t; but on meeting
with a rebuff, he went to Spain. Here he formed the acquaintance of a
talented astronomer, Ruy Falero, and soon afterwards they together
proceeded to Cardinal Ximenez, to propose leading an expedition westward
from the Atlantic into the newly-discovered South Sea. Their proposals
being favourably listened to by the Emperor Charles the Fifth, were
accepted, and they were furnished by his orders with five ships, manned
by two hundred and thirty-four men, having provisions for two years. To
the adventurers was granted a twentieth part of the clear profit, and
the governorship of any islands they might discover was to be vested in
them and their heirs, who were to bear the title of Adelantado.

The squadron, which was fitted out at Seville, consisted of the
_Trinidad_, the Admiral's ship, of which Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese,
went as pilot; the _Saint Vitoria_, commanded by Don Luis de Mendoza;
the _Saint Antonio_, Don Juan de Carthagena; the _Santiago_, Don Juan
Serrano; and the _Conception_, Don Caspar de Quixada.

The Admiral Magalhaens depended chiefly on the naval skill of thirty of
his Portuguese countrymen whom he took with him, as he did likewise on
that of Serrano, who had served for many years in India, and for some
time at the Moluccas, which islands they hoped to reach from the
eastward, instead of their being approached, as before, from the west.

The ships being ready, the squadron set sail on the 10th of August,
1519, and steering south, they arrived on the 3rd of October off the
Cape de Verde Islands. Getting into the region of calms, they were
detained for the long space of seventy days without making any progress;
but at last a breeze springing up, they got to the south of the line,
then steered a course which brought them about twenty degrees south in
sight of the coast of Brazil. Putting into harbour, they obtained an
abundant supply of fruits, sugar-canes, and animals of various kinds,
differing greatly in appearance from those of Europe. Proceeding about
two and a half leagues farther south, they again came to an anchor, at
the mouth of a large fresh water river, probably that of the Rio de la
Plata, as no other of the size mentioned exists in the south of the
continent.

Here, soon after they arrived, a number of persons of wild and furious
aspect and prodigious stature, making strange noises, rather resembling
the bellowing of bulls than the voices of human beings, came dow