102 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 



and even La Cosa himself, to declare that "from there the 

 country turned south and south-west." . . . Peter 

 Martyr in his epistle of August 9, 1495, reports having re- 

 ceived a letter from Columbus stating that "the shores of 

 Cuba trend so much to the southward that he thought 

 himself at times very near the equator." Now, instead of 

 this alleged south coast, the Cantino chart at that point 

 marks a right angle and runs due west; which proves 

 that this configuration contradicts even the erroneous 

 cosmographical hypothesis advanced by Columbus. 



In the foregoing quotation Harrisse gives certain 

 reasons for believing that the unknown land was not 

 Cuba. He then proceeds to maintain the same con- 

 clusion from a consideration of place names. In 

 this he compares^ the nomenclature of the north- 

 western continental region on the Cantino map from 

 his own reproduction (Fig. 14) w^th the names given 

 to geographical features along the coast of Cuba by 

 Columbus, as reported by himself^ and by his con- 



4 Harrisse, op. cil., p. 86. 



5 In his letter on the first voyage, dated Feb. 15, 1493, with postscript 

 of March 4, 1493, in Raccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati dalla R. 

 Commissione Colombiana pel Quarto Centenario dalla Scoperta dell' 

 America (6 parts in 14 vols., Rome, 1892-96), Part I, Vol. i, pp. 120-135. 

 Also in modernized Spanish(after Navarrete.Vol. i, pp.167-195; see below, 

 footnote 17), with English translation, in R. H. Major, transl. and edit.: 

 Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, With Other Original Documents, 

 Relating to His Four Voyages to the New World, 2nd edit., Hakluyt Soc. 

 Pubis., 1st Series, Vol. 43, London, 1870, pp. 1-18. Also, with regard to 

 the first and second voyages, to the extent that his o^vn words are quoted 

 in the accounts of his contemporaries, cited in the next three footnotes. 



The coast of Cuba was charted and names were given to its geo- 

 graphical features on the first and second voyages. On the first voyage, 

 from Oct. 28 to Dec. 5, 1492, the eastern part of the northern coast was 

 outlined, from about Guajaba Key (773^° W.) to Cape Maisi. On the 



