Note 272-2 — LETTER FROM COLUMBUS TO LUIS DE SANTANGEL

The time of the return voyage, like that of the outgoing voyage, is reckoned as that consumed in making the Atlantic passage from the last island left on one side to the first one reached on the other. Just how the twenty-three days is to be explained is not altogether clear. The editor of Quaritch’s The Spanish Letter of Columbus supposed Columbus to refer to the time which elapsed from February 16, when he arrived at the Azores, to March 13, when he left Lisbon.