[121-5] The castellano was one-sixth of an ounce. Las Casas, I. 311, remarks: “They were deceived in believing the marks to be letters since those people are wont to work it in their fashion, since never anywhere in all the Indies was there found any trace of money of gold or silver or other metal.”
[123-1] Crooked Island (Markham.)
[123-2] Cape Beautiful.
[125-1] “The Indians of this island of Española call it iguana.” Las Casas I. 314. He gives a minute description of it.
[126-1] The names in the Spanish text are Colba and Bosio, errors in transcription for Cuba and Bohio. Las Casas, I. 315, says in regard to the latter: “To call it Bohio was to misunderstand the interpreters, since throughout all these islands, where the language is practically the same, they call the huts in which they live bohio and this great island Española they called Hayti, and they must have said that in Hayti there were great bohios.”
[126-2] The name is spelled Quinsay in the Latin text of Marco Polo which Columbus annotated.
[127-1] One or two words are missing in the original.
[128-1] The translation here should be, “raised the anchors at the island of Isabella at Cabo del Isleo, which is on the northern side where I tarried to go to the island of Cuba, which I heard from this people is very great and has gold,” etc.
[128-2] These two lines should read, “I believe that it is the island of Cipango of which marvellous things are related.”
[128-3] The exact translation is, “On the spheres that I saw and on the paintings of world-maps it is this region.” The plural number is used in both cases. Of the globes of this date, i.e., 1492 or earlier, that of Behaim is the only one that has come down to us. Of the world maps Toscanelli’s, no longer extant, may have been one, but it is to be noted that Columbus uses the plural.