Note 63 — Chapter I

Cf. Irving, app. no. xvi., on the route of Columbus. Brevoort in his Verrazzano, p. 101, describes the usual route of the early navigators from Spain to the West Indies. Columbus kept two records of his progress. One was an unworthily deceitful one (reminding us of an earlier deceit, when he tampered with the compass to mislead his crew), by which he hoped to check the apprehensions of his men arising from his increasing longitude; and the other a dead reckoning of some kind, in which he thought he was approximately accurate. The story of his capitulating to his crew, and agreeing to turn back in three days in case land was not reached, is only told by Oviedo on the testimony of a pilot hostile to Columbus.