out a hundred
and fifty miles beyond the Orinoco, he entered a gulf and landed. Here
he cut a large quantity of brazil wood to take back to Spain.

[Illustration: Scene on the Orinoco River.]

Then he sailed for the island of Hispaniola, now called Haiti. From
this island he sailed to the Bahama Islands.

It was July when he reached the Bahamas. Misfortune again came to his
fleet. While anchored in the Bahamas a hurricane came up, and two of
his vessels were sunk. A third was blown out to sea. The fourth vessel
rode out the storm, but the crew, thinking all the while she would
sink, took to their small boats and at length reached the shore. The
Indians came to them when they landed, and proved friendly.

After the hurricane was over, the vessel that had been carried out
to sea drifted back. As soon as the sea was smooth enough Pinzon and
his men went on board the two remaining vessels and set sail for
Hispaniola.

At Hispaniola he repaired his vessels, and then sailed back to Spain.
He reached Palos in September.

About three months after Pinzon sailed away from the mouth of the
Amazon it was visited by a Portuguese navigator named Cabral. Although
the Portuguese were not so fortunate as to discover America, yet they
had been very active in making discoveries for seventy years and more
before Columbus's first voyage.

In 1420 they discovered the Madeira Islands. In 1432 they discovered
the Azore Islands, which lie eight hundred miles west of Portugal in
the Atlantic Ocean. Their vessels, from time to time, had been pushing
farther and farther down the west coast of Africa. In the middle of
the century as many as fifty-one of their caravels had been to the
Guinea coast, or the Gold Coast, as it was more often called. In 1484,
eight years before Columbus discovered America, they had discovered
the mouth of the Kongo River on the African coast.

It is not surprising, then, that their navigators were pushing out
across the Atlantic soon after Columbus had led the way.

But though Cabral sailed along the whole coast of Brazil, and took
possession of it in the name of the King of Portugal, he did not learn
any more about the great river at the mouth of which he anchored than
did Pinzon. Had he waited a few months, or had he returned to the river,
he might easily have explored its course. For from July to December
of each year the east wind blows steadily up the Amazon, and Cabral
could have spread his sails and kep