[8] The meaning of this term is nowhere explained in this voyage:  but in
    the account of the discovery of America by Herrera, it is said to
    signify pale gold.  From its application in the text, it is probably
    the Indian name of gold, the perpetual object of inquiry by the
    Spaniards.—­E.

[9] Such absurd fables have in all ages been the consequence of credulous
    intercourse of ill-informed men, ignorant of the languages of newly
    discovered nations.  The Amazons of antiquity are here supposed to be
    rediscovered; but were afterwards transferred to the interior marshy
    plains of South America.—­E.

[10] The author probably alludes here to the various-shaped pods of
    different species or varieties of capsicum.—­E.

SECTION VI.

Second Voyage of Columbus to the West Indies.

Orders were issued from Barcelona to prepare with all care and expedition for the return of the admiral to Hispaniola, as well to relieve those Christians who had been left there as to enlarge the colony and subdue the island, with the rest that were and should be discovered.  To strengthen and confirm their title to the newly discovered regions, their Catholic majesties by the advice of the admiral, procured the approbation and consent of the pope for the conquest of the Indies, which was readily granted by Alexander VI, who then governed the church; and the bull to this effect was not only for what was already discovered, but for all that might be discovered westwards, until they should come to the East, where any Christian prince was then actually in possession, and forbidding all persons whomsoever to intrude within these bounds.  And this concession and exclusive right was again confirmed in the year following in the most ample terms.  Sensible that all this favourable grant from the pope was due to the admiral, by whose discovery they had become entitled to the possession of all these parts, their majesties were pleased, on the twenty-eighth of May, at Barcelona, to ratify, renew, confirm, and explain the privileges and prerogatives which they had granted him before, by granting them of new, so as explicitly to define how far the bounds of his admiralty and viceroyalty extended, being over all which had been granted to them by his holiness, of which grant the tenor follows: 

Original Grant to Columbus in 1492, before the Discovery.

“FERDINAND and ISABELLA, by the grace of God, King and Queen of Castile,
Leon, Arragon, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca,
Minorca, Seville, Sardinia, Jaen, Algarve, Algezira, Gibraltar, and the
Canary islands, Lord and Lady of Biscay and Molina, Duke and Duchess of
Athens and Neopatria, Count and Countess of Boussillon and Cerdagne,
Marquis and Marchioness of Oristan and Gociano, &c.”