[Illustration: West Indies]

A GENERAL HISTORY AND COLLECTION OF VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.

PART II.

BOOK II.

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, AND OF SOME OF THE EARLY CONQUESTS IN THE NEW WORLD.

* * * * *

CHAP. I.

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS; WRITTEN BY HIS SON DON FERDINAND COLUMBUS[1].

INTRODUCTION.

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The whole of this chapter contains an original record, being a distinct narrative of the discovery of America by COLUMBUS, written by his own son, who accompanied him in his latter voyages. It has been adopted into the present work from the Collection of Voyages and Travels published at London in 1704, by Awnsham and John Churchill, in four volumes folio; in which it is said to have been translated from the original Italian of Don Ferdinand Columbus, expressly for the use of that work. The language of that translation is often obscure and ungrammatical, as if the work of a foreigner; but, having no access to the original, has necessarily been adopted for the present occasion, after being carefully revised and corrected. No farther alteration has been taken with that version, except a new division into sections, instead of the prolix and needlessly minute subdivision of the original translation into a multitude of chapters; which change was necessary to accommodate this interesting original document to our plan of arrangement; and except in a few rare instances, where uninteresting controversial argumentations have been somewhat abridged, and even these chiefly because the original translator left the sense obscure or unintelligible, from ignorance of the language or of the subject.

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