[NOTES.]
[A.] First Voyage.—As regards the first voyage of Columbus there has come down to us a number of accounts, resolvable into two distinct narratives, as originally proceeding from the hand of Columbus himself,—his Journal, which is in part descriptive and in part log, according to the modern understanding of this last term; and his Letters announcing the success and results of his search. The fortunes and bibliographical history of both these sources need to be told:
Journal.—Columbus himself refers to this in his letter to Pope Alexander VI. (1503) as being kept in the style of Cæsar’s Commentaries; and Irving speaks of it as being penned “from day to day with guileless simplicity.” In its original form it has not been found; but we know that Las Casas used it in his Historia, and that Ferdinand Columbus must have had it before him while writing what passes for his Life of his father. An abridgment of the Journal in the hand of Las Casas, was discovered by Navarrete, who printed it in the first volume of his Coleccion in 1825; it is given in a French version in the Paris edition of the same (vol. ii.), and in Italian in Torre’s Scritti di Colombo, 1864. Las Casas says of his abstract, that he follows the very words of the Admiral for a while after recording the landfall; and these parts are translated by Mr. Thomas, of the State Department at Washington, in G. A. Fox’s paper on “The Landfall” in the Report of the Coast Survey for 1880. The whole of the Las Casas text, however, was translated into English, at the instigation of George Ticknor, by Samuel Kettell, and published in Boston as A Personal Narrative of the First Voyage in 1827;[161] and it has been given in part, in English, in Becher’s Landfall of Columbus. The original is thought to have served Herrera in his Historia General.[162]
Letters.—We know that on the 12th of February, 1493, about a week before reaching the Azores on his return voyage, and while his ship was laboring in a gale, Columbus prepared an account of his discovery, and incasing the parchment in wax, put it in a barrel, which he threw overboard. That is the last heard of it. He prepared another account, perhaps duplicate, and protecting it in a similar way, placed it on his poop, to be washed off in case his vessel foundered. We know nothing further of this account, unless it be the same, substantially, with the letters which he wrote just before making a harbor at the Azores. One of these letters, at least, is dated off the Canaries; and it is possible that it was written earlier on the voyage, and post-dated, in expectation of his making the Canaries; and when he found himself by stress of weather at the Azores, he neglected to change the place. The original of neither of these letters is known.
One of them was dated Feb. 15, 1493, with a postscript dated March 4 (or 14, copies vary, and the original is of course not to be reached; 4 would seem to be correct), and is written in Spanish, and addressed to the “Escribano de Racion,” Luis de Santangel, who, as Treasurer of Aragon, had advanced money for the voyage. Columbus calls this a second letter; by which he may mean that the one cast overboard was the first, or that another, addressed to Sanchez (later to be mentioned), preceded it. There was at Simancas, in 1818, an early manuscript copy of this letter, which Navarrete printed in his Coleccion, and Kettell translated into English in his book (p. 253) already referred to.[163]
In 1852 the Baron Pietro Custodi left his collection of books to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at Milan; and among them was found a printed edition of this Santangel letter, never before known, and still remaining unique. It is of small quarto, four leaves, in semi-gothic type, bearing the date of 1493,[164] and was, as Harrisse and Lenox think, printed in Spain,—Major suggests Barcelona, but Gayangos thinks Lisbon. It was first reprinted at Milan in 1863, with a fac-simile, and edited by Cesare Correnti, in a volume, containing other letters of Columbus, entitled, Lettere autografe edite ed inedite di Cristoforo Colombo.[165] From this reprint Harrisse copied it, and gave an English translation in his Notes on Columbus, p. 89, drawing attention to the error of Correnti in making it appear on his titlepage that the letter was addressed to “Saxis,”[166] and testifying that, by collation, he had found but slight variation from the Navarrete text. Mr. R. H. Major also prints the Ambrosian text in his Select Letters of Columbus, with an English version appended, and judges the Cosco version could not have been made from it. Other English translations may be found in Becher’s Landfall of Columbus, p. 291, and in French’s Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida, 2d series, ii. 145.
In 1866 a fac-simile edition (150 copies) of the Ambrosian copy was issued at Milan, edited by Gerolamo d’Adda, under the title of Lettera in lingua Spagnuola diretta da Cristoforo Colombo a Luis de Santangel.[167] Mr. James Lenox, of New York, had already described it, with a fac-simile of the beginning and end, in the Historical Magazine (vol. viii. p. 289, September, 1864, April, 1865); and this paper was issued separately (100 copies) as a supplement to the Lenox edition of Scyllacius. Harrisse[168] indicates that there was once a version of this Santangel letter in the Catalan tongue, preserved in the Colombina Library at Seville.
A few years ago Bergenroth found at Simancas a letter of Columbus, dated at the Canaries, Feb. 15, 1493, with a postscript at Lisbon, March 14, addressed to a friend, giving still another early text, but adding nothing material to our previous knowledge. A full abstract is given in the Calendar of State Papers relating to England and Spain, p. 43.
A third Spanish text of a manuscript of the sixteenth century, said to have been found in the Colegio Mayor de Cuenca, was made known by Varnhagen, the Minister of Brazil to Portugal, who printed it at Valencia in 1858 as Primera epistola del Almirante Don Christóbal Colon, including an account “de una nueva copia de original manuscrito.” The editor assumed the name of Volafan, and printed one hundred copies, of which sixty were destroyed in Brazil.[169] This letter is addressed to Gabriel Sanchez, and dated “sobre la isla de Sa. Maria, 18 de Febrero;” and is without the postscript of the letters of Feb. 15. It is almost a verbatim repetition of the Simancas text. A reprint of the Cosco text makes a part of the volume; and it is the opinion of Varnhagen and Harrisse that the Volafan text is the original from which Cosco translated, as mentioned later.
Perhaps still another Spanish text is preserved and incorporated, as Muñoz believed, by the Cura de los Palacios, Andrés Bernaldez, in his Historia de los reyes católicos (chap. cxviii). This book covers the period 1488-1513; has thirteen chapters on Columbus, who had been the guest of Bernaldez after his return from his second voyage, in 1496, and by whom Columbus is called “mercador de libros de estampa.” The manuscript of Bernaldez’s book long remained unprinted in the Royal Library at Madrid. Irving used a manuscript copy which belonged to Obadiah Rich.[170] Prescott’s copy of the manuscript is in Harvard College Library.[171] Humboldt[172] used it in manuscript. It was at last printed at Granada in 1856, in two volumes, under the editing of Miguel Lafuente y Alcántara.[173] It remains, of course, possible that Bernaldez may have incorporated a printed Spanish text, instead of the original or any early manuscript, though Columbus is known to have placed papers in his hands.