A GENERAL HISTORY AND COLLECTION OF VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.
PART II.
BOOK II.
HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, AND OF SOME OF THE EARLY CONQUESTS
IN THE NEW WORLD.
* * * * *
CHAP. I.
HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS; WRITTEN BY
HIS SON DON FERDINAND COLUMBUS[1].
INTRODUCTION.
[Illustration: West Indies]
The whole of this chapter contains an original record, being a distinct
narrative of the discovery of America by COLUMBUS, written by his own son,
who accompanied him in his latter voyages. It has been adopted into the
present work from the Collection of Voyages and Travels published at
London in 1704, by Awnsham and John Churchill, in four volumes folio; in
which it is said to have been translated from the original Italian of Don
Ferdinand Columbus, expressly for the use of that work. The language of
that translation is often obscure and ungrammatical, as if the work of a
foreigner; but, having no access to the original, has necessarily been
adopted for the present occasion, after being carefully revised and
corrected. No farther alteration has been taken with that version, except
a new division into sections, instead of the prolix and needlessly minute
subdivision of the original translation into a multitude of chapters;
which change was necessary to accommodate this interesting original
document to our plan of arrangement; and except in a few rare instances,
where uninteresting controversial argumentations have been somewhat
abridged, and even these chiefly because the original translator left the
sense obscure or unintelligible, from ignorance of the language or of the
subject.
It is hardly necessary to remark, that the new grand division of the world
which was discovered by this great navigator, ought from him to
have been named COLUMBIA. Before setting out upon this grand discovery,
which was planned entirely by his own transcendent genius, he was misled
to believe that the new lands he proposed to go in search of formed an
extension of the India, which was known to the ancients; and still
impressed with that idea, occasioned by the eastern longitudes of Ptolemy
being greatly too far extended, he gave the name of West Indies to
his discovery, because he sailed to them westwards; and persisted in that
denomination, even after he had certainly ascertained that they were
interposed between the Atlantic ocean and Japan, the Zipangu, or Zipangri
of Marco Polo, of which and Cathay or China, he first proposed to go in
search.
Between the third and fourth voyages of COLUMBUS, Ojeda, an officer
who had accompanied him in his second voyage, was surreptitiously sent
from Spain, for the obvious purpose of endeavouring to curtail the vast
privileges which had been conceded to Columbus, as admiral and viceroy of
all the countries he might discover; that the court of Spain might have a
colour for excepting the discoveries made by others from the grant which
had been conferred on him, before its prodigious value was at all thought
of.
![A General History And Collection Of Voyages And Travels - Volume 3 - By Robert Kerr
- So that, numerically only, Section V; is entirely omitted.
[Illustration: West Indies]
A GENERAL HISTORY AND COLLECTION OF VOYAGES AND - Page 3](../images/travel.jpg)
