[310-1] A species of the N. O. Bombaceae; perhaps the Eriodendron anfractuosum. (Major.) The English name is silk-cotton tree. The fibre, however, cannot be woven. Von Martius suggests the Bombax ceiba.
[310-2] Cf. Hazard, Santo Domingo, p. 350, “the cotton plant which instead of being a simple bush planted from the seed each year, is here a tree, growing two or three years, which needs only to be trimmed and pruned to produce a large yield of the finest cotton.”
[310-3] Probably the so-called Carnauba wax or perhaps palm-tree wax. Cf. the Encyclopædia Britannica, art. “Wax.”
[311-1] The Spanish here is linaloe, but the reference seems to be to the medicinal aloes and not to lign aloes. On lign aloes, see Columbus’s Journal, [November 12], and [note].
[311-2] The myrobolan is an East Indian fruit with a stone, of the prune genus. Crude or preserved myrobolans were a more important article of commerce in the Middle Ages than now. There were five varieties, one of which, the Mirobalani citrini, were so named because they were lemon-colored. Heyd, Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age, II. 641. A species of myrobolan grows in South America.
[311-3] The product of the Bursera gummifera.
[311-4] Cf. Columbus’s Journal, [November 4], and [note].
[311-5] Agi, also written Axi, is the Capsicum annuum or Spanish pepper. Most of the cayenne or red pepper of commerce comes from the allied species, Capsicum frutescens. In Mexico the name of this indigenous pepper plant was Quauhchilli, Chili tree. Chili was taken over into Spanish as the common name for capsicum and has come down in English in the familiar Chili sauce. See Peschel, Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, p. 139; De Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants, pp. 289-290. Encyclopædia Britannica, art. “Cayenne Pepper.”
[312-1] Cf. Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, 266.
[312-2] The Admiral, “having described the country at length and the condition in which he was and where he had settled for the Catholic sovereigns and sending them the specimen of gold which Guacanagari had given him and that which Hojeda had brought, and informing them of all that he saw to be needed, despatched the twelve ships before mentioned, placing in command of them all Antonio de Torres, brother of the nurse of the prince Don Juan, to whom he intrusted the gold and all his despatches. They made sail the 2d of February, 1494.” Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, II. 25-26. Columbus’s letter to Ferdinand and Isabella mentioned here has not been preserved. That part of it which related to future needs was apparently duplicated in the “memorial” which he gave to Torres. This document is given in English in Thacher, Christopher Columbus, II. 297-308, and Major, Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, ed. 1870, pp. 72-107. See p. 73, ibid., for a reference to letters of the Admiral no longer extant.