The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci Part 10

[Footnote 114: St. Augustine's Day, 28th August.]

[Footnote 115: Lat. 26, not 32.]

[Footnote 116: _Verzino._]

[Footnote 117: Varnhagen thinks this was South Georgia, so named by Cook in Jan. 1775, in 54 S. Navarrete suggests Tristan d'Acunha. Vespucci says that 50 was the furthest limit he reached to the south, along the coast, in the Medici letter, but that he then sailed to within 17 30'

of the S. Pole, or 73 30' S.!! See p. 45.]

[Footnote 118: 10th of March in the other letter.]

[Footnote 119: This should be ten months, according to the other letter.]

[Footnote 120: Seven days, according to the other letter.]

[Footnote 121: 17th of August in the other letter.]

[Footnote 122: 150 leagues, according to the other letter.]

[Footnote 123: In the other letter he tells a very different story.]

[Footnote 124: In 73 30' S.! There is no such statement in the other letter.]

[Footnote 125: Policletus was not a painter.]

[Footnote 126: He may mean their orbits, not the stars themselves; but in either case he is talking nonsense.]

[Footnote 127: _Zenit_ in the Italian version.]

[Footnote 128: Gonzalo Coelho, according to Damian de Goez, sailed from Lisbon on an expedition to Brazil, with six s.h.i.+ps, on June 10th, 1503.]

[Footnote 129: This may mean either 33 S. lat.; or 33 from the Pole, which would be 57 S. lat. Malacca is in 2 14' N. lat.]

[Footnote 130: Fernando Noronha is probably intended.]

[Footnote 131: Bahia.]

[Footnote 132: If this is intended for Gonzalo Coelho, the only Portuguese commander who is recorded to have sailed from Lisbon for Brazil in 1503, the statement is false. He returned safely with four out of his six s.h.i.+ps.]

[Footnote 133: _Navarrete_, i, 351.]

[Footnote 134: In the library of San Marco at Venice, in the books of notes of correspondence of Venetian diplomatists with the Secretary Marino Sanuto, near the end of vol. vi. (Varnhagen, _Nouvelles Recherches_, p. 12.)]

[Footnote 135: Juan de la Cosa.]

[Footnote 136: Vianelo was misinformed as to Vespucci having accompanied Juan de la Cosa on this voyage in 1506. There are doc.u.mentary proofs that Vespucci was in Spain during the whole of that year. There was an intention of sending him, with Vicente Pinzon, in search of the Spice Islands by the west, and he was consulted on the subject in August 1506, but the intention was abandoned. The account given by Vianelo of the voyage (especially the stories about the dragons and the gold) may have been furnished by Vespucci. It is quite in his manner.]

[Footnote 137: Sp., a sort of whale.]

[Footnote 138: _Vernicare_, "to varnish".]

[Footnote 139: _a.s.sa.s.simo_ (?).]

[Footnote 140: _Nav._, iii, 292, from the Archives of Simancas.]

[Footnote 141: It has been pretended that John Cabot had sighted the continent in the previous year, but this is not so. He only sighted Cape Breton and other islands. In his second voyage he sighted the continent (1498), but the month is unknown.]

[Footnote 142: Las Casas only knew the Latin version.]

[Footnote 143: Juan de la Cosa was called "Vizcaino" (Biscayan) by his contemporaries; but he was a native of Santona, in the province of Santander, a place which was not then, and never had been, in Biscay, or in the Basque country.]

[Footnote 144: The words "other pilots" are to be coupled with Juan de la Cosa, certainly not with Vespucci, who then went to sea for the first time, in advanced middle age, and could in no sense be called a pilot.]

[Footnote 145: So in the Latin edition. In the Italian version _L_ is subst.i.tuted for _P_, and _b_ for _s_, making _Lariab_. This may be a misprint, but in the absence of the ma.n.u.script it is not possible to be sure whether the original word was _Parias_, or _Lariab_, or something else. Las Casas bases part of his argument on the use of the word _Paria_ by Vespucci; but the case against the Florentine's alleged first voyage is quite conclusive, without this fact. If Vespucci did use the word _Lariab_, it must have been invented by him, like _Iti_. It is in favour of _Lariab_ that the Italian version only pa.s.sed from ma.n.u.script to print, while the Latin version was translated first into French, and thence into Latin, before it was printed. On the other hand, there is evidence that the editors of the Latin version were unacquainted with the details of the third voyage of Columbus, in which the word _Paria_ first occurs. It, therefore, is not possible that the word can have been inserted mistakenly by them. It seems, therefore, that _Lariab_ is a misprint of the Italian compositors, and that _Parias_ was the word in the ma.n.u.script of Vespucci.]

[Footnote 146: This is so. The departure, in the Latin version, is on May 20th, 1497; in the Italian it is May 10th, 1497. The date of the return is 1499 in the Latin, and 1498 in the Italian edition.]

[Footnote 147: Columbus arrived at Santo Domingo, on his third voyage, after discovering Trinidad and the mainland of America, on August 31st, 1498. He found Francisco de Roldan in open rebellion against his brother, the Adelantado. On October 18th, 1498, he sent five s.h.i.+ps to Spain with a cargo of dyewood, and 600 slaves. By these s.h.i.+ps the Admiral despatched his chart of the new discoveries, with a report, and two long letters giving an account of the rebellion of Roldan and the state of the colony.

Las Casas believes that letters full of complaints of the Admiral were also sent home by Roldan and his accomplices. The father of Las Casas, who had gone out with Columbus in 1493, returned to Spain by this opportunity.]

[Footnote 148: Port of Jacmel in Espanola.]

[Footnote 149: Juan de la Cosa.]

[Footnote 150: Latin version. The Italian version has thirty-seven days.]

[Footnote 151: Jacmel.]

[Footnote 152: Jacmel.]

[Footnote 153: Juan de la Cosa.]

[Footnote 154: Puerto Rico.]

[Footnote 155: _Nav._, iii, p. 558.]

[Footnote 156: _Paria._]

[Footnote 157: _Navarrete_, iii, 558. Peter Martyr (Dec. I, Lib. x) says that Yanez turned his course to his left hand, by the east, to Paria, and among the princes who came to him were Chiauaccha and Pintgua.n.u.s.]

[Footnote 158: Pedro de Ledesma (being 37 in March 1513, _Nav._, iii, 539) was born at Seville in 1476. Gregorio Camacho heard him say that he accompanied Columbus in his first voyage (_Nav._, iii, 588) when he would have been aged 16. He was with Columbus in the fourth voyage, serving as a seaman in the _Vizcaina_, under Bartolome Fieschi, 1503-1504, aged 27. He very gallantly swam on sh.o.r.e over a bar to get tidings at Veragua, but joined the mutineers at Jamaica, and was very severely wounded. In his evidence he said he was Captain and Pilot, which is false. He was pilot with Pinzon and Solis in 1510, and pilot 1511-14. He sailed with Solis to Rio de la Plata, and was drowned on the voyage home in 1516. Las Casas says he was stabbed to death in a street in Seville (iii, 180).]

[Footnote 159: A mistake for east.]

[Footnote 160: Lib. 11, chap. x.x.xix.]

[Footnote 161: See also _Peter Martyr_, Dec. II, Lib. vii, p. 85.]

[Footnote 162: In 1510, according to Peter Martyr.]