second expedition of the Portuguese to India: on his voyage thither, a
tempest drove him so far to the west, that he reached the shores of
America. He called it the Land of the Holy Cross; but it was afterwards
called Brazil, from the quantity of red wood of that name found on it.

For some time after the discovery of America it was supposed to be part of
India: and hence, the name of the West Indies, still retained by the
islands in the Gulph of Mexico, was given to all those countries. There
were, however, circumstances which soon led the discoverers to doubt of the
truth of the first conceived opinion. The Portuguese had visited no part of
Asia, either continent or island, from the coast of Malabar to China, on
which they had not found natives highly civilized, who had made
considerable progress in the elegant as well as the useful arts of life,
and who were evidently accustomed to intercourse with strangers, and
acquainted with commerce. In all these respects, the New World formed a
striking contrast: the islands were inhabited by savages, naked,
unacquainted with the rudest arts of life, and indebted for their
sustenance to the spontaneous productions of a fertile soil and a fine
climate. The continent, for the most part, presented immense forests, and
with the exception of Mexico and Peru, was thinly inhabited by savages as
ignorant and low in the scale of human nature as those who dwelt on the
islands.

The natural productions and the animals differed also most essentially from
those, not only of India, but also of Europe. There were no lemons,
oranges, pomegranates, quinces, figs, olives, melons, vines, nor sugar
canes: neither apples, pears, plumbs, cherries, currants, gooseberries,
rice, nor any other corn but maize. There was no poultry (except turkeys),
oxen, sheep, goats, swine, horses, asses, camels, elephants, cats, nor
dogs, except an animal resembling a dog, but which did not bark. Even the
inhabitants of Mexico and Peru were unacquainted with iron and the other
useful metals, and destitute of the address requisite for acquiring such
command of the inferior animals, as to derive any considerable aid from
their labour.

In addition to these most marked and decided points of difference between
India and the newly discovered quarter of the globe, it was naturally
inferred that a coast extending, as America was soon ascertained to do,
many hundred miles to the northward and to the southward of the equator,