leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. And
five years later, when Vasco da Gama at last reached Calicut by the
eastern route, no one could longer maintain, so it seemed to the
Portuguese King, that the Spanish explorers were in Indian waters. In
July, 1499, the news of Da Gama's success reached Lisbon; and Emanuel,
with pleasant malice, hastened to inform the Spanish sovereigns that the
real Indies had been visited "by a nobleman of our household," and that
he had found there, what every one expected to find, what Columbus had
nevertheless not found, "large cities, and great populations"; as
evidence of which he had brought home "cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg,
pepper, also many fine stones of all sorts; so that henceforth all
Christendom in this part of Europe shall be able, in large measure, to
provide itself with these spices and precious stones."

The conclusion which the Portuguese King so eagerly accepted was
meanwhile confirmed by every western voyage. Beyond the islands which
Columbus had discovered, an interminable barrier everywhere blocked the
way. In 1498, the admiral himself had touched the mainland near
Trinidad, and in 1502 he explored the Bay of Honduras. Hojeda and
Pinzon, in 1499 and 1500, sailed along nearly the whole northern coast
of South America, while in 1501 Americus Vespucci followed the eastern
coast from the point of Brazil as far as 35 deg. south latitude. It could no
longer be doubted, by those at least who had seen the great mouths of
the Amazon and the Plate Rivers, that behind this long stretch of coast
lay an immense continent; a projection of Asia, doubtless, separated
from it by some narrow strait, perhaps, or possibly by an unknown sea:
at any rate, a "boundless land to the south," as Columbus reported; and
which "may be called a new world, since our ancestors had no knowledge
of it," as Vespucci thought; "a fourth part of the world," said
Waldseemueller in his _Introduction to Cosmography_, published in 1507,
"which since Americus discovered it may be called Amerige--i.e.,
Americ's land or America." In 1506 Bartholomew Columbus prepared the
earliest extant map showing this _Mondo Novo_, represented as a
projection of southern Asia and extending three fourths of the distance
to the shoulder of Africa.

This new world of America, a seemingly impenetrable barrier, lay
between Spain and the Indies--the real Indies from which the
Portuguese were yearly bringing home a rich freightag