Note III-1 — Chapter III · DISCOVERY OF DARIEN.

The island known to-day as Hayti was named by Columbus Insula Hispaniæ, Island of Spain. On one of his maps it is called Insula Hyspaniæ, and on another Hyspana. By the early navigators and chroniclers the name was turned into Spanish and spoken and written La Isla Española, the Spanish Isle, or La Española. Hispaniola, as it is called at a later period by English authors, is neither Latin nor Spanish; it may be a syncope of the words Insula Hyspaniæ, or more likely it is a corruption of La Española by foreigners to whom the Spanish ñ was not familiar. The choice lies between the mutilation, Hispaniola, of English authors, and the correct but unfamiliar Española, and I adopt the latter.