Let us add to these immense considerations some matters of less importance.  I think that I should not omit mentioning the voyage of Juan Solis,[5] who sailed from the ocean port of Lepe, near Cadiz, with three ships, the fourth day of the ides of September, 1515, to explore the southern coasts of what was supposed to be a continent.  Nor do I wish to omit mention of Juan Ponce,[6] commissioned to conquer the Caribs, anthropophagi who feed on human flesh; or of Juan Ayora de Badajoz, or Francisco Bezerra, and of Valleco, already mentioned by me.  Solis was not successful in his mission.  He set out to double the cape or promontory of San Augustin and to follow the coast of the supposed continent as far as the equator.  We have already indicated that this cape lies in the seventh degree of the antarctic pole.  Solis continued six hundred leagues farther on, and observed that the cape San Augustin extended so far beyond the equator to the south that it reached beyond the thirtieth degree of the Southern Hemisphere.  He therefore sailed for a long distance beyond the Boca de la Sierpe and Spanish Paria, which face the north and the pole star.  In these parts are found some of those abominable anthropophagi, Caribs, whom I have mentioned before.  With fox-like astuteness these Caribs feigned amicable signs, but meanwhile prepared their stomachs for a succulent repast; and from their first glimpse of the strangers their mouths watered like tavern trenchermen.  The unfortunate Solis landed with as many of his companions as he could crowd into the largest of the barques, and was treacherously set upon by a multitude of natives who killed him and his men with clubs in the presence of the remainder of his crew.[7] Not a soul escaped; and after having killed and cut them in pieces on the shore, the natives prepared to eat them in full view of the Spaniards, who from their ships witnessed this horrible sight.  Frightened by these atrocities, the men did not venture to land and execute vengeance for the murder of their leader and companions.  They loaded their ships with red wood, which the Italians call verzino and the Spaniards brazil-wood, and which is suitable for dyeing wool; after which they returned home.  I have learned these particulars by correspondence, and I here repeat them.  I shall further relate what the other explorers accomplished.

[Note 5:  Juan Diaz de Solis, a native of Sebixa, sailed with Vincente Yanez Pinzon in 1508, when the mouths of the Amazon were discovered.  In 1512, the King appointed him and Giovanni Vespucci his cartographers.]

[Note 6:  Governor in 1508 of Porto Rico and later, in 1512, the discoverer of Florida, of which country he was appointed Adelantado by King Ferdinand.  He died in Cuba in 1521, from the effects of a wound received during his expedition to Florida in that year.]

[Note 7:  The scene of this massacre was between Maldonado and Montevideo.]