[223] Juan de la Cosa, in 1493, accompanied Columbus, on his second voyage, as a cartographer. In 1499 he explored the coast of Paria with Alonso de Hojeda and Amerigo Vespucci. In November, 1509, he again sailed with Hojeda to South America, and heroically met his death while defending himself, when surrounded by a party of assailing savages, in the village of Yurbaco, in the province called Castilla del Oro by the Spaniards.
[224] Examen critique de l’histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent et des progrès de l’astronomie nautique aux quinzième et seizième siècles. Par Alexandre de Humboldt. Paris, 1836. tome troisième. pp. 167, 174, 183.
[225] Vide Notes on Columbus. [By Henry Harrisse.] New York, 1866. Jean et Sébastien Cabot, leur origine et leurs voyages. Par Henri Harrisse. Paris, 1881. pp. 52, 103, 156.
[226] Vide Historical and geographical notes, 1453-1530. By Henry Stevens. New Haven, 1869. p. 11.
[227] St. Christopher, it is said, after he was baptized by the bishop of Antioch, took up his abode in a desert, near a rapid stream, over which he carried travellers on his back. While bearing, one day, a child across the swollen flood, he discovered that it was the Christ, hence his name Christophorus, the Christ-bearer.
Speaking of his father’s name, Ferdinand Columbus remarks: “As St. Christopher is reported to have received that name because he carried Christ over the deep waters with great danger to himself, whence came the name of Christopher, and as he conveyed over the people whom no other could have carried, so Admiral Christophorus Colonus, imploring the assistance of Christ in that dangerous voyage, went over safely himself and his company, that those Indian nations might become citizens and inhabitants of the church triumphant in heaven.”—Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. i.
[228] Abaco is one of the Bahama islands.
[229] La Cosa’s map, on three large sheets of paper, is contained in Les monuments de la géographie ou recueil d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales ... publiés en fac-similé de la grandeur des originaux par M. Jomard, membre de l’institut de France, Paris. Imprimerie de Beau, a Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
[230] Vide Section of La Cosa’s map in the cover-pocket.
[231] Raccolta di navigationi e viaggi. Ramusio. vol. i. fol. 374.