UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 Quaritc/is Translations of Rare Books. 
 
 I. VESPUCCI (AMERIGO) LETTER CONCERNING 
 
 THE ISLES NEWLY DISCOVERED IN 
 
 HIS FOUR VOYAGES. 
 
 [Florence, 1 505 . ] 
 
 LONDON: BERNARD QUARITCH, 
 
 8693 V PICCADILLY - 
 
 1885.
 
 THE FIRST FOUR 
 
 VOYAGES 
 
 OF 
 
 AMERIGO VESPUCCI 
 
 TRANSLATED 
 
 From the rare original edition {Florence, 1 505-6) ; 
 with some Preliminary Notices, 
 
 BY M. K. 
 
 LONDON : 
 BERNARD QUARITCH, 
 
 15 PICCADILLY. 
 l88 5 . 
 
 ';800
 
 LE QUATTRO GlORNATE. Diary and Common-place Book, written 
 during the course of his first four voyages, and contain- 
 ing astronomical diagrams and drawings of remarkable 
 objects. 
 Now lost, and only known by his references to it in the Lettera. 
 
 EPISTLES TO LORENZO DI PIER FRANCESCO DE MEDICI. 
 
 All now lost. The one usually considered to be an account of his third 
 voyage (but which also contains a short summary of various observations made in 
 his first three voyages), written probably about the end of 1 502, was saved from 
 the complete destruction which has been the fate of the others, by being translated 
 into Latin by " Jocundus interpres ut latini omnes intelligant." This translator 
 was the celebrated Fra Giovanni del Giocondo, of Verona, then resident in Paris. 
 The original was presumably in bastard- Italian, like the Lettera to Soderini, 
 but it cannot have been ever printed, since the Italian or Venetian form of it, 
 which appeared (for the first time) in the Paesi of 1507, is merely a retranslation 
 from the Latin. The Latin translation and the Italian retranslation were printed 
 several times between 1503 or 1504 and 1521 ; and were substantially reproduced 
 in the compilations of Grynaeus and Ramusio. 
 
 LETTERA DELLE ISOLE NUOUAMENTE TROUATE. Written at 
 Lisbon in 1504, and printed at Florence probably in 
 1 505, for Pietro Pacini, of Pescia. 
 
 This is the work now produced in facsimile, and is apparently the only narrative 
 by Vespucci of which the original text has survived. (The other three Letters 
 attributed to him, and printed in the last and the present century, are decidedly 
 supposititious.) It was translated into French, probably in 1505 or 1506, we know- 
 not by whom, and from this lost French translation, a Latin version (generally 
 
 a
 
 vi Vespucci's Works. 
 
 accurate enough, but comprising several significant errors and mistranslations) was 
 made, and printed for the first time in 1507 as a supplement to Waldseemuller's 
 Cosmographies Introductio, and frequently afterwards. It is said in the Speculi 
 orbis dedaratio of Gualterius Ludd (printed, like the Cosmographia, at St. Die", in 
 Lorraine, 1507) that the Latin translation was made by Jean Basin de Senda- 
 cour. It might seem more likely that he made the French version, and that 
 Waldseemiiller was responsible for the Latin one ; but to whomsoever we may 
 ascribe the latter text, it is from this that Europe for more than three centuries 
 derived its knowledge of Vespucci's voyages, and to this that we may trace the 
 origin of the name America, bestowed by Waldseemtiller, and sanctioned by 
 many other scholars of France and Germany. 
 
 In the various editions of the Novus Orbis which is known under the name 
 of Grynaeus, the account of the four voyages was reproduced in Latin from the 
 Cosmographia; and Ramusio has given an abridgment in Italian of the third and 
 fourth voyages only (his attention being chiefly directed to the results of southern 
 and African explorations). 
 
 NOTE. Pietro Pacini, of Pescia, was no*-a printer, but a publisher at Florence. 
 Varnhagen has erroneously supposed that he printed the Lettera of Vespucci, 
 because he was able to identify the type in which it is set up with that which was 
 used in certain books published in 1505 for Pacini. Many books were printed ad 
 instantia or alle spese of Pietro Pacini, some with dates and some without them. 
 The earliest dated book on which his name thus appears was printed for him by 
 Lorenzo Morgiani et Giovanni di Maganza, in 1495 [BERNARDO (S.), Sermoni, 
 4to.]; the second by Francisats Bonaccursius, in 1496 [Lino (Zach.), De origineet 
 laudibus scientiarum, &c., 4to.] ; and the latest by Gian Stefano di Carlo di Pavia, 
 in 1513 [POLIZIANO, La Giostradi Giulianodei Medici, 410.]. In 1505 he produced 
 three books [D. LAHERTIO (i.e., Diogenes Laertius), Vita di Philosophi, 4 to.- 
 AUGUSTINO (S.), Sermoni, 4 to. ; GERSONE, Imitazione di Cristo, 4 to.], in which 
 only Ins own name appears, that of the actual printer not being given. The type 
 in these three books, in the Lettera now reprinted, and in the Lettera di 
 CORSALI printed by Gian Stefano di Carlo di Pavia, in 1516, has been ascertained 
 
 >e identical ; and we may therefore assume that Gian Stefano was working for 
 Pacini m 1505, but only as a new printer of small standing, and therefore ignored 
 m the colophons of Pacini's publications. By 1513, Gian Stefano had acquired 
 ufficient importance to be mentioned in connexion with Pacini, and in 1516 he 
 is printer and publisher on his own account [CORSALI]. It is probable con- 
 sequently that Pacini died between 1513 and 1516, and that the unsold copies of 
 
 books remained in the hands of Gian Stefano. This would account for the 
 circumstance that in two instances the Corsali letter was found bound in a single 
 
 V ^C^ eVe T CC \^ era ^ combination "Men has misguided Brunei 
 
 and other b.bhographers, leading to the supposition that the latter was printed in 
 
 2 same year as the former. From the foregoing facts, it might be thought
 
 Vespucci's Works. vii 
 
 unnecessary to couple Pacini's name with Vespucci, since we know who was the 
 actual printer, and there is nothing in the book to show that it was produced for 
 Pacini, rather than some other publisher. This would hardly be correct, as the 
 LlLIUS volume produced in 1496 for him contains a slight reference to the 
 recent discoveries in the West, which seems to have initiated a connexion between 
 Pacini and the literature of navigation. He published the Sfera of Gregorio Dati 
 in 1513, a cosmographical poem, the mention of which brings the Let f era del! 
 Isole of Giuliano Dati immediately to mind. The latter piece a reduction to verse 
 of Columbus's first letter was perhaps printed for Pietro Pacini in 1493, when it 
 first appeared. The design which is seen in the woodcut on the first leaf of Giuliano 
 Dati's Lettera is identical with that on the title-page of Vespucci's Lettera, save 
 that the figures are reversed in the latter, as though the old block had been worn 
 out and a new one engraved from it. Pacini published opuscules of Lorenzo dei 
 Medici, Luca Pulci, and Polizian ; none of his books printed during Soderini's 
 rule in Florence make any reference to the Gonfaloniere, as was frequently done in 
 the books published by the Giunti : we may therefore safely conclude that he was 
 a Medici partisan, and so discover the reason why the name of Soderini is entirely 
 omitted in Vespucci's Lettera. This omission led to a misconception on the 
 part of the French and of the Latin translator (Cosmogr. Introd., 1507) who 
 imagined that Vostra Mag. meant Your Majesty, and referred to Rene, Duke of 
 Lorraine, King of Jerusalem. The blunder was all the more ludicrous as the very 
 opening sentences of the Lettera show that the person to whom it was addressed 
 had been an old schoolfellow of Vespucci, a fact so far as Soderini was concerned, 
 but which no one could have supposed to be true with regard to King Rene. 
 This is not the only blunder in the Latin translation (there being many other errors 
 in its various editions which have tended to discredit Vespucci), but it is useful 
 now as showing, to any one who needed such proof, that the text of the Lettera 
 was printed in Florence before, not after, the second-hand Latin translation which 
 was published in 1507 at St. Did.
 
 on t$t {f* of Qlnurigo 
 
 (Chiefly extracted from the Works of VarnJiagen?) 
 
 HE was the third son of Ser Nastagio [Anastasio] Vespucci, 
 notary at Florence, and was born on March 9, 1451. 
 As he states in the Lettera, he was educated by his uncle, the 
 learned Dominican (and friend of Savonarola), Giorgio Antonio 
 Vespucci ; but, according to his own ingenuous admission, he did 
 not make great progress in study, and a letter written by him in 
 Latin to his father, in 1476, exhibits at once the extent and the 
 limits of his erudition. He was then in villegiatura at Mugello, for 
 the purpose of avoiding the plague which had broken out in Florence. 
 One of his fellow pupils was Pier Soderini, the future Gonfaloniere of 
 the Florentine Republic (1502-1512), to whom he addressed, in 1504, 
 the letter concerning his four voyages, which is now reprinted and 
 translated. He was not sent to the University of Pisa, as his two 
 elder brothers had been, but placed as a clerk in the banking-house 
 of the Medici at Florence, and there probably obtained the favour 
 and protection of Lorenzo di Pier Francesco dei Medici (cousin of 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent), who afterwards (in 1492) became chief 
 of the business, and to whom at a still later date Vespucci sent 
 accounts of at least the first three of his voyages. In March, 1492,
 
 x Life of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 he was despatched by Lorenzo di Pier as confidential agent to reside 
 at Cadiz, and to supervise the conduct of affairs there, the probity of 
 the managers of the Spanish branch business having become sus- 
 pected. A year later he seems to have begun some trading specula- 
 tions on his own account, without, however, ceasing to correspond 
 with his patron. He was not successful, although his commercial 
 position must have been a respectable one, judging from the 
 circumstance that he was commissioned in January, 1496, to 
 complete the financial part of a contract with the Crown which his 
 compatriot Berardi had left unfulfilled at his death in December, 
 1495. Berardi was a great merchant and naval outfitter, who had 
 undertaken to furnish a dozen vessels to the Government for service 
 in the Indies, and the accounts were unsettled when he died. It 
 was probably this transaction which influenced Vespucci, already 
 discontented with his fortune as a trader, to seek and obtain service 
 from King Ferdinand, when an expedition of four ships was prepared 
 in the following year for adventure in the New World. The 
 monopoly granted originally to Columbus had been recalled, and 
 freedom of navigation conceded in April, 1495, to all merchant- 
 adventurers, so that the efforts of the great Genoese were in vain 
 to prevent the despatch of the four ships which the King was about 
 to send out. He ultimately succeeded, but the renewal of his 
 monopoly was not signed till June, 1497, when the King's expedition 
 was already on its way across the Atlantic. 
 
 The four ships sailed from Cadiz on May 10, 1497, and Amerigo 
 went in one of them. We do not learn what position in the 
 fleet had been assigned to him, but it was probably an important 
 one, as he seems to have completely gained the favour of King 
 Ferdinand. His special qualification was his knowledge of 
 astronomy, and, as he combined with it a useful experience in 
 commercial matters, it was perhaps as astronomer and super- 
 cargo that he figured in this first expedition. There are grounds 
 for believing that Vincente Yanez Pinzon (one of Columbus's 
 former captains) and Juan Diaz de Solis were the chief com-
 
 Life of Amerigo Vespucci. xi 
 
 manders, although their names are not mentioned by Vespucci ; and 
 that the famous pilot, Juan de la Cosa, accompanied them. What- 
 ever credit may be due to them for the conduct of the enterprise, 
 it is certain that our Florentine was the only one whose account 
 of the voyage has survived ; and we glean from his Lettera that 
 in this expedition (in which the navigators were more than seventeen 
 months absent from Spain, and in which Cuba seems to have been 
 discovered to be an island, not a portion of the Asiatic continent, as 
 Columbus had imagined) the coasts of Mexico and Florida were seen 
 and touched upon for the first time, and Vespucci won the honour 
 of being the first explorer who has recorded a visit to any portion 
 of the territory now known as the United States of America. 1 It is 
 true that his notices are jejune and confused, and that there have been 
 eminent writers who held this first voyage to be supposititious, that 
 either the dates were wrong, or the whole narrative forged ; but every 
 one 3 is now agreed that Vespucci was an honest sailor, incapable of 
 fraud, and recognised by Columbus himself as a worthy and honour- 
 able friend. This appears from a letter dated February 5, 1505, 
 addressed by the Genoese discoverer to his son Diego. In that letter, 
 of which Amerigo was himself the bearer, and which is still in 
 existence in the autograph of Columbus, these significant phrases 
 occur: " I spoke with Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer hereof, who is 
 going yonder on business of navigation. He has ever had a desire to 
 do me pleasure : he is a very worthy man ; fortune has been adverse to 
 him as to many others : his labours have not Profited him so much as 
 justice would require. . . . He goes resolved U do for me everything 
 that shall be possible to him. See yonder in what he can be benefited, 
 and exert yourself for him. . . ." Vespucci's narratives were already in 
 
 1 Mr. Harrisse's recent work upon the voyages of the Cabots disposes com- 
 pletely of the notion that they coasted the shores of the continent from Newfound- 
 land to Florida in 1497. There was undoubtedly some such voyage in 1498, 
 although there is no direct proof of it ; but in 1497 they did no more than touch 
 land, probably a long way to the north of Cape Breton, and then immediately 
 returned. 
 2 Except Mr. Major. See note, p. xviii.
 
 xii Life of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 circulation at this date, and could not have been unknown to 
 Columbus, whose testimony to his probity suffices to put an end to 
 the old charge of wilful fraud. As for the modern assumptions 
 that his dates were erroneous and his memory imperfect, or of 
 the sophistication of his narratives by injudicious friends, no 
 one who reads the original text of the Lettera will now maintain 
 them. It is from beginning to end the homogeneous and unadulter- 
 ated production of a sailor whose neglected education had not been 
 improved by a long absence in foreign countries. It is full, through- 
 out, of characteristic vices of style, grammar, and language ; Spanish, 
 Portuguese, and Latin words and phrases being freely interlarded in 
 his Italian text, and the punctuation being so peculiar in its nature, 
 that there are scarcely half a dozen full stops in the whole narrative. 
 As for defectiveness of memory, there is no sign of it. On the 
 contrary, he seems to have been a close observer, and, as he informs 
 us several times, he kept a diary or commonplace book, in which he 
 wrote down his notes and made memoranda of all things that seemed 
 to deserve it, at the time of their occurrence. 
 
 On October 15, 1498, King Ferdinand's four ships returned 
 to Cadiz, with 222 Indian prisoners taken in the island of Ity, 
 and the leaders, amongst whom Vespucci seems to have been 
 reckoned, were joyously received by the authorities and the 
 people. A new voyage was at once contemplated, in spite of the 
 privileges which had been so grudgingly re-accorded to Columbus ; 
 and, seven months later, on May 16, 1499, Vespucci went out again 
 with an expedition of three ships. According to his usual custom, 
 he mentions no names, but it seems certain that Alonso de Hojeda 
 was the chief, and that his pilots were Juan de la Cosa, Amerigo 
 Vespucci, and others. They sailed south-west, touching at the Cape 
 Verde islands, and on June 27 reached the coast of Brazil, some- 
 where north-west of Cape St. Roque. After some ineffectual attempts 
 to coast the land south-east ward ly, they turned round and went 
 north-west, making acquaintance with the Caribs (Camballi or 
 Caniballi) in the north of Guiana and Venezuela. Proceeding further
 
 Life of Amerigo Vespucci. xiii 
 
 north-west, they landed on the island of St. Margaret, and Curasao 
 (called Isle of Giants), in the latter of which they underwent great 
 danger from the hostility of the natives. ^After some further experi- 
 ences, they sailed to San Domingo, but not in company, as we know 
 from other sources that Hojeda and Juan de la Cosa arrived there 
 first, in a small boat, having been shipwrecked. Vespucci made a 
 long stay (two months and seventeen days) in that island, and must 
 have been frequently in the company of Columbus, who had arrived 
 there in 1498, and was still struggling against the jealousy and en- 
 mity of the Spanish colony. Vespucci then returned to Europe, and 
 re-entered the port of Cadiz on September 8, 1500, having navigated 
 along the northern coast of South America from near Cape St. Roque 
 in Brazil to the Gulf of Maracaibo in Venezuela. He carried home 
 a number of pearls with him from Paria, and the Queen took 
 from him a single oyster containing 130 of those gems. He says 
 ingenuously that he had taken care to secrete others from her 
 observation. 
 
 Dom Manoel of Portugal, by repeated messages and promises, 
 succeeded in detaching Amerigo from the service of King Ferdinand, 
 and the navigator speaks with regret of his ungrateful conduct in 
 quitting Spain without having even taken leave of his royal patron. 
 Departing from Seville, he made his way to Lisbon, and was 
 immediately engaged to take part in an expedition to Brazil. 
 On May 14, 1501 (not the loth, as it appears by a typographical 
 error in Arabic numerals in the Lettera, but the xiiii, as it is given 
 in the Epistola to Lorenzo di Pietro dei Medici), three ships started 
 from Lisbon, in one of which Amerigo went as captain. It has been 
 wrongly alleged that Gonzalo Coelho was the chief leader ; but Varn- 
 hagen gives almost proof that Dom Nuno Manoel was in command 
 of the expedition. They took a southern course, and stopped several 
 days at Bezeguiche, or Besenegue, the site of the present Goree, a 
 little below Cape Verde, on the west coast of Africa. Thence they 
 sailed south-west and a quarter by south, and reached Brazil on 
 August 1 6, the feast of St. Roch, for which reason they named the 
 
 b
 
 x i v Life of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 headland Cape St. Roque. On the following day they landed and 
 took possession of the country, but saw no natives till the i8th. 
 They found the Indians very sanguinary and savage, and lost three 
 men, who were massacred and eaten. The Admiral was probably 
 wise in forbidding any attempt at reprisals, although Vespucci does 
 not seem to have thought so. Following the coast-line southwardly, 
 they discovered and named Cape St. Augustine on that saint's day 
 (August 28), 1 and landed at Bahia on November i, All Saints' Day 
 (whence the name, Bahia de todos os Santos}? Still coasting south- 
 wardly, it is believed that they saw and named Rio Janeiro on 
 January I. They must have reached the mouth of the Rio de la 
 Plata before they decided to change their course, as Vespucci states 
 that they made 750 leagues in sight of the shore, reckoning from 
 Cape St. Augustine. On February 15 they were probably on the 
 coast of Uruguay, at about 37 degrees south latitude (although in 
 the Lettera Vespucci says 32, perhaps a typographical error), where 
 the coast seems suddenly to recede due west, at the mouth of the Rio 
 de la Plata (giving rise to the idea that here was the southern limit 
 of the land that barred their way to Asia). Here the Admiral handed 
 over the control of the expedition to Vespucci, and they quitted the 
 American coast, sailing south-east, till, on April 7, they reached the 
 island afterwards called South Georgia by Captain Cook, who 
 believed himself the first discoverer of it. The intense cold, the 
 darkness, and the storms appalled them, and after a vain effort 
 to find a port, they veered around, and Vespucci congratulated 
 himself on his luck, for he states that the delay of another day 
 would have caused the total destruction of their little fleet On 
 May 10 they reached Sierra Leone, in Africa, and made a stay of 
 fifteen days there, burning one of their three ships which had 
 
 1 It is said to have been previously discovered by Vincente Yanez Pinzon. 
 
 2 Misprinted in the Lettera " La Badia" (i.e., the Abbey), for " La Bahia" (Portu- 
 guese, " A Bahia," the Bay), an error which was perpetuated in the Cosmographia 
 and in most of the early maps, beginning with Ruysch's (Rome, 1507-8), and 
 repeated in the Ptolemies of 1513, 1522, 1525, 1535.
 
 Life of Amerigo Vespucci. xv 
 
 become useless. Then, sailing- homewards by way of the Azores, 
 they reached Lisbon on September 7, 1502. 
 
 Within the next six or eight months Vespucci seems to have 
 written at least two reports to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco dei Medici, 
 as the opening lines of the well-known Epistola (of which so many 
 editions of the Latin translation were printed in and after the year 
 1503-4) clearly show. It is probable that this Epistola concerning his 
 third voyage was written in Lisbon about the close of the year 1 502. 
 The Italian text has perished ; we only know it through the Latin 
 translation made by Fra Giovanni del Giocondo (first printed 
 perhaps in Paris in the year 1503, but of which the earliest 
 dated edition is that of Augsburg, 1504) ; and the Italian or 
 Venetian re-translation from the Latin (first printed in 1507 
 in the Paesi nuovamente retrovati). It is a curious circumstance, 
 whether ascribable to the negligence of Vespucci himself, writing 
 without his official notes (which were still in the hands of Dom 
 Manoel), or to the fortuitous similarity between American tribes 
 remote from each other, that the account given in the Epistola 
 of 1503 of the manners of the Indian men and women, seen 
 presumably in the third voyage, resembles very much that in the 
 Lettera of 1504 concerning the natives of Honduras or Yucatan, 
 seen in his first voyage. But this may be accounted for. The 
 Epistola is not professedly a record of a single voyage (Vespucci's 
 third) to the New World, but is written in somewhat general terms 
 regarding the whole of the Transatlantic continent. It is rather 
 an assemblage of notes regarding the tribes of the Western Hemi- 
 sphere than a detailed account of any particular voyage, although 
 its groundwork is the narrative of his most recent expedition to 
 the West. In any case, the Lettera is a document of infinitely more 
 value, for which it is evident the author had his note-books to work 
 from ; and it is decidedly more in the nature of a set of consecutive 
 reports of voyages than the Epistola^ which seems rather to be an 
 extract from the promised QUATTRO GlORNATE, or commonplace 
 book, of the author. The chief value of the Epistola, apart from
 
 XVI 
 
 Life of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 its interest as the first printed account of one of the early voyages 
 to the New World, lies in certain words of great significance by reason 
 of their date. Vespucci says (in 1 502-3, it is to be observed) : " Those 
 new countries which . . . we have sought and found: which it is 
 allowable to call tlie New World, since there has been amongst our ances- 
 tors no knowledge tliereof . . . and if some of them Jtave affirmed it to 
 be a continent, tJtey have for many reasons denied it to be a }iabitable 
 land. But that this opinion is false, and in everywise contrary to tJie 
 truth, this last navigation of mine has made clear, insomuch as I liave 
 found the continent in tJiat soutJiem division inhabited by more 
 numerous peoples and animals titan our Europe, or indeed Asia, or 
 Africa" This quotation suffices to prove that Vespucci already 
 knew, what no one else appears to have as yet imagined, that the 
 Western world was not only no part of Eastern Asia, but was a 
 large and totally distinct continent 
 
 In the following year six ships were fitted out for the discovery 
 of a passage by the west to Malacca. Such at least we can judge to 
 have been the intention of the expedition, although Vespucci, who 
 had command of one of the vessels, says nothing that can be clearly 
 understood to mean by tJie West. However, the direction taken by 
 the fleet, when they quitted the coast of Africa, makes it clear that 
 there was an expectation of finding a passage or strait in the same 
 direction in which Magellan afterwards succeeded (or perhaps by the 
 imaginary passage supposed to be formed by the yet unexplored 
 Plata river). Vespucci had less good-fortune in this voyage than in 
 the others, being separated from his admiral and returning with a 
 less brilliant record long before him. They left Lisbon on May 10, 
 1503 (perhaps this is a mistake for June 10), under the command 
 of Gonzalo Coelho, and having Juan Diaz de Solis (who like Vespucci 
 had entered the Portuguese service) amongst their pilots. After an 
 ineffectual attempt to land at Sierra Leone on the African coast, they 
 resumed their " proper course," and sailed across the Atlantic in a 
 south-westerly direction, reaching the lofty island of Fernando 
 Noronha on August 10. Here they had ill-luck, through the loss of
 
 Life of Amerigo Vespucci. xvii 
 
 the Admiral's ship, which struck upon a rock. He and his crew were 
 saved, the crew being distributed amongst those of the other vessels, 
 except that of Vespucci. The latter, on the contrary, was deprived 
 of the services of part of his men, who had been called away in his 
 boat to lend assistance at the time, and, while they were so absent, 
 he received orders to find a port in the island. He went forward, 
 found a port, and waited eight days, but the rest .of the fleet did not 
 arrive. At last he had sight of a sail and issued forth to meet it. 
 It was one of the associated vessels, and he then was informed of the 
 loss of the flagship, and that the others had proceeded on their 
 voyage without him. The two detached ships thenceforward kept 
 together, and, in accordance with the King's instructions providing 
 for such a contingency, made their way to Bahia de todos os Santos, 
 where it was supposed they would find the other vessels. There they 
 stayed for over two months, but none of their companions arrived. 
 Vespucci took for granted that they had been lost, and assigns all 
 the blame to the misconduct of the Admiral (Gonzalo Coelho). [He 
 could not know what we know now, that Coelho was very successful in 
 his voyage, and discovered great part of the coast of South America, 
 including Monte Video, the Rio de la Plata, the region of Buenos 
 Ayres, and other lands as far as the Gulf of St. Matias; being, however, 
 detained so long at one point on the coast that he only returned to 
 Lisbon with one of the ships of his fleet late in 1 506.] From Bahia, 
 Vespucci and his companion sailed south-west, and reached Cape 
 Frio (near Rio Janeiro). There they remained five months, built a 
 fort, and left a garrison of twenty-four men sufficiently provisioned 
 to hold it till relieved from Portugal. These twenty-four men were 
 that portion of the Admiral's crew which had been taken on board 
 the vessel now sailing with Vespucci. He and his comrade then set 
 sail for Europe, and after a voyage of seventy-seven days reached 
 Lisbon on June 18, 1504. 
 
 Thus having accomplished the four voyages described in his 
 Lcttera, he wrote the narrative which is here reproduced, dated Sep- 
 tember 4, 1504, and sent it to Soderini by the hands of Benvenuto
 
 xviii Life of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 di Domenico Benvenuti, apparently one of his fellow- voyagers. 
 Before long he threw up the service of Portugal, in which he had 
 never been sufficiently rewarded for his labours, and returned early 
 in 1505 to that of King Ferdinand. He was naturalised in Spain, 
 and seems at this time to have become a married man, being accepted 
 by a Spanish lady in spite of his fifty-three years of age and his 
 lack of fortune. The King, however, appointed him a ship's captain, 
 with a fixed salary, and seems to have designed to send him 
 with an expedition then being fitted out for a voyage in search of 
 the spice-lands. The construction of new ships caused a long and 
 tedious delay, and the result was that Vespucci never joined such an 
 expedition, if indeed it was undertaken. He made, however, two 
 more voyages to America : the fifth in 1 505 along the coasts of 
 Venezuela and the isthmus; and the sixth during 1507 (between 
 March and November), in company with Juan de la Cosa. In this 
 last voyage, they visited the isthmus and the shores of Central 
 America, and brought home a quantity of gold, for which they 
 received payment, and were also rewarded with honours. In 1508 
 the title of Piloto-Mayor was conferred upon Vespucci, and, with a 
 considerable salary, the office of Examiner-General of pilots. He 
 remained in the enjoyment of this post, which undoubtedly required 
 his presence continually in Spain, until his death on February 22, 
 1512. He left a widow and a great reputation behind him, but no 
 pecuniary fortune, and no children. His maps and his diaries 
 were bequeathed to his nephew Giovanni Vespucci, who was one 
 of his successors in the office of Royal Pilot, a position which he 
 seems to have forfeited by publishing in 1524 a map of the New 
 World. This map, now of the extremest rarity, was probably based 
 largely on the explorations of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 MR. MAJOR AND VESPUCCI'S FIRST VOYAGE. Mr. Major is about the only 
 person of our day who impugns, or seems to impugn, the veracity of Vespucci, and 
 who holds, or seems to hold, his first voyage a myth. His natural dislike to the 
 process of circumstances which gave to the New World the name of America 
 rather than that of Columbia has swollen into a sceva indignatio^ which in this
 
 Life of Amerigo Vespucci. xix 
 
 instance facit injuriam instead of versum. The gist and strength of his argument 
 lie in the following charges (collected from the " Select Letters of Columbus " and 
 " Prince Henry the Navigator "). 
 
 1. No assertion was made by Vespucci and his friends of any voyage to the 
 New World before that of 1499-1500, in which he accompanied Alonso de Ojeda, 
 until Columbus had been a year in his grave, and the false statement could be made 
 without fear of contradiction. 
 
 2. There is no reason to suppose that the Letter to Soderini was printed till 
 after the publication of the Cosmographiae Introductio at St. Die" in 1507, which 
 included Vespucci's account of his four voyages, in a Latin form. 
 
 Vespucci's letter to Lorenzo di Pietro de Medici was written admittedly 
 between September, 1502, and June, 1503; of its many editions in Latin and 
 German, some were undoubtedly printed in 1503* and one is dated Augsburg, 1504. 
 That letter received a wider circulation than any other of the early-printed docu- 
 ments relating to the New World. It would be idle to assume that its existence 
 was unknown to Columbus at any time between November, 1 504 (when he returned 
 to Spain for the last time), and May, 1506 (when he died). If that letter had 
 contained any false statement, prejudicial to his own just rights, Columbus would 
 not have described Vespucci as a true and cherished friend, as he did in a letter 
 to his son Diego dated February 5, 1505, in which he commended Vespucci to the 
 kind offices of the latter. Yet Vespucci at the beginning of his Medici letter, 
 speaks of " hec mea ultima navigatio " to the regions " quas Novum Mundum 
 appellare licet .... versus meridiem " ; and near the end we read the words " hoc 
 mea ultima navigatione quam appello diem tertiam. Nam alii duo diesfuerunt 
 due alie navigationes quas ex mandato Serenissimi Hispaniarum regis fed versus 
 occidentem." This plain statement, made and frequently published during the 
 life-time of Columbus, is in perfect agreement with the Letter to Soderini. In the 
 phrases dies tertius and duo alii dies, Vespucci alludes plainly to the note-book or 
 diary which, after his fourth voyage, he entitled his Quattro Giornate. Under 
 that name he describes it in the Soderini letter as containing in detail the daily 
 observations made during his four voyages, the first two to the West (in Spanish 
 service), the other two to the South (in the service of Portugal). At the time he 
 wrote the Medici letter (say in January, 1503), he says explicitly that he had in his 
 possession the diaries of the first two voyages, and that King Manoel still withheld 
 from him that of the third, for which reason he begs his patron to excuse the 
 imperfections in the account then sent him. Now, it is admitted that he made a 
 voyage to the New World between May, 1499, and September, 1500, and another 
 between May, 1501, and September, 1502, each occupying over sixteen months in 
 its accomplishment. Early in 1 503, he speaks of those two voyages as his second 
 and third, in a letter which was made known to all the world ; at the same time 
 referring to a first voyage which had been, like the second, a westerly one. (It 
 is not possible, as some might allege, that any similar voyage could have taken 
 place in the short interval between his return to Spain in September, 1500, and his
 
 xx Life of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 taking service with King Manoel early in 1501.) If we had no documentary know- 
 ledge of his first voyage, we might, judging from probabilities alone, assume that it 
 was also a sixteen-months' performance, concluded four or five months before 
 May, 1499, and therefore begun about August, 1497. This assumption, based 
 on rational conjecture only, would differ but by three months from his own account 
 that his first voyage occupied the seventeen months between May, 1497, and Octo- 
 ber, 1498. The facts must have been very well known to Columbus, and conse- 
 quently he made no protest or accusation of falsehood against Vespucci during 
 1504, 1505, and 1506, but on the contrary held the Florentine to be a worthy and 
 honourable navigator. So much for Mr. Major's No. I. 
 
 As for No. 2, it only needs the application of ordinary common sense. What- 
 ever special pleading might allege as to the want of proof that the Italian text of 
 the Soderini letter was not printed at a later date than the Cosmographia Iniro- 
 ductio of 1507, every unbiassed person must admit that the tert of a letter written 
 and sent in 1504 to the head of the Florentine Republic, and printed at Florence 
 (without a date) for a publisher who is known to have been at work there at least 
 as early as 1495-6, may be unhesitatingly considered to have preceded the 
 impression of a second-hand translation printed in Lorraine with the date 
 of 1507. A small circumstance gives corroboration to this natural assumption. 
 The name of Bahia appears in the Latin impression of 1507 as Abbatia omnium 
 sanctorum^ a ludicrous misnomer which might be supposed to have arisen from the 
 phrase " Labaye" (" La baye"), possibly found in the intermediate French trans- 
 lation now lost, but which is evidently derived from the typographical error in 
 the Florentine edition of the text, wherein the compositor had perverted the Bahia 
 of Vespucci's MS. into the Italian word Badia (Abbey). It is neither impossible 
 nor improbable that Columbus had read the Soderini letter in print before his 
 death.
 
 of 
 
 First Voyage, or Expedition of King Ferdinand (foitr ships, probably 
 under tJie command of Vincente Yanez Pinzon and Juan Diaz 
 de Solis, with Juan de la Cos a as Pilot}. 
 
 1497- 
 
 May 10. Started from Cadiz. 
 
 May 20-28. Reached the Canary Islands, where they stayed for 
 eight days. 
 
 July 4. Reached the coast of Honduras thirty-seven days 
 later, at 16 degrees north latitude, as Vespucci 
 says, but probably near Cape Gracias a Dios (or 
 about 15 degrees north latitude), on a difficult 
 coast, which he thought lay 75 degrees west of the 
 Canaries. It is really not much over 67 degrees. 
 
 July 6. Advanced north-west, and harboured two days later 
 in a safe anchorage (? near Cape Cameron, or some- 
 where in the Bay of Honduras). From Vespucci's 
 long and elaborate description of the people and 
 their customs, the fleet must have remained some 
 .considerable time on this coast.
 
 xxii Summary of Vespucci's Voyages. 
 
 1497. 
 
 ? August 6. Advancing again north-west, as he thought (really 
 north and by east), they coasted Yucatan, changing 
 their course according to the configuration of the 
 shore, and frequently landing, until they reached a 
 harbour, in which there was a village seated, " like 
 Venice," on the water. This must have been in 
 
 ? Sept. 10. Campeachy Bay, a little north of Tabasco (about 
 184 degrees north latitude). After some fighting 
 with the Indians, they went onwards next day, 
 coasting west and north-west for about 400 miles 
 
 ? Sept. 30. [he says about 80 leagues, or 320 miles], and reached 
 the province of Lariab (? Tampico, in Mexico), 
 23 degrees north latitude, where they found a 
 friendly race of Indians, who were cooking and 
 eating iguanas (which Vespucci describes as wingless 
 serpents, and which the sailors supposed to be 
 poisonous). The Spaniards baptised many of these 
 people, and were themselves designated Carabi 
 (which he says means wise men}. Vespucci and 
 others travelled into the interior, and from his 
 details they must have been a month at this place. 
 ? Nov. i. Starting again north-west, they coasted the shore for 
 870 leagues [naturally, although he does not say 
 so, changing the course according as the land 
 1498. trended], frequently touching on land, and at the 
 
 April 30. end of April [after having passed along the coasts 
 of Mexico and Louisiana, they reached Cape Sable, 
 i.e., Cabo do ffiin de Abril\ Turning the cape, 
 they advanced northward, and anchored in a fine 
 
 ? June 30. large bay, the utmost northern limit of their voyage. 
 This was presumably the Cabo del Mar Usiano 
 (probably Cape Hatteras, in North Carolina, 35 
 degrees north latitude), where they stopped thirty-
 
 ' Summary of Vespucci 's Voyages. 
 
 xxin 
 
 1498. 
 
 ? August 6. 
 
 ? August 13. 
 
 ? August 15. 
 
 seven days, refitting their vessels for the home 
 voyage. The natives were very friendly, and 
 asked the Spaniards to protect them from a tribe 
 which frequently came from islands across the sea 
 to plunder and slay. The Christians took seven of 
 the Indians with them as guides to the islands, and 
 sailed east and by north-east [infra greco e levante. 
 Quczre, error for infra siroco e levante, or east and by 
 south-east ?], for about 100 leagues across the ocean, 
 reaching, after seven days' sail, an archipelago 
 partly inhabited, on the chief island of which, 
 named Ity, they had severe fighting, which ended 
 by their carrying away 250 prisoners. They then 
 sent the seven Indians back, making them a present 
 of seven prisoners, and sailed for Spain, reaching 
 Cadiz on October 15, 1498. 
 
 ITY. The island of Ity is a problem which Varnhagen has solved, but not 
 very satisfactorily, by assuming that it referred to the Bermudas, and that the 
 expedition sailed thither from Cape Canaveral. This would explain the direction, 
 but not the distance (of 100 leagues, equal to 400 miles), and we can hardly suppose 
 that the Indian boatmen would have ventured much farther than 100 leagues 
 across the ocean. The distance is reduced to about 200 leagues, but the direc- 
 tion is altered if we suppose that they started from Cape Hatteras ; while it 
 becomes too enormous, although the direction would then be right, if we assume 
 that they went from Cape Canaveral. However, the difficulty is cleared if we 
 suppose that the word greco is, as suggested by Varnhagen, a typographical error 
 for siroco, in which case we might take it for granted that Vespucci sailed from 
 Cape Hatteras to the Bermudas, twenty-four years earlier than the supposed first 
 discovery of those islands. In any case, Vespucci's measurements and compass 
 were at fault ; but when we examine the map in the Strasburg Ptolemy of 1513) 
 derived, like that in the Rome Ptolemy of 1508, from the Charta marina Portugal- 
 lensium of 1 504, it is impossible to resist the conviction that Cape Hatteras was 
 the Cabo del Mar Usiano under which were inscribed the words " Hucusque naves 
 Ferdinandi Regis Hispaniae pervenerunt." The map seems, in fact, to derive in 
 almost every way from Vespucci himself, its northern limit on the American side 
 being evidently identical with the northern limit of his first voyage, and its South 
 American coast, on the other hand, being plainly traced from the record of his
 
 xxiv Summary of Vespucci s Voyages. 
 
 second, third, and fourth voyages, with the only exception that it does not show his 
 discovery of the island of South Georgia, What makes this more striking is the 
 mixture of languages in the 1513 map, the point of Florida being marked with a 
 Portuguese name (C. doffim de Abril), Cape St. Bonaventura with an Italian name, 
 and the rest in Spanish chiefly, with a few in Latin. It appears very probable that 
 the Charta marina was Vespucci's own map. As already pointed out, a mistake 
 made in the text of Vespucci, by the Florentine printer, is singularly repeated in the 
 New- World Chart which forms portion of all the Ptolemy maps of 1 507-8, 1513 (de- 
 signed in 1507), 1522, 1525, 1535, in regard toBahia. This port was discovered by 
 Vespucci and his fellows on November i, 1501, but he does not mention it byname 
 in the narrative of his third voyage ; merely allowing it to appear in the account of 
 his fourth voyage that "the port which they had discovered in the preceding 
 expedition and named Badia di tucti e sancti" was the appointed rendezvous for 
 the vessels in case of separation. On the map, as in Waldseemiiller's translation 
 of the Lettera, the Italian typographical error badia is turned into a Latin one, 
 Abbatia omnium sanctorum. Of course this might have simply arisen from the 
 circumstance that the editors of Ptolemy had before them in 1507 the printed 
 Lettera with its blunder of badia for bahia \baid\ but it is evident that only a 
 practical and experienced navigator had constructed the chart, which tacitly 
 corrects and supplements the defective statements of Vespucci, showing that his 
 specifications of courses of sailing chiefly refer to initial and not to continuous 
 movements. We have in any case a clear case of connexion between Vespucci 
 and the so-called " Admiral's " map (usually assigned to Columbus). A further 
 evidence appears on the text of the editorial observations in the Ptolemy of 1513, 
 for the originator of the map is there referred to as an Admiral of Ferdinand, 
 King of Portugal. This has been considered an error of oversight, not for 
 Manuel, King of Portugal, but for Ferdinand, King of Spain, and to refer to 
 Columbus, in accordance with the inscription in the same map on the South 
 American continent " Hec terra inventa est per Columbum Januensem ex man- 
 dato Regis Castelle " ; but it is probably an error only in the King's name. In 1 504, 
 when Vespucci probably drew the chart which was used for the Ptolemies, he 
 could be properly styled an Admiral (or Captain) in the service of the King of 
 Portugal, notwithstanding that his first and most important voyage was made 
 as a subordinate officer (? astronomer or hydrographer) in the service of Spain.
 
 Summary of Vespucci's Voyages. xxv 
 
 Second Voyage, also made in the Spanish Service (in a fleet of three 
 ships under tJie command of Alonso de Hojeda, with Juan de 
 la Cosa and Amerigo Vespucci as Pilots). 
 
 1499. 
 
 May 1 6. Departure from Cadiz. 
 
 Reached Fogo, one of the Cape Verde islands [there 
 is no valid reason for supposing, with Varnhagen, 
 that Vespucci meant Ferro, one of the Canaries], 
 whence, departing south-west, after a voyage of 
 June 27. forty-four days they reached, on June 27 [which, by 
 the way, gives only forty-two days for the voyage], 
 the American continent at 5 degrees of South 
 latitude, that is about 150 miles west and by 
 north of Cape St. Roque. Here Vespucci observed 
 that the days and nights were equal at that date. 
 The country being full of rivers and wholly inun- 
 dated, so that they could not land, their first 
 endeavour was to go east-south-east, but the current 
 off Cape St. Roque was so strong to the north-west 
 ? July 3-4. that they were obliged to turn again and sail with 
 it, after having proceeded east-south-east for some 
 40 leagues, probably approaching near the point of 
 Cape St. Roque. [Varnhagen remarks that the 
 equatorial currents are so powerful in that region 
 during the months of June and July that it is 
 extremely difficult even now to double Cape St. 
 Roque in a southerly direction.] With the wind 
 and the current they proceeded north-west, and 
 harboured in a deep bay with an island at its 
 mouth. Navarrete imagined that this referred
 
 xxvi Summary of Vespucci s Voyages. 
 
 1499. 
 
 to the mouth of the Maraflon or Amazon, and 
 Varnhagen supposed that it was the port of 
 Cayenne, mistakenly, as I think; but, reasoning 
 justly from the words of Vespucci, we can only con- 
 clude that the voyage was a long one to the north- 
 west from the inundated land above mentioned ; 
 and while there is no reason either to believe or to 
 doubt that the fleet may have touched in succession 
 at some of the points named, we cannot acknow- 
 ledge that there is really any allusion to them in 
 Vespucci's narrative. Varnhagen's usual acumen 
 seems to have failed him here. The first harbour 
 mentioned by Vespucci after the fleet had quitted 
 the region west of Cape St. Roque is the deep bay 
 with an island at its mouth which, from its form ? 
 could only refer to the mouth of the Amazon, or to 
 the great Gulf of Paria, in which lies the island of 
 Trinidad. In view of the subsequent transactions, 
 July 20-25. and judging also from the 1507-13 map, the last 
 must be the correct ascription. It was a very lengthy 
 run along the coast, but there is nothing in Vespucci's 
 words " tanto navicammo " to invalidate the con- 
 clusion to which we are led by concurrent testi- 
 mony. They had the winds and the waves in their 
 favour, and eighteen or twenty days of such sailing 
 would easily carry them so great a distance. In 
 the map above referred to we find the two 
 islands Trinidad and Tobago lying at the mouth of 
 the gulf, with the inscription, Ysla de los Canibales, 
 which may refer to either, and in his text Vespucci 
 calls the people (whether in allusion to the natives 
 of the island or of the mainland, but probably of the 
 former) Camballi or Caniballi, mentioning that his
 
 Summary of Vespucci's Voyages. xxvii 
 
 1499. 
 
 sailors saved four boys from being eaten. After a 
 vain attempt to make friends with these Caribs, 
 they penetrated further into the gulf, and har- 
 boured in a place where they stopped seventeen 
 days, and purchased by barter some pearls and 
 gold ; hearing at the same time of a hostile tribe 
 further west which possessed great numbers of 
 pearls, and practised pearl fishery. Departing 
 thence to return into the main sea again, and 
 quitting the gulf on the western side of the island 
 in the opposite way to that in which they had 
 entered it, they pursued their western course, and at 
 the end of several days, harboured to repair one of 
 the ships. Proceeding again, they came in sight of 
 ? August. the Island of St. Margaret, off the coast of Cumana 
 (on the map it is named Y. de Larapossa). Such 
 we may understand to have been the " island fifteen 
 leagues out to sea from the mainland." Thence 
 they proceeded to another island in which the 
 people were of such a stature that they named 
 it the Isle of Giants (Cura$ao). 
 
 After a dangerous encounter, and a somewhat igno- 
 minious retreat, they quitted that island, and 
 still went onwards, along the coast, finding the 
 Indians generally hostile and having to fight them 
 frequently. Judging from other sources of informa- 
 tion, Alonso de Hojeda and Juan de la Cosa must 
 have gone onward before the other two ships, which, 
 however, followed more slowly in the same direction. 
 It is, at least, certain that the flagship was wrecked, 
 and Hojeda sailed in a small boat for San Domingo, 
 September. where he arrived on September 5, 1499 ; while the 
 other two ships, in one of which Vespucci remained,
 
 XXV111 
 
 1499. 
 
 Summary of Vespucci's Voyages. 
 
 after having reached the point of Gallinas, sailed 
 back along the coast they had already explored, 
 and the leader had probably, at first, no intention of 
 following Hojeda to Haiti. In the course of the west- 
 wardly voyage, the Gulf of Maracaibo was discovered 
 (although Vespucci does not mention the fact). The 
 land here is marked on the 1513 map as a peninsula 
 between two bays (by which is meant the pro- 
 montory which forms the eastern boundary of the 
 Gulf of Venezuela), and is inscribed Arcaybacoia, in 
 which we can easily recognise [M~\aracayb[o\. 
 Having reached, as Vespucci says, 15 degrees 
 1500. (properly 13) north latitude (and 72 degrees west 
 
 January. longitude), and having been "about a year" (pro- 
 bably some ten months) at sea, the captains of the 
 two vessels began to think it was time to begin 
 a homeward course. In the hope, apparently, of 
 renewing their dealings with the natives of the 
 pearl-country, they made their way back along 
 the northern shores of South America. In this 
 return-voyage, which must have occupied a couple 
 of months, they met, while seeking a harbour to 
 Feb.-March. refit their vessels, with a friendly tribe of Indians, 
 from whom they obtained a great number of 
 pearls, by barter at an enormous advantage to the 
 Spaniards. This was at a cape (marked, on the 
 map already referred to, Cabo de las Per/as) off the 
 March. coast of Caracas, and opposite the island of St. 
 Margaret. Here they stopped forty-seven days, 
 and then sailed for San Domingo to re-victual their 
 May. ships ; reaching that island early in May. Their 
 leader Hojeda, who had arrived there eight months 
 earlier, and taken an active part in the mutiny of
 
 Summary of Vespucci's Voyages. xxix 
 
 1500. 
 
 the Spanish colonists against Columbus, was already 
 gone. Vespucci mentions the existing state of 
 things, and says briefly that envy was the cause of 
 it. The esteem in which Columbus afterwards held 
 him, seems to show that he must have joined the 
 party of his distressed and wronged compatriot 
 during the time he remained in the island (between 
 two and three months). He left San Domingo on 
 Sept. 8. July 22, and reached Cadiz on September 8, 1500. 
 
 NOTE. We observe by the account of the two preceding voyages, summing 
 the results together, that Vespucci had visited and coasted continuously the entire 
 shore of the New World from Cape Hatteras, or about 35 degrees north latitude, to 
 the coast of Brazil, 5 degrees south latitude, excepting only Nicaragua, Costa Rica, 
 the Isthmus, and New Granada. The next two voyages will appear to have been 
 confined to the South American coasts below Cape St. Roque (5 degrees south 
 latitude).
 
 xxx 
 
 Summary of Vespucci s Voyages. 
 
 Third Voyage, in the Service of Portugal (three ships, under t/ie 
 command of Dom Ntmo Manoel, in one of which Vespucci 
 was Captain), 
 
 1501. 
 
 May 10 or 14. They started from Lisbon, and navigated in sight of 
 the Canaries towards the coast of Africa, landing 
 and stopping eleven days at the port of Besechicce, 
 or Bezenique (Gore'e), 14^ degrees north latitude. 
 June 10. They then struck across the Atlantic, south-west 
 quarter by south, and in sixty-seven days, navi- 
 gating through exceptionally bad weather, they 
 made 700 leagues, and anchored off Cape St. Roque 
 August 17. in Brazil on August 17. They must have seen it 
 and named it on the day before, August 16 being 
 St. Roch's Day. After having lost three men by the 
 treachery of the Indians, they started southwards on 
 the 24th or 25th, and on (the 28th) St. Augustine's 
 Day saw and named the cape which is still called 
 after that saint. Still keeping the land in sight, 
 November i. they went further south, and on All Saints' Day 
 
 1 502- discovered and named BaJiia de todos os Santos ; 
 
 January i. on January i, the harbour of Rio Janeiro. When 
 they were 32 degrees south latitude (as Vespucci 
 indicates, perhaps by error for 37 or 38), or 38 
 degrees (as Humboldt calculated), which leaves it 
 uncertain whether they had reached the port of 
 Rio Grande in Uruguay, or Cape Antonio or Cape 
 Corrientes in Buenos Ayres, but in the latter case 
 would imply that they had missed the mouth of
 
 Summary of Vespucci 's Voyages. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 1501. 
 February 15. 
 
 April 7. 
 
 May 10. 
 
 August 15. 
 September 7. 
 
 La Plata* it was February 15. By Vespucci's 
 advice they then started out towards the south-east, 
 into the ocean, and only stopped when, on April 7, 
 they reached an island beyond 52 degrees of south 
 latitude. This was South Georgia (re-discovered in 
 1775 by Captain Cook, who believed himself the 
 first discoverer). Frightened by the dreadful storms, 
 the intense cold, and the gloom of the atmosphere, 
 they quickly turned again, and took a north-easterly 
 course, scudding for some days under bare poles 
 before the wind. On May 10 they reached Sierra 
 Leone. Thence, after some delay, they sailed to 
 the Azores, where they also stayed some time, and 
 on August 15 sailed for Lisbon, reaching that port 
 on September 7, 1502. 
 
 * It was perhaps the very northern point of the embouchure of Rio de la Plata, 
 and they may have thought they had reached the end of the continent, misled by 
 the enormous width of the river-mouth, and the sudden recession of the coast 
 westwards.
 
 XXX11 
 
 Summary of Vespucci's Voyages. 
 
 Fourth Voyage, in Hie Service of Portugal (six ships, in one of which 
 Vespucci was Captain, under the Admiralship of Gonzalo 
 Coellw]. 
 
 1503. 
 
 June 10. Vespucci says May, but it is evidently a mistake for 
 June. They started from Lisbon, went to Cape 
 Verde, staying there thirteen days, and thence 
 proceeded south-east. This was for the purpose 
 of touching at Sierra Leone, according to the 
 Admiral's desire, but much against that of Vespucci. 
 The ultimate object of the expedition was to reach 
 Malacca, which was understood to be the richest 
 emporium of the East ; and the intention evidently 
 was to seek it by a western passage, although 
 Vespucci does not clearly say so. [It is possible 
 that the place said to be 32 or 38 degrees of south 
 latitude, from which they quitted the American 
 continent in the third voyage, was really near 
 Monte Video, and about 34$ degrees south latitude, 
 thus allowing them to discover the great ex- 
 panse of water at the mouth of La Plata, and 
 leading them to believe they had reached the 
 southern end of the continent. In any case a 
 notion seems to have existed that the Plata was 
 the wished-for passage to the East which Columbus 
 and others had sought in vain.] So far as Vespucci 
 was concerned, he looked upon this voyage as a 
 failure, through the misconduct of the admiral. 
 Bad weather prevented them from landing at Sierra 
 Leone. They turned south-west, and after sailing 
 500 leagues (Vespucci says 300 erroneously, or by
 
 Summary of Vespucci's Voyages. 
 
 xxxin 
 
 1503- 
 
 a typographical error, for the "300" is in Arabic 
 numerals) came in sight of the island of Fernando 
 Noronha. He calls it Bad Island, for here the 
 August 10. Admiral lost his ship on a rock, on August 10. 
 The chief and his crew were saved, his men being 
 distributed among the other crews. Here, however, 
 the fleet was separated. Vespucci's ship harboured 
 alone in a part of that island, with only half his 
 crew (the rest having been called away in his boat 
 at the time of the disaster, and so entirely lost to 
 him). He was joined a few days later by one of 
 the other vessels, and the two sailed thenceforward 
 in company. Vespucci left Fernando Noronha and 
 sailed south-south-west for Bahia, where, by the 
 King's order, they had appointed a rendezvous in 
 such a case of separation as had taken place. They 
 waited at Bahia for over two months ; but, seeing 
 November. nothing of their companions, quitted that harbour, 
 under the impression that the other ships, which 
 had gone on with the Admiral, were all lost. 
 They next sailed 260 leagues southwardly and landed 
 1 53~4- a t Cape Frio, near Rio Janeiro. Here they stayed 
 
 Dec-April. five months, building a fort, in which they placed a 
 garrison of twenty-four men (part of the Admiral's 
 crew saved from the wreck at Fernando Noronha), 
 whom they furnished with weapons and ammuni- 
 tion, and provisions for six months. Varnhagen 
 discovered a document which proved that this fort 
 and garrison were still maintained by the Portuguese 
 in 1511, and therefore makes light of the discre- 
 pancies of latitude and longitude between Vespucci's 
 statement and the actual situation of Cape Frio. 
 He is probably right, and the Florentine printer
 
 xxx iv Summary of Vespucci's Voyages, 
 
 1504. 
 
 may be responsible for the change of 23 into 18 
 
 (south latitude), and 31 into 37 (longitude west of 
 
 Lisbon), mistakes easily made in the use of the 
 
 old Roman type with its indistinct Arabic numerals. 
 
 April 2. The two ships then sailed for Lisbon, making the 
 
 voyage north-north-west in seventy-seven days, and 
 
 June 1 8. reaching that port on June 18, 1504.
 
 T3?orb* tnenftoneb Bj> 
 
 Page 13. IUCA. This word, whether of Carib or Maya origin, was common to 
 the West Indian islands and the eastern shores of Central America ; 
 it probably represents the ioc of the word mandioc or manioc, which 
 was afterwards adopted as the general term for the bread-fruit found 
 to flourish within the tropics, from Brazil to Mexico. 
 
 This plant, juca or yuca, though frequently met with in the early 
 Spanish narratives, is mentioned in print for the first time in this 
 Lettera of Vespucci. 
 
 13. CAZABI. Vespucci says "another [root] which they call cazabi n j but 
 the cazabi, or caqabe, or cassave, is simply the flour which is made 
 into bread from thejruca or manioc. 
 
 This word, probably of Carib origin, was first found in San 
 Domingo, but was common also to the Carib populations which 
 lined the western coast of America, from Vera Cruz in Mexico to 
 the northern shores of Brazil. It appeared in print for the first time 
 in Vespucci's Lettera. 
 
 13. IGNAMI. This word, so well known in English as yam, a sort of potato, 
 has been assigned to an African origin. Even Varnhagen believed 
 that it had been imported into America by the negroes who 
 accompanied the early Spanish and Portuguese voyagers. In 
 1493, the root was called age, or ages, in Hispaniola, as is proved 
 by Doctor Chanca's Letter concerning Columbus's second voyage, 
 first printed by Navarrete. In Franck's Weltbuch of 1567, in the 
 passage where it occurs in the account of CabraPs voyage, translated 
 from the Paesi of 1 507, there is added in brackets, " Das sind rote 
 Wurzeln die die Negren oder Moren in Portugal sehr brauchen." 
 In an account of the island of St. Thomas (Gulf of Guinea) by an 
 anonymous Portuguese pilot (about 1545), given in Ramusio, we find 
 it stated that " igname is the San Thomd word for the root called 
 batata in Hispaniola." On the other hand, we have the following 
 facts in earlier chronological order : 
 
 In 1500, May I, Pedro Vaz de Caminha wrote, at Porto Seguro in 
 Brazil, the account of Cabral's discovery of the Terra Vera Crucis, a 
 few days before, which the latter sent home directly to King Manoel, 
 and which the King cites (in print for the first time) in his Letter 
 to the King of Castile (Copia di una Lettera, &c.), printed at Rome 
 in 1505. In the King's abstract, nothing is mentioned but the dis- 
 covery of Brazil. The text of the letter of Pedro Vaz was never 
 printed till 1826 (in the Noticias Ultramarinas of the Portuguese 
 Academy of Sciences), but its substance appeared in print for the 
 first time in the Paesi ritrovati of 1507, and there we find igname 
 used as an American word. In the original text of 1500-1826, it
 
 xxxvi American Words mentioned by Vespucci. 
 
 appears twice as inhame, and, although not specially stated to be a 
 native American word, nothing is said from which we should infer the 
 contrary. 
 
 In 1504 we find it in Vespucci's Lettera, and in 1507 in the Cosmo- 
 graphia, specified apparently as an American word, used by people 
 of Carib race. 
 
 In Fray Simon's Conquistas (1626) we find name without any 
 reference to its being a foreign word, and the word is iiambi in Ruiz 
 (1639) Dictionary of the Guarani language, which is related to the 
 Carib. 
 
 It may, therefore, be supposed that the word inhame, name, ihame, 
 iuhame, ignami, igname, yam, was introduced from America into 
 Africa, not vice versa, the thing itself being common to both con- 
 tinents ; and this is not invalidated by the fact that the name in 
 Hispaniola was ages. The Portuguese pilot who, half a century 
 afterwards, wrote the account of S. Thome' evidently did not know 
 that there was any difference between the batata and the inhame, but 
 the distinctness of the two varieties has been clearly pointed out by 
 several early writers on the botany of the West Indies. 
 
 Page 14. CANOA. "Canoes, which are a kind of boat." The word canoa ap- 
 peared in print for the first time in Columbus's letter of 1493 ; for the 
 second time in Vespucci's Lettera (1505). Like other Haytian words, 
 it was probably of Carib origin, and therefore in common use along 
 an enormous stretch of coast. 
 
 19. CARABI. "They called us Carabi, which means men of great wisdom." 
 So says Vespucci, who was unaware that the word Carib, Galib, Canib 
 [whence Cannibal} whether or not derived originally from the 
 Quiche-Maya root car, to fish, fishing, and thence fishermen implied, 
 in its use at that time by the milder people of the continent and of 
 some of the isles, a warrior, or a powerful and dreadful man. 
 ,, 19. LARIAB. This is said to be the name of a province, which we assume 
 to have been somewhere in the region of Vera Cruz in Mexico. The 
 form is distinctively Quiche, not Maya proper, as the r and ri, which 
 were customary in words of the former language, had been softened 
 into y in the parent speech. In Quiche and Maya alike, ab is a 
 plural termination, and sometimes the formal ending of an abstract 
 noun. It might be imagined that Vespucci meant Xalapa or 
 Jalapa, and that he wrote Cariab (for Caliab), altered by a typo- 
 graphical error to Lariab. But the truth is probably akin to the 
 circumstance from which the name of Yucatan arose (from the 
 Indian Tectitari), namely, that the Quiche natives misunderstood the 
 Spanish inquiry as to the name of the province, and answered in 
 their own speech, Lar ydb (Maya, Lay yaab, or lid yaab, "There is 
 much " ; there are many " ; or " behold, there are many."
 
 Better of (ftmerigo Bespucci 
 
 upon tfyt ie&e ntf&ty 
 
 O 
 
 founb in 
 fout 
 
 Woodcut representing a King throned and pointing with 
 his right liand, as if giving orders, on this side of a sea, 
 upon which three ships are floating ; tJie most distant of 
 the three manned with sailors and touching upon a shore 
 from which a crowd of natives are seen hurrying in flight 
 inland.
 
 of Qjtmeriijo Beepucci 
 |&o*>erim + (Bonfafonier of 
 
 of jfforence.] 
 
 to (pi 
 
 er 
 
 MAGNIFICENT Lord. After humble rever- 
 ence and due commendations, etc. It may 
 be that your Magnificence will be surprised 
 by \this conjunction of] my rashness and your cus- 
 tomary 1 wisdom, in that I should so absurdly bestir myself to write 
 to your Magnificence the present so-prolix letter : knowing [as I do~] 
 that your Magnificence is continually employed in high councils and 
 affairs concerning the good government of this sublime Republic. 
 And will hold me not only presumptuous, but also idly-meddlesome 
 in setting myself to write things, neither suitable to your station, 
 nor entertaining, and written in barbarous style, and outside of 
 every canon of polite literature: 2 but my confidence which I have 
 in your virtues and in the truth of my writing, which are things 
 [that] are not found written neither by the ancients nor by modern 
 writers, as your Magnificence will in the sequel perceive, makes me 
 bold. 3 The chief cause which moved [me] to write to you, was at 
 
 1 Varnhagen suggests that usada is a corruption of the Spanish osadia 
 (daring), but this would leave vostra savidoria inexplicable. 2 Humanitd,. 
 
 3 Here usato is certainly the Spanish osado, or the Portuguese ousado. 
 
 p. 2.
 
 4 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 the request of the present bearer, who is named Benvenuto Benvenuti 
 our Florentine [fellow-citizen], very much, as it is proven, your 
 Magnificence's servant, and my very good friend : who happening 
 to be here in this city of Lisbon, begged that I should make com- 
 munication to your Magnificence of the things seen by me in divers 
 regions of the world, by virtue of four voyages which I have made 
 in discovery of new lands : two by order of the King of Castile, 1 
 King Don Ferrando VI., across the great gulph of the Ocean-sea 
 towards the west : and the other two by command of the puissant 
 King Don Manuel King of Portugal, towards the south : Telling 
 me that your Magnificence would take pleasure thereof, and that 
 herein he hoped to do you service : wherefore I set me to do it : 
 because I am assured that your Magnificence holds me in the 
 number of your servants, remembering that in the time of our youth 
 I was your friend, and now [am your] servant : and \reinembcring 
 our\ going to hear the rudiments of grammar under the fair example 
 and instruction of the venerable monk friar of Saint Mark Fra 
 Giorgio Antonio Vespucci : whose counsels and teaching would to 
 p. 3. God that I had followed : for as saith Petrarch, I should be another 
 man than what I am. Howbeit soever, 2 I grieve not: because I 
 have ever taken delight in worthy matters: and although these 
 trifles of mine may not be suitable to your virtues, I will say to 
 you as said Pliny to Maecenas, you were sometime wont to take 
 pleasure in my prattlings : even though your Magnificence be con- 
 tinuously busied in public affairs, you will take some hour of 
 relaxation to consume a little time in frivolous or amusing things : 
 and as fennel is customarily given atop of delicious viands to fit 
 them for better digestion, so may you, for a relief from your so 
 heavy occupations, order this letter of mine to be read : so that 
 they 1 may withdraw you somewhat from the continual anxiety 
 and assiduous reflection upon public affairs: and if I shall be 
 
 1 This lack of precision with regard to Ferdinand's title may be compared 
 with similar carelessness on the early maps which refer to America. 
 
 2 Quomodo cunque sit. Vespucci affected a little Latin. " They " for " it."
 
 First Voyage. 5 
 
 prolix, I crave pardon, 1 my Magnificent Lord. Your Magnificence 
 shall know that the motive of my coming into this realm of Spain 
 was to traffic in merchandise : and that I pursued this intent 
 about four years : during which I saw and knew the inconstant 
 shiftings of Fortune : and how she kept changing those frail and 
 transitory benefits : and how at one time she holds man on the 
 summit of the wheel, and at another time drives him back from her, 
 and despoils him of what may be called his borrowed riches : so 
 that, knowing the continuous toil which man undergoes to win them, 
 submitting himself to so many anxieties and risks, I resolved to 
 abandon trade, and to fix my aim upon something more praise- 
 worthy and stable : whence it was that I made preparation for going 
 to see part 2 of the world and its wonders : and herefor the time and 
 place presented themselves most opportunely to me : which was that 
 the King Don Ferrando of Castile being about to despatch four ships 
 to discover new lands towards the west, I was chosen by his Highness 
 to go in that fleet to aid in making discovery : and we set out from 
 the port of Cadiz on the io 3 day of May 1497, and took our route 
 through the great gulph of the Ocean-sea : in which voyage we were 
 1 8 months [engaged}: and discovered much continental land and 
 innumerable islands, and great part of them inhabited : whereas 
 there is no mention made by the ancient writers of them : I believe, 
 because they had no knowledge thereof : for, if I remember well, I 
 have read in some one \pftkose writers] that he considered that this 
 Ocean-sea was an unpeopled sea : and of this opinion was Dante our 
 poet in the xxvi. chapter of the Inferno, where he feigns the death of 
 Ulysses : in which voyage I beheld things of great wondrousness, 
 as your Magnificence shall understand. As I said above, we left 
 the port of Cadiz four consort ships : 4 and began our voyage in a p. 4. 
 
 1 Veniam fiefo. 
 
 2 Parte is used by Vespucci as plural as well as singular, and consequently 
 this means properly " parts " or " various parts," as it appears in the Latin version. 
 
 3 The Latin version at the end of the Cosmographies Introductio has "20" 
 instead of " io." 4 Navi di conserua.
 
 6 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 direct course to the Fortunate Isles, which are called to-day la gran 
 Canaria, which are situated in the Ocean-sea at the extremity of 
 the inhabited west, [and] set in the third climate : over which the 
 North Pole has an elevation of 27 and a half degrees 1 beyond their 
 horizon: 2 and they are 280 leagues distant from this city of Lisbon, 
 by the wind between mezzo di and libeccio : 3 where we remained 
 eight days, taking in provision of water, and wood, and other neces- 
 sary things : and from here, having said our prayers, we weighed 
 anchor, and gave the sails to the wind, beginning our course to west- 
 ward, taking one quarter by south-west : 4 and so we sailed on till at 
 the end of 37 5 days we reached a land which we deemed to be a 
 continent : which is distant westwardly from the isles of Canary about 
 a thousand leagues beyond the inhabited region 6 within the torrid 
 zone: for we found the North Pole at an elevation of 16 degrees 
 above its horizon, 7 and [it was} westward, according to the shewing 
 of our instruments, 75 degrees from the isles of Canary : whereat we 
 anchored with our ships a league and a half from land : and we put 
 out our boats freighted with men and arms : we made towards the 
 land, and before we reached it, had sight of a great number of people 
 who were going along the shore : by which we were much rejoiced : 
 and we observed that they were a naked race : they shewed them- 
 selves to stand in fear of us : I believe [it was] because they saw us 
 clothed and of other appearance \tJtan their own] : they all withdrew 
 to a hill, and for whatsoever signals we made to them of peace and 
 of friendliness, they would not come to parley with us : so that, as 
 the night was now coming on, and as the ships were anchored in a 
 dangerous place, being on a rough and shelterless coast, we decided 
 
 1 The Latin has " 27$." 
 
 That is, -which are situate at YJ\ degrees north latitude. 
 
 3 South-south-west. It is to be remarked that Vespucci always uses the word 
 -wind to signify the course in which it blows, not the quarter from which it rises. 
 
 4 West and a quarter by south-west. Latin has 27. 
 
 This phrase is merely equivalent to a repetition oifrom the Canaries, these 
 islands having been already designated the extreme western limit of inhabited 
 land - 7 That is, 16 degrees north latitude.
 
 First Voyage. 7 
 
 to remove from there the next day, and to go in search of some 
 harbour or bay, where we might place our ships in safety : and we 
 sailed with the maestrale wind, 1 thus running along the coast with 
 the land ever in sight, continually in our course observing people 
 along the shore : till after having navigated for two days, we found a 
 place sufficiently secure for the ships, and anchored half a league 
 from land, on which we saw a very great number of people : and 
 this same day we put to land with the boats, and sprang on shore 
 full 40 men in good trim : and still the land's people appeared shy of 
 converse with us, and we were unable to encourage them so much as 
 to make them come to speak with us : and this day we laboured so 
 greatly in giving them of our wares, such as rattles and mirrors, 
 beads, 2 spalline, and other trifles, that some of them took confidence p. 5. 
 and came to discourse with us : and after having made good friends 
 with them, the night coming on, we took our leave of them and re- 
 turned to the ships : and the next day when the dawn appeared we 
 saw that there were infinite numbers of people upon the beach, and 
 they had their women and children with them : we went ashore, and 
 found that they were all laden with their worldly goods 8 which are 
 suchlike as, in its [proper] place, shall be related : and before we 
 reached the land, many of them jumped into the sea and came 
 swimming to receive us at a bowshot's length [from the shore}, for 
 they are very great swimmers, with as much confidence as if they 
 had for a long time been acquainted with us : and we were pleased 
 with this their confidence. For so much as we learned of their 
 manner of life and customs, it was that they go entirely naked, as 
 well the men as the women, without covering any shameful part, not 
 otherwise than when they issued from their mother's womb. They 
 are of medium stature, very well proportioned : their flesh is of a 
 
 1 North-west. Latin has vento secundum collem. 
 
 * The word is cents, supposed to be a misprint for conte, an Italianised form of 
 the Spanish cuentas. Spalline is a word not given in the dictionaries. The Latin 
 translator seems to have read the original as certe cristalline, 
 
 3 Mantenimenti. The word " all " (tucte) is feminine, and probably refers only 
 to the women.
 
 8 
 
 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 colour that verges into red like a lion's mane: and I believe that if 
 they went clothed, they would be as white as we : they have not any 
 hair upon the body, except the hair of the head which is long and 
 black, and especially in the women, whom it renders handsome : in 
 aspect they are not very good-looking, because they have broad 
 faces, so that they would seem Tartar-like: they let no hair grow 
 on their eyebrows, nor on their eyelids, nor elsewhere, except the 
 hair of the head : for they hold hairiness to be a filthy thing : they 
 are very light-footed in walking and in running, as well the men as 
 the women : so that a woman recks nothing of running a league or 
 two, as many times we saw them do : and herein they have a very 
 great advantage over us Christians : they swim [with an cxpertness\ 
 beyond all belief, and the women better than the men : for we have 
 many times found and seen them swimming two leagues out at sea 
 without any thing to rest upon. Their arms are bows and arrows 
 very well made, save that \tJte arrows] are not [tipped] with iron nor 
 any other kind of hard metal : and instead of iron they put animals' 
 or fishes' teeth, or a spike of tough wood, with the point hardened 
 by fire: they are sure marksmen, for they hit whatever they aim 
 at : and in some places the women use these bows : they have 
 other weapons, such as fire-hardened spears, and also clubs with 
 knobs, beautifully carved. Warfare is used amongst them, which 
 they carry on against people not of their own language, very 
 cruelly, without granting life to any one, except [to reserve him] for 
 P. 6. greater suffering. When they go to war, they take their women with 
 them, not that these may fight, but because they carry behind them 
 their worldly goods : for a woman carries on her back for thirty or 
 forty leagues a load which no man could bear: as we have many 
 times seen them do. They are not accustomed to have any Captain, 
 nor do they go in any ordered array, for every one is lord of himself : 
 and the cause of their wars is not for lust of dominion, nor of 
 extending their frontiers, nor for inordinate covetousness, but for 
 some ancient enmity which in by-gone times arose 1 amongst them : 
 1 The expression in the original is e suta, an error for surta.
 
 First Voyage. 9 
 
 and when asked why they made war, they knew not any other 
 reason to give us than that they did so to avenge the death of their 
 ancestors, or of their parents : these people have neither King, nor 
 Lord, nor do they yield obedience to any one, for they live in their 
 own liberty : and how they be stirred up to go to war is \this\ that 
 when the enemies have slain or captured any of them, his oldest 
 kinsman rises up and goes about the highways haranguing them to 
 go with him and avenge the death of such his kinsman : and so are 
 they stirred up by fellow-feeling : they have no judicial system, nor 
 do they punish the ill-doer : nor does the father, nor the mother 
 chastise the children: and marvellously [seldom} or never did we 
 see any dispute among them : in their conversation they appear 
 simple, and they are very cunning and acute in that which concerns 
 them : x they speak little and in a low tone : they use the same 
 articulations as we, since they form their utterances either with the 
 palate, or with the teeth, or on the lips : 2 except that they give 
 different names to things. Many are the varieties of tongues : for 
 in every 100 leagues we found a change of language, so that they are 
 not understandable each to the other. The manner of their living 
 is very barbarous, for they do not eat at certain hours, and as often- 
 times as they will : and it is not much of a boon to them that the 
 will may come more at midnight than by day, for they eat at all 
 hours : 3 and they eat upon the ground without a table-cloth or any 
 other cover, for they have their meats either in earthen basins which 
 they make themselves, or in the halves of pumpkins : they sleep in 
 certain very large nettings made of cotton, 4 suspended in the air : 
 and although this their [fashion of] sleeping may seem uncomfort- 
 
 1 Che loro cuple. The Spanish word complir, with the sense of being impor- 
 tant or suitable. 
 
 2 He means that they have no sounds in their language unknown to European 
 organs of speech, all being either palatals or dentals or labials. 
 
 s The words from " and it is not much " down to " at all hours " omitted in the 
 Latin. I have translated " et non si da loro molto " as " it is not much of a boon 
 to them," but it may be " it matters not much to them." 
 
 4 Bambacia. 
 
 C
 
 p. 7. 
 
 I0 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 able, I say that it is sweet to sleep in those [nettings] : and we slept 
 better in them than in the counterpanes. They are a people smooth 
 and clean of body, because of so continually washing themselves as 
 they do : when, saving your reverence, they evacuate the stomach 
 they do their utmost not to be observed: and as much as in this 
 they are cleanly and bashful, so much the more are they filthy and 
 shameless in making water: since, while standing speaking to us, 
 without turning round or shewing any shame, they let go their 
 nastiness, for in this they have no shame : there is no custom of 
 marriages amongst them : each man takes as many women as he 
 lists: and when he desires to repudiate them, he repudiates them 
 without any imputation of wrong-doing to him, or of disgrace to the 
 woman : for in this the woman has as much liberty as the man : 
 they are not very jealous and are immoderately libidinous, and the 
 women much more so than the men, so that for decency I omit to 
 tell you the artifice they practice to gratify l their inordinate lust : 
 they are very prolific women, and do not shirk any work during 
 their pregnancies : and their travails in childbed are so light that, a 
 single day after parturition, they go abroad everywhere, and especially 
 to wash themselves in the rivers, and are \tJten\ as sound and healthy 
 as fishes : they are so void of affection and cruel, that if they be 
 angry with their husbands they immediately adopt an artificial 
 method by which the embryo is destroyed in the womb, and procure 
 abortion, and they slay an infinite number of creatures by that 
 means : they are women of elegant persons very, well proportioned, 
 so that in their bodies there appears no ill-shaped part or limb : and 
 although they go entirely naked, they are fleshy women, and, of 
 their sexual organ, that portion which he who has never seen it may 
 imagine, is not visible, for they conceal with their thighs every- 
 thing except that part for which nature did not provide, which is, 
 speaking modestly, the pectignone. 2 In fine, they have no shame 
 of their shameful parts, any more than we have in displaying 
 the nose and the mouth : it is marvellously [rare] that you shall 
 1 In the original, contar for contentar. ' Bigger bosom, tnons Vcneris.
 
 First Voyage. 11 
 
 see a woman's paps hang lowj or her belly fallen in by too much 
 childbearing, or other wrinkles, for they all appear as though 
 they had never brought forth children : they shewed themselves 
 very desirous of having connexion with us Christians. Amongst 
 those people we did not learn that they had any law, nor can 
 they be called Moors nor Jews, and \tJtey are] worse than pagans : 
 because we did not observe that they offered any sacrifice : nor 
 even * had they a house of prayer : their manner of living I judge 
 to be Epicurean : their dwellings are in common : and their houses 
 [are] made in the style of huts, 3 but strongly made, and constructed 
 with very large trees, and covered over with palm-leaves, secure 
 against storms and winds : and in some places \tJtey are] of so 
 great breadth and length, that in one single house we found there 
 were 600 souls : and we saw a village of only thirteen 3 houses where 
 there were four thousand* souls: every eight or ten years 5 they p. 
 change their habitations : and when asked why they did so : [they 
 said it was] because of the soil 6 which, from its filthiness, was already 
 unhealthy and corrupted, and that it bred aches in their bodies, 
 which seemed to us a good reason : their riches consist of birds' 
 plumes of many colours, or of rosaries 7 which they make from 
 fishbones, or of white or green stones which they put in their cheeks 
 and in their lips and ears, and of many other things which we in no 
 wise value : they use no trade, they neither buy nor sell. In fine, 
 they live and are contented with that which nature gives them. The 
 wealth that we enjoy in this our Europe and elsewhere, such as gold, 
 jewels, pearls, and other riches, they hold as nothing : and although 
 they have them in their own lands, they do not labour to obtain 
 them, nor do they value them. They are liberal in giving, for it is 
 
 1 Nee etiam non. 
 
 * Waldseemiiller has "bell-towers," having misread cantfane for capanne, huts 
 or cabins. 
 
 3 Latin has eight. 4 Latin, ten thousand. * Latin has seven for ten. 
 
 6 Suolo, the ground or flooring, which Waldseemuller absurdly misread sole, 
 the sun. Varnhagen, no less strangely, translates it " the atmosphere." 
 
 7 Paternostrini.
 
 1 2 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 rarely they deny you anything : and on the other hand, liberal in 
 asking, when they shew themselves your friends : the greatest sign of 
 friendship which they shew you is that they give you their wives 
 and their daughters, and a father or a mother deems himself [or 
 /terse//] highly honored, when they bring you a daughter, even though 
 she be a young virgin, if you sleep with her : and hereunto they use 
 every expression of friendship. When they die, they use divers 
 manners of obsequies, and some they bury with water and victuals at 
 their heads : thinking that they shall have [whereof} to eat : they have 
 not nor do they use ceremonies of torches > nor of lamentation. In 
 some other places, they use the most barbarous and inhuman burial, 2 
 which is that when a suffering or infirm [person] is as it were at the 
 last pass of death, his kinsmen carry him into a large forest, and 
 attach one of those nets; of theirs, in which they sleep, to two 
 trees, and then put him in it, and dance around him for a whole day : 
 and when the night comes on they place at his bolster, water with 
 other victuals, so that he may be able to subsist for four or six days : 
 and then they leave him alone and return to the village : and if the 
 sick man helps himself, and eats, and drinks, and survives, he returns 
 to the village, and his [friends] receive him with ceremony : but few 
 are they who escape : without receiving any further visit they die, 
 and that is their sepulture : and they have many other customs 
 which for prolixity are not related. They use in their sicknesses 
 p. 9. various forms of medicines, 3 so different from ours that we marvelled 
 how any one escaped : for many times I saw that with a man sick of 
 fever, when it heightened upon him, they bathed him from head to 
 foot with a large quantity of cold water : then they lit a great fire 
 around him, making him turn and turn again every two hours, until 
 they tired him and left him to sleep, and many were [thus] cured : 
 with this they make much use of dieting, for they remain three days 
 without eating, and also of blood-letting, but not from the arm, only 
 
 1 Lumi, lights, tapers, candles, as in Catholic ceremonies 
 
 2 Interramento is the word, but he means only "funeral rite." 
 
 3 That is, " medical treatment."
 
 First Voyage. 13 
 
 from the thighs and the loins and the calf of the leg : also they 
 provoke vomiting with their herbs which are put into the mouth : 
 and they use many other remedies which it would be long to relate : 
 they are much vitiated in the phlegm and in the blood because of 
 their food which consists chiefly of roots of herbs, and fruits and fish : 
 they have no seed of wheat nor other grain : and for their ordinary 
 use and feeding, they have a root of a tree, from which they make 
 flour, tolerably good, and they call it luca, and another which they 
 call Cazabi, and another Ignami : l they eat little flesh except human 
 flesh : for your Magnificence must know that herein they are so 
 inhuman that they outdo every custom [even] of beasts : for they eat 
 all their enemies whom they kill or capture, as well females as males 
 with so much savagery, that \merely\ to relate it appears a horrible 
 thing : how much more so to see it, as, infinite times and in many 
 places, it was my hap to see it : and they wondered to hear us say 
 that we did not eat our enemies : and this your Magnificence may 
 take for certain, that their other barbarous customs are such that 
 expression is too weak for the reality : and as in these four voyages 
 I have seen so many things diverse from our customs, I prepared to 
 write a common-place-book 2 which I name LE QUATTRO GIORNATE: 
 in which I have set down the greater part of the things which I saw, 
 sufficiently in detail, so far as my feeble wit has allowed me : which 
 I have not yet published, because I have so ill a taste for my own 
 things that I do not relish those which I have written, notwith- 
 standing that many encourage me to publish it : therein everything 
 will be seen in detail : so that I shall not enlarge further in this 
 chapter : as in the course of the letter we shall come to many other 
 things which are particular : let this suffice for the general. At this 
 beginning, we saw nothing in the land of much profit, except some 
 show of gold : I believe the cause of it was that we did not know the 
 language : but in so far as concerns the situation and condition of 
 the land, it could not be better : we decided to leave that place, and 
 
 1 luca, Cazabi, Ignami. See reference to these words in the preliminary 
 notice. 2 Zibaldone, miscellany, omnium-gat 'herum.
 
 14 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 p. 10. t go further on, continuously coasting the shore : upon which we 
 made frequent descents, and held converse with a great number of 
 people : and at the end of some days we went into a harbour where 
 we underwent very great danger : and it pleased the Holy Ghost to 
 save us : and it was in this wise. We landed in a harbour, where we 
 found a village built like Venice upon the water : there were about 44 
 large dwellings in the form of huts erected upon very thick piles, 1 and 
 they had their doors or entrances in the style of drawbridges : and from 
 each house one could pass through all, by means of the drawbridges 
 which stretched from house to house : and when the people thereof 
 had seen us, they appeared to be afraid of us, and immediately drew 
 up all the bridges : and while we were looking at this strange action, 
 we saw coming across the sea about 22 canoes, which are a kind of 
 boats of theirs, constructed from a single tree : which came towards 
 our boats, as they had been surprised by our appearance and clothes, 
 and kept wide of us : and thus remaining, we made signals to them 
 that they should approach us, encouraging them with every token oi 
 friendliness : and seeing that they did not come, we went to them, 
 and they did not stay for us, but made to the land, and, by signs, 
 told us to wait, and that they should soon return : and they went to 
 a hill in the background, 8 and did not delay long: when they 
 returned, they led with them 16 of their girls, and entered with these 
 into their canoes, and came to the boats : and in each boat they put 
 4 of the girls. That we marvelled at this behaviour your Magnifi- 
 cence can imagine how much, and they placed themselves with their 
 canoes among our boats, coming to speak with us : insomuch that 
 we deemed it a mark of friendliness : and while thus engaged, we 
 beheld a great number of people advance swimming towards us 
 across the sea, who came from the houses : and as they were drawing 
 near to us without any apprehension : just then there appeared at 
 
 1 Waldseemuller has 20 instead of 44, and repeats his error of "bell-towers" 
 for "huts." 
 
 * Varnhagen says "went straight to land," evidently mistaking drieto (dietro) 
 for drieto, and ignoring monte.
 
 First Voyage. 15 
 
 the doors of the houses certain old women, uttering very loud cries 
 and tearing their hair to exhibit grief: whereby they made us 
 suspicious, and we each betook ourselves to arms : and instantly the 
 girls whom we had in the boats, threw themselves into the sea, and 
 the men of the canoes drew away from us, and began with their 
 bows to shoot arrows at us : and those who were swimming each 
 carried a lance held, as covertly as they could, beneath the water : 
 so that, recognizing the treachery, we engaged with them, not merely 
 to defend ourselves, but to attack them vigorously, and we over- 
 turned with our boats many of their almadie or canoes, for so they 
 call them, we made a slaughter [of them\, and they all flung 
 themselves into the water to swim, leaving their canoes abandoned, 
 with considerable loss on their side, they went swimming away to p. n. 
 the shore : there died of them about 1 5 or 20, and many were left 
 wounded : and of ours 5 were wounded, and all, by the grace of 
 God, escaped [deatJt\ : we captured two of the girls and two men : J 
 and we proceeded to their houses, and entered therein, and in them 
 all we found nothing else than two old women and a sick man : we 
 took away from them many things, but of small value : and we 
 would not burn their houses, because it seemed to us [as though that 
 would be] a burden upon our conscience : and we returned to our 
 boats with five prisoners : and betook ourselves to the ships, and put 
 a pair of irons on the feet of each of the captives, except the little 
 girls : and when the night came on, the two girls and one of the men 
 fled away in the most subtle manner possible : and next day we 
 decided to quit that harbour and go further onwards : we proceeded 
 continuously skirting the coast, [untU] we had sight of another 
 tribe distant perhaps some 80 leagues from the former tribe : and we 
 found them very different in speech and customs : we resolved to 
 cast anchor, and went ashore with the boats, and we saw on the 
 beach a great number of people amounting probably to 4000 souls : 
 and when we had reached the shore, they did not stay for us, and 
 
 1 Two men : the Latin has three, which agrees better with the mention of 
 five prisoners, a little lower down.
 
 r 6 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 betook themselves to flight through the forests, abandoning their 
 things: we jumped on land, and took a pathway that led to the 
 forest : and at the distance of a bow-shot we found their tents, where 
 they had made very large fires, and two [of them} were cooking their 
 victuals, and roasting several animals, and fish of many kinds : where 
 we saw that they were roasting a certain animal which seemed to be 
 a serpent, save that it had no wings, 1 and was in its appearance so 
 loathsome that we marvelled much at its savageness : Thus went we 
 on through their houses, or rather tents, and found many of those 
 serpents alive, and they were tied by the feet and had a cord around 
 their snouts, so that they could not open their mouths, as is done 
 [in Europe} with mastiff-dogs so that they may not bite : they were of 
 such savage aspect that none of us dared to take one away, thinking 
 that they were poisonous : they are of the bigness of a kid, and in 
 length an ell and a half: 3 their feet are long and thick, and armed 
 with big claws : they have a hard skin, and are of various colours : 
 they have the muzzle and face of a serpent: and from their snouts there 
 rises a crest like a saw which extends along the middle of the back 
 as far as the tip 8 of the tail : in fine we deemed them to be serpents 
 and venomous, and [nevert/teless, those people} ate them : we found 
 that they made bread out of little fishes which they took from the 
 sea, first boiling them, [then} pounding them, and making thereof 
 a paste, or bread, and they baked them on the embers : thus did 
 p. 12. they eat them : we tried it, and found that it was good : they had 
 so many other kinds of eatables, and especially of fruits and roots, 
 that it would be a large matter to describe them in detail : and 
 seeing that the people did not return, we decided not to touch nor 
 take away anything of theirs, so as better to reassure them : and we 
 left in the tents for them many of our things, placed where they 
 should see them, and returned by night to our ships : and the next 
 
 1 Alia wings or fins. Vespucci must have been thinking of the fabulous 
 dragon. * Braccia e mezo. This animal was the iguana. 
 
 * Sommitd. in original, which might mean the root of the tail ; but the transla- 
 tion given is the correct one.
 
 First Voyage. 17 
 
 day, when it was light, we saw on the beach an infinite number of 
 people : and we landed : and although they appeared timorous 
 towards us, they took courage nevertheless to hold converse with us, 
 giving us whatever we asked of them : and shewing themselves very 
 friendly towards us, they told us that those were their dwellings, and 
 that they had come hither for the purpose of fishing : and they 
 begged that we would visit their dwellings and villages, because 
 they desired to receive us as friends : and they engaged in 
 such friendship because of the two captured men whom we had 
 with us, as these were their enemies : insomuch that, in view of 
 such importunity on their part, holding a council, we determined 
 that 28 of us Christians in good array should go with them, and 
 in the firm resolve to die if it should be necessary : and after 
 we had been here some three days, we went with them inland : 
 and at three leagues from the coast we came to a village of many 
 people and few houses, for there were no more than nine \pf these\ : 
 where we were received with such and so many barbarous ceremonies 
 that the pen suffices not to write them down : for there were dances, 
 and songs, and lamentations mingled with rejoicing, and great 
 quantities of food : and here we remained the night : where they 
 offered us their women, so that we were unable to withstand them : 
 and after having been here that night and half the next day, so great 
 was the number of people who came wondering to behold us that 
 they were beyond counting : and the most aged begged us to go with 
 them to other villages which were further inland, making display of 
 doing us the greatest honour : wherefore we decided to go : and it 
 would be impossible to tell you how much honour they did us : and 
 we went to several villages, so that we were nine days journeying, 
 so that our Christians who had remained with the ships were already 
 apprehensive concerning us : and when we were about 1 8 leagues in 
 the interior of the land, we resolved to return to the ships : and on 
 our way back, such was the number of people, as well men as women, 
 that came with us as far as the sea, that it was a wondrous thing : 
 and if any of us became weary of the march, they carried us in their 
 
 D
 
 jg Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 nets very refreshingly : and in crossing the rivers, which are many 
 and very large, they passed us over by skilful means so securely that 
 p. 13- we ran no danger whatever, and many of them came laden with the 
 things which they had given us, which consisted in their sleeping-nets, 
 and very rich feathers, many bows and arrows, innumerable popin- 
 jays 1 of divers colours : and others brought with them loads of their 
 household goods, and of animals : but a greater marvel will I tell 
 you, that, when we had to cross a river, he deemed himself lucky who 
 was able to carry us on his back : and when we reached the sea, 
 our boats having arrived, we entered into them : and so great was 
 the struggle which they made to get into our boats, and to come to 
 see our ships, that we marvelled \tliereaf\ : and in our boats we took 
 as many of them as we could, and made our way to the ships, and so 
 many \ptlters\ came swimming that we found ourselves embarrassed 
 in seeing so many people in the ships, for there were over a thousand 
 persons all naked and unarmed : they were amazed by our [nautical] 
 gear and contrivances, and the size of the ships : and with them 
 there occurred to us a very laughable affair, which was that we 
 decided to fire off some of our great guns, 2 and when the explosion 
 took place, most of them through fear cast themselves [into the sea] 
 to swim, not otherwise than frogs on the margins of a pond, when 
 they see something that frightens them, will jump into the water, just 
 so did those people : and those who remained in the ships were so 
 terrified that we regretted our action : however we reassured them by 
 telling them that with those arms we slew our enemies : and when 
 they had amused themselves in the ships the whole day, we told 
 them to go away because we desired to depart that night, and so 
 separating from us with much friendship and love, they went away 
 to land. Amongst that people and in their land, I knew and beheld 
 so many of their customs and ways of living, that I do not 
 care to enlarge upon them : for Your Magnificence must know 
 that in each of my voyages I have noted the most wonderful 
 things, and I have indited it all in a volume after the manner of a 
 
 1 Pappagalli, perroquets. J Artiglierie.
 
 First Voyage. 19 
 
 geography: and I intitle it LE QUATTRO GlORNATE: in which work 
 the things are comprised in detail, and as yet there is no copy of it 
 given out, as it is necessary for me to revise it. 1 This land is very 
 populous, and full of inhabitants, and of numberless rivers, [and] 
 animals: few [of which] resemble ours, excepting lions, panthers, 
 stags, pigs, goats, and deer: 3 and even these have some dissimilarities 
 of form : they have no horses nor mules, nor, saving your reverence, 
 asses nor dogs, nor any kind of sheep or oxen : but so numerous are 
 the other animals which they have, and all are savage, and of none 
 do they make use for their service, that they could not be counted. 
 What shall we say of others [suc/t as] birds ? which are so numerous, JJ- H- 
 and of so many kinds, and of such various-coloured plumages, that it / 
 is a marvel to behold them. The soil is very pleasant and fruitful, I 
 full of immense woods and forests : and it is always green, for the \ 
 foliage never drops off. The fruits are so many that they are / 
 numberless and entirely different from ours. This land is within the 
 torrid zone, close to or just under the parallel described by the Tropic 
 of Cancer : where the pole of the horizon has an elevation of 23 
 degrees, at the extremity of the second climate. 3 Many tribes came 
 to see us, and wondered at our faces and our whiteness : and they 
 asked us whence we came : and we gave them to understand that we 
 had come from heaven, and that we were going to see the world, and 
 they believed it. In this land we placed baptismal fonts, and an 
 infinite [number of] people were baptized, and they called us in their 
 language Carabi, which means men of great wisdom. We took our 
 departure from that port : and the province iscalled Lariab : and we 
 navigated along the coast, always in sight of land, until we had 
 run 870 leagues of it, still going in the direction of the maestrale 
 [north-west] making in our course many halts, and holding inter- 
 
 1 Conferirla. 
 
 1 In the text the colon follows " few," which alters the sense considerably, and 
 makes the statement run thus, " Numberless rivers and few animals : they 
 resemble ours," &c. ; but the real intention is evidently better conveyed by adding 
 the words in brackets, and displacing the colon in question. 
 
 3 That is, 23 degrees north latitude.
 
 20 
 
 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 course with many peoples : and in several places we obtained gold 
 by barter but not much in quantity, for we had done enough in 
 discovering the land and learning that they had gold. We had now 
 been thirteen months on the voyage : and the vessels and the 
 tackling were already much damaged, and the men worn out by 
 fatigue : we decided by general council to haul our ships on land 
 and examine them for the purpose of stanching leaks, 1 as they made 
 much water, and of caulking and tarring them afresh, and [then] 
 returning towards Spain : and when we came to this deter- 
 mination, we were close to a harbour the best in the world : into 
 which we entered with our vessels: where we found an immense 
 number of people : who received us with much friendliness : and on 
 the shore we made a bastion 2 with our boats and with barrels and 
 casks, and our artillery, which commanded every point : s and our 
 ships having been unloaded and lightened, 4 we drew them upon land, 
 and repaired them in everything that was needful : and the land's 
 people gave us very great assistance : and continually furnished us 
 with their victuals : so that in this port we tasted little of our own, 
 which suited our game well : 5 for the stock of provisions which we 
 had for our return-passage was little and of sorry kind : where 
 [i.e., t/iere] we remained 37 days : and went many times to their 
 villages ? where they paid us the greatest honour : and [now] 
 desiring to depart upon our voyage, they made complaint to us how 
 at certain times of the year there came from over the sea to this their 
 land, a race of people very cruel, and enemies of theirs : and \w/io\ by 
 p. 15. means of treachery or of violence slew many of them, and ate them : 
 and some they made captives, and carried them away to their 
 houses, or country : and how they could scarcely contrive to defend 
 
 1 Stancharle (? stagnarle). 
 
 8 Fort or barricade. The Latin misreads k " a new boat." 
 
 3 Che giocavano per tucto. 
 
 4 Allogiate is slurred over by the Latin and Varnhagen. I take it to be in- 
 tended for allegiate, and this to be an old form, corresponding to the French 
 alltger, of allegerite or alleviate : lightened, eased. 
 
 8 Che cifeciono buon giuoco.
 
 First Voyage. 21 
 
 themselves from them, making signs to us that {those} were an 
 island-people and lived out in the sea about a hundred leagues away : 
 and so piteously did they tell us this that we believed them : and we 
 promised to avenge them of so much wrong : and they remained 
 overjoyed herewith : and many of them offered to come along with us, 
 but we did not wish to take them for many reasons, save that we took 
 seven of them, on condition that they should come [i.e., return home} 
 afterwards in [their own] canoes because we did not desire to be 
 obliged to take them back to their country : and they were con- 
 tented : and so we departed from those people, leaving them very 
 friendly towards us : and having repaired our ships, and sailing 
 for seven days out to sea between north-east and east : and 
 at the end of the seven days we came upon the islands, which 
 were many, some [of t/iem] inhabited, and others deserted: and 
 we anchored at one of them: where we saw a numerous people 
 who called it Iti : and having manned our boats with strong 
 crews, and [taken ammunition for} three cannon-shots in each, we 
 made for land : where we found [assembled} about x 400 men, and 
 many women, and all naked like the former [peoples}. They 
 were of good bodily presence, and seemed right warlike men : for 
 they were armed with their weapons, which are bows, arrows, and 
 lances : and most of them had square wooden targets : and bore 
 them in such wise that they did not impede the drawing of the 
 bow : and when we had come with our boats to about a bowshot 
 of the land, they all sprang into the water to shoot their arrows 
 at us and to prevent us from leaping upon shore : and they 
 all had their bodies painted of various colours, and [were} plumed 
 with feathers : and the interpreters 2 who were with us told us that 
 when [those} displayed themselves so painted and plumed, it was 
 to betoken that they wanted to fight : and so much did they 
 persist in preventing us from landing, that we were compelled 
 to play with our artillery: and when they heard the explosion, 
 
 1 Alpie di 400. s Le lingue, a Portuguese idiom.
 
 22 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 and saw some of them fall dead, they all drew back to the land : 
 wherefore, forming our council, we resolved that 42 of our men 
 should spring on shore, and, if they waited for us, fight them : thus 
 having leaped to land with our weapons, they advanced towards us, 
 and we fought for about an hour, for we had but little advantage of 
 them, except that our arbalasters and gunners killed some of them, 
 and they wounded certain of our men : and this was because they did 
 not stand to receive us within reach of lance-thrust or sword-blow : 
 and so mu^h vigour did we put forth at last, that we came to 
 p. 16. sword-play, and when they tasted our weapons, they betook them- 
 selves to flight through the mountains and the forests, and left us 
 conquerors of the field with many of them dead and a good number 
 wounded : and for that day we took no other pains to pursue them, 
 because we were very weary, and we returned to our ships, with so 
 much gladness on the part of the seven men who had come with 
 us that they could not contain themselves [for joy] : and when 
 the next day arrived, we beheld coming across the land a great 
 number of people, with signals of battle, continually sounding 
 horns, and various other instruments which they use in their 
 wars : and all [of tJiem} painted and feathered, so that it was a 
 very strange sight to behold them: wherefore all the ships held 
 council, and it was resolved that since this people desired hostility 
 with us, we should proceed to encounter them and try by every 
 means to make them friends : in case they would not have our 
 friendship, that we should treat them as foes, and so many of 
 them as we might be able to capture should all be our slaves: 
 and having armed ourselves as best we could, we advanced towards 
 the shore, and they sought not to hinder us from landing, I 
 believe from fear of the cannons : and we jumped on land, 57 men 
 in four squadrons, each one [consisting of} a captain and his com- 
 pany : and we came to blows with them : and after a long battle [in 
 which] many of them [were] slain, we put them to flight, and pursued 
 them to a village, having made about 250 of them captives, and we 
 burnt the village, and returned to our ships with victory and 250 
 1
 
 First Voyage. 23 
 
 prisoners, 1 leaving many of them dead and wounded, and of ours 
 there were no more than one killed, and 22 wounded, who all escaped 
 [i.e., recovered}, God be thanked. We arranged our departure, and 
 the seven men, of whom five were wounded, took an island-canoe, 
 and, with seven prisoners that we gave them, four women and three 
 men, returned to their [own] country full of gladness, wondering at 
 our strength : and we thereon made sail for Spain with 222 captive 
 slaves : and reached the port of Calis [Cadiz] on the 1 5 day of 
 October 1498, where we were well received and sold our slaves. 
 Such is what befel me, most noteworthy, in this my first voyage. 
 
 ENDS THE FIRST VOYAGE. 
 BEGINS THE SECOND. 
 
 1 Varnhagen thought we ought to read "25 " (not 250), like the Latin version, 
 and to correct the figures " 222 " lower down into " 22," in both the text and the 
 Latin. But he was in error, having omitted to observe that the figures " 250" occur 
 twice. He evidently looked more on the Latin than the text. Besides, a capture 
 of only 25 savages would be very little indeed for the European force to make, 
 whether we reckon it at 57 men or 228 men, as he and the Latin read it (four 
 squadrons, each of ^57 men, with its captain), especially when they had entered 
 into hostilities with the express intention of making captives. [He afterwards 
 corrected himself.]
 
 [ Woodcut of two Ships at Sea.~\ 
 
 p. 17. A S for the second voyage, and what I saw in it most worthy 
 ^~\_ of record, it is as follows here. We started from the port of 
 Calis [Cadiz], three ships in company, on the 16 day of 
 May 1499 1 and began our voyage in a direct course to the islands 
 of Cabo Verde, passing in sight of the island of Great Canary : 
 and so much way did we make that we dropped anchor at an 
 island which is called the Island of Fire: 3 and having here taken 
 in our provision of water and firewood, we resumed our voyage 
 going south-westwards : s and in 44 days * we touched upon a new 
 land : and we deemed that it was [part of] a continent, and con- 
 tinuous with that [/and] of which mention is made above: 5 the 
 which [new /and] is situated within the Torrid Zone, and south- 
 wardly beyond the equinoctial line : above which the southern pole 
 rises to the elevation of 5 degrees, beyond every climate : 6 and it 
 is 500 leagues distant south-westward ly 7 from the said islands: 8 and 
 
 1 1499. Latin has 1489, by error. Lisola delfuoco. Per illibecdo. 
 
 4 The Latin has " 19 days," and so has Varnhagen, notwithstanding that his text 
 is correct. 
 
 s /.<?., in the preceding relation of the first voyage. The Latin makes a blunder 
 here, and says, " opposite to," instead of " continuous with." The translator must 
 have read " contraria" for " continual 
 
 6 This means, simply, at 5 degrees south latitude. 
 
 7 Per el vento libeccio. 7>., the Canaries.
 
 Second Voyage. 25 
 
 we found that the days were equal with the nights : for we reached 
 it on the 27 day of June, when the sun is at the Tropic of Cancer : 
 which land we found to be all overflowed with water and full of 
 very large rivers. 1 As yet 2 we saw no people : we brought our 
 ships to anchor and put out our boats : in them we pulled to the 
 land, and as I have said, we found it full of the largest rivers and 
 inundated by very great floods which we met with : and we attempted p. 18. 
 it in many places to see if we could enter therein : and because 
 of the great floods poured by the rivers, however strenuously we 
 strove, we could find no spot that was not inundated : we observed 
 on the waters many tokens that the land was inhabited : and 
 seeing that in this quarter we could not enter it, we decided to 
 return to the ships and to attempt landing in another place: and 
 we weighed our anchors, and sailed east-south-east, 3 always coasting 
 the shore which trended in that direction, and in a space of 40 
 leagues we made attempts to land in several places : and it was all 
 lost time : we found on that coast the sea-currents so strong that 
 they did not allow us to navigate, and they all ran from south-east 
 to north-west : consequently seeing so many impediments to our 
 navigation, we held a council, and decided to turn our course to 
 the north-west : and we sailed along the land till we arrived at a 
 very fine port : which was formed by a large island that was 
 situated at the mouth, inside of which there was a bay, very deeply , 
 indented : and while sailing by the side of the island to enter 
 into the harbour, we beheld many people : and rejoicing thereat, 
 we directed our vessels thither, so as to drop anchor where we 
 saw the people, being probably \then\ about four leagues away to 
 seaward from them : 4 and proceeding thus we had sight of a Canoe 
 that was coming from the high sea : in which there were coming 
 
 1 Varnhagen inserts here (from the Latin) a statement about the greenness of 
 the land, and that it was full of large trees ; which does not at all appear in the text. 
 
 2 In questo principio. * Infra levante e sciloccho. 
 
 4 There is some confusion here ; they could hardly have been able to see a 
 crowd of people at four leagues' distance. 
 
 E
 
 26 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 many persons: and we resolved to seize it: 1 and we turned our 
 vessels round to meet it navigating in such order that we should 
 not lose it : and sailing towards it with a brisk breeze, 3 we observed 
 that they were at a stand-still, with their oars lifted, I believe in 
 wonder at our ships: and when they perceived that we were advancing 
 to approach them, they dipped their oars in the water and began 
 to row towards the land : and as in our company there was a 
 caravel of 45 tons, a very quick sailer, she took station to windward 3 
 of the canoe: and when it seemed to be time to bear down upon 
 it, [the caravel} shook out * full sail and made for [the canoe} and we 
 likewise : and when the caravel came abreast of it and did not 
 seek to board \tJie canoe}, she passed by, and then stood still 
 against the wind : and when they saw themselves at a vantage, 
 they began to struggle hard with their oars to escape : and we, 
 who had our boats already astern manned with good crews, 
 thinking that they would take it [the canoe}, and they laboured for 
 more than two hours, and at last, if the little caravel had not 
 P- 19- tacked again upon them, we should have lost it [the canoe} : and 
 when they found themselves hemmed in by the caravel and the 
 boats, they all flung themselves into the sea, probably some 70 
 men [in number} : 5 and they were at a distance of about two leagues 
 from land : and following them with our boats, the whole day, we 
 were unable to take more than two of them, for, certain it was, 
 all the others reached the land in safety : and in the canoe there 
 remained four boys : who were not of their tribe : for they 
 brought them as captives from another land : and they had castrated 
 them, for they were all without the virile member, and had the 
 wound still fresh : whereat we marvelled much : and being taken 
 into the ships they told us by signs that [t/te men of t/u canoe] had 
 castrated them in order to eat them: and we learned that those 
 were a people who are called Camballi, very savage, who ate 
 human flesh. Towing the canoe astern, we made in our ships for 
 
 1 Haverla alia mano. Fresco tempo. Barlovento 
 
 4 Allargho li apparechi. . Latin has
 
 Second Voyage. 27 
 
 the land and anchored at [the distance of~\ half a league : and as 
 we saw great numbers of people on the shore, we rowed to the 
 land in our boats, taking with us the two men we had captured : 
 and having landed, all the people fled away, and betook themselves 
 to the forests : and we let go one of the \two\ men, giving him 
 several little bells, 1 and [indicating] that we desired to be their 
 friends : which he \whom\ we sent to them effected very well, and 
 brought with him all the tribe, who were about 400 men and many 
 women : who came without any weapons to where we were 
 {standing} with our boats : and having made good friendship with 
 them, we restored to them the second captive, and sent to the 
 ships for their canoe and gave it back to them. This canoe was 
 26 paces long and two yards 2 broad, and entirely hollowed out 
 of a single tree, and very elaborately made : and when they had 
 docked it in a river and put it in a safe place, they all fled away, 
 and would no further hold intercourse with us, which seemed to 
 us a quite barbarous action, so that we deemed them a people of 
 little faith and ill condition. With them we saw some little gold 
 which they had in their ears. We departed from these, and made 
 our way to the inner part of the bay: 3 where we found such 
 a multitude of people, that it was marvellous : with whom on 
 landing we made a friendship : and many of us went with 
 them to their villages, very safely, and well-received. In this 
 place we obtained 150 pearls 4 which they gave us in exchange 
 for a little bell, and some little gold which they gave us for 
 nothing : 5 and in this land we found that they drank a wine made of 
 their fruits and grain, in the manner of beer, both white and red : and 
 
 1 Sonagli, little bells or rattles. * Braccia. 
 
 3 Instead of the simple statement, "and made our way," &c., the Latin inserts 
 " having voyaged along that coast for about eighty leagues we came to a safe 
 harbour," which is absurd, but has apparently influenced Varnhagen, who evidently 
 made the mistake of incautiously referring sometimes to the Latin and sometimes 
 to the Italian text, thus failing to see all the discrepancies. 
 
 4 Rischattammo. The Latin has 500, instead of 150. 
 * Di gratia.
 
 28 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 the best was made of myrobalans? and was very good : and they 
 p. 29. ate infinite numbers of these, it being then the season for them. It 
 is a very good fruit, pleasant to the taste, and healthful to the body. 
 The soil abounds greatly with everything they need for subsistence, 
 and the people [were] of polite behaviour and the most pacific we had 
 as yet met with. We remained in this harbour for seventeen days 
 with much pleasure : and every day fresh people, from the interior 
 of the country, came to see us, wondering at our appearance and 
 whiteness, and our clothing and arms, and at the shape and great 
 size of the ships. From those people we had information of a tribe 
 that lived further to the west of them, who were their enemies, who 
 had an infinite quantity of pearls : and that those [pearls] which they 
 [our friends] had were what they had taken from them \tJie enemies} 
 in their wars : and they told us how they fished for them, and in 
 what manner they [the pearls] were produced, and we found that they 
 spoke with truth, as Your Magnificence shall hearj We departed 
 from this harbour and navigated along the coast : on which we 
 continually saw clouds of smoke z arising, with people on the 
 beach : and at the end of several days we came to anchor in a 
 harbour, for the purpose of repairing one of our ships, which had 
 sprung a great leak : s where we found that there was a large popu- 
 lation : with whom we were not able, neither by force nor for love 
 to obtain any conversation whatever : and when we went on land, 
 they struggled fiercely to prevent us from doing so : and when they 
 could hold out no longer, they fled through the forests and did not 
 await us. Finding them so barbarous, we went away from hence : 
 and proceeding on our voyage we had sight of an island distant 
 15 leagues out to sea from the [main-] land: and we decided on 
 going to see if it were inhabited. We found therein the most brutish 
 and loathsome people that were ever seen, and they were on this 
 wise. In behaviour and looks, they were very repulsive : and they 
 
 1 Mirabolani, 
 
 J Fumalte, by error forjumafe. Varnhagen has transcribed fumatte. 
 
 8 Faceva molta acqua.
 
 Second Voyage. 29 
 
 all had their cheeks swollen out with a green herb inside, which 
 they were constantly chewing like beasts, so that they could scarcely 
 utter speech : and each one had [suspended] upon his neck, two dried 
 gourds, one of which was full of that herb which they kept in their 
 mouths, and the other [full] of a white flour, which looked like 
 powdered chalk, and from time to time, with a small stick which 
 they kept moistening in their mouths, they dipped it into the 
 flour and then put it into their mouths inside both cheeks, thus 
 mixing with flour the herb which they had in their mouths : and 
 this they did very frequently : and marvelling at such a thing, we 
 were unable to comprehend this secret, nor with what object they 
 acted thus. These people when they saw us, came to us as 
 familiarly as if we had been united with them in friendship : going p. 21. 
 with them along the beach, talking, and desirous of drinking fresh 
 \vater, they made signs to us that they had none, and offered us 
 some of that herb and flour of theirs, so that we concluded by in- 
 ference that this island was poor in water, and that it was to preserve 
 themselves against thirst they kept that herb in their mouths, and 
 the flour for the same [reason] We went through the island for a 
 day and a half without ever finding any flowing water : and we 
 observed that the water which they drank was of a dew which fell by 
 night on certain leaves that looked like asses' ears, and \whicJi\ 
 became full of water, and hereof they drank : it was most excellent 
 water : and [?>., but] they had not those leaves in many places. 
 They had no form of victuals, nor roots, as on the main-land : and 
 they subsisted on fish which they took in the sea ; and of these they 
 had very great abundance, and they were most expert fishermen : 
 and they presented to us many turtles, and many very excellent fish 
 of great size : their women did not use to keep the herb in their 
 mouths like the men, but all carried a gourd with water and drank 
 thereof. They had no villages, neither of houses nor huts, save 
 that they dwelt underneath [a kind of] arbours, which protected 
 them from the sun, and not from the water ; for I believe it rained 
 very seldom in that island ; when they were at sea fishing, they
 
 30 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 all had a leaf of great size and so broad, that they were quite in 
 shadow beneath it, and they [used to] fix it in the ground : and as 
 the sun revolved so did they turn the leaf: and in this manner they 
 protected themselves from the sun. The island contains many animals 
 of various kinds : and they drink marsh-water : and seeing that they 
 had nothing profitable [for us] we departed, and took our course to 
 another island : and we found [afterwards] that a race of very great 
 stature dwelt therein : we then landed to see if we found [could find~\ 
 fresh water : and imagining that the island was not inhabited because 
 we saw no people, going along the shore, we beheld very large foot- 
 prints of men on the sand : and we judged, if their other members 
 were of corresponding size, that they must be very big men : and 
 proceeding onwards, we came upon a pathway which led to the 
 interior of the land : and nine of us agreed : and concluded that the 
 island being small could not contain within itself many people : and 
 thereupon we went onward through it, to see what manner of people 
 they were : and after we had gone for about a league, we beheld in a 
 valley five of their huts, which appeared uninhabited : and we made 
 p. 22. our way to them and found only five women, two old ones and 
 three girls so lofty in stature that we gazed at them in astonishment : 
 and when they saw us, so much terror overcame them that they 
 had not even spirit to flee away : and the two old women began 
 to invite us with words, bringing us many things to eat, and they 
 put us in a hut : and they were in stature taller than a tall man, 
 so that they would be quite as big of body as was Francesco 
 I degli Albizi, but better proportioned : insomuch that we were all 
 of a mind to take away the three girls from them by force : and 
 to carry them to Castile as a prodigy : and while thus discoursing, 
 there began to enter through the door of the hut full 36 men 
 much bigger than the women : men so well built that it was a 
 famous sight to see them : who put us in such anxiety that we 
 would much rather have been in our ships than in the company 
 of such people. They carried very large bows and arrows, with 
 large knobbed clubs : and they spoke among themselves in such
 
 Second Voyage. 31 
 
 a tone as though they meant to lay hands upon us : seeing 
 that we were in such danger, we debated of various plans among 
 ourselves : some [of us] said that we ought to attack immediately 
 in the house : and others that it were better on the open ground 
 [outside] : and others who said that we ought not to begin the 
 quarrel until we should see what they meant to do : and we agreed 
 to go forth from the hut and to make our way slily towards 
 the ships : and so we did : and having taken our way we returned 
 to the ships : those [savages] however came following behind us, 
 always at the distance of a stone's throw, speaking amongst 
 themselves : I believe that they were no less afraid of us, than 
 we were of them : because we halted sometimes, and they did 
 the same without approaching nearer, until we reached the 
 shore where the boats were awaiting us : and we entered into them : 
 and when we were at some distance, they danced about and shot 
 many arrows at us : but we had little dread of them now : we fired two 
 gunshots at them, more to terrify them than to do any hurt : 
 and at the explosion they all fled to the hill : l and so we 
 departed from them, having as it seemed to us escaped from a 
 perilous day's work. They went entirely naked like the others. 
 I call that island, the Isle of Giants, because of their great size : 
 and we proceeded onward still skirting the coast on which it befel 
 us many times to have to fight them, as they sought not to 
 allow us to take anything from the land : and since it was our 
 desire to return now to Castile, as we had been about a year at 
 sea, and we had \but\ a small stock of provisions [remaining], 
 and that little damaged by reason of the great heats that we 
 endured : because from the time when we started for the isles P- 23. 
 of Cabo Verde till now, we had continually navigated in the 
 torrid zone, and twice crossed the 'equinoctial line : for as I have 
 said above we had gone to 5 degrees below it southwardly : 
 and here we were at 15 degrees north of it. Being in this 
 mind, it pleased the Holy Ghost to give us some relief for 
 
 1 Al monte. Perhaps it means " in a heap " or " in a confused rout."
 
 32 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 so much travail: which was, that while we were seeking a 
 harbour wherein to repair our vessels, we met with a nation 
 which received us with great friendliness : and we found that 
 they had a great abundance of very fine oriental pearls: with 
 whom we stayed for 47 days: and we bought from them 119 
 marks 1 of pearls for very little merchandise: for I believe 
 they did not cost us the value of forty ducats: since that 
 which we gave them was nothing but little bells and look- 
 ing-glasses and beads, dieci-palle* and sheets of tin, indeed, 
 for a single little bell a man gave as many pearls as he had. 
 From them \the natives] we learned how and where they fished 
 for them [the pearls] : and they gave us many [of the] oysters 
 in which they grew : we bought [also] an oyster in which 
 1 30 pearls were growing, and others with less : the Queen took 3 
 from me that with the 130 : and others I took care she 
 should not see. And Your Magnificence must know that unless 
 the pearls are matured, and drop out of themselves, they do not 
 last : because they perish quickly : and of this I have had actual 
 experience : when they are mature, they lie within the shell 
 detached and set in the flesh : 4 and these ones are good : whatsoever 
 bad ones they had, though the most of them were rough and 
 ill-pierced, still they were worth good money : because the mark 
 sold for 6 : and at the end of 47 days we quitted the 
 
 people, leaving them great friends towards us. We departed, and 
 through the necessity of our victualling we made for the island of 
 Antiglia 6 which is the same that Christophal Colombo discovered 
 several years ago : where we took in much store of provision : 
 
 1 Marchi, marcoa. weight of eight ounces. 
 
 2 Conte, diedpalle etfoglie di octone. Died palle must be some sort of balls 
 or playing-marbles. 
 
 8 From " the Queen took " down to " she should not sec " omitted in Latin. 
 4 The text is obscure ; the Latin is explicatory, and I presume correct, in its 
 account of the nature of pearls. 
 
 * A blank in the text From "good" to "sold for" omitted in Latin. 
 ' Hispaniola.
 
 Second Voyage. 33 
 
 and remained two months and 17 days: 1 where we underwent 
 many perils and troubles with the very Christians who were in 
 this island along with Colombo : 2 I believe through envy : but, in 
 order not to be prolix, I refrain from narrating them. We 
 departed from the said island on the 2.2, day of July : and 
 we navigated during a month and a half: and entered into the 
 port of Calis \Cadiz\, which was on the 8 day of September, 
 by daylight, my second voyage : God \be\ praised. . 
 
 ENDED THE SECOND VOYAGE. 
 BEGINS THE THIRD. 
 
 1 The Latin " 2 months and 2 days." 
 
 - " Along with Columbus," omitted in Latin and not noted by Varnhagen.
 
 [Woodcut of a Ship at Sea.] 
 
 p. 24. T]) KING afterwards in Seville, resting myself from so many 
 L) travails that I had in those two voyages undergone, and 
 purposing to return to the land of the pearls : when Fortune 
 not contented with my labours, for I know not how it came 
 into the mind of this most serene King Don Manuel of Portugal, 
 to wish to employ me : and being in Seville without any 
 thought of coming to Portugal, there comes to me a messager 
 with a letter of his royal crown, 1 which entreated me to come 
 to Lisbon to speak with his Highness, promising to give me 
 recompense. I was not of opinion that I should come : I sent 
 away the messenger, saying that I was ill in health, and that 
 when I should be well and his Highness still desired to employ 
 me, that I would do whatever he should command me. And 
 seeing that he could not have me, he decided to send for me 
 [i.e., to fetch me] Giuliano di Bartholomco del Giocondo, residing 
 here in Lisbon, with a commission to bring me by whatever 
 means. The said Giuliano came to Seville : through whose coming 
 and entreaty I was compelled to come : ~ but my coming was 
 regarded with ill-favour by so many as knew me : because I 
 
 1 I.e., an official letter from the Crown. 
 
 2 He means "go," and in the next line "going," but was led to say "come" 
 and "coming" from the consciousness that he was writing his letter in Lisbon.
 
 Third Voyage. 35 
 
 quitted Castile where honour had been done me, and the King 
 kept me in ample competence: 1 the worst was that I went 
 insalutato hospite : 2 and having presented myself before this King 
 [of Portugal], he shewed himself pleased with my coming: and 
 prayed me to join the company of three of his ships which were 
 ready to go in discovery of new lands : and as a King's request P- 25. 
 is a command, I had to consent to whatever he desired of 
 me : and we sailed from this port of Lisbon, three ships in com- 
 pany, on the 10 day of May 1501, and took our route directly 
 for the Island of Great Canary: and we passed in sight of it 
 without halting : and from hence we went skirting along the coast 
 of Africa on the west side : on which coast we exercised our 
 fishing-skill on a kind of fish which are called Parchi : 3 where we 
 stopped three days: and from hence we made for the coast of 
 Ethiopia, to a port which is called Besechicce, 4 which is within the 
 Torrid Zone : over which the North Pole is at an elevation of 14^ 
 degrees, situated in the first climate : 5 where we remained 1 1 days, 
 taking in water and firewood : because my intention was to make 
 our seaway southerly through the Atlantic gulf. 6 We quitted this 
 Ethiopian port, and navigated south-westwardly, 7 taking one quarter 
 by south, until after a course of 67 days we anchored at a land which 
 was 700 leagues to the south-west of the said port : and in those 67 
 days we had the worst weather that ever any seafarer had, through 
 numerous storm-showers, 8 whirlwinds, and tempests which struck us : 
 for we passed through much adverse weather, because the greater 
 part of our navigation was continually close to the equinoctial line, 
 for in the month of June it is winter : and we found that the day 
 was equal with the night : and we found that the shadows fell 
 constantly towards the south : it pleased God to shew us new land, 
 and [this] was on the 17 day of August: when we anchored at half 
 
 1 In buona possessione (? "in high consideration," as Latin has it). 
 
 : "Without bidding adieu to my host." 3 Portuguese Pargos. 
 
 4 Latin has Besilicca. * That is, 14* degrees north latitude. 
 
 B Ocean. 7 Libeccio. 8 Aguaseri (? waterspouts).
 
 36 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 a league [from tJte shore] : and put out our boats : and went to 
 inspect the land, whether it was inhabited by people, and who these 
 were : and we found that it was inhabited by a people who were 
 worse than animals : however Your Magnificence must understand 
 that as yet * we saw no people, but we perceived well that it was 
 inhabited from many signs that we observed therein : we took 
 ! possession of it for this most serene King [Don Manuel} : * which 
 land we found to be very pleasant and green, and of goodly appear- 
 ance : it was 5 degrees towards the south beyond the equinoctial 
 line : and for the present 3 we returned to the ships : and because 
 we were in great want of water and firewood, we determined the 
 next day to return to the shore to provide ourselves with what was 
 needful : and, when on land, we beheld some people on the top of a 
 hill, who stood gazing and did not venture to come down : they were 
 naked, and of the same colour and fashion as were the other former 
 [savages we Jiad met with elsewhere] : and although we strove to induce 
 them 4 to come and speak with us, we were totally unable to reassure 
 them, for they had no trust in us : and seeing their obstinacy, and [as] 
 it was already late, we returned to the ships, leaving on the ground for 
 26. them several little bells and looking-glasses, and other things within 
 their ken : and when we were at a distance on sea, they descended 
 from the hill and came for the things we had left them, displaying 
 great wonderment at these : and for that day we provided ourselves 
 only with water : the next morning we saw from the ships that the 
 land's people were making great clouds of smoke : and thinking that 
 they were calling us [to t/iem] we went on shore where we found that 
 great numbers of them had come, and yet they remained aloof from 
 us : and they made signs to us that we should go with them into the 
 interior of the land : wherefore two of our Christians were moved to 
 ask the captain that he would give them leave as they wished to 
 undertake the risk of going with those [savages] into the land, to see 
 
 1 In questo principle. 3 The Latin says, by mistake, " King of Castile." 
 
 3 Per questo : ita in Latin. He means probably " for this day." 
 
 4 By signals, of course.
 
 Third Voyage. 37 
 
 what {manner of\ people they were, and whether they had any riches, 
 or spices, or druggeries : and so much did they beseech that the 
 captain was pleased [to allow if] : and they prepared themselves with 
 many things for barter [ana"] quitted us with the order that they 
 should not be more than 5 days before returning : because we 
 would wait for them just so long : and they took their way through 
 the country : and we [remained] by the ships awaiting them: and 
 almost every day people came to the beach and would never hold 
 speech with us : and the seventh day we went on land, and found 
 that they had brought their women with them : and when we leaped 
 to shore, the land's men sent many of their women to speak with us : 
 and seeing they did not seem confident, we decided to send one of our 
 men to them, who was a young fellow given to feats of strength ; and, 
 to reassure them, 2 we entered into our boats : and he went among the 
 women : and when he reached them, they made a great circle around 
 him, touching him and gazing at him in wonderment : and while he 
 was thus [encircled] we saw a woman come from the hill, and she 
 carried a great stake in her hand : and when she reached to where 
 our Christian stood, she came behind him : and, lifting the club, gave 
 him such a tremendous blow that she stretched him dead on the 
 ground, in an instant the other women took hold of him by the feet 
 and dragged him along by his feet towards the hill : and the men 
 bounded towards the beach, and with their bows and arrows [began] 
 to shoot at us : and they put our people into such terror, the boats 
 being held fast by the small anchors which were sunk in the ground, 
 that, because of the numerous arrows [tJie natives] shot into the boats, 
 no one had courage to snatch up his arms : however we fired 4 
 gunshots at them, and they took no effect, save that on hearing the 
 explosion, they all fled towards the hill and to where the women 
 were already [cutting] the Christian into bits : and at a great fire 
 which they had made, they were roasting him before our eyes, 
 holding up several pieces towards us and [then] eating them : and 
 
 1 Che moltofaceva lo sforzo. 
 
 3 Text has "him," by a typographical error of "/<?" for "/<?."
 
 2 8 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 the men [were] making signs to us by their gestures how they had 
 killed the other two Christians and eaten them : which grieved 
 us greatly, seeing with our eyes the cruelty they were exercising 
 p. 27. on the dead man, to all of us it was an intolerable offence : and 
 more than 40 of us being determined to jump on land and revenge 
 such a cruel death, and an action [so] bestial and inhuman, the 
 Admiral 1 would not give his consent, and so they \tJie natives} re- 
 mained glutted with so monstrous an act of wrong :- and we departed 
 from them ill-willingly, and with much shamefulness because of our 
 Captain. We quitted that place, and began our navigation east- 
 south-east, and thus the land trended : and we made many descents 
 on land, and never did we meet a tribe that was willing to hold 
 parley with us : and thus we navigated onward till we found that 
 \tJie line of] the land was turning to south-westward : 3 when we 
 doubled a cape, to which we gave the name of Cape St. Augustine,' 
 we began to sail south-west, and this cape is 150 leagues distant to 
 the east of the aforesaid land which we saw, where they slew the 
 Christians : and this cape is 8 degrees south of the equinoctial line : 
 and while [thus] sailing we had sight one day of many people who 
 were standing on the beach to behold the wondrous apparition of our 
 ships and the manner of our navigation, we directed our course 
 towards them, and anchored in a good place, and made in our 
 boats for land, and found them a better-conditioned people than 
 the last : and although it was a toil to us to tame them, yet 
 we made them our friends and held intercourse with them. We 
 stayed 5 days in this place: and here we found canna fistoia* very 
 thick and green, and dry on the tops of the trees. We decided 
 to take in this place a couple of [native] men, so that they 
 should explain for us the language : and there came three of their 
 own free will to come to Portugal : and for the present, tired [as 1 
 am] already of so much writing, Your Magnificence shall know, that 
 
 1 Capitano tnaggiore. * Di /an/a ingiuria, wrong-doing. 
 
 3 Libeccio. * The Latin has St. Vincent. 
 
 5 Canna fistola (? cassia, or wild cinnamon).
 
 Third Voyage. 39 
 
 we departed from that port, navigating always within sight of 
 land in a south-west direction, frequently making descents upon 
 shore, 1 and speaking with an infinite number of peoples : and so 
 far did we proceed southwards that we were now beyond the 
 Tropic of Capricorn, where the South Pole was at an elevation of 
 32 degrees above the horizon : and we had already quite lost 
 [sight of] Ursa Minor, and \Ursa\ Major was very low, and 
 appeared to us to be almost on the line of the horizon, and we 
 guided ourselves by the stars of the other pole \thaf\ of the South : 
 \vhich are numerous, and much larger and more brilliant than 
 those of our pole : and I drew diagrams of most of them, and 
 especially of those of the first and greater magnitude, with an exposi- 
 tion of the orbits which they describe around the southern pole, and 
 a declaration of their diameters and semidiameters, as may be seen 
 in my 4 Giornate : 2 we ran along this coast to the length of 750 
 leagues, 150 leagues from the cape called [Cape] St. Augustine 
 towards the west, and 600 3 leagues to the south-west : and if I p. 28. 
 wished to narrate the things which I saw on this coast, and what 
 we underwent, twice the number of leaves [of paper] would not 
 suffice me : and on this coast we saw nothing of value, 4 except an 
 infinite number of dye-wood and cassia-trees, and those which 
 beget myrrh, and other wonders of nature which cannot be re- 
 counted : and having already been fully IO months voyaging, and j 
 seeing that in this land we found nothing of mineral [wealth] we \ 
 decided to hasten away from there, and to put to sea for some { 
 other quarter : and having held our council, it was resolved that 
 the course should be followed which I should think fitting : and 
 the command of the fleet was entirely handed over to me : and 
 I then ordered that all the crews and the fleet should provide 
 themselves with water and wood for six months, as the masters 
 of the ships judged that we might navigate in them for so much 
 
 1 Di continovo faccendo di ntolte scale. 
 
 3 " Le Quattro Giornate? the projected book to which he has already made 
 more than one reference. 3 Latin has 700. 4 Proficto.
 
 4 o Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 time. Having taken in our stores from this land, we began our 
 voyage towards the south-east : and it was on the 1 5 J day of 
 February, when the sun, was already nearing the Equinox, and 
 turning towards this our northern hemisphere : and so long did we 
 sail by that wind, that we found ourselves [at] so high ~ [a latitude} 
 that the southern pole stood quite 52 degrees above our horizon, 
 and we no longer beheld the stars either of Ursa Minor or Ursa 
 Major: and we were already at a distance of full 500 leagues 
 south-east from the harbour whence we had set out : and this was 
 on the 3 day of April, and on that day there arose a tempest of 
 so much violence upon the sea that we were compelled to haul 
 down all our sails, and we scudded under bare poles before the 
 great wind, which was south-west with enormous waves and a 
 very stormy sky : and so fierce was the tempest that all the 
 fleet was in great dread : the nights were very long : so that on 
 the seventh day of April we had a night which was 15 hours 
 long : for the sun was at the end of Aries : and in that region 
 it was winter [then] as Your Magnificence may well consider, and 
 while in this tempest on the seventh s day of April, we had sight 
 of a new land, along which we ran for about 20 leagues, and found 
 that it was wholly a wild rough coast : and we beheld therein neither 
 any harbour nor any people, because, as I believe, of the cold which 
 was so intense that no one in our fleet could fortify himself against 
 it or endure it : insomuch that, finding ourselves in so great a danger 
 and in such a tempest that one ship could hardly see another for the 
 great billows that were running [between us] and for the deep gloomi- 
 ness 4 of the weather, we deliberated with the Admiral 5 to signal to 
 \tlie rest of] the fleet to approach and that we should abandon [this] 
 land : and turn round in the direction of Portugal : and it was a very 
 good resolve : for it is certain that if we had delayed that night, 
 we had all been lost : because when we turned a-stern, 6 both that 
 
 1 Latin has 13. * So high that is, so far south. 
 
 3 2nd April, Latin. * Serrazon, from the Portuguese ccrra^flo. 
 
 Capitano maggiore. Come arrivammo a poppa, from Spanish arribar.
 
 Third Voyage. 41 
 
 night and the next day, the tempest grew to such a height that P- 29. 
 we were in fear of being lost : and we had to make [vows of] 
 pilgrimage and other ceremonies, as is the custom of sailors at 
 such times : we scudded for 5 days, x and kept still drawing 
 nearer to the equinoctial line, with the weather and the sea 
 [becoming] more temperate: and it pleased God that we should 
 escape from so great a peril : and our course was with the wind 
 between north and north-east: 2 because our intention was to go 
 and reconnoitre the coast of Ethiopia, 3 as we were distant there- 
 from [only] 300 leagues across the gulf of the Atlantic Sea : and by 
 the grace of God on the 10 day of May we came to a land 
 therein, [lying] southward, which is called La serra liona : 4 where 
 we stayed 1 5 days, taking our refreshment : and from here we 
 departed taking our course towards the islands of the Azores, 
 which are distant about 750 leagues from this place of the Serra : 
 and we reached the islands at the end of July : where we stayed 
 15 days more, taking some recreation: and we quitted them for 
 Lisbon : being \_then~] 300 leagues to the west [of it] : and we 
 entered into this port of Lisbon on the 7 day of September 1502, 
 in good condition, God be thanked, with two ships only : because 
 we \_had] burnt the other in the Serra liona: as it was disabled 
 from further navigation, for we were about 15 5 months on this 
 voyage : and for 1 1 days we navigated without seeing the Polar 
 Star, or the Greater and Lesser Bear, which are called the Corno : 6 
 and we steered by the stars of the other hemisphere. This is 
 what I saw in this voyage or giornata. 
 
 1 In Latin there is added here " in which five days we made 250 leagues of 
 sea-passage." 
 
 ! Tramontane* and greco. 8 Africa. 4 Sierra Leone. 6 Latin has 16. 
 6 Corno quare a typographical error for carro, the Wain.
 
 [Woodcut of a Ship at Anc/tor, two figures in it, and one on land; 
 towers in the background] 
 
 p. 30. T T remains for me to tell the things seen by me in the fourth 
 voyage, or giornata : and as I am already wearied, and also 
 because this fourth voyage was not carried out in accordance with 
 the purpose I [had} formed, through a mishap which befel us in the 
 gulf of the Atlantic sea: as Your Magnificence shall learn in the 
 sequel, briefly, I will endeavour to be brief. We departed from this 
 port of Lisbon 6 ships in company, with the intention of going to 
 discover an island towards the east, which is called Melaccha : of 
 which there are news that it is very rich, and that it is as it were the 
 storehouse of all the ships which come from the Gangetic sea and 
 from the Indian sea, just as Calis [Cadiz] is the waiting-room 1 of all 
 the vessels which pass from east to west, and from west to east by 
 the route of Galigut, 2 and this Melaccha is more westerly than 
 Caligut, and much more to the southward : s for we know that it lies 
 at the level 4 of 33 5 degrees of the antarctic hemisphere. We 
 departed on the 10 day of May 1503 and made directly for the isles 
 
 1 Camera. 
 
 2 This is a puzzling sentence, like the statement that Malacca lay to the west 
 of Calicut. Mistranslated in the Latin. 4 Paraggio. 
 
 8 As Varnhagen justly corrects, this must have been meant for "3."
 
 Fourth Voyage. 43 
 
 of Cape Verde, where we careened, and took some manner of 
 refreshment, where we stayed 1 3 * days : and from here we departed 
 on our voyage, sailing by the south-east wind : and as our Chief 
 Captain was a presumptuous and very obstinate man, he would go to 
 examine Serra liona, a land of Southern Ethiopia, without having 
 any need except to make it be seen that he was Captain of six ships, 
 against the wish of all the rest of us Captains : and thus navigating, 
 when we reached the said land, so great were the whirlwinds that 
 struck us, and with them the weather so adverse, that \althougK\ we 
 were in sight of it \the sJwre\ quite three days, the foul weather never 
 allowed us to land : so that we were compelled to return to our 
 proper course, and to quit the said Serra : and navigating hence to 
 the suduest which is the wind between south and south-west : 2 and 
 when we had sailed full 300 leagues through the immensity 3 of the 
 sea, being then quite 3 degrees south of the equinoctial line, we 
 became aware of a land from which we were probably 22 4 leagues 
 distant : whereat we marvelled : and we found that it was an island 
 in the middle of the sea and was very lofty, a very marvellous work 
 of nature : since it was no more than two leagues in length and one 
 in breadth : in which island, never had there been inhabitation by 
 any people : and it was Bad Island 6 for all the fleet : for Your 
 Magnificence must know that by the ill-counsel and steering of our 
 Chief Captain, he lost his ship here : since he struck with it upon a rock, 
 and it split open on St. Laurence's night, which was on the 10 day of 
 August, and went to the bottom : and there was nothing saved thereof 
 except the crew. It was a ship of 300 tons : in which went all the im- 
 portance of the fleet : and when all the fleet had laboured to save it, the 
 Captain commanded me to make with my ship for the said island to p. 31. 
 seek a good anchorage, where all the ships might anchor : and as my 
 boat manned with 9 of my sailors was in service and aiding to 
 
 1 Latin has " 12," and misunderstands the careenage. 
 
 2 Infra mezzo di e libeccio. He evidently did not quite understand the Portu- 
 guese term, or else suduest is a typographical blunder for sudsudueste. 
 
 3 Mostro (?). 4 Latin has " duodectm." 5 La mala isola.
 
 44 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 belay * the ships, he willed that I should not take it, and that 
 I should proceed without it : telling me that they should take it 
 to me at the island : I quitted the fleet for the island as he ordered 
 me, without a boat, and with the -deficiency of half my crew, and 
 I went to the said island, which was about 4 leagues distant : in 
 which I found an excellent harbour, where all the ships could 
 anchor very safely : where I awaited my Captain and the fleet 
 fully 8 days, and they never came: so that we were very 
 discontented, and the men that had remained with me in the ship 
 were in such dread, that I was unable to console them : and being 
 thus, the eighth day we beheld a ship coming upon the sea, and 
 from fear that it might not see us, we weighed with our ships, 2 
 and made for it, thinking that it brought me my boat and crew : 
 and when we came alongside of it, after having saluted, they told 
 us how the admiral's ship had gone to the bottom, and how 
 the crew had been saved, and that my boat and crew had 
 remained with the fleet, which was gone further on that sea, 
 which was to us so great an annoyance as Your Magnificence may 
 conceive, finding ourselves 1000 leagues away from Lisbon, and 
 on the ocean, 3 and with a little crew: however we set our prow 4 
 at Fortune, and went still onward : we returned to the island, and 
 provided ourselves with water and timber by means of my 
 companion's boat : which island we found uninhabited, and it 
 contained many fresh and sweet waters, 6 innumerable trees, 
 [and was] full of so many sea and land birds that they were 
 beyond count : and they were so tame, that they allowed them- 
 selves to be taken with the hand : and so many of them did we 
 take that we loaded a boat with those animals : we saw none 
 [other] except very large rats and lizards with two tails, and some 
 snakes : and having made our provision, we departed by the wind 
 betwixt south and south-west, for we had an ordinance of the 
 
 1 Ligare (? bind together). J Ship (?). He had only one (see supra). 
 
 3 Golfo. 4 Facemmo rostra. * That is, streams or springs.
 
 Fourth Voyage. 45 
 
 King which commanded us that whichever of the ships should 
 lose sight of the fleet or of its Captain, should make for the land 
 that we discovered in the previous voyage, at a harbour to which 
 we gave the name of Badia di tucti e sancti : 1 and it pleased God 
 to give us such good weather, that in 17 days we reached land 
 therein, which was distant from the island full 300 leagues: where 
 we founql neither pur Captain nor any other ship of the fleet : in 
 which harbour we waited quite two months and 4 days : and 
 seeing that there came no arrival, we agreed, my partner and I, p. 32. 
 to run the coast : and we sailed 260 leagues further on, till 2 
 we arrived in a harbour : where we decided to construct a 
 fort, and we did so : and left therein 24 Christian men whom 
 my partner had for us, whom she had collected from the flag- 
 ship 3 that had been lost : in which port we stayed full 5 months 
 making the fortress and loading our ships with verzino : 4 as we were 
 unable to proceed further, because we had not men \enougK\ and 
 I was deficient of many pieces of ship-tackle. All this done, we 
 determined to turn our course towards Portugal, which lay in the 
 direction of the wind between north-east and north : 5 and we left 
 the 24 men who remained In the fort with provision for six 
 months, and \witk] 12 big guns 6 and many other arms, and we 
 pacified all the land's people : of whom no mention has been made 
 in this voyage : not because we did not see and traffic with an 
 infinite number of them : for we went, quite 30 men of us, 40 
 leagues inland : where I saw so many things that I omit to tell 
 them, reserving them for my 4 Giornate. This land lies 18 degrees 
 south of the equinoctial line, and 37 degrees to the west of the 
 longitude of Lisbon, as is demonstrated by our instruments. And 
 all this being done, we took leave of the Christians and the land : 
 and began our navigation to nornordeste? which is the wind between 
 
 1 Mistake for Bahia de todos os Santos. This confusion of </and^ in Vespucci's 
 handwriting led to a long-continued error in the maps. 
 
 2 Ttao, for tato, so far that, until. 3 Nave capitana. 
 
 4 Brazil-wood, or dye-wood. 5 Greco and tramontane. 6 Bombarde. 
 
 7 It is printed nornodeste.
 
 46 Letter of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 north and north-east, with the intention of making our navigation in 
 a direct course to this city of Lisbon : and in 77 days, after so many 
 travails and perils, we entered into this port on the 18 day of June 
 1 504. God [bi\ praised : where we were received very well and 
 beyond all belief: because all the city believed us lost: since the 
 other ships of the fleet had all been lost through the arrogance and 
 folly of our Captain, for so does God reward pride : and at present 
 I find myself here in Lisbon, and I know not what the King will 
 want to do with me, for I desire much to take repose. 1 The 
 present bearer, who is Benvenuto di Domenico Benvcnuti, will tell 
 Your Magnificence of my condition, and of some things which, for 
 prolixity, have been left unsaid : for he has seen and felt them, 
 
 God be 2 I have gone on compressing the letter as much as I 
 
 could, and there have been omitted to be told many natural things, 3 
 because of avoiding prolixity. May Your Magnificence pardon me : 
 whom I beseech to hold me in the number of your servants : and 
 I recommend to you Ser Antonio Vespucci, my brother, and all 
 my house. I remain, praying of God that he may increase the 
 days of your life, and that the state of this sublime Republic and 
 the honour of Your Magnificence may be exalted, etc. Given in 
 Lisbon on the 4 day of September 1504. 
 
 \Your\ servant AMERIGO VESPUCCI in Lisbon. 
 
 The Latin substitutes " this messenger in the meantime commending much to 
 your Majesty. Americus Vesputius. In Lisbon," for all the text which follows 
 the word " repose." 
 
 * Dio sia o di, followed by a blank This is incomprehensible, and may be 
 " God be ... ." (something not understood by the printer), or di sui ccchi .... 
 (" with his own eyes . . . ."), which would imply that Benvenuto had accompanied 
 Vespucci in this voyage. ' Things relating to natural history. 
 
 
 
 8693
 
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