The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Volume II)

Reform., lib. iii.
    To this list of old authors may be added many others of more recent date.
    [316]: “Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Presbitero, Sevillano, escribio con elegante estilo acerca de las cosas de las Indies, pero dexandose llevar de falsas narraciones.” Hijos de Sevilla, Numero ii. p. 42, Let. F. The same is stated in Bibliotheca Hispaña Nova, lib. i. p. 437. “El Francisco Lopez de Gomara escrivio tantos borrones é cosas que no son verdaderas, de que ha hecho mucho daño a muchos escritores e coronistas, que despues del Gomara han escrito en las cosas de la Nueva España … es porque les ha hecho errar el Gomara.” Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Hist. de la Conquest de la Nueva España, Fin de cap. 13.
    “Tenía Gomara doctrina y estilo … per empleose en ordinar sin discernimiento lo que halló escrito por sus antecesores, y dió credito á petrañas no solo falsas sino inverisimiles.” Juan Bautista Muñoz, Hist. N. Mundo, Prologo, p 18.
    [317]: Vasconcelos, lib. 4.
    [318]: Murr, Notice sur M. Behaim.
    [319]: Barros, decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 1. Lisbon, 1552.
    [320]: Investigations Historicas, Madrid, 1794.
    [321]: Cladera, Investig. Hist., p. 115.
    [322]: Forster’s Northern Voyages, book ii. chap. 2.
    [323]: This account is taken from Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 123. The passage about gold and other metals is not to be found in the original Italian of Ramusio, (tom. ii. p. 23,) and is probably an interpolation.
    [324]: Hakluyt, Collect., vol. iii. p. 127.
    [325]: Malte-Brun, Hist, de Geog., tom. i. lib. xvii.
    [326]: Idem, Geog. Unirerselle, tom. xiv. Note sur la decouverte de l’Amerique.
    [327]: Gosselin, Recherches sur la Geographic des Anciens, tom. i. p. 162, &c.
    [328]: Memoirs de l’Acad. des Inscript., tom. xxvi.
    [329]: Capmany, Questiones Criticas, Quest. 6.
    [330]: Archives de Ind. en Sevilla.
    [331]: Capmany, Queat. Crit.
    [332]: The author of this work is indebted for this able examination of the route of Columbus to an officer of the navy of the United States, whose name he regrets the not being at liberty to mention. He has been greatly benefited, in various parts of this history, by nautical information from the same intelligent source.
    [333]: Herrera, Hist. Ind., decad. i. lib. ix. cap. 10.
    [334]: In the first chapter of Herrera’s description of the Indies, appended to his history, is another scale of the Bahama islands, which corroborates the above. It begins at the opposite end, at the N. W., and runs down to the S.E. It is thought unnecessary to cite it particularly.
    [335]: See Caballero Pesos y Medidas. J. B. Say. Economic Politique.
    [336]: In preparing the first edition of this work for the press the author had not the benefit of the English translation of Marco Polo, published a few years since, with admirable commentaries, by William Marsden, F. R. S. He availed himself, principally, of an Italian version in the Venetian edition of Ramusio (1606), the French translation by Bergeron, and an old and very incorrect Spanish translation. Having since procured the work of Mr. Marsden, he has made considerable alterations in these notices of Marco Polo.
    [337]: Ramusio, tom. iii.
    [338]: Bergeron, by blunder in the translation from the original Latin, has stated that the Khan sent 40,000 men to escort them. This has drawn the ire of the critics upon Marco Polo, who have cited it as one of his monstrous exaggerations.
    [339]: Hist. des Voyages, tom, xxvii. lib. iv. cap. 3. Paris, 1549.
    [340]: Ramusio, vol. ii. p. 17.
    [341]: Mr. Marsden, who has inspected a splendid fac-simile of this map preserved in the British Museum, objects even to the fundamental part of it: “where,” he observes, “situations are given to places that seem quite inconsistent with the descriptions in the travels, and cannot be attributed to their author, although inserted on the supposed authority of his writings.” Marsden’s M. Polo, Introd., p. xlii.
    [342]: Hist, des Voyages, torn. xl. lib. xi. ch, 4.
    [343]: Another blunder in translation has drawn upon Marco Polo the indignation of George Hornius, who (in his Origin of America, IV. 3) exclaims, “Who can believe all that, he says of the city of Quinsai? as, for example, that it has stone bridges twelve thousand miles high!” &c. It is probable that many of the exaggerations in the accounts of Marco Polo are in fact the errors of his translators.
    Mandeville, speaking of this same city, which he calls Causai, says it is built on the sea like