[54] In this latitude, on the shore of Costa Rica, there is a town now called Porto Cartago; but whether that indicated in the text it is difficult to say, as Galvano is not always perfectly accurate in his latitudes.--E. [55] Gomar. Hist. Gen. II. lxv. and Conqu. f. 243. [56] Gomar. Hist. Gen. II. lxvi, and Conqu. f. 256-261. [57] The Spanish leagues are 17-1/2 to the degree of latitude, hence this march exceeded 2000 English miles.--E. Gomar. Hist. Gen. II. lxvi. Id. Conqu. 246-273. [58] Gomar. Hist. Gen. V. i. and ii. [59] The ambiguity of the language is here utterly inexplicable.--E. [60] Meaning probably the lake of Titicaca in Peru. It is hardly necessary to say that this slight survey of the Plata must be erroneous, especially in its reports. The Rio San Francisco, alludes to one of the sources of the Great Maranon, or river of the Amazons.--E. [61] Ramusio, III. 310. Ramusio gives a long and minute account of this unfortunate expedition, entitled, Relation made by Alvaro Nunez, of what befel the armament sent to the _Indies_ (America) under Pamphilo Narvaez in the year 1527, to the end of 1536; when he returned to Seville with _three_ only of his companions.--Clarke. [62] The inhabitants of this island were most probably _tatooted_, of which custom a particular description will be given hereafter, in the particular voyages of discovery in the South Sea.--E. [63] The longitudes being altogether neglected in these relations by Galyano, it is impossible to form any conjecture as to the islands indicated in text. They may possibly have belonged to the Carolines of modern maps, which extend between long. 135° and 180° E. and about the latitudes of the text.--E. [64] The account which Galvano gives of this voyage is very vague and inconclusive. We shall find afterwards that the Spaniards found out the means of counteracting the perpetual eastern trade winds of the Pacific within the tropics, by shaping a more northerly course from the Philippine islands, where they established the staple of their Indian commerce, between Acapulco and Manilla.--E. [65] Galvano certainly mistakes here in assigning Tecoantepec, which is at least 340 miles from the nearest part of the bay of Honduras. If a navigation were practicable from Tecoantepec, it would more probably be towards Tabasco, at the bottom of the bay of Campechy. Perhaps he ought to have said from Guatimala to the gulf of Dolse, at the bottom of the bay of Honduras. This splendid navigation between the Atlantic and Pacific, within the tropics, like that between the Mediterranean and Red Sea, still remains an unsolved problem. It will be resumed hereafter, among the voyages and travels to Spanish America.--E. [66] These seem all to have been brothers to Pizarro, and named from the town of Alcantara in Spain.--E.