IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 67 



sort of way to Brazil. That such a discovery was not followed up 

 before 1492 would be simply because no one at that time could 

 have any idea of what such a discovery meant. The land would 

 have been looked on as another island and one too far away to be 

 of much use. 



On Martin Behaim's globe of 1492, there is a large island in the 

 position of part of the coast of South America, in fact in the exact 

 position given by the legend on Biancho's map of 1448. 



The Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 insured to Portugal all the 

 eastern part of South America. Why this treaty should have been 

 ratified unless the Portuguese already had knowledge of these lands 

 it is hard to see. Spain claimed the lands discovered by Columbus 

 and Portugal claimed the lands to the south probably reported by 

 Portuguese navigators. 



On the 1st of May, A. D. 1500, Master Joao, physician to D. 

 Manuel of Portugal, wrote to the King about the land (Brazil) 

 just found by the fleet of Cabral on board of which he was, "that 

 those lands might the King see represented on the mappamundi 

 which Pero Vaz Bisagudo had." He adds that the mappamundi 

 does not mention if the land were inhabited, while he could certify 

 it to be well peopled. He also says that the said mappamundi was 

 ancient. This last statement is strong evidence that somebody must 

 have seen the land before 1492. 



Las Casas, writing between 1552 and 1561 about the third 

 voyage of Columbus in 1498, says that Columbus wanted to go 

 south because he believed he could find lands and islands, and also 

 because he wanted to see what King D. Joao of Portugal meant 

 when he said that there was '"' terra firma " to the south. The 

 grounds for the belief of Columbus have never been explained. 



The map itself and the side evidence do not make this landfall 

 a certainty. But they certainly make it a probability. Personally 

 the weight of evidence seems to me to lean very decidedly in favor 

 of South America having been reached by some unknown Portu- 

 guese navigator half a century before Columbus reached American 

 shores. 



The first southern European voyage to America, however, of 



