[10] The will of Diego Mendez, one of Columbus' most trusted followers, states that the Governor of Xaragua in seven months burned and hanged eighty-four chiefs, including the Queen of San Domingo.

[11] Owing to the difficulty in securing animals for the cavalry in Spain (about A. D. 1505), an edict had been published by the King forbidding the use of mules in traveling, except by royal permission.

While Columbus was in Seville he wished to make a journey to the court, then sitting at Granada, to plead his own cause. Cardinal Mendoza placed his litter at the disposal of the Admiral, but he preferred a mule, and wrote to Diego, asking him to petition the King for the privilege of using one. The request was granted in the following curious document:

Decree granting to Don Cristoval Colon permission to ride on a mule, saddled and bridled, through any part of these Kingdoms.

The King: As I am informed that you, Cristoval Colon, the Admiral, are in poor bodily health, owing to certain diseases which you had or have, and that you can not ride on horse-back without injury to your health; therefore, conceding this to your advanced age, I, by these presents, grant you leave to ride on a mule, saddled and bridled, through whatever parts of these kingdoms or realms you wish and choose, notwithstanding the law which I issued thereto; and I command the subjects of all parts of these kingdoms and realms not to offer you any impediment or allow any to be offered to you, under penalty of ten thousand maravedi in behalf of the treasury, of whoever does the contrary.

Given in the City of Toro, February 23, 1505.

[12]

.s.
.s. s .s.
X M Y
Xpo FERENS.

Columbus' Cipher.—The interpretation of the seven-lettered cipher, accepting the smaller letters of the second line as the final ones of the words, seems to be Servate-me, Xristus, Maria, Yosephus. The name Christopher appears in the last line.

[13] See Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, London, 1831; Humboldt, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Geographie du Nouveau Continent, Paris, 1836; Sportorno, Codice Diplomatico Colombo-Americano, Genoa, 1823; Hernan Colon, Vita dell' Ammiraglio, 1571; (English translation in vol. xi of Churchill's Voyages and Travels, third edition, London, 1744; Spanish, 1745); Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella, London, 1870; Major, Select Letters of Columbus, Hakluyt Society, London, 1847, and "On the Landfall of Columbus," in Journal of Royal Geographical Society for 1871; Sir Arthur Helps, Life of Columbus, London, 1868; Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages y Descubrimientos desde Fines del Siglo XV., Madrid, 1825; Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, London, 1863.