Note 241-1 — JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS (continued 4)

As Beatriz Enriquez, the mother of Ferdinand, was still living, this passage has occasioned much perplexity. A glance at the corresponding passage, quoted in direct discourse from this entry in the Journal, in the Historie of Ferdinand, shows that the words “orphans without father or mother” were not in the original Journal, if we can trust this transcript. On the other hand, Las Casas, in his Historia, I. 447, where he used the original Journal and not the abridgment that has come down to us, has the words “huerfanos de padre y madre en tierra estraña.” It may be that Ferdinand noted the error of the original Journal and quietly corrected it.