The narrative given here of the third voyage of Columbus in which he
discovered the mainland of South America is taken from the _Historia de
las Indias_ of Las Casas. In preparing his History Las Casas had the use
of a larger body of Columbus's papers than has come down to us. Among
these papers was a journal of this third voyage which was incorporated in
a condensed form by Las Casas in his History, just as he did in the case
of the journals of the first and second voyages. This narrative is found
in the second volume of the _Historia de las Indias_, pp. 220-317. The
translation is, as is mentioned in the preface to this volume, that given
in John Boyd Thacher's _Christopher Columbus_.
In certain places the text differs slightly from that in the printed
edition of Las Casas, as Mr. Thacher followed the critical text of Cesare
de Lollis prepared for the _Raccolta Colombiana_ by a collation of the
manuscript in the Archives at Madrid with the recently discovered
autograph manuscript of Las Casas. Mr. Thacher, following Lollis, omitted
passages that were obviously comments on the text by Las Casas. These
have been supplied either from Mr. Thacher's notes or translated by the
editor from the printed text. The editor has gone over the whole
translation and can testify to its exceptional accuracy. A few slight
changes have been made in the wording for the sake of greater clearness
or exactness.
Columbus described this voyage in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella.
This letter is included in Major's _Select Letters of Columbus_ and in
P.L. Ford's _Writings of Columbus_. This letter is of great importance
in the study of Columbus's geographical ideas. Other contemporary
accounts of this voyage are contained in Ferdinand Columbus's _Historie_,
the life of his father, where the journal abridged by Las Casas is still
further condensed, in Peter Martyr's _De Rebus Oceanicis_, Dec. I., lib.
VI., and in the letter of Simone Verde and the three letters of Angelo
Trivigiano which will be found in Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, II.
95-98 and 119-123.