's
"History of America."]

[Footnote 10: The will of Diego Mendez, one of Columbus' most trusted
followers, states that the Governor of Xaragua in seven months burned
and hanged eighty-four chiefs, including the Queen of San Domingo.]

[Footnote 11: Owing to the difficulty in securing animals for the
cavalry in Spain (about A. D. 1505), an edict had been published by the
King forbidding the use of mules in traveling, except by royal
permission.

While Columbus was in Seville he wished to make a journey to the court,
then sitting at Granada, to plead his own cause. Cardinal Mendoza placed
his litter at the disposal of the Admiral, but he preferred a mule, and
wrote to Diego, asking him to petition the King for the privilege of
using one. The request was granted in the following curious document:

_Decree granting to Don Cristoval Colon permission to ride on a mule,
saddled and bridled, through any part of these Kingdoms._

THE KING: As I am informed that you, Cristoval Colon, the Admiral,
are in poor bodily health, owing to certain diseases which you had
or have, and that you can not ride on horse-back without injury to
your health; therefore, conceding this to your advanced age, I, by
these presents, grant you leave to ride on a mule, saddled and
bridled, through whatever parts of these kingdoms or realms you
wish and choose, notwithstanding the law which I issued thereto;
and I command the subjects of all parts of these kingdoms and
realms not to offer you any impediment or allow any to be offered
to you, under penalty of ten thousand maravedi in behalf of the
treasury, of whoever does the contrary.

Given in the City of Toro, February 23, 1505.]

[Footnote 12:

.s.
.s. s .s.
X M Y
XPO FERENS.

COLUMBUS' CIPHER.--The interpretation of the seven-lettered cipher,
accepting the smaller letters of the second line as the final ones of
the words, seems to be _Servate-me, Xristus, Maria, Yosephus_. The name
Christopher appears in the last line.]

[Footnote 13: See Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus,
London, 1831; Humboldt, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Geographie
du Nouveau Continent, Paris, 1836; Sportorno, Codice Diplomatico
Colombo-Americano, Genoa, 1823; Hernan Colon, Vita dell' Ammiraglio,
1571; (English translation in vol. xi of Churchill's Voyages and
Travels, third edition, London, 1744; Spanish, 1745); Presc