o, is about ten leagues distant from
Dominca; but the course from the former to the latter is to the north,
with a very alight western tendency.--E.

[2] Now called Porto Rico.--E.

[3] He was formerly called Obando; and is named Nicholas de Ovando by
Herrera: Perhaps he had a commandary of the above name.--E.

[4] The historian of Columbus does not appear to have been at all
conversant in zoology. What the Saavina was cannot be conjectured from
his slight notices, unless a basking shark. The other, no way allied to
fish except by living in the water, is a real mammiferous quadruped,
the Trichechus Manati of naturalists, or the sea cow.--E.

[5] The author or his original translator, falls into a great error here.
The land first discovered in this voyage was the island of Guanaia off
Cape Casinas or Cape Honduras, therefore W.S.W. from Jamaica, not
south. Guanaia seems to be the island named Bonaea in our maps, about
ten leagues west from the isle of Ratan.--E.

[6] A blank is left here in the edition of this voyage published by
Churchill.--E.

[7] This is an obvious error, as New Spain is to the west of Cape Casinas,
off which the admiral now was. If bounds _for_ New Spain, the canoe
must have come from the eastwards; if going with commodities from the
westwards it was bound _from_ New Spain.--E.

[8] The papal authority for subjugating the Indians to the holy church,
prevented D. Ferdinand from perceiving either avarice or robbery in
the conduct of the Christians.--E.

[9] It would appear, though not distinctly enunciated, that Columbus had
learnt from some of the natives, perhaps from Giumbe, that a great sea
lay beyond or to the westwards of this newly discovered continent, by
which he imagined he was now in the way to accomplish the original
object of his researches, the route westwards to India.--E.

[10] Now called the Mosquito shore, inhabited by a bold race of savage
Indians, whom the Spaniards have never been able to subdue.--E.

[11] It is utterly impossible that these people could have the smallest
idea whatever of the European art of writing. But they might have
heard of the Mexican representations of people and things by a rude
painting, and of their frequent and distant excursions in quest of
human victims to sacrifice upon their savage altars. This may possibly
have been the origin of the