← Table of contents
The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503

Note 401-1 — THE FOURTH VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

Reading edition

Proeses. In nautical Spanish prois or proiza is a breastfast or headfast, that is a large cable for fastening a ship to a wharf or another ship. In Portuguese proiz is a stone or tree on shore to which the hawsers are fastened. Major interpreted it in this sense, translating the words las amarras y proeses, “the cables and the supports to which they were fastened.” The interpretation given first seems to me the correct one, especially as Ferdinand says that the flood came so suddenly that they could not get the cables on land. Historie, p. 315.

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings