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explore barbarous shores and unknown seas. Reaching the coasts of Paria
and Cumana, they carried on for some time a profitable commerce with the
natives, from whom they obtained pearls and gold in exchange for glass
beads and other trinkets; but falling in at length with tribes less
peaceful, and not, like Ojeda, enjoying warlike renown as much as
profitable traffic, they returned to Spain after an absence of ten
months, and making fewer discoveries but more profit than had yet
resulted from any voyage across the Atlantic.

In the month of December of the same year, 1499, _Vicente, Yanez
Pinzon_, one of the three brave men of that family who aided Columbus in
his first voyage, but who had since remained in Spain, owing to the
difference that arose between his brother and the admiral, embarked with
two of his nephews, sons of Martin Alonzo, in an armament consisting of
four caravels, from the port of Palos, the cradle of American discovery.
Carried by a storm south of the equator, they were perplexed with the
new aspect of the heavens, and it was not till the 28th of January,
1500, that they were consoled by the sight of land. The headland they
saw, now known as cape St. Augustin, the most prominent point of Brazil,
they named Santa Maria de la Consolacion. They found the natives warlike
and inhospitable, treating with haughty contempt the hawks' bills and
trinkets which were exhibited to them; and Pinzon and his weary
messmates were fain to pursue their voyages, amid occasional conflicts
whenever they landed, along the shores that stretched to the north. He
discovered the mouth of the vast river of the Amazons, visited a number
of fresh and verdant islands lying within it, and thence passing the
gulf of Paria, made his way directly to Hispaniola. From there, sailing
to the Bahamas, he encountered a violent storm, and sustained so much
damage that he returned to Spain.

Scarcely had Pinzon sailed from Palos, when he was followed by his
townsman _Diego de Lepe_. Of his voyage, however, but little is known,
except that he doubled cape St. Augustin, and enjoyed for ten years the
reputation of having extended his discoveries farther south than any
other voyager.

In October following, soon after the return of Ojeda, a wealthy notary
of Seville, by name _Rodrigo de Bastides_, desirous of speculating in
the new El Dorado, engaged the services of the veteran pilot and
companion of Ojeda, Juan de la Cosa, and set out with t