The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 Part 20

[141-1] The last line should read, "but that they did not know whether there was any in the place where they were."

[141-2] The last line should read, "with a brand in their hand, [and]

herbs to smoke as they are accustomed to do." This is the earliest reference to smoking tobacco. Las Casas, I. 332, describes the process as the natives practised it: "These two Christians found on their way many people, men and women, going to and from their villages and always the men with a brand in their hands and certain herbs to take their smoke, which are dry herbs placed in a certain leaf, also dry like the paper muskets which boys make at Easter time. Having lighted one end of it, they suck at the other end or draw in with the breath that smoke which they make themselves drowsy and as if drunk, and in that way, they say, cease to feel fatigue. These muskets, or whatever we call them, they call _tabacos_. I knew Spaniards in this island of Espanola who were accustomed to take them, who, when they were rebuked for it as a vice, replied they could not give it up. I do not know what pleasant taste or profit they found in them." Las Casas' last remarks show that smoking was not yet common in his later life in Spain. The paper muskets of Las Casas are blow-pipes. Oviedo, lib. V., cap. II., gives a detailed description of the use of tobacco. He says that the Indians smoked by inserting these tubes in the nostrils and that after two or three inhalations they lost consciousness. He knew some Christians who used it as an anesthetic when in great pain.

[142-1] On this indigenous species of dumb dogs, _cf._ Oviedo, lib. XII.

cap. V. They have long been extinct in the Antilles. Oviedo says there were none in Espanola when he wrote. He left the island in 1546.

[142-2] This last part of this sentence should read, "and is cultivated with _mames_, kidney beans, other beans, this same panic [_i.e._, Indian corn], etc." The corresponding pa.s.sage in the _Historie_ of Ferdinand Columbus reads, "and another grain like panic called by them _mahiz_ of very excellent flavor cooked or roasted or pounded in porridge (polenta)," p. 87.

[142-3] The _arroba_ was 25 pounds and the _quintal_ one hundred weight.

[143-1] In Las Casas, I. 339, Bohio is mentioned with Babeque, and it is in Bohio that the people were reported to gather gold on the beach.

[144-1] _I.e._, although the Spaniards may be only fooling with them.

[145-1] An interesting forecast of the future which may be compared with John Cabot's; see one of the last pages of this volume.

[145-2] _Linaloe._ Lignaloes or agallochum, to be distinguished from the medicinal aloes. Both were highly prized articles of mediaeval Oriental trade. Lignaloes is mentioned by Marco Polo as one of the princ.i.p.al commodities exchanged in the market of Zaitun. It is also frequently mentioned in the Bible. _Cf._ numbers xxiv, 6, or Psalm xlv. 8. The aloes of Columbus were probably the Barbadoes aloes of commerce, and the mastic the produce of the _Bursera gummifera_. The last did not prove to be a commercial resin like the mastic of Scio. See _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ under Aloes and Mastic, and Heyd, _Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen Age_, II. 581, 633.

[145-3] The ducat being 9_s._ 2_d._ In the seventeenth century the value of the mastic exported from Chios (Scio) was 30,000 ducats. Chios belonged to Genoa from 1346 to 1566. (Markham.)

[146-1] _Las Sierras del Cristal_ and _Las Sierras de Moa_. (Navarrete.)

[147-1] Puerto de Taxamo, in Cuba. (Navarrete.)

[148-1] _Cf._ Fra Mauro's Map (1457-1459), Bourne, _Spain in America_, 14, and Behaim's Globe, Winsor's _Columbus_, p. 186, or Fiske's _Discovery of America_, I. 422.

[149-1] Las Casas did not know the meaning of this word. In all probability it is the Italian _ta.s.so_, badger. _Cf._ p. 139, note 1. The animal, Cuvier suggested was probably the coati.

[149-2] Cuvier conjectured this to be the trunk fish.

[150-1] The agouti.

[152-1] See p. 134, note 3. The words following "Port of Mares" should be translated "but here he says that he has the quadrant hung up (or not in use) until he reaches land to repair it. Since it seemed to him that this distance," etc. Las Casas omitted to insert the number of degrees in his comment.

[152-2] The sentences omitted are comments of Las Casas on these reflections of Columbus.

[153-1] See p. 138, note 3.

[153-2] _A la hora de tercia_, about 9 A.M. See p. 118, note 1.

[153-3] Cayo de Moa. (Navarrete.)

[154-1] Rio de Moa. (Navarrete.)

[154-2] Punta del Mangle or del Guarico. (Navarrete.)

[154-3] Sierras de Moa. (Navarrete.)

[154-4] "These must have been _margaseta_ stones which look like gold in streams and of which there is an abundance in the rivers of these islands." Las Casas, I. 346.

[155-1] _Madronos._ _Arbutus unedo_ or the Strawberry tree. The California Madrona is the _Arbutus Menziesii_.

[155-2] Rather, "for making sawmills."

[156-1] Among these were the Bay of Yamanique, and the ports of Jaragua, Taco, Cayaganueque, Nava, and Maravi. (Navarrete.)

[156-2] See p. 126, note 1.

[157-1] The original of the words Cannibal and Carib and Caribbean. _Cf._ also p. 138, note 3.

[157-2] The port of Baracoa. (Navarrete.)

[157-3] Monte del Yunque. (Navarrete.)

[158-1] Port of Maravi. (Navarrete.)

[158-2] Punta de Maici. (_Id._)

[158-3] Puerto de Baracoa. (_Id._)

[160-1] With these suggestions for a colonial policy _cf._ Columbus's more detailed programme in his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, pp.

273-277 below. In the Spanish policy of exclusion of foreigners from the colonies the religious motive, as here, was quite as influential as the spirit of trade monopoly. Las Casas, in making the same quotation from the Journal, remarks, I. 351: "All these are his exact words, although some of them are not perfect Castilian, since that was not the Admiral's mother tongue."

[161-1] The _fusta_ was a long, low boat propelled by oars or a sail. It is represented in earlier English by "foist" and "fuste."

[161-2] Las Casas, I. 353, remarks, "This wax was never made in the island of Cuba, and this cake that was found came from the kingdom and provinces of Yucatan, where there is an immense amount of very good yellow wax." He supposes that it might have come from the wrecks of canoes engaged in trade along the coast of Yucatan.

[162-1] About 70 feet. Las Casas adds the words, "it was most beautiful,"

and continues, "it is no wonder for there are in that island very thick and very long and tall fragrant red cedars and commonly all their canoes are made from these valuable trees."

[162-2] Puerto de Baracoa. (Navarrete.)

[163-1] This reef actually exists on the S.E. side of the entrance to this port, which is described with great accuracy by Columbus.

(Navarrete.)

[163-2] _Lombarda_ is the same as _bombarda_, bombard, the earliest type of cannon. The name has nothing to do with Lombardy, but is simply the form which was used in Castile in the fifteenth century while _bombarda_ was used elsewhere in the peninsula and in Europe. The average-sized bombard was a twenty-five pounder. _Diccionario Enciclopedico Hispano-Americano_, art. _lombardo_, based on Arautegui, _Apuntes Historicos sobre la Artilleria Espanola en los Siglos XIV y XV_.

[164-1] This line should be, "in which he saw five very large _almadias_ [low, light boats] which the Indians call _canoas_, like _fustas_, very beautiful and so well constructed," etc. "Canoe" is one of the few Arawak Indian words to have become familiar English.

[164-2] Rather, "He went up a mountain and then he found it all level and planted with many things of the country and gourds so that it was glorious to see it." De Candolle believes the calabash or gourd to have been introduced into America from Africa. _Cf._ his _Origin of Cultivated Plants_, pp. 245 ff. Oviedo, however, in his _Historia General y Natural de Indias_, lib. VIII., cap. VIII., says that the _calabacas_ of the Indies were the same as those in Spain and were cultivated not to eat but to use the sh.e.l.ls as vessels.

[164-3] Rather, "rods."

[166-1] Rio Boma. (Navarrete.)

[166-2] Punta del Fraile. (_Id._)