BY JAMES R. MCLYMONT, M.A. 49 



we found that we were furthur from Africa thaii from the 

 West Indies, where for several years the Dieppese and 

 Maloinese, and other Normans and Bretons have gone to 

 fetch red dye-wood, cottons, apes, parrots, and other 

 commodities ; as the east wind, which we observed to prevail 

 between the said tropic, and that of Cancer impelled us 

 thither, it was unanimously agreed to go in search of that 

 country, in order to load with the above-mentioned articles of 

 merchandise, so as to recoup ourselves for the expenses of the 

 voyage ; and we arrived there on the day of St. Denis 

 (October 10, 1504), as aforesaid." Voyage clu Capitaine de 

 Gonneville, par. M. d'Avezac, Paris, 1869, p. 104. This 

 mention in the year 1505 of the West Indies, — the name by 

 which South America was generally known,— as a resort since 

 some years of French ships throws back their advent in that 

 country to the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the 

 sixteenth century. La Popeliniers states — " The French, 

 especially the Normans and Bretons, always maintain that 

 they first discovered these lands and traded with the savages 

 of Brazil, on the E.io San Francisco, at the place since called 

 Port Real. But thoughtless in this, as in other things, they 

 had neither spirit nor discretion to leave a single public 

 document to inform us of their designs, which were as lofty 

 and generous as those of other people ; thus it is that the 

 Portuguese arrogate to themselves the prerogative of indis- 

 putable lordship there, in consequence of the action of Pedro 

 Alvares." Les trois mondes, iii. p. 16 verso. 



The illustrations of the native life of " Jave la Grande " 

 are referable to South America. The llama — the sheep strong 

 enough to carry a man as one old geographer describes it, — 

 is frequently depicted. In one chart (Dauphin) it is harnessed 

 and being driven along. The cannibalistic practices of some 

 of the tribes are signified by Desceliers, by a drawing of a 

 dog-faced man engaged under the direction of a woman in 

 quartering a dead body, whilst a human limb hangs suspended 

 from a neighbouring tree. This reminds one of Vespucci's 

 account of the fate of a young Portuguese of his third 

 expedition, and of the human flesh which he saw exposed in 

 the villages. In the same map of Desceliers, under the 

 heading "Angania," the inhabitants of that country are 

 described as dog-faced Anthropophagi. The huts of the 

 . aborigines of Jave la G-rande are in the Dauphin map identical 

 with those of the South Americans, being roofed with 

 palmate leaves, but they are without the hammocks of the 

 latter, which were characteristic of the tribes inhabiting the 

 north of Brazil. Desceliers has drawn clusters of anthill- 

 shaped structures on his Jave la Grande, and on the West 

 Coast of his South America. On Jave la Grande he has 

 pictured the "Worship of the Sun, common to. Peru and some 



T) 



