ttle Bear. The literal translation is: "the
Guards, when night comes on, are near the arm on the side to the west,
and when dawn breaks they are on the line under the arm to the
northeast," etc. What Columbus meant I cannot explain. Neither Navarrete
nor the French translators offer any suggestions.

[105-1] Las Casas, I. 282, adds to the foregoing under date of October 3:
"He says here that it would not have been good sense to beat about and in
that way to be delayed in search of them [_i.e._, the islands] since he
had favorable weather and his chief intention was to go in search of the
Indies by way of the west, and this was what he proposed to the King and
Queen, and they had sent him for that purpose. Because he would not turn
back to beat up and down to find the islands which the pilots believed to
be there, particularly Martin Alonzo by the chart which, as was said,
Cristobal Colon had sent to his caravel for him to see, and it was their
opinion that he ought to turn, they began to stir up a mutiny, and the
disagreement would have gone farther if God had not stretched out his arm
as he was wont, showing immediately new signs of their being near land
since now neither soft words nor entreaties nor prudent reasoning of
Cristobal Colon availed to quiet them and to persuade them to persevere."
Ferdinand Columbus says simply, "For this reason the crew began to be
mutinous, persevering in their complaints and plots," p. 71. See page
108, note 1.

[106-1] _A la cuarta del Oueste, a la parte del Sudueste_, at the quarter
from the west toward the southwest, _i.e._, west by south.

[106-2] Las Casas, in the _Historia de las Indias_, I. 283, writes, "That
night Martin Alonso said that it would be well to sail west by south for
the island of Cipango which the map that Cristobal Colon showed him
represented." _Cf._ page 101, note 2.

[107-1] Las Casas remarks, I. 285, "If he had kept up the direct westerly
course and the impatience of the Castilians had not hindered him, there
is no doubt that he would have struck the main land of Florida and from
there to New Spain, although the difficulties would have been
unparalleled and the losses unbearable that they would have met with, and
it would have been a divine miracle if he had ever returned to Castile."

[107-2] A remark by the abridger who noted the inconsistency between a
total of 48 miles for a day and night and even an occasional 15 miles per
hour.

[107-3] _Grajaos._