of February 23, 1505, permitting Columbus to ride on a mule, instead of a horse, by reason of his old age (_ancianidad_) and infirmities.[415] Such a phrase applies much better to a man of sixty-nine than to a man of fifty-nine. On the whole, I think that Washington Irving showed good sense in accepting the statement of the curate of Los Palacios as decisive, dating as it does the birth of Columbus at 1436, "a little more or less." [Footnote 408: Harrisse, _op. cit._ tom. i. p. 196.] [Footnote 409: "In _senectute bona_, de edad de setenta anos poco mas o menos." Bernaldez, _Reyes Catolicos_, tom. i. p. 334.] [Footnote 410: M. d'Avezac (_Canevas chronologique_, etc.) objects to this date that we have positive documentary evidence of the birth of Christopher's youngest brother Giacomo (afterwards spanished into Diego) in 1468, which makes an interval of 32 years; so that if the mother were (say) 18 in 1436 she must have borne a child at the age of 50. That would be unusual, but not unprecedented. But M. Harrisse (tom. ii. p. 214), from a more thorough sifting of this documentary evidence, seems to have proved that while Giacomo cannot have been born later than 1468 he may have been born as early as 1460; so that whatever is left of M. d'Avezac's objection falls to the ground.] [Footnote 411: "Serenissimi principi, di eta molto tenera io entrai in mare navigando, et vi ho continovato fin' hoggi: ... et hoggimai passano quaranta anni che io uso per tutte quelle parti che fin hoggi si navigano." _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. iv.] [Footnote 412: _Op. cit._ cap. iv. _ad fin_.] [Footnote 413: "Traido en disputas," Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. ii. p. 254.] [Footnote 414: "Muy altos Reyes, de muy pequena edad entre en la mar navegando, e lo he continuado fasta hoy.... Ya pasan de cuarenta anos que yo voy en este uso: todo lo que hoy se navega, todo lo he andado." Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. ii. p. 262. Observe the lame phrase "pasan de cuarenta;" what business has that "de" in such a place without "mas" before it? "Pasan mas de cuarenta," i. e. "more than forty;" writing in haste and excitement, Columbus left out a little word; or shall we blame the proof-reader? Avezac himself translates it "il y a plus de quarante ans," and so does Eugene Mueller, in his French version of Ferdinand's book, _Histoire de la vie de Christophe Colomb_, Paris, 1879, p. 15.]