Journal of a Voyage to Brazil | Page 4

east. Adverse winds, however, drove the
expedition so far to the westward, that it fell in with the coast of Brazil,
and the ships anchored in Porto Seguro on Good-Friday of the year
1500. On Easter-day the first Christian altar was raised in the new
continent under a large tree, and mass was performed, at which the
innocent natives assisted with pleased attention: the country was taken
possession of for the crown of Portugal by the name of the land of the
Holy Cross, and a stone cross was erected to commemorate the event.
Cabral dispatched a small vessel to Lisbon to announce his discovery,
and then, without making any settlement, proceeded to India.
On the arrival of the news in Europe, the King of Portugal invited
Amerigo Vespucci from Seville, and sent him with three ships to
explore the country. After a long and distressing voyage they arrived,
and very early in their intercourse with the natives they discovered that
they were cannibals, but nevertheless they established a friendly
intercourse with some of the tribes; and after coasting along South
America as far as lat. 52°, finding neither port nor inhabitants, and
suffering from intolerable cold, they returned to Lisbon in 1502.
Early in the next year Amerigo sailed again with six ships; but having

stood too near the coast of Africa, after passing the Cape de Verds by
the orders of the commander, four of the vessels were lost, but Amerigo
with the other two reached a port which they called All Saints.[3] There
they remained five months, in friendship with the natives, with whom
some of the party travelled forty leagues into the interior. They erected
a small fort, and left twelve men with guns and provisions, and having
loaded their two ships with Brazil wood, monkeys, and parrots, they
returned to Lisbon early in 1504.
[Note 3: This cannot be Bahia; for they say, that after coasting 260
leagues they were in 18°S.; now Bahia is in 12° 40', or nearly; the
difference being 120 leagues; it must therefore be a port to the
northward.]
But as Brazil, as it now began to be called, did not promise that ample
supply of gold which the Spaniards had discovered in their new
countries, and which the Portuguese gained with less hazard from
Africa, and from the East, the country ceased for a time to excite the
attention of government, and the first actual settlements were made by
private adventurers, who, on account of their trade, were desirous of
having some kind of agents among the people. The first persons
employed for this purpose were criminals, a sort of settlers that may do
well in an unpeopled country, where there is nothing to do but to
reclaim the land, but that must do ill where there are many and savage
natives, because they either become degraded to the savage level
themselves, if they continue friends, or, if not, they are apt to practise
such cruelties and injustice as disgust the natives, render colonisation
difficult, and if they teach any thing, it is all the worst part of the life of
civilised nations.
But in 1508, Amerigo Vespucci having returned to the service of Spain,
the King resolved to take possession of the new land which had been
discovered; and founding his claims on the grant of Alexander VI., he
sent Vincent Yañez Pinçon and Juan Diaz de Solis to assert them. They
made Cape St Augustine's, which Pinçon had discovered, and coasted
along to lat. 40° south, erecting crosses as they went; but some disputes
having arisen between them, they returned to Spain: and it appears that

the remonstrances of Portugal against the voyage, as an interference
with her discoveries, had some weight, for it was not until 1515 that
Solis was dispatched on a second voyage, and then it was with the
avowed purpose of seeking a passage to the Great Pacific Sea, which
had been sought and seen by Balboa in 1513.
That extraordinary but unfortunate man was the first European whose
eyes rested on the broad Pacific. He had heard from the Indians of its
existence, and resolutely set out to discover it, well aware of the
dangers and difficulties he had to encounter. After twenty-five days of
suffering and fatigue, he saw the South Sea; he heard of Peru, its mines,
and its llamas, its cities and its aqueducts, and he received pearls[4]
from the islands that lay in front of St. Miguel's bay, where he walked
sword in hand up to his middle into the water and took possession for
the King of Spain. No one in Europe now doubted that the western way
to the East Indies was discovered.
[Note 4: Pearl islands, in the bay of Panama. The sand of the beach of