[101-1] More exactly, “On which it seems the Admiral had painted certain islands.” The Spanish reads: “donde segun parece tenia pintadas el Almirante ciertas islas,” etc. The question is whether Columbus made the map or had it made. The rendering of the note is supported by the French translators and by Harrisse.
[101-2] Las Casas, I. 279, says: “This map is the one which Paul, the physician, the Florentine, sent, which I have in my possession with other articles which belonged to the Admiral himself who discovered these Indies, and writings in his own hand which came into my possession. In it he depicted many islands and the main land which were the beginning of India and in that region the realms of the Grand Khan,” etc. Las Casas does not tell us how he knew that the Toscanelli map which he found in Columbus’s papers was the map that the Admiral used on the first voyage. That is the general assumption of scholars, but there is no positive evidence of the fact. The Toscanelli map is no longer extant, and all reconstructions of it are based on the globe of Martin Behaim constructed in 1492. The reconstruction by H. Wagner which may be seen in S. Ruge, Columbus, 2te aufl. (Berlin, 1902) is now accepted as the most successful.
According to the reckoning of the distances in the Journal, Columbus was now about 550 leagues or 2200 Italian miles west of the Canaries. The Toscanelli map was divided off into spaces each containing 250 miles. Columbus was therefore nine spaces west of the Canaries. No reconstruction of Toscanelli’s map puts any islands at nine spaces from the Canaries except so far as the reconstructors insert the island of Antilia on the basis of Behaim’s globe. The Antilia of Behaim according to Wagner was eight spaces west of the Canaries. Again Ferdinand Columbus, in his Historie under date of October 7 (p. 72), says the sailors “had been frequently told by him that he did not look for land until they had gone 750 leagues west from the Canaries, at which distance he had told them he would have found Española then called Cipango.” 750 leagues or 3000 Italian miles would be 12 spaces on the Toscanelli map. But according to the Toscanelli letter Cipango was 10 spaces west of Antilia, and therefore 18 spaces or 4500 miles west of the Canaries. Columbus then seems to have expected to find Cipango some 1500 miles to the east of where it was placed on the Toscanelli map. These considerations justify a very strong doubt whether Columbus was shaping his course and basing his expectations on the data of the Toscanelli letter and map, or whether the fact that Las Casas found what he took to be the Toscanelli map in the Admiral’s papers proves that it was that map which he had on his first voyage.
[102-1] Dorado is defined by Stevens as the dory or gilt head.
[103-1] Rabiforcado, Portuguese. The Spanish form is rabihorcado. It means “forked tail.” The modern English equivalent is “frigate bird.” It is “the Fregata aquila of most ornithologists, the Frégate of French and the Rabihorcado of Spanish mariners.” Newton, Dictionary of Birds, art. “Frigate-Bird.” Newton says that the name “man-of-war bird” has generally passed out of use in books.
[103-2] Rather, the Guards, the name given to the two brightest stars in the constellation of the Little Bear. The literal translation is: “the Guards, when night comes on, are near the arm on the side to the west, and when dawn breaks they are on the line under the arm to the northeast,” etc. What Columbus meant I cannot explain. Neither Navarrete nor the French translators offer any suggestions.
[105-1] Las Casas, I. 282, adds to the foregoing under date of October 3: “He says here that it would not have been good sense to beat about and in that way to be delayed in search of them [i.e., the islands] since he had favorable weather and his chief intention was to go in search of the Indies by way of the west, and this was what he proposed to the King and Queen, and they had sent him for that purpose. Because he would not turn back to beat up and down to find the islands which the pilots believed to be there, particularly Martin Alonzo by the chart which, as was said, Cristóbal Colon had sent to his caravel for him to see, and it was their opinion that he ought to turn, they began to stir up a mutiny, and the disagreement would have gone farther if God had not stretched out his arm as he was wont, showing immediately new signs of their being near land since now neither soft words nor entreaties nor prudent reasoning of Cristóbal Colon availed to quiet them and to persuade them to persevere.” Ferdinand Columbus says simply, “For this reason the crew began to be mutinous, persevering in their complaints and plots,” p. 71. See [page 108, note 1].
[106-1] Á la cuarta del Oueste, á la parte del Sudueste, at the quarter from the west toward the southwest, i.e., west by south.
[106-2] Las Casas, in the Historia de las Indias, I. 283, writes, “That night Martin Alonso said that it would be well to sail west by south for the island of Cipango which the map that Cristóbal Colon showed him represented.” Cf. [page 101, note 2].
[107-1] Las Casas remarks, I. 285, “If he had kept up the direct westerly course and the impatience of the Castilians had not hindered him, there is no doubt that he would have struck the main land of Florida and from there to New Spain, although the difficulties would have been unparalleled and the losses unbearable that they would have met with, and it would have been a divine miracle if he had ever returned to Castile.”