[15] From the latitude indicated by Galvano, the land of Cortereal may
have been somewhere on the eastern side of Newfoundland. - E.
[16] Barros, Dec. 1. I. 5. c. 10.
[17] Gomara, I. 2.
[18] About 8200 ounces, worth about L. 16,000 sterling; equal in modern
efficacy, perhaps, to L. 100,000. - E.
[19] Probably an error for Taprobana; the same by which Ceylon was known
to the ancients. - E.
[20] The Cakerlaka of other writers, which can only be large monkeys or
baboons, called men with tails, through ignorance or imposture. - E.
[21] Rumi still continues the eastern name of the Turkish empire, as the
successor of the Roman emperors, in Assyria and Egypt. Hence these
Roman gold coins may have come in the way of trade from Assyria or
Egypt, or may possibly have been Venetian sequins. - E.
[22] The author must here mean Cochin China by the coast of Patane. - E.
[23] About 1000 by 320 English miles. - E.
[24] This story of the skull of a small insect is quite unintelligible,
and must have been misunderstood entirely by Hakluyt, the translator:
It is the Elephant, probably, that is here meant. - E.
[25] Probably the bird of Paradise. - Clarke.
[26] P. Martyr, Dec. 3. c. 10.
[27] The island of Tararequi is in lat. 5 deg. N.
[28] These leagues are elsewhere explained as 17-1/2 to the degree, or
about 4 English miles: Hence the estimate of Galvano is 2000 miles
long by 1200 miles broad; certainly a very extensive dominion. China
Proper may be said to extend in length from lat. 27 deg. to 41 deg. N. and in
breadth from long. 97 deg. to 121 deg. E. not very inferior to the above
estimate; but including the immeasurable bounds of its dependencies,
Chinese Tartary, Thibet, and almost the whole of central Asia, it
prodigiously exceeds the magnitude here assigned by Galvano. - E.
[29] Castagnada, I. 4. c. 36. 37. Osorius, I. 11. f. 315. p. 2.
[30] Pet. Mart. IV. iv. Gomar. II. xiv. and xvii.
[31] The text is obscure, and seems to indicate that they were unable to
pass between the island of Ascension and the main of Yucatan. The
latitudes are extremely erroneous: Cozumel is in lat. 20 deg. N. The
island of Ambergris, perhaps the Ascension of the text, is in 18 deg. 30'.
From errors in latitude and alterations of nomenclature, it is often
impossible to follow distinctly the routes of these early voyagers. - E.
[32] Pet. Mart. IV. vi. Gomar. II. xviii, &c.
[33] Gomar. II. xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxiv.
[34] This certainly ought to be called the Molucca islands; but Galvano
uniformly applies the same name, Malacca, both to the spice islands
and the city of Malacca on the Continent. - E.
[35] Gomar.
