[1] D. Ferdinand is surely mistaken here.  Martinico, the island probably
    indicated by the name of Matinino, 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 terror evinced by the inhabitants of
    Cariari at the sight of the materials of writing, conceiving that the
    Spaniards were emissaries from the sanguinary Mexicans, and about to
    record the measure of the tribute in human blood.—­E.