Thereupon the crew were unwilling to hazard an engagement, and insisted that Columbus should return to Marseilles for re-inforcement.

Columbus made a feint of acquiescence, but craftily arranged the compass so that it appeared that they were returning, while they were really steering their original course, and so arrived at Carthagena on the next morning, thinking all the while that they were in full sail for Marseilles.
[Footnote 7: The account of this voyage to the north of Europe, as commonly quoted, furnishes a singular instance of the inaccuracy of translators in the matter of figures.

Columbus is there made to say, that at the Ultima Thule, which be reached, "the tides were so great as to rise and fall twenty-six fathoms," i.e.156 feet.

Of course this an absurdity; for no tides in Europe rise much above 50 feet.

We have no record of the exact words used by Columbus, but in the extant Italian translation he is made to speak of the rise being venti sei bracchia, i.e.twenty-six ells (not fathoms), or about fifty-two feet.