say these things because of his strong preconceptions as to what he would find in the islands off the coast of Asia based on his reading of the Book of Sir John Maundeville.

Cf. ch. XVIII. of that work, _e.g._, "a great and fair isle called Nac.u.mera.... And all the men and women have dogs' heads," and ch. XIX., _e.g._, "In one of these isles are people of great stature, like giants, hideous to look upon; and they have but one eye in the middle of the forehead."

[139-1] Las Casas, I. 329, identifies the _mames_ as _ajes_ and _batatas_. The batatas, whence our word "potato," is the sweet potato.

_Mames_ is more commonly written _names_ or _ignames_. This is the Guinea Negro name of the _Dioscorea sativa_, in English "Yam." _Ajes_ is the native West Indies name. See Peschel, _Zeitalter der Entdeckungen_, p.

139, and Columbus's journal, Dec. 13 and Dec. 16. _Faxones_ are the common haricot kidney beans or string beans, _Phaseolus vulgaris_. This form of the name seems a confusion of the Spanish _fasoles_ and the Portuguese _feijes_. That Columbus, an Italian by birth who had lived and married in Portugal and removed to Spain in middle life, should occasionally make slips in word-forms is not strange. More varieties of this bean are indigenous in America than were known in Europe at the time of the discoveries. Cf. De Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_, pp.

338 ff.

[139-2] The word is _contramaestre_, boatswain.