Here the Spaniards remained for several months, then, having found no minerals of value in the country, although there was a great abundance of valuable woods of every kind, they decided to return to Portugal. All the vessels were stocked with food and with water for six months, their prows were turned eastward, and, bidding the cannibals of South America a fond adieu, the explorers headed for home. After a stormy passage, and, after a voyage of fifteen months, the adventurous navigators again sailed into the harbor of Lisbon, where they were received with much joy. Florence received the accounts of the discoveries of her illustrious son with much pride, and honors were bestowed upon those members of his family who lived in the city of the Arno.
Amerigo Vespucci was now a popular idol. He had been the discoverer of the method of obtaining longitude at sea, by observing the conjunction of the moon with one of the planets, and his observations and enumeration of the stars in the southern heavens were of great value to mariners who came after him. He was far in advance of most other learned men of the age in his knowledge of the sciences of astronomy and geometry.
Believing that Amerigo would have reached India by way of the southwest, had not his last voyage been interrupted by the severe storm which he had encountered, the King of Portugal lost no time in fitting out another expedition. Six vessels were therefore prepared, Amerigo being placed in command of one of them, and recognized as the scientific authority of the squadron. The fleet set sail again for that country of which all Europe was talking and speculating.
This expedition was similar to those which preceded it. The vessels met with severe storms; saw cannibals, brightly plumaged birds, and islands of palm groves and chattering parrots. The Spaniards built a fortress upon one of the many harbors which they entered; then, as all but one ship had been lost by shipwreck, the vessel which Vespucci commanded sailed back to Lisbon, arriving on June 18th., 1504. He was received as one risen from the dead, for the whole city had given him up for lost.
Thus ended the last voyage of the famous Florentine. Perhaps disheartened by the unfortunate result of his cruise, he abandoned the idea of again going to sea, and devoted himself to writing an account of what he had already accomplished. Although younger by four years than Columbus, when the great Admiral had set sail upon his first voyage to the unknown West, Amerigo decided to rest upon laurels already won, and to never again tempt fame and fortune in an expedition to the shores of South America. He spent his declining years in writing a full and graphic account of his many expeditions to the New World, and, on February the twenty-second, 1512, the spirit of the astronomer and geographer passed to a better sphere.
For many years after its discovery there seems to have been no effort to give a name to the New World; indeed, it was so long supposed to be a part of Asia that this was thought to be unnecessary. In a Latin book, printed at Strassburg, Germany, in 1509—the work of an Italian called Ilacomilo—it was suggested that the country be called America, as it was discovered by Amerigo (Americus).
Not in the lifetime of the great Vespucci was this name so used. As late as the year 1550, North America was called Terra Florida on the Spanish maps, while Brazil was the name given to the coast of South America, where much dye-wood was obtained; the title coming from the Portuguese word braza, meaning live coal, or glowing fire. Both the names of America and Brazil were applied to the shore of South America, until, after a while, the second of these names was confined to that part of the coast where the valuable dye-wood was obtained, while the other name was attached to the part north and south of it. From this it was but a short step to speaking of all of the great southern peninsula as America, and gradually this name was given to the entire western continent.
Somewhere in Spain or Italy, Amerigo Vespucci sleeps in an unknown grave, but his epitaph is the name of a double continent: rich, populous, teeming with all things valuable.
Of noble thought, splendid mind, and facile pen, the memory of the great Florentine geographer should be revered and respected for all time.