Diaz de Solis to assert them. They
made Cape St Augustine's, which Pincon had discovered, and coasted along
to lat. 40 deg. south, erecting crosses as they went; but some disputes
having arisen between them, they returned to Spain: and it appears that
the remonstrances of Portugal against the voyage, as an interference
with her discoveries, had some weight, for it was not until 1515 that
Solis was dispatched on a second voyage, and then it was with the avowed
purpose of seeking a passage to the Great Pacific Sea, which had been
sought and seen by Balboa in 1513.

That extraordinary but unfortunate man was the first European whose eyes
rested on the broad Pacific. He had heard from the Indians of its
existence, and resolutely set out to discover it, well aware of the
dangers and difficulties he had to encounter. After twenty-five days of
suffering and fatigue, he saw the South Sea; he heard of Peru, its
mines, and its llamas, its cities and its aqueducts, and he received
pearls[4] from the islands that lay in front of St. Miguel's bay, where
he walked sword in hand up to his middle into the water and took
possession for the King of Spain. No one in Europe now doubted that the
western way to the East Indies was discovered.

[Note 4: Pearl islands, in the bay of Panama. The sand of the beach
of those islands is iron, and is as easily attracted by the loadstone as
steel filings.]

Great hopes were therefore entertained from the expedition of Solis.
That able navigator made the coast of Brazil far to the southward of
Cape St. Augustine, where he had been with Pincon; and on the 1st of
January 1516 he discovered the harbour of Rio de Janeiro; thence he
sailed still to the southward, and entered what he hoped at first would
be a sea, or strait, by which he might communicate with the ocean; but
it was the river La Plata, where Solis and several of his followers were
murdered and devoured by the natives. The ships then put back to St.
Augustines, loaded with Brazil wood, and returned to Spain.

But the King Don Emanuel claimed these cargoes, and again remonstrated
against the interference of Spain so effectually, that three years
afterwards, when Magalhaens touched at Rio de Janeiro, he purchased
nothing but provisions.

Meantime several French adventurers had come to Brazil, and had taken in
their cargoes of Brazil wood, monkies and parrots, and sometimes
plundered some of the weaker Portuguese traders. In 1616, two of th