Dr. Chanca of Seville volunteered to go to the Indies, and on May 23,
1493, the King and Queen appointed him surgeon (Navarrete, _Viages_, II.
54). This letter was written to the cabildo or town council of Seville
and is the first narrative of one of Columbus's voyages that we have
exactly as it was written by a private observer. It is also the first
description of the natives that we have from an observer of scientific
training. The original text was first printed by Navarrete in his
_Viages_ in 1825. The original manuscript or a copy came into the
possession of the historian Bernaldez, who embodied it with a few
trifling changes and omissions in his _Historia de Los Reyes Catolicos_,
chs. CXIX., CXX. (Seville ed., 1870), Vol. II., pp. 5-36.
Columbus kept a journal on this voyage which is no longer extant.
Abridgments of it are preserved to us in the _Historie_ of Ferdinand
Columbus and in the _Historia de las Indias_ of Las Casas. There are
other contemporary narratives of the voyage from private hands, but they
are either made up from conversations with those who went on the voyage,
like the letters of Simone Verde, printed in Harrisse, _Christophe
Colomb_, II. 68-78, or the account in Books II. and III. of the first
decade of Peter Martyr's _De Rebus Oceanicis_, or a literary
embellishment of some private letters like the translation into Latin by
Nicolo Syllacio of some letters he received from Guillelmo Coma who went
on the voyage. The Syllacio-Coma letter and Peter Martyr's account in its
earliest published form, the Venetian _Libretto de tutta la Navigatione
de Re de Spagna de le Isole et Terreni novamente Trovati_, are
accessible in English in Thacher, _Christopher Columbus_, II. 243-262,
489-502. These two narratives gave the European public its first
knowledge of the second voyage. The Syllacio-Coma letter was published
late in 1494 or early in 1495, and the _Libretto_ in Venice in 1504.
The translation of Dr. Chanca's letter given here is that of R.H. Major.
It has been carefully revised to bring it into closer conformity to the
original. Any noteworthy changes will be indicated. Attention may be
called to a somewhat important correction of the text on p. 304.
Of Dr. Chanca personally little or nothing is known beyond what has been
mentioned except that he devoted himself with zeal and self-sacrifice to
his duties. In the report of the Second Voyage which Columbus prepared
January 30, 1494, and sent off by Antonio de Torres February 2, he
charged Torres as follows in regard to Dr. Chanca. "You will inform their
Highnesses of the labor that Dr. Chanca is performing on account of the
many that are ill and the lack of supplies and that with all this he is
conducting himself with great diligence and kindness in everything that
concerns his duties," etc. Major, _Select Letters of Columbus_, pp. 93,
94.