Journal of a Voyage to Brazil | Page 5

those islands is iron, and is as easily attracted by the loadstone as steel
filings.]
Great hopes were therefore entertained from the expedition of Solis.
That able navigator made the coast of Brazil far to the southward of
Cape St. Augustine, where he had been with Pinçon; and on the 1st of
January 1516 he discovered the harbour of Rio de Janeiro; thence he
sailed still to the southward, and entered what he hoped at first would
be a sea, or strait, by which he might communicate with the ocean; but
it was the river La Plata, where Solis and several of his followers were
murdered and devoured by the natives. The ships then put back to St.
Augustines, loaded with Brazil wood, and returned to Spain.
But the King Don Emanuel claimed these cargoes, and again
remonstrated against the interference of Spain so effectually, that three
years afterwards, when Magalhaens touched at Rio de Janeiro, he
purchased nothing but provisions.
Meantime several French adventurers had come to Brazil, and had
taken in their cargoes of Brazil wood, monkies and parrots, and

sometimes plundered some of the weaker Portuguese traders. In 1616,
two of these adventurers entered the bay of All Saints, and had begun
to trade with the Indians, when the Portuguese commander, Cristovam
Jaques, sailing into the port, and examining all its coves, discovered
them, and sunk the ships, crews, and cargoes. About the same time, a
young Portuguese nobleman, who had been wrecked on the shoal off
the entrance of the harbour[5], and who had seen half his companions
drowned, and half eaten by the Indians, had contrived to conciliate the
natives. He had saved a musket and some powder from the wreck, and
having taken an opportunity of shooting a bird in the presence of the
inhabitants, they called him Caramuru, or the man of fire; and, as he
accompanied them on an expedition against their enemies the Tapuyas,
he became a favourite, married at least one Indian wife, and fixed his
residence at the spot now called Villa Velha, near an excellent spring,
and not far from the entrance to the bay.
[Note 5: I suppose that off St. Antonio da Barre.]
Caramuru, however, felt some natural longing to see his native land,
and accordingly seized the opportunity afforded by the arrival of a
French vessel, and taking his favourite wife, he went with her to France,
where they were well received by the court, the king and queen
standing sponsors at the baptism of the Brazilian lady, whose marriage
was now celebrated according to the Christian form. Caramuru,
however, was not permitted to go to Portugal; but by means of a young
Portuguese student at Paris[6], he communicated his situation to the
King Joam III., and pressed him to send an expedition to the bay of All
Saints. Shortly afterwards, Caramuru returned to Bahia, having agreed
to freight two ships with Brazil wood as the price of his passage, of the
artillery of the ships, and of the articles necessary for trading with the
natives.
Still, however, as Brazil furnished neither gold, nor that rich commerce
which the Portuguese derived from their Indian trade, it was pretty
much left to itself for the first thirty years after its discovery; and then
the regulations adopted by the court were not, perhaps, the most
advantageous for the country. The coast was divided by Joam III. into

captaincies, many of which extended fifty leagues, and each captaincy
was made hereditary, and granted to any one who was willing to
embark with sufficient means in the adventure; and to these captains an
unlimited jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, was granted.
The first person who took possession of one of these captaincies was
Martim Affonso de Souza, in 1531, who sometimes claims the
discovery of Rio de Janeiro as his, although it had been named by Solis
fifteen years before. Souza was probably deterred from fixing on the
shores of that beautiful bay, by the number and fierceness of the Indian
tribes that occupied them. He therefore coasted towards the south,
naming Ilha Grande dos Magos on twelfth-day, when
"Three kings, or what is more, three wise men went Westward to seek
the world's true orient."
[Note 6: Pedro Fernandez Sardinha, the first bishop of Brazil.]
St. Sebastian's on the 20th, and St. Vincent's on the 22d; but having
proceeded as far south as the La Plata, he returned to the
neighbourhood of San Vincente, where he ultimately founded his
colony, and whence he named the whole captaincy.
Martim Affonso de Souza was no ordinary man: his cares for his
colony did not relax even after he had been recalled, and sent as
governor-general to India, where he had before highly distinguished
himself. He introduced the sugar-cane from Madeira into his