n. - To those who go

character of the first voyage of Vespucci.
The greater part of Vespucci's narrative of his first voyage is taken up
with accounts of the manners and customs of the natives; touching which
Las Casas has made some very pertinent remarks. Many of the things
Vespucci states could not have been known to him in the few days that he
remained on the coast, because he did not know a single word of the
language, as he himself confesses. He can only be believed in those
statements based on what he actually saw or might have seen, and all these
are perfectly applicable to the natives of the coast seen during Hojeda's
voyage. The rest are pronounced by Las Casas to be all fiction; as well as his
enumeration of the animals he saw. Vespucci gives one word in the native
language—Carabi, meaning "a man of great wisdom". Upon this Las Casas
remarks that the Spaniards did not even know the names for bread or for
water, yet Vespucci wants us to believe that, during the few days he
remained at that place, he understood that Carabi signified a man of great
wisdom. He got the word, of course, from the name of the people he heard of
during the voyage of Hojeda—the Carribs, or Canibas—and made it serve
his purpose in this passage. 40
Vespucci does not mention the names of the commanders of the
expedition, nor of any of his Spanish comrades; and he gives only one native
word, Carabi; three names of articles of food, Yuca, Casabi, and Ignami; and
two names of places, Iti and Parias (or Lariab?).
Two of the names for food, Yuca and Casabi, belong to the language of
the Antilles, and Vespucci would have heard of them during his voyage with
Hojeda. Ignami is an African word, which he would have picked up at
Lisbon. The use of the word Yuca, as belonging to the language of the
natives of the Mexican coast near 23° N., is one more proof of the imposture
of his narrative. 41