there is well known. He was taken in chains to
Cadiz, Spain, arriving there in December, 1500.

On his fourth and last voyage he sailed May 11, 1502. On June 15th he
was at Martinique. He touched at Santo Domingo, thence sailed across to
Cape Honduras, doubled that cape, and skirted the coast of Nicaragua,
where he heard of the Pacific Ocean, though the name had not its present
meaning for him. It was during his attempt to find the Isthmus of
Darien, which he thought was a strait of water, that he was shipwrecked
on the coast of Jamaica. He remained there a year and then went back to
Spain, reaching home November 7, 1504. It was the last voyage of the
great navigator, and it will be observed that he never saw or stepped
foot on the mainland of _North_ America, though he saw South America in
1498, as stated. In 1506 he died in Spain.

Amerigo Vespucci, like Columbus, made four voyages, some of the details
of which are known. His letter, written to his friend Piero Soderini,
September 4, 1504, gives us information concerning his famous first
voyage. Hitherto the only copy of this letter known was a Latin
translation of it published at the College of Saint-Die, April 25, 1507,
but the primitive text from which the translation was made has been
found, and by that text Americus' reputation has been saved from the
discredit critics and biographers have cast upon it, and his true
laurels have been restored to him. The mistake of changing one word, the
Indian name "Lariab," in the original, to "Parias," in the Latin
version, is accountable for it all. The scene of his explorations is now
transferred from Parias, in South America, to Lariab, in North America,
and his entire letter is freed from mystery or inconsistency with the
claims which have been made for him.

It is now established beyond controversy that Americus sailed on the
first voyage, not as commander, but as astronomer, of the expedition,
May 10, 1497, and first ran to the Grand Canaries. Leaving there May
25th, the first landfall was on the northern coast of Honduras of North
America. Thence he sailed around Yucatan and up the Mexican coast to
Tampico ("Lariab," not "Parias"). After making some inland explorations
he followed the coast line 870 leagues (2,610 miles), which would take
him along our Southern gulf coast, around Florida, and north along the
Atlantic coast until "they found themselves in a fine harbor." Was this
Charleston harbor or Hampton Roads? In