YBARRA | LETTER OF DR. DIEGO ALVAREZ CHANCA 429 
bella, in the island of. Hispaniola, or Santo Domingo, West Indies, 
at the end of January, 1494. This letter left the port of Isabella 
on February 2d, in care of Don Antonio de Torres, commander of 
the twelve vessels sent back by Columbus to Spain with the news of 
the discoveries, and arrived there April 8, 1494. Every thing Dr. 
Chanea says in his letter, therefore, regarding those just discovered 
islands of the New World, he learned in the short space of time 
between November 3, 1493, when he saw the first island (Do- 
minica), and the last week of January, 1494—that is, in less than 
three months. 
Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca had been especially appointed by the 
_ Spanish monarchs to accompany that expedition, not only on ac- 
count of its great political and commercial importance, but also 
because among the 1,500 persons who came over from Europe to 
America in that fleet were several distinguished Court personages 
and a large number of young gentlemen belonging to aristocratic 
families, restless and daring warriors who had done excellent mili- 
tary service in the war just successfully ended against the Moors 
of Spain. . 
Mingling with the men of distinction who come over from Spain 
to America in that expedition I may mention the following: Juan 
Ponce de Leon, the future conqueror of Puerto Rico and later on 
the discoverer of Florida; Alonso de Ojeda, the future discoverer 
and explorer of the north coast of South America, with whom the 
Italian Amerigo Vespucci made his first trip to the New World, 
named after him; Pedro Margarit, the subsequent discoverer of the 
archipelago to which he gave the name of the Marguerite Isles; 
Juan de la Cosa, the expert cosmographer, author of the first map of 
America in existence, drawn by him in the year 1500 and now in the 
Royal Naval Museum at Madrid ;? Antonio de Torres, a brother of 
the nurse (aya) of Prince Juan; the father and the uncle of Fray 
Bartolomé de las Casas, the accomplished Spanish historiographer 
of America; Bernal Diaz de Pisa, the accountant or treasury official 
child, Princess Isabella (who afterward became Queen of Portugal) during 
a serious illness the year before. On his return to Spain, Dr. Chanca pub- 
lished in Spanish, in the year 1506, a treatise on The Treatment of Pleurisy 
(Para curar el mal de costado), and a commentatorial work in Latin, criticis- 
ing the book entitled ‘De conservanda juventute et retardanda senectute,” 
whose author was another eminent Spanish physician named Dr. Arnaldo 
de Villanova. The title of this second work of Dr. Chanca is “ Comentum 
novum in parabolis divi Arnaldi de Villanova,” which was printed in Seville 
in the year 1514. 
*See the accompanying illustration, which shows the American portion of 
that unique map. 
