[12] A more charitable construction might be put on all this.  The refusal
    to accept presents, perhaps proceeded from manly pride because their
    own had been refused.  The powder and the smoke might be marks of
    honour to the strangers, like the rose water and other honorary
    perfumings of the east.—­E.

[13] The similitude is not obvious, but may have been intended to comprae
    this mountain with the lofty sharp pinnacle on which the hermitage is
    built near St Jago de Compostella in Spain.—­E.

[14] This is probably the first time that Europeans had seen tobacco
    chewed and the use of snuff; practices which have now become almost
    necessaries of life among many millions of the inhabitants of Europe
    and its colonies.—­E.

[15] It is probable that the fish, here called pilchards were of one of
    the kinds of flying fish, which is of the same genus with the herring
    and pilchard.  Voyagers ignorant of natural history are extremely apt
    to name new objects after corresponding resemblances in their own
    country.—­E.

[16] This appears to have been near Panama, or the western point of the
    Gulf of Darien in 78 deg. 40’ W. long.  The pilots seem to have been
    extremely ignorant, and the admiral to have yielded to their
    importunity.  The harbour of St Domingo being in 69 deg. 50’ W. long they
    ought to have proceeded about nine degrees, or 180 marine leagues
    farther east, to have insured their run across the trade winds and
    currents of the Caribbean sea.—­E.

[17] Though not mentioned in the text, this vessel would certainly bring
    refreshments of various kinds, but was probably too small to bring off
    the people.  Mendez appears to have remained at St Domingo in order to
    fit out a larger vessel, which he accordingly carried to Jamaica in
    June, as will be seen in the sequel.—­E.

* * * * *

CHAPTER II.

ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF AMERCIA, BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS; FROM
THE HISTORY OF THE WEST INDIES, BY ANTONIO BE HERRERA, HISTORIOGRAPHER TO
THE KING OF SPAIN[1].

SECTION I.

Of the Knowledge of the Ancients respecting the New World.

With the generality of mankind, so far from imagining that there could be any such country as the new world or West Indies, the very notion of any such thing being supposed to exist was considered as extravagant and absurd, for every one believed that all to the westwards of the Canary islands was an immense and unnavigable ocean.  Yet some of the ancients have left hints that such western lands existed.  In the close of the second act of his tragedy of Medea, Seneca says, “The time will come, when the ocean