Footnote 608: "Aqueste tan gran juicio de Dios no curemos de escudriñallo, pues en el dia final deste mundo nos será bien claro." Hist. do las Indias, tom. iii. p. 32; cf. Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. lxxxvii. As Las Casas was then in San Domingo, having come out in Ovando's fleet, and as Ferdinand Columbus was with his father, the testimony is very direct.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 609: In the next chapter I shall give some reasons for supposing that the Admiral had learned the existence of the Yucatan channel from the pilot Ledesma, coupled with information which made it unlikely that a passage into the Indian ocean would be found that way. See below, vol. ii. p. 92.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 610: Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. lxxxviii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 611: Irving (vol. ii. pp. 386, 387) seems to think it strange that Columbus did not at once turn westward and circumnavigate Yucatan. But if—as Irving supposed—Columbus had not seen the Yucatan channel, and regarded the Honduras coast as continuous with that of Cuba, he could only expect by turning westward to be carried back to Cape Alpha and Omega, where he had already been twice before! In the next chapter, however, I shall show that Columbus may have shaped his course in accordance with the advice of the pilot Ledesma.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 612: Navarrete, Coleccion de viages, tom. i. p. 299.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 613: Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. lxxxix.; Humboldt, Examen Critique, tom. i. p. 350.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 614: "Nothing could evince more clearly his generous ambition than hurrying in this brief manner along a coast where wealth was to be gathered at every step, for the purpose of seeking a strait which, however it might produce vast benefit to mankind, could yield little else to himself than the glory of the discovery." Irving's Columbus, vol. ii. p. 406. In this voyage, however, the express purpose from the start was to find the strait of Malacca as a passage to the very same regions which had been visited by Gama, and Columbus expected thus to get wealth enough to equip an army of Crusaders. Irving's statement does not correctly describe the Admiral's purpose, and as savouring of misplaced eulogy, is sure to provoke a reaction on the part of captious critics.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 615: A graphic account of these scenes, in which he took part, is given by Ferdinand Columbus, Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xciii.-cvi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 616: Harrisse, Notes on Columbus, New York, 1866, p. 73.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 617: Vita del Ammiraglio, cap. cvii. This is unquestionably a gloss of the translator Ulloa. Cf. Harrisse, Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. pp. 177-179.[Back to Main Text]