[268-3] The area of Spain is about 191,000 square miles; that of Española or Hayti is 28,000. The extreme length of Hayti is 407 miles.
[268-4] That is, with the mainland of Europe on this side of the Atlantic and with the mainland on that side of the ocean belonging to the Great Can, _i.e._, China.
[268-5] _I.e._, Nativity, Christmas, because the wreck occurred on that day. _Cf._ Journal, December 25 and January 4, and note to entry of December 28.
[269-1] Columbus had read in the _Imago Mundi_ of Pierre d'Ailly and noted in the margin the passage which says that in the ends of the earth there "were monsters of such a horrid aspect that it were hard to say whether they were men or beasts." _Raccolta Colombiana_, pt. I., vol. II., p. 468. _Cf._ also the stories in the _Book of Sir John Mandeville_, chs. XXVII. and XXVIII.
[269-2] Columbus apparently revised his estimate of the latitude on the return, without, however, correcting his Journal; _cf._ entries for October 30 and November 21.
[270-1] See Journal, January 15, and note. The island is identified with Martinique.
[270-2] See Journal, November 12, and note. The Seignory was the government of Genoa to which Chios [Scio] belonged at this time.
[271-1] Such writers, for example, as Pierre d'Ailly, Marco Polo, and the author of the _Book of Sir John Mandeville_, from whom Columbus had derived most of his preconceptions which often biassed or misled him in interpreting the signs of the natives.
[271-2] According to the Journal, Columbus thought he was off the Azores, February 15.
[272-1] The storm of March 3d; see Journal.
[272-2] 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.
[272-3] Columbus arrived at Lisbon March 4, and he is supposed by R.H. Major to have written the postscript there, but not to have despatched the letter until he reached Seville, March 15, when he redated it March 14.