] The last words should be, "distant from the one and from the
other." Las Casas, I. 327, says: "Zayton and Quisay are certain cities or
provincias of the mainland which were depicted on the map of Paul the
physician as mentioned above." These Chinese cities were known from Marco
Polo's description of them. This passage in the Journal is very
perplexing if it assumes that Columbus was guided by the Toscanelli
letter. Again a few days earlier Columbus was sure that Cuba was Cipango,
and now he is equally certain that it is the mainland of Asia asserted by
Toscanelli to be 26 spaces or 6500 Italian miles west of Lisbon, but the
next day his estimate of his distance from Lisbon is 4568 miles. It would
seem as if Columbus attached no importance to the estimate of distances
on the Toscanelli map which was the only original information in it.

[137-1] _Cf._ p. 134, note 3.

[137-2] The true distance was 1105 leagues. (Navarrete.)

[138-1] _Contramaestre_ is boatswain.

[138-2] "_Bohio_ means in their language 'house,' and therefore it is to
be supposed that they did not understand the Indians, but that it was
Hayti, which is this island of Espanola where they made signs there was
gold." Las Casas, I. 329.

[138-3] Columbus understood the natives to say these things because of
his strong preconceptions as to what he would find in the islands off the
coast of Asia based on his reading of the Book of Sir John Maundeville.
Cf. ch. XVIII. of that work, _e.g._, "a great and fair isle called
Nacumera.... And all the men and women have dogs' heads," and ch. XIX.,
_e.g._, "In one of these isles are people of great stature, like giants,
hideous to look upon; and they have but one eye in the middle of the
forehead."

[139-1] Las Casas, I. 329, identifies the _mames_ as _ajes_ and
_batatas_. The batatas, whence our word "potato," is the sweet potato.
_Mames_ is more commonly written _names_ or _ignames_. This is the Guinea
Negro name of the _Dioscorea sativa_, in English "Yam." _Ajes_ is the
native West Indies name. See Peschel, _Zeitalter der Entdeckungen_, p.
139, and Columbus's journal, Dec. 13 and Dec. 16. _Faxones_ are the
common haricot kidney beans or string beans, _Phaseolus vulgaris_. This
form of the name seems a confusion of the Spanish _fasoles_ and the
Portuguese _feijoes_. That Columbus, an Italian by birth who had lived
and married in Portugal and removed to Spain in middle life, should
occasionally make slips in wor