icable ambiguity in this passage, which the
original translator must have misunderstood, and which cannot now be
explained.--E.

[Illustration: Chart of North Western Africa]

SECTION II.

_Of his first coming to Portugal, and the cause or motives of his
proposing to discover the West Indies._

The occasion of his first coming into Portugal, arose from his attachment
to a famous man of his name and family, named Columbus, long renowned on
the sea as commander of a fleet against the infidels; insomuch that even
in his own country his name was used to frighten young children. This man,
known by the name of _Columbus the young_, to distinguish him from another
great sea captain of the same name, was a person of great prowess, and
must have commanded a goodly fleet, as he captured at one time four
Venetian galleys, of such size and strength as I could not have believed
unless I had seen them fitted out. Of this Columbus junior, Marc Anthony
Sabellicus, the Livy of our age, says, in the eighth book of his tenth
decade, that he lived at the time when Maximilian the son of the Emperor
Frederick III. was chosen king of the Romans; and that Jerom Donato was
sent ambassador from Venice to return thanks to John II. king of Portugal,
for having relieved and clothed the crews of their great galleys so as to
enable them to return to Venice. These galleys were returning from
Flanders, when they were encountered and taken by the famous corsair
Columbus junior, who stripped their whole crews and turned them ashore on
the coast of Portugal.

The authority of so grave an author as Sabellicus, sufficiently proves the
malice of Justiniani who makes no mention whatever of this incident,
evidently lest the family of Columbus might appear less obscure than he
was disposed to hold it out to the world. If in this he erred through
ignorance, he is not the less worthy of blame for having undertaken to
write the history of his country without making himself acquainted with so
signal a victory, of which even the enemies of Genoa make mention. Even
Sabellicus in his eighth book, mentions the great discovery of the admiral,
though less obliged to inquire into it, but without adding the twelve lies
which Justiniani inserted.

To return to the matter in hand. While the admiral my father sailed along
with Columbus junior, which he long did, they received intelligence of
four large Venetian galleys being on their voyage from Flanders