. Vespucci was to coast its
northern shores, while Pinzon, with a confidence born of successive
ventures on the ocean, was to strike farther southward than any had
done before him (in the western hemisphere), cross the equinoctial
line, and reveal to the knowledge of civilized man the great river,
afterwards called the Amazon, and the country of Brazil. The fleet in
which Vespucci took passage left Spain in the month of May, 1499, that
commanded by Pinzon left in December; and it is still a moot question
whether the first or the second was the first to arrive on the coast
of Brazil. But Pinzon sailed beyond Vespucci on that voyage, though he
was to be surpassed, the next year, in the generous rivalry that
existed for making the "farthest south."

Another companion of Vespucci worthy of note is the man called by Las
Casas the best pilot of his day, Juan de la Cosa. He had been with
Columbus on his first voyage, as owner and pilot of the _Santa Maria_,
and also on his second, and may have had good grounds for believing
himself as good a navigator as the Admiral, while as a cosmographer he
was probably his superior. The historian, Peter Martyr, asserts that
La Cosa and another pilot, Andres Morales, "were thought to be more
cunning in that part of cosmography which teacheth the description and
measurement of the sea" than any others in the world. In truth, the
first map of importance made within a decade of the discovery of 1492
was that produced by La Cosa, in the summer of 1500, after his return
from the voyage (his third to the New World) with Ojeda and Vespucci.
It is thought that he embodied in that map the results of Vespucci's
voyage of 1497-1498, as communicated to him during their intimate
companionship of thirteen months. La Cosa, the Biscayan pilot, was a
man cast in the same generous mould as Vespucci, and shared none of
the narrow notions of Columbus. His great regard for Columbus is shown
in the vignette to his map, which represents the giant Christopher
(the "Christ-bearer") carrying the infant Jesus on his shoulders.
Beneath this vignette is the legend, "Juan de la Cosa made this map,
in the port of Santa Maria [near Cadiz], year 1500." It is the best
map that had been put forth up to that date, and for a long time
thereafter remained as a guide to mariners.

His services were in great request at that time, and in the month of
October, 1500, he was engaged by Rodrigo Bastidas, a lawyer of
Seville, to pilo