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Page 22
This land is very populous, and full of inhabitants, and of numberless
rivers, (and) animals: few (of which) resemble ours, excepting lions,
panthers, stags, pigs, goats, and deer: and even these have some
dissimilarities of form: they have no horses nor mules, nor, saving
your reverence, asses nor dogs, nor any kind of sheep or oxen: but so
numerous are the other animals which they have, and all are savage,
and of none do they make use for their service, that they could not he
counted. What shall we say of others (such as) birds? which are so
numerous, and of so many kinds, and of such various-coloured plumages,
that it is a marvel to behold them. The soil is very pleasant and
fruitful, full of immense woods and forests: and it is always green,
for the foliage never drops off. The fruits are so many that they are
numberless and entirely different from ours. This land is within the
torrid zone, close to or just under the parallel described by the
Tropic of Cancer: where the pole of the horizon has an elevation of 23
degrees, at the extremity of the second climate. Many tribes came to
see us, and wondered at our faces and our whiteness: and they asked us
whence we came: and we gave them to understand that we had come from
heaven, and that we were going to see the world, and they believed it.
In this land we placed baptismal fonts, and an infinite (number of)
people were baptized, and they called us in their language Carabi,
which means men of great wisdom.
[1] Americus Vespucius was born in Florence in 1452 and died in
Seville in 1512. He was the son of a notary in Florence, was
educated by a Dominican friar and became a clerk in one of the
commercial houses of the Medici. By this house he was sent to
Spain in 1490. He remained some years in Seville, where he became
connected with the house which fitted out the second expedition of
Columbus.
Vespucius claimed to have been four times in America, first in
May, 1497; second, in May, 1499; third, in May, 1501; fourth, in
June, 1503. In writing of the first expedition he says his ship
reached a coast "which we thought to be that of the continent,"
giving date. If this assumption be correct, and the dates correct,
they would show that he reached the continent of North America a
week or two before the Cabots made their discovery farther north,
but this contention has never 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: and many
of them offered to come along with us, but we did not wish to take
them for many reasons, save that we took seven of them, on condition
that they should come (_i.e._, return home) afterward in (their own)
canoes because we did not desire to be obliged to take them back to
their country: and they were contented: and so we departed from those
people, leaving them very friendly toward us: and having repaired our
ships, and sailing for seven days out to sea between northeast and
east: and at the end of the seven days we came upon the islands, which
were many, some (of them) inhabited, and others deserted: and we
anchored at one of them: where we saw a numerous people who called it
Iti: and having manned our boats with strong crews, and (taken
ammunition for) three cannon shots in each, we made for land: where we
found (assembled) about 400 men, and many women, and all naked like
the former (peoples).
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