[243-1] The bonnet was a small sail usually cut to a third the size of the mizzen, or a fourth of the mainsail. It was secured through eyelet-holes to the leech of the mainsail, in the manner of a studding sail. (Navarrete.)
[243-2] On this day the Admiral dated the letter to Santangel, the _escribano de racion_, which is given below on pp. 263-272.
[244-1] This was on Sunday, 17th of February. (Navarrete.)
[244-2] The port of San Lorenzo. (_Id._).
[246-1] The incredulity of the Portuguese governor as to these assertions was natural. The title Admiral of the Ocean Sea was novel and this was the first time it was announced that Spain or any other European power had possessions in the Indies.
[247-1] Half the crew were still detained on shore.
[248-1] That the site of the Garden of Eden was to be found in the Orient was a common belief in the Middle Ages and later. _Cf._ the _Book of Sir John Mandeville_, ch. XXX.
[249-1] The last of the canonical hours of prayer, about nine in the evening.
[252-1] On this day the Admiral probably wrote the postscript to his letter Santangel written at sea on February 15.
[253-1] Modern scholars have too hastily identified this Bartolomé Diaz with the discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope. There is no evidence for this except the identity of the name. Against the supposition are the facts that neither Columbus, Las Casas, nor Ferdinand remark upon this meeting with the most eminent Portuguese navigator of the time, and that this Diaz is a subordinate officer on this ship who is sent to summon Columbus to report to the captain. That the great admiral of 1486-1487 would in 1493 be a simple _Patron_ on a single ship is incredible.
[254-1] The treaty of Alcaçovas signed by Portugal September 8, 1479, and by Spain March 6, 1480. In it Ferdinand and Isabella relinquished all rights to make discoveries along the coast of Africa and retained of the African islands only the Canaries. The Spanish text is printed in _Alguns Documentos da Torre do Tombo_ (Lisbon, 1892), pp. 45-46. See also Vignaud, _Toscanelli and Columbus_, pp. 61-64.
[254-2] "The Mine," more commonly El Mina, a station established on the Gold Coast by Diogo de Azambuja in 1482. The full name in Portuguese was S. Jorge da Mina, St. George of the Mine.