have here suggested. He puts Bartholomew in London in February,
1488, and is thus unable to assign any reason for Christopher's
visit to Lisbon. He also finds that in the forty-six days
between Christmas, 1487, and February, 10, 1488, there is
hardly room enough for any delay due to so grave a cause as
capture by pirates. (_Christophe Colomb_, vol. ii. p. 192.) He
therefore concludes that the statement in the _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, cap. xi., is unworthy of credit, and it is upon an
accumulation of small difficulties like this that he bases his
opinion that Ferdinand Columbus cannot have written that book.
But Las Casas also gives the story of the pirates, and adds the
information that they were "Easterlings," though he cannot say
of what nation, i. e. whether Dutch, German, or perhaps Danes.
He says that Bartholomew was stripped of his money and fell
sick, and after his recovery was obliged to earn money by
map-making before he could get to England. (_Historia_, tom. i.
p. 225.) Could all this have happened within the four months
which I have allowed between October, 1488, and February, 1489?
Voyages before the invention of steamboats were of very
uncertain duration. John Adams in 1784 was fifty-four days in
getting from London to Amsterdam (see my _Critical Period of
American History_, p. 156). But with favourable weather a
Portuguese caravel in 1488 ought to have run from Lisbon to
Bristol in fourteen days or less, so that in four months there
would be time enough for quite a chapter of accidents. Las
Casas, however, says it was _a long time_ before Bartholomew
was able to reach England:--"Esto fue causa que enfermase y
viniese a mucha pobreza, y estuviese mucho tempo sin poder
llegar a Inglaterra, hasta tanto que quiso Dies sanarle; y
reformado algo, por su industria y trabajos de sus manos,
haciendo cartas de marear, llego a Inglaterra, y, pasados un
dia y otros, hobo de alcanzar que le oyese Enrique VII." It is
impossible, I think, to read this passage without feeling that
at least a year must have been consumed; and I do not think we
are entitled to disregard the words of Las Casas in such a
matter. Bu