haes and Falero,
made March 22, 1518; this was included in the instructions given
to Juan de Cartagena, the recipient of the present letter, and was
doubtless copied from the original in Seville.

[217] A metal found by Columbus in the Isla Espanola. It is composed
of 18 parts gold, 6 of silver, and 8 of copper.--_Dic. de la Lengua
Castellano_.

[218] This must have been the Strait of Magellan.

[219] The Spanish reads literally, "They gave him a blow on the head
with a mallet."

[220] The original is defective here, and this reading is only
conjectural.

[221] Juan Sebastian del Cano.--_Stevens_.

[222] Pietro Martire d'Anghiera (commonly known as Peter Martyr) was
an Italian priest and historian, who was born in 1455. At the age of
thirty-two years he went to the Castilian court; at various times,
he served in the army (during two campaigns), maintained a school
for boys, was sent as an ambassador to other courts, and in many ways
occupied a prominent place in the affairs of the Spanish Kingdom. He
died in 1526. His most noted work was _De orbe nouo Decades_ (Alcala,
1516); it had numerous editions, and was translated into several other
languages. An English translation of the first three Decades was made
by Richard Eden (London, 1555); this was reprinted in Arber's _First
Three English Books on America_ (Birmingham, 1885).

[223] The name Bacallaos (according to early French writers a Basque
appellation of the codfish) was also applied, by a natural extension,
to the region afterward known as Canada. According to Peter Martyr, the
name Bacallaos was given to those lands by Sebastian Cabot, "because
of the great multitudes of fishes found in the seas thereabout." See
_Jesuit Relations_ (Cleveland reissue), i, p. 308, and ii, p. 295.

[224] Fifty-six degrees west of the Canaries would be about
seventy-four degrees west of Greenwich--Magellan was some ten or
twelve degrees out.--_Stevens_.

[225] Among whom was Esteven Gomez; this ship was the "San
Antonio."--_Steven's_.

[226] The measure of length known as a mile varies greatly in different
countries. The geographical or nautical mile (one-sixtieth of a degree
of the equator, and equal to 1.153 English statute miles) is used
by mariners of all nations. The _milha_ of Portugal is equivalent
to 1.2786 English miles; the Italian _miglio_ varies from O.6214 to
1.3835 English miles; the _legua_ (league) of Spain amounts to 4.2151
English miles.

[227] San P