The first aim of his successors was to ascertain more clearly what it was that Columbus had discovered.  Immediately after Columbus’s third, voyage, in 1498, and after the news of Vasco da Gama’s successful passage to the Indies had made it necessary to discover some strait leading from the “West Indies” to India itself, a Spanish gentleman, named Hojeda, fitted out an expedition at his own expense, with an Italian pilot on board, named Amerigo Vespucci, and tried once more to find a strait to India near Trinidad.  They were, of course, unsuccessful, but they coasted along and landed on the north coast of South America, which, from certain resemblances, they termed Little Venice (Venezuela).  Next year, as we have seen, Cabral, in following Vasco da Gama, hit upon Brazil, which turned out to be within the Portuguese “sphere of influence,” as determined by the line of demarcation.

But, three months previous to Cabral’s touching upon Brazil, one of Columbus’s companions on his first voyage, Vincenta Yanez Pinzon, had touched on the coast of Brazil, eight degrees south of the line, and from there had worked northward, seeking for a passage which would lead west to the Indies.  He discovered the mouth of the Amazon, but, losing two of his vessels, returned to Palos, which he reached in September 1500.

This discovery of an unknown and unsuspected continent so far south of the line created great interest, and shortly after Cabral’s return Amerigo Vespucci was sent out in 1501 by the King of Portugal as pilot of a fleet which should explore the new land discovered by Cabral and claim it for the Crown of Portugal.  His instructions were to ascertain how much of it was within the line of demarcation.  Vespucci reached the Brazilian coast at Cape St. Roque, and then explored it very thoroughly right down to the river La Plata, which was too far west to come within the Portuguese sphere.  Amerigo and his companions struck out south-eastward till they reached the island of St. Georgia, 1200 miles east of Cape Horn, where the cold and the floating ice drove them back, and they returned to Lisbon, after having gone farthest south up to their time.

[Illustration:  AMERIGO VESPUCCI.]

This voyage of Amerigo threw a new light upon the nature of the discovery made by Columbus.  Whereas he had thought he had discovered a route to India and had touched upon Farther India, Amerigo and his companions had shown that there was a hitherto unsuspected land intervening between Columbus’s discoveries and the long-desired Spice Islands of Farther India.  Amerigo, in describing his discoveries, ventured so far as to suggest that they constituted a New World; and a German professor, named Martin Waldseemueller, who wrote an introduction to Cosmography in 1506, which included an account of Amerigo’s discoveries, suggested that this New World should be called after him, AMERICA, after the analogy of Asia, Africa, and Europe.  For a long time the continent which we