APPENDIX.
350
Acosta notices the circumstance slightly in his Natural and Moral His tory of the Indies, published in 1591, and takes it evidently from Gomara.* Mariana, in his history of Spain, published in 1 5 9 2 , also mentions it, but expresses a doubt of its truth, and derives his information manifestly from Gomara.f Herrera, who published his history of the Indies in 1 6 0 1 , takes no notice of the story.
In not noticing it, he may be considered as rejecting
it ; for he is distinguished for his minuteness, and was well acquainted with Gomara's history, which he expressly contradicts on a point of con siderable interest.J Garcilaso de la Vega, a native of Cusco in Peru, revived the tale with very minute particulars, in his Commentaries of the Incas, published in 1609.
H e tells it smoothly and circumstantially ; fixes the date of the
occurrence 1484, " one year more or less ;" states the name of the unfor tunate pilot, Alonzo Sanchez de Huelva ; the destination of his vessel, from the Canaries to Madeira ; and the unknown land to which they were driven, the island of Hispaniola.
T h e pilot, he says, landed, took an alti
tude, and wrote an account of all he saw, and all that had occurred in the voyage. home.
H e then took in wood and water, and set out to seek his way H e succeeded in returning, but the voyage was long and tempes
tuous, and twelve died of hunger and fatigue, out of seventeen, the origi nal number of the crew.
T h e five survivors arrived at Tercera, where
they were hospitably entertained by Columbus, but all died in his house in consequence of the hardships they had sustained ; the pilot was the last that died, leaving his host heir to his papers.
Columbus kept them pro
foundly secret, and by pursuing the route therein prescribed, obtained the credit of discovering the N e w World.§ Such are the material points of the circumstantial relation furnished by Garcilaso de la Vega, one hundred and twenty years after the event. In regard to authority, he recollects to have heard the story when he was a child, as a subject of conversation between his father and the neighbors, and he refers to the histories of the Indies, by Acosta and Gomara, for confirmation.
A s the conversations to which he listened, must have taken
place sixty or seventy years after the date of the report, there had been
* Padre Joseph de Acosta, Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 19. t Juan de Mariana, Hist. Espana, lib. xxvi. cap. 3. t Herrera, Hist. Ind., decad. ii. lib. iii. cap. i. Q Commenntarios de los Incas, lib. i. cap. 3 .