The letter on Columbus’s last voyage when he explored the coast of Central America and of the Isthmus of Panama was written when he was shipwrecked on the island of Jamaica, 1503. It is his last important writing and one of great significance in understanding his geographical conceptions.

The Spanish text of this letter is not older than the sixteenth century and perhaps not older than the seventeenth. The Spanish text was first published by Navarrete in his Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos, 1825. An Italian translation, however, was published in 1505 and is commonly known as the Lettera Rarissima. Mr. John Boyd Thacher has reproduced this early Italian translation in facsimile in his Christopher Columbus, accompanied by a translation into English. Cesare de Lollis prepared a critical edition of the Spanish text for the Raccolta Colombiana, which was carefully collated with and in some instances corrected by this contemporary translation. Most of his changes in punctuation and textual emendations have been adopted in the present edition, and attention is called to them in the notes.

The translation is that of R.H. Major as published in the revised edition of his Select Letters of Columbus. It has been carefully revised by the present editor, and some important changes have been made. As hitherto published in English a good many passages in this letter have been so confused and obscure and some so absolutely unintelligible, that the late Justin Winsor characterized this last of the important writings of Columbus as “a sorrowful index of his wandering reason.”388-1 Almost every one of these passages has yielded up the secret of its meaning either through a more exact translation or in the light of the textual emendations suggested by de Lollis or proposed by the present editor. Among such revisions and textual emendations attention may be called to those discussed on pp. 392, 396, 397. As here published this letter of Columbus is as coherent and intelligible as his other writings.

The editor wishes here to acknowledge his obligations to Professor Henry R. Lang of Yale University, whom he has consulted in regard to perplexing passages or possible emendations, and from whom he has received valuable assistance.

The other important accounts of this voyage, or of the part of it covered by this letter, are the brief report by Diego de Porras, of which a translation is given in Thacher’s Columbus, and those by Ferdinand Columbus in the Historie and Peter Martyr in his De Rebus Oceanicis. On this voyage Las Casas’s source was the account of Ferdinand Columbus. Lollis presents some striking evidence to show that the accounts of Ferdinand Columbus and Peter Martyr were based upon the same original, a lost narrative of the Admiral. It will be remembered, however, that Ferdinand accompanied his father on this voyage, and although only a boy of thirteen his narrative contains several passages of vivid personal recollection. The editor has carefully compared Ferdinand’s narrative with the account in this letter and noted the important differences.

E.G.B.

427-3 In Cabot’s mind the Cipango of Marco Polo is confused with the Spice Islands. Marco Polo says nothing of the production of spices in his account of Cipango. The confusion is probably to be traced to Columbus’s reports that he had discovered Cipango and that the islands he had discovered produced spices.

427-4 From 1425 Jiddah on the east shore of the Red Sea rapidly displaced Aden as an emporium of the spice trade where the cargoes were transshipped from Indian to Egyptian vessels. Jiddah is the port of entry for Mecca, distant about forty-five miles, and Mecca became a great spice market. See Heyd, Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age, II. 445 et seqq., and Biggar, Voyages of the Cabots and Corte-Reals, pp. 31-36. Biggar quotes interesting passages on the Mecca trade from The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema, Hakluyt Society (London, 1863).

428-1 I.e., a place far enough east from Arabia to be thought of as west from Europe. After making all due allowances one may be excused for feeling some misgiving whether John Cabot actually ever was in Mecca. While some of the spices and eastern commodities were brought overland by caravan from Ormuz or Bassora, the greater part came by water to Jiddah. At Jiddah he could hardly have failed to get fairly accurate information as to where the spices came from. That one who had seen that great commerce should have remained so much in the dark as to conclude that spices came from northeastern Asia is strange enough.

428-2 In imitation of Columbus.

429-1 English social joys in the fifteenth century did not appeal to the more refined Italians. An interesting parallel to this comment of Raimondo de Soncino is to be found in Vespasiano’s life of Poggio. “Pope Martin sent him with letters to England. He strongly condemned their life, consuming the time in eating and drinking. He was used to say in pleasantry that oftentimes being invited by those prelates or English gentlemen to dinner or to supper and staying four hours at the table he must needs rise from the table many times to wash his eyes with cold water so as not to fall asleep.” Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di Uomini Illustri del Secolo XV. (Florence, 1859), p. 420.

429-2 The original is in the archives at Simancas partly in cipher. It was discovered and deciphered by Bergenroth and published in the Calendar of State Papers, Spanish Series, I., pp. 176-177. The Spanish text was published by Harrisse, Jean et SÉbastien Cabot, pp. 329-330, and in Weare, Cabot’s Discovery, pp. 160-161. Bergenroth’s translation is given here, carefully revised. The contents of this letter were briefly summarized in a despatch to the Catholic sovereigns by Dr. Puebla, their senior ambassador, which was transmitted at or about the same time with that of Ayala. The Puebla despatch, which contains nothing not in the Ayala despatch, can be seen in Weare, p. 159.

430-1 In this Ayala would seem to have been misinformed. Cf. pp. 423, 425.

430-2 The “and” is not in the original, but is supplied by all the editors. It is not absolutely certain that it belongs there. If it does, the passage implies that Cabot had recently been in Seville and Lisbon to enlist interest in his second voyage.

430-3 This information is not elsewhere confirmed. On Brazil and the Seven Cities, see p. 426, note 2, and p. 425, note 1.

430-4 One Friar Buil went with Columbus on his second voyage.

430-5 The treaty of Tordesillas, June 7, 1494; see p. 323, note 3.