[133-1] Las Casas, I. 321, comments, “These must have been skulls of the manati, a very large fish, like large calves, which has a skin with no scales like a whale and its head is like that of a cow.”
[133-2] “I believe that this port was Baracoa, which name Diego Velasquez, the first of the Spaniards to settle Cuba, gave to the harbor of Asumpcion.” Las Casas, I. 322.
[133-3] Near Granada in Spain.
[133-4] Nuevitas del Principe. (Navarrete.)
[133-5] “Alto de Juan Dañue.” (Navarrete.)
[134-1] Rio Maximo. (Navarrete.)
[134-3] Rather, “The text here is corrupt.” Las Casas, I. 324, gives the same figures and adds, “yet I think the text is erroneous.” Navarrete says the quadrants of that period measured the altitude double and so we should take half of forty-two as the real altitude. If so, one wonders why there was no explanation to this effect in the original journal which Las Casas saw or why Las Casas was not familiar with this fact and did not make this explanation. Ruge, Columbus, pp. 144, 145, says there were no such quadrants, and regards these estimates as proofs of Columbus’s ignorance as a scientific navigator.
[134-4] In Toscanelli’s letter Cathay is a province in one place and a city in another.
[134-5] Boca de Carabelas grandes. (Navarrete.)