[353-2] Las Casas explains leste, which would seem to have been either peculiar to sailors or at least not in common usage then for “east.”
[353-3] Probably gatos in the sense of gatos paules, monkeys, noted above, [p. 341], as very plentiful.
[353-4] Port of the Cabins.
[353-5] The Catholicon was one of the earliest Latin lexicons of modern times and the first to be printed. It was compiled by Johannes de Janua (Giovanni Balbi of Genoa) toward the end of the thirteenth century and first printed at Mainz in 1460, and very frequently later.
[354-1] The third of the canonical hours of prayer, about nine o’clock in the morning.
[355-1] El agua les es medicina, i.e., a means of curing the ill.
[355-2] Abajo. Las Casas views the mainland as extending up from the sea. Columbus was going west along the north shore of the peninsula of Paria.
[355-3] I.e., to go west along the north shore of this supposed island until looking south he was to the right of it and abreast of the Gulf of Pearls.
[355-4] Three of the greatest known rivers, each of which drained a vast range of territory. This narrative reveals the gradual dawning upon Columbus of the fact that he had discovered a hitherto unknown continental mass. In his letter to the sovereigns his conviction is settled and his efforts to adjust it with previous knowledge and the geographical traditions of the ages are most interesting. See Major, Select Letters of Columbus, pp. 134 et seqq. “Ptolemy,” he says, on p. 136, “and the others who have written upon the globe had no information respecting this part of the world, for it was most unknown.”
[356-1] The Witnesses.