ever been satisfactorily supported.

The letters of Vespucius describing his four voyages were
published originally in Italian in Florence in 1505-6. The letter
here in part given was addrest by Vespucius to Soderini, the
Gonfalonier of Florence. The translation, by one "M.K.," was
published by Mr. Quaritch, the London bookseller, in 1885, and has
been printed as one of the "Old South Leaflets!" The letter is
believed to have been composed by Vespucius within a month after
his return from his second voyage.

Vespucius was a naval astronomer. He has been unjustly accused of
appropriating to himself an honor which belonged to Columbus,--that
of giving a name to the new continent. This injustice, however,
was not due to Vespucius, but to a German schoolmaster named
Hylacomylus, or "Miller of the Wood-pond," who published a book in
1507. The passage in Millers book in which he made a suggestion
which the world has adopted is as follows:

"And the fourth part of the world having been discovered by
Americus, it may be called Amerige; that is, the land of Americus,
or America. Now, truly sience these regions are more widely
explored, and another fourth part is discovered by Americus
Vespucius, I do not see why any one may justly forbid it to be
named Amerige; that is, Americ's Land, after Americus, the
discoverer, who is a man of sagacious mind; or call it America,
since both Europe and Asia derived their names from women."

Vespucius, in spite of several voyages, discovered very little in
America. The continent ought not to have been named alter him.

A BATTLE WITH THE INDIANS

(1497)

AS DESCRIBED BY AMERICUS VESPUCIUS[1]

Desiring to depart upon our voyage natives made complaint to us how at
certain times of the year there came from over the sea to this their
land, a race of people very cruel, and enemies of theirs: and (who) by
means of treachery or of violence slew many of them, and ate them: and
some they made captives, and carried them away to their houses, or
country: and how they could scarcely contrive to defend themselves
from them, making signs to us that (those) were an island-people and
lived out in the sea about a hundred leagues away: and so piteously
did they tell us this that we believed them: and we promised to avenge
them of so much wrong: and they remained overjoyed herewith: