HISTORY OF DISCOVERY. II 



sible by reason of the cliffs, was sighted. " There were 

 no inhabitants, doubtless by reason of the cold, against 

 which all precautions are unavailing. We approached 

 the coast and sailed twenty miles along it." The highest 

 southern latitude reached was 52° or 50° — the readings in 

 the editions of Vespucci's account differ. 



The statements of the Florentine navigator have 

 raised suspicion, if not doubt and uncertainty, since the 

 history of discovery has been subjected to modern criti- 

 cism. His testimony appeared untrustworthy, especially 

 as he was supposed — probably unjustly — to wish to give 

 his own name to the new continent. At length search 

 was made for a country that he might perhaps after all 

 have discovered ; but in vain. In the direction indicated, 

 viz., S.E. of Cananea, there is no land whatever, so that 

 the conclusion was arrived at that the whole voyage 

 to high southern latitudes was an invention. Such a 

 possibility is, however, not to be accepted, since there 

 must have been persons enough among the members 

 of the expedition — it consisted of three vessels — to have 

 refuted the statements of the pilot. Neither is the sup- 

 position tenable that an error was made in giving S.E. 

 as the direction instead of S.W., for the coast of Brazil 

 stretches due south 250 miles from Cananea. The state- 

 ments of Vespucci must therefore be accepted as correct, 

 and fitted as nearly as possible to actual circumstances. 

 Various conjectures, based on the latitude given, have 

 been made as to the inhospitable coast seen by the 

 Portuguese. The coast of Eastern Patagonia (A. v. 

 Humboldt), the Falkland Isles — whose latitude and 

 appearance fall in with the description — and finally the 

 island of South Georgia (Varnhagen) have been sug- 

 gested. The last seems worthy of acceptance. The 

 objection to the Falkland Isles is the direction of the 

 course given. The vessels, certainly, after leaving the 

 Bay of Cananea, must have entered the region of the 



