Done in the Indies, in the island of Jamaica, on the seventh of July, in the year one thousand five hundred and three.
[389-1] The punctuation of this first paragraph has been changed in the light of the contemporary Italian translation known as the Lettera Rarissima, which is given in facsimile and English translation in Thacher’s Christopher Columbus, II. 671 et seqq.
[389-2] June 29. Las Casas, III. 29.
[390-1] By the letter of the King and Queen, March 14, 1502, Columbus had been forbidden to call at Española on the outward voyage. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, III. 26.
[390-2] The new governor, Ovando, who had been sent out to supersede Bobadilla, had reached Santo Domingo in April of this year, 1502.
[390-3] Columbus was accompanied by his younger son Ferdinand and his elder brother Bartholomew. Las Casas, III. 25.
[390-4] The translation here follows Lollis’s emendation of the text which changed the printed text, “habia, echado á la mar, por escapar, fasta la isola la Gallega; perdio la barca,” etc., to “habia echado á la mar, por escapar fasta la isla; la Gallega perdio la barca.” One of the ships was named La Gallega, and there is no island of that name in that region.
[391-1] Columbus set forth from the harbor of Santo Domingo in the storm, Friday, July 1. The ships found refuge in the harbor of Azua on the following Sunday, July 3. (Ferdinand Columbus in the Historie, ed. 1867, pp. 286-287.) Azua is about 50 miles west of Santo Domingo in a straight line, but much farther by water. After a rest and repairs the Admiral sailed to Yaquimo, the present Jacmel in the territory of Hayti, into which port he went to escape another storm. He left Yaquimo, July 14. (Las Casas, III. 108; Ferdinand Columbus, Historie, p. 289.) He then passed south of Jamaica, and was carried by the currents northwest till he reached the Queen’s Garden, a group of many small islands south of Cuba and east of the Isle of Pines, so named by him in 1494 on his exploration of the coast of Cuba.
[391-2] From the Queen’s Garden he sailed south July 27 (the Porras narrative of this voyage, Navarrete, II. 283; in English in Thacher, Columbus, II. 640 et seqq.), and after a passage of ninety leagues sighted an island Saturday, July 30. (Porras in Thacher, II. 643.) This was the island of Guanaja about twelve leagues north of Trujillo, Honduras. (Las Casas, III. 109.) Here a landing was made and a canoe was encountered which was covered with an awning and contained Indians well clothed and a load of merchandise. Notwithstanding these indications of a more advanced culture than had hitherto been found, the Admiral decided not to explore the country of these Indians, which would have led him into Yucatan and possibly Mexico, but to search for the strait which he supposed separated Asia from the continental mass he had discovered on his third voyage (Paria, South America). He struck the mainland near Trujillo, naming the point Caxinas. At or near this place they landed Sunday, August 14, to say mass. (Las Casas, III. 112; Ferdinand Columbus, Historie, p. 295.) From this point he coasted very slowly, sailing in sight of land by day and anchoring at night, distressed by storms and headwinds, some days losing as much ground as could be gained in two, till September 12, when he reached Cape Gracias á Dios. (Las Casas, III. 113; Historie, p. 297; Porras narrative in Thacher, Columbus, II. 644.) It will be seen from this collation of the sources that the statements in our text are far from exact, that they are in fact a very general and greatly exaggerated recollection of a most trying experience. It will be remembered that Ferdinand was on this voyage, but his narrative says nothing of any storm between July 14 when he left the Queen’s Gardens and the arrival at Guanaja, a passage which Porras says took three days. This passage, however, Las Casas describes apparently on the basis of this letter as having taken sixty days (Historia, III. 108). Next the text of the Historie presents a difficulty, for it places the tedious stormy voyage of sixty leagues and seventy days between Caxinas (Trujillo) and Cape Gracias á Dios (Historie, p. 296), although in another place it gives the beginning of this coasting as after August 14 and the date of arrival at the Cape as September 12. This last chronological difficulty may perhaps be accounted for in this way: The original manuscript of the Historie may have had “XXX dias,” which a copyist or the Italian translator may have taken for “LXX dias.”
[392-1] A review of the chronology of the voyage in the preceding note will show that no such storm of eighty-eight days’ duration could have occurred in the first part of this voyage. Columbus was only seventy-four days in going from Santo Domingo to Cabo Gracias á Dios. Either the text is wrong or his memory was at fault. The most probable conclusion is that in copying either LXXXVIII got substituted for XXVIII or Ochenta y ocho for Veinte y ocho. In that case we should have almost exactly the time spent in going from Trujillo to Cape Gracias á Dios, August 14 to September 12, and exact agreement between our text, the Historie, and the Porras narrative.