The Historie agrees with the text of the Journal that the needle declined more to the west, instead of shifting to an eastern declination.
The author of the Historie remarks: “This variation no one had ever observed up to this time,” p. 62. “Columbus had crossed the point of no variation, which was then near the meridian of Flores, in the Azores, and found the variation no longer easterly, but more than a point westerly. His explanation that the pole-star, by means of which the change was detected, was not itself stationary, is very plausible. For the pole-star really does describe a circle round the pole of the earth, equal in diameter to about six times that of the sun; but this is not equal to the change observed in the direction of the needle.” (Markham.)
[96-1] Garjao. This word is not in the Spanish dictionaries that I have consulted. The translator has followed the French translators MM. Chalumeau de Verneuil and de la Roquette who accepted the opinion of the naturalist Cuvier that the Garjao was the hirondelle de mer, the Sterna maxima or royal tern.
[96-2] Rabo de junco, literally, reedtail, is the tropic bird or Phaethon. The name “boatswain-bird” is applied to some other kinds of birds, besides the tropic bird. Cf. Alfred Newton, Dictionary of Birds (London, 1896). Ferdinand Columbus says: rabo di giunco, “a bird so called because it has a long feather in its tail,” p. 63.
[96-3] This remark is, of course, not true of the tropic bird or rabo de junco, as was abundantly proved on this voyage.
[97-1] See [p. 96, note 2].
[98-1] Alcatraz. The rendering “booby” follows Cuvier’s note to the French translation. The “booby” is the “booby gannet.” The Spanish dictionaries give pelican as the meaning of Alcatraz. The gannets and the pelicans were formerly classed together. The word Alcatraz was taken over into English and corrupted to Albatros. Alfred Newton, Dictionary of Birds (London, 1896), art. “Albatros.”
[98-2] More exactly, “He sailed this day toward the West a quarter northwest and half the division [i.e., west by north and west by one eighth northwest] because of the veering winds and calm that prevailed.”
[100-1] The abridger of the original journal missed the point here and his epitome is unintelligible. Las Casas says in his Historia, I. 275: “The Admiral says in this place that the adverseness of the winds and the high sea were very necessary to him since they freed the crew of their erroneous idea that there would be no favorable sea and winds for their return and thereby they received some relief of mind or were not in so great despair, yet even then some objected, saying that that wind would not last, up to the Sunday following, when they had nothing to answer when they saw the sea so high. By which means, Cristóbal Colon says here, God dealt with him and with them as he dealt with Moses and the Jews when he drew them from Egypt showing signs to favor and aid him and to their confusion.”
[100-2] Las Casas, Historia, I. 275-276, here describes with detail the discontent of the sailors and their plots to put Columbus out of the way. The passage is translated in Thacher, Christopher Columbus, I. 524. The word rendered “sandpipers” is pardelas, petrels. The French translation has petrels tachetes, i.e., “pintado petrels,” or cape pigeons.