Note 397-1 — THE FOURTH VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

The translation here adopts the emended text of Lollis, substituting “ali[e]nde” for “al Indo” in the sentence “Marino en Ethiopía escribe al Indo la línea equinoçial.” Raccolta Colombiana, parte I., tomo II., p. 184. The translation of the unamended text as printed by Major was “the same author describes the Indus in Ethiopia as being more than four and twenty degrees from the equinoctial line.” Apparently the 24 should be 44. With these changes the statements in the text agree with Columbus’s marginalia to the Imago Mundi, where he notes that the Cape of Good Hope is Agesinba and that Bartholomew Diaz found it to be 45 degrees south of the equator. “This,” he goes on, “agrees with the dictum of Marinus, whom Ptolemy corrects, in regard to the expedition to the Garamantes, who said it traversed 27,500 stadia beyond the equinoctial.” Raccolta Colombiana, parte II., tomo II., p. 377. On Marinus’s exaggerated estimate of the distance covered by the Romans in tropical Africa, see Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, II. 524.