Note 405-3 — THE FOURTH VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

Cuba. According to Ferdinand Columbus the course was as follows: The Admiral followed the coast of the isthmus eastward beyond El Retrete to a place he named Marmoro (near Punto de Mosquitos) somewhat west of the entrance to the Gulf of Darien; then May 1 in response to the urgency of the pilots he turned north. May 10 they sighted two little islands, Caymanos Chicos, and the 12th they reached the Queen’s Garden just south of Cuba (see p. 301, note 1). The next day they landed in Cuba and secured supplies. It is significant of the tenacity of Columbus’s conviction that Cuba was a part of the mainland of Asia that he here calls it Mago (i.e., Mango). June 12, 1494, when he had explored the southern coast of Cuba, he reached this conviction and compelled his officers and crew to take oath that “it (i.e., Cuba) is mainland and in particular the province of Mango.” Navarrete, Viages, II. 144. (The affidavits are translated in Thacher, Columbus, II. 327.) Mangi (southern China) is described by Marco Polo at great length. In the second Toscanelli letter Quinsay is said to be “in the province of Mangi, i.e., near the province of Cathay.” It is noted several times in Columbus’s marginalia to Marco Polo.