.

This footnote affords a good illustration of the kind of
difficulties that surround such a subject as the life of
Columbus, and the ease with which an excess of ingenuity may
discover mare's nests.]

[Footnote 494: It may be found in Navarrete, _Coleccion de
viages_, tom. ii. pp. 5, 6.]

[Footnote 495: The account-book of the treasury shows that on
June 16 he was still in Spain. See Harrisse, tom. i. p. 355.]

[Footnote 496: The entry, as given by Las Casas, is "Pro
authore, seu pictore, || Gennua cui patria est, nomen cui
Bartolomeus || Columbus de terra rubea, opus edidit istud ||
Londonije: anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno
|| Atque insuper anno octavo: decimaque die mensis Februarii.
|| Laudes Christo cantentur abunde." _Historia_, tom. i. p.
225. Now since Bartholomew Columbus was a fairly educated man,
writing this note in England on a map made for the eyes of the
king of England, I suppose he used the old English style which
made the year begin at the vernal equinox instead of Christmas,
so that his February, 1488, means the next month but one after
December, 1488, i. e. what in our new style becomes February,
1489. Bartholomew returned to Lisbon from Africa in the last
week of December, 1487, and it is not likely that his plans
could have been matured and himself settled down in London in
less than seven weeks. The logical relation of the events, too,
shows plainly that Christopher's visit to Lisbon was for the
purpose of consulting his brother and getting first-hand
information about the greatest voyage the world had ever seen.
In the early weeks of 1488 Christopher sends his request for a
safe-conduct, gets it March 20, waits till his child is born,
August 15, and then presently goes. Bartholomew may have sailed
by the first of October for England, where (according to this
reading of his date) we actually find him four months later.
What happened to him in this interval? Here we come to the
story of the pirates. M. Harrisse, who never loses an
opportunity for throwing discredit upon the _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, has failed to make the correction of date which I