CHAPTER VII.
1497-1521.
While the Spanish and the English expeditions had failed to find the attractive shores of Cathay by sailing westwardly across the Atlantic, the Portuguese were more fortunate in their long-continued attempts to reach the dominions of the Grand Khan by sailing eastwardly. Restricted by the papal decree to the prosecution of her voyages of discovery on the east side of the line of demarkation, Portugal zealously persisted in seeking along the coast of Africa a way to the Orient. Vasco da Gama, an intrepid navigator, was placed in command of an expedition, and sailed from Lisbon, in March, 1497, in the path marked out by Bartolomeu Dias, in 1487. When Da Gama came to the Cape of Good Hope, or the Stormy Cape (Cabo Tormentoso), he realized that the windy headland was rightly named. The hazardous attempts which he repeatedly made to pass the stormy promontory so impressed his sailors with his extreme venturesomeness that they endeavored to persuade him to turn back. It is said that this made Da Gama comport “himself very angrily, swearing that if they did not double the cape, he would stand out to sea again as many times until the cape was doubled, or there should happen whatever should please God.” Having achieved his bold purpose, on the twenty-second of November, 1497, Da Gama made himself famous in reaching the remote coast of India, on the seventeenth of May, 1498, and entered the harbor of Calicut,[270] three days afterward. Returning on the homeward voyage, he arrived at Lisbon, about the beginning of September, 1499.
To perfect and enjoy the privileges of her inaugurated commerce with India, Portugal immediately fitted out a fleet of merchantmen to carry her commodities to the distant country over the sea-path explored by her daring navigators. Pedro Alvarez Cabral was given command of thirteen ships, with which he sailed on the ninth of March, 1500, with instructions to hold his course out at sea at some distance from the coast of Africa, in order to avoid the troublesome currents and delaying winds which had previously deterred mariners from encountering the perils of the unexplored route near the main-land. Cabral proceeded southward, but near the Cape Verd Islands lost sight of one of his ships, and while seeking her he lost his course. Fortunately, on Wednesday afternoon, on the twenty-second of April, he descried the summit of a round and high mountain on the eastern coast of Brazil, which he called Monte Pascoal.[271] Perceiving the next morning that he had anchored opposite the mouth of a river, he sent Nicolao Coelho to examine it. From this anchorage he sailed in search of a safe harbor, and on Saturday, the twenty-fifth of April, found the roadstead which he called Porto Seguro, which was in seventeen degrees of south latitude, according to the observation made there. On the first of May a large wooden cross was erected to which was affixed the declaration of Cabral’s discovery of the country for the king of Portugal. Cabral, having dispatched Gaspar de Lemos with a small vessel to Lisbon with the report of his discovery, set sail, on the third of May, for India. Cabral called the discovered country Terra de Vera Cruz (Land of the True Cross), which name was shortly afterward changed to Terra de Santa Cruz (Land of the Holy Cross), and subsequently Brazil was substituted for it.[272]
In the year 1500 the Portuguese sailed in a different direction to seek a short route to Cathay. The Portuguese historian, Galvano refers to the expedition, saying: “In this same year 1500 it is said that Gaspar Cortereal[273] begged permission of King Emmanuel to discover the New Land (Terra Nova). He departed from the island Terceira with two ships equipped at his own expense, and he sailed to that region which is in the north in fifty degrees of latitude, which is a land now called after his name. He returned home in safety to the city of Lisbon. Sailing a second time on this voyage the ship was lost in which he went, and the other vessel came back to Portugal. His brother Miguel went to seek him with three ships at his own cost, and when they came to that coast, and found so many entrances of rivers and havens, each ship entered a different river, with this regulation and command, that they all three should meet again on the twentieth of August. The other two ships did as commanded, and they, seeing that Miguel Cortereal came not on the appointed day nor afterward in a certain time, returned to this realm and never heard any thing more concerning him.... But that country is called Terra dos Cortereals unto this day.”[274]
Damião de Góes, the Portuguese historian, says Cortereal called this region Terra Verde (Greenland), on account of its remarkable verdure, and the vast forests stretching all along the coast.[275]
Ramusio, speaking of the exploration of the coast of North America says: “In the part of the New World, which runs toward the north and northwest, opposite our habitable part of Europe, many captains have navigated, and the first (by that which one knows), was Gaspar Cortereale, a Portuguese, who, in 1500, went with two caravels intending to find some strait of the sea whence by a shorter voyage than that taken around Africa he would be able to go to the Spice Islands. He sailed so far forward that he came to a place where it was extremely cold, and he found, in the latitude of sixty degrees, a river closed with snow, to which he gave the name, calling it Rio Nevado. But he had not sufficient courage to pass much beyond it. The whole of this coast, which runs two hundred leagues from Rio Nevado as far as to the port of Malvas, in fifty-six degrees, he saw full of people and along it many dwellings.”[276]
The earliest account of Gaspar Cortereal’s voyage of 1501, from which he never returned, is contained in a letter written by Pietro Pasqualigo, the Venetian ambassador at the court of Portugal, to his brothers in Italy, dated October 19, 1501. The writer says: “On the eighth of the present month, one of the two caravels which his most serene majesty sent the past year under the command of Gaspar Corterat, arrived here, and reports the finding of a country distant west and northwest, two thousand miles, heretofore quite unknown.
“They ran along the coast between six hundred and seven hundred miles without arriving at its termination, on which account they concluded it to be the same continent that is connected with another land which was discovered last year in the north, but which the caravel could not reach on account of the ice and the vast quantity of snow, and they are confirmed in this belief by the multitude of great rivers they found, which certainly could not proceed from an island. They report that this land is thickly peopled, and that the houses are built of very long beams of timber, and covered with the skins of fishes. They have brought hither along with them seven of the inhabitants, including men, women, and children; and in the other caravel, which is looked for every hour, they are bringing fifty more. These people, in color, figure, stature, and expression, greatly resemble gypsies. They are clothed with the skins of different beasts, but chiefly of the otter, wearing the hair outside in summer, and next to the skin in winter. These skins, too, are not sewed together, nor shaped to the body in any fashion, but wrapped around the arms and shoulders as they were taken from the animals.... On this account their appearance is wholly barbarous; yet they are very sensible to shame, gentle in their manners, and better made in their arms, legs, and shoulders than can be expressed. Their faces are punctured in the same manner as the Indians; some have six marks, some eight, some fewer. They use a language of their own, but it is understood by no one. Moreover, I believe that every possible language has been addressed to them. They have no iron in their country, but manufacture knives out of certain kinds of stones, with which they point their arrows.
“They have also brought from this island a piece of a broken sword inlaid with gold, which we can pronounce undoubtedly to have been made in Italy; and one of the children had in his ears two pieces (todini) of silver, which likewise appear to have been made in Venice, a circumstance inducing me to believe that their country belongs to the continent, since it is evident that if it were an island where any vessel had touched before this time we should have heard of it.[277]
“They have plenty of salmon, herring, cod, and other fish of the same kind. They have an abundance of timber, principally pine, fitted for masts and yards of ships, on which account his serene majesty anticipates the greatest profit from this country, both in providing timber for ships, of which he, at present, stands in great need, and from the men that inhabit it, who appear admirably fitted to endure labor, and will probably be the best slaves which have been found up to this time.