The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 Part 37

[399-3] They remained at Bastimentos till November 23, when they went on to Guiga, but did not tarry but pushed on to a little harbor (November 26), which the Admiral called Retrete (Closet) because it was so small that it could hold only five or six vessels and the entrance was only fifteen or twenty paces wide. _Historie_, p. 306.

[399-4] That is, Columbus turns back to explore the mines on account of the violence of the east and northeast winds. This was December 5.

_Historie_, p. 309.

[400-1] Not mentioned in the _Historie_ by name. It was the place where they stayed from December 26 to January 3 to repair the ship _Gallega_ as appears in the _Probanzas del Almirante_. Navarrete, _Viages_, III. 600.

It was between Rio de los Lagartos and Puerto Bello. Lollis, _Raccolta Colombiana_, Parte I., tomo II., p. 187.

[400-2] Adopting de Lollis's text and punctuation.

[400-3] _La oposicion de Saturno con Marte tan desvaratado en costa brava_, adopting de Lollis's text following the suggestion of the contemporary Italian translation. According to the doctrines of astrology the influence of Saturn was malign. "When Saturn is in the first degree of Aries, and any other Planet in the first degree of Libra, they being now an hundred and eighty degrees each from other, are said to be in Opposition: A bad Aspect." William Lilly, _Christian Astrology_ (London, 1647), p. 27.

[400-4] Epiphany, January 6. It will be remembered that Columbus had pa.s.sed Veragua the previous October when working eastward. See p. 394, note 2. He now found he could enter the river of Veragua, but found another near by called by the Indians Yebra, but which Columbus named Belem in memory of the coming of the three kings (the wise men of the East) to Bethlehem. (Las Casas, III. 128; Porras in Thacher, II. 645.) The name is still preserved attached to the river.

[401-1] _Proeses._ In nautical Spanish _prois_ or _proiza_ is a breastfast or headfast, that is a large cable for fastening a ship to a wharf or another ship. In Portuguese _proiz_ is a stone or tree on sh.o.r.e to which the hawsers are fastened. Major interpreted it in this sense, translating the words _las amarras y proeses_, "the cables and the supports to which they were fastened." The interpretation given first seems to me the correct one, especially as Ferdinand says that the flood came so suddenly that they could not get the cables on land. _Historie_, p. 315.

[402-1] _Quibian_ is a t.i.tle, as indicated a few lines further on, and not a proper name as Major, Irving, Markham, and others following Las Casas have taken it to be. The Spanish is uniformly "El Quibian." Peter Martyr says: "They call a kinglet (_regulus_) Cacicus, as we have said elsewhere, in other places Quebi, in some places also Tiba. A chief, in some places Sacchus, in others Jura." _De Rebus Oceanicis_, p. 241.

[402-2] "_Una mozada de oro._" _Mozada_ is not given in any of the Spanish dictionaries I have consulted. The Academy dictionary gives _mojoda_ as a square measure, deriving it from the low Latin _modiata_ from _modius_. Perhaps one should read _mojada_ instead of _mozada_ and give it a meaning similar to that of _modius_ or about a peck. Major's translation follows the explanation of De Verneuil, who says: "_Mozada signifie la mesure que peut porter un jeune garcon_."

[403-1] The mouth of the river was closed by sand thrown up by the violent storms outside. _Historie_, p. 321.

[403-2] The teredo.

[403-3] During the weeks that he was shut in the River Belem Columbus had his brother explore the country. The prospects for a successful colony led him to build a small settlement and to plan to return to Spain for re-enforcements and supplies. The story is told in detail in the _Historie_ and by Irving, _Columbus_, II. 425-450, and more briefly by Markham, _Columbus_, pp. 259-207. This was the first settlement projected on the American Continent. The hostility of the Indians culminating in this attack rendered the execution of the project impracticable. In the ma.n.u.script copy of Las Casas's _Historia de las Indias_ Las Casas noted on the margin of the pa.s.sage containing the account of this incident, "This was the first settlement that the Spaniards made on the mainland, although in a short time it came to naught." See Thacher, _Columbus_, II.

608.

[404-1] De Lollis points out that these striking words are a paraphrase of the famous lines in Seneca's _Medea_, Chorus, Act II.:--

Venient annis saecula seris Quibus Ocea.n.u.s vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes Nec sit terris ultima Thule.

Columbus copied these verses into his _Libro de las Profecias_ and translated them. Navarrete, _Viages_, II. 272.

[404-2] Accepting de Lollis's emended text.

[405-1] "Quando se aia de proveer de socorro, se proveera de todo."

[405-2] April 16, 1503.

[405-3] Cuba. According to Ferdinand Columbus the course was as follows: The Admiral followed the coast of the isthmus eastward beyond El Retrete to a place he named Marmoro (near Punto de Mosquitos) somewhat west of the entrance to the Gulf of Darien; then May 1 in response to the urgency of the pilots he turned north. May 10 they sighted two little islands, Caymanos Chicos, and the 12th they reached the Queen's Garden just south of Cuba (see p. 301, note 1). The next day they landed in Cuba and secured supplies. It is significant of the tenacity of Columbus's conviction that Cuba was a part of the mainland of Asia that he here calls it Mago (_i.e._, Mango). June 12, 1494, when he had explored the southern coast of Cuba, he reached this conviction and compelled his officers and crew to take oath that "it (_i.e._, Cuba) is mainland and in particular the province of Mango." Navarrete, _Viages_, II. 144. (The affidavits are translated in Thacher, _Columbus_, II. 327.) Mangi (southern China) is described by Marco Polo at great length. In the second Toscanelli letter Quinsay is said to be "in the province of Mangi, _i.e._, near the province of Cathay." It is noted several times in Columbus's marginalia to Marco Polo.

[406-1] _Alli me torne a reposar atras la fortuna._ De Lollis, following the Italian translation, reads: _Alli me torne a reposar atras la fortuna_, etc. "There the storm returned to drive me back; I stopped in the same island in a safer port." As this gives an unknown meaning to _reposar_, he suggests that Columbus may have written _repujar_, "to drive."

[406-2] June 23. _Historie_, p. 334.

[407-1] On the contrary the narrative of Diego de Porras, which he prepared after his return to Spain in November, 1504, is a much clearer account of the voyage in most respects than this letter of Columbus's.

For it, see Thacher, _Columbus_, II. 640-646. Porras relates that during this voyage the Admiral took all the charts away that the seamen had had.

Thacher, _Columbus_, II. 646.

[407-2] "_El puerto de Jaquimo_ [Jacmel], which he called the port of Brasil." Las Casas, _Historia_, III. 108.

[408-1] Cuba.

[408-2] The pilots thought that they were east of Espanola when Columbus turned north, and consequently thought that Cuba (Mango) was Porto Rico (San Juan). _Cf._ _Historie_, p. 333.

[408-3] _I.e._, in that it is clear to one who understands it, and blind to one who does not.

[408-4] _Las naos de las Indias_, _i.e._, the large ships for the Indies, _i.e._, Espanola.

[408-5] Bow-lines are ropes employed to keep the windward edges of the princ.i.p.al sails steady, and are only used when the wind is so unfavorable that the sails must be all braced sideways, or close hauled to the wind.

(Major.)

[409-1] _I.e._, rigged with lateen sails in the Portuguese fashion.

[409-2] Columbus, in his marginal notes to his copy of the _Historia Rerum ubique Gestarum_ of Pope Pius II. (Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini; Venice, 1477), summarized the description of the Ma.s.sagetae in ch. XII.

in part as follows: they "use golden girths and golden bridles and silver breast-pieces and have no iron but plenty of copper and gold." _Raccolta Colombiana_, parte I., tomo II., p. 300. This description of the Ma.s.sagetae goes back to Herodotus. While some habits ascribed to the Ma.s.sagetae were like what Columbus observed in Veragua, their home was nowhere near eastern China.

[409-3] See p. 393, note 3.

[409-4] The account in the _Historie_ is radically at variance with this.

The girls were brought on board and "showed themselves very brave since although the Christians in looks, acts, and race were very strange, they gave no signs of distress or sadness, but maintained a cheerful and modest (_honesto_) bearing, wherefore they were very well treated by the Admiral who gave them clothes and something to eat and then sent them back." _Historie_, p. 299. Ferdinand gives the ages as eight and fourteen and says nothing of witchcraft except that the Indians were frightened and thought they were being bewitched when Bartholomew the next day ordered the ships' clerks to write down the replies he got to his questions; _ibid._

[410-1] A specimen of the Maya sculptures, of which such imposing remains are found in Yucatan. The translation follows Lollis's emendation, which subst.i.tutes _mirrado_ for _mirando_.

[410-2] _Gato paulo_. On this name, see p. 341, note 3. Ferdinand, in the _Historie_, relates this incident in more detail, from which it is clear that the pigs were peccaries which had been captured by the men. On the other hand, Ulloa, the Italian translator of the _Historie_, mistranslated _gato paulo_ by "gatto," "cat."

[410-3] _Begare._ Columbus in recollecting this incident transferred to the monkey the Indian name of the wild pigs. The _begare_ is the "peccary," a native of America. Oviedo, lib. XII., cap. XX, gives _baquira_ as the name of wild pigs in Nicaragua, and _baquira_ and _begare_ are obviously identical.

[410-4] For the word _barra_ no explanation can be offered except what is derived from the context. As the Italian has _diverse malattie_, "divers diseases," de Lollis suggests that _barra_ should be _varias_ and that _maladias_ was somehow dropped from the text.

[410-5] _Leones._ The American lion or puma.

[411-1] A misunderstanding. The Mayas made no metal tools. Brinton, _The American Race_, p. 156.

[411-2] Possibly Columbus may have seen some Maya codices, of which such remarkable specimens have been preserved.

[412-1] Considering Columbus's experience at Veragua this account exhibits boundless optimism. Still it is not to be forgotten that through the conquest of Mexico to the north this prediction was rather strikingly fulfilled.

[412-2] It is not clear to what Columbus refers in this sentence.

[412-3] _De un camino._ The texts to which Columbus refers just below show that this should read _de un ano_, in one year.

[412-4] In the Latin version of Josephus used by Columbus the Greek ???e??, a target, was rendered _lancea_. See _Raccolta Colombiana_, parte I., tomo II., p. 367.

[412-5] _Tablado._ In the Italian translation _tavolato_, a "part.i.tion wall," "wainscoting," also "floor." _Tablado_ also means "scaffold" and "stage" or "staging." We have here a curious series of mistakes. The Greek text of Josephus has ??p?ata, "cups." The old Latin translator, perhaps having a defective text, took ??p?ata apparently to be equivalent to p?ata, which has as its secondary meaning, "lids," and translated it by the uncommon word _coopercula_, "lids" (_cf._ Georges, _Lateinischdeutsches Handworterbuch, sub voce cooperculum_). The meaning of this word Columbus guessed at, not having the text before him to see the connection, and from its derivation from _cooperio_, "to cover,"

took it to be a "covering" in the sense of flooring, or perhaps ceiling, above where the shields were hung "in the house of the forest of Lebanon," and rendered it _tablado_. The whole pa.s.sage from the old Latin version (published in 1470 and frequently later), Columbus copied into a fly-leaf of his copy of the _Historia Rerum ubique Gestarum_ of Pope Pius II. See _Raccolta Colombiana_, parte I., tomo II., pp.

366-367.

[413-1] Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, bk. VIII., ch. VII., sect.

4; _I. Kings_, X. 14, 15; _II. Chronicles_, IX. 13, 14.