44 
VOYAGE OP THE POTOMAC. 
[October, 
Vasconcellas, is recorded on one side of the obelisk before men- 
tioned, with an appropriate inscription in Latin. 
The Brazihan empire, of which the city of Rio Janeiro is the 
capita], hes on the eastern coast of South America, and spreads 
to the west, until it covers more than thirty degrees of longi- 
tude ; its eastern extremity being on the thirty-fourth, and its 
western on the sixty-fifth meridian, west from Greenwich. Its 
extent from north to south, where it tapers off to a point, is about 
three thousand miles, being from latitude 4° north, to 34° south, 
including a debatable region called Banda Oriental, on the north 
side of the Rio de la Plata. The entire territory of Brazil is 
therefore bounded on the north by Guyana; on the west by 
Bolivia and Peru ; on the south by Banda Oriental ; and every- 
where else by the North and South Atlantic Oceans. 
This country was first discovered by accident, in the year 1500, 
by the Portuguese Admiral Piierre Alvazez Cabral, who was on 
his way to India, via the Cape of Good Hope, with a squadron 
of thirteen ships, manned by twelve hundred men. In order to 
avoid the tedious calms and baffling winds which had so much 
retarded the progress of all his predecessors in running down the 
western coast of Africa, he made a more circuitous route, and 
crossed the equator several degrees farther west than any other 
navigator had done before him. The consequence was, a brisk 
southeast tradewind carried him directly to the coast of South 
America, in latitude about sixteen south, where he found a con- 
venient bay, in which he could anchor his squadron with safety. 
To this inlet, which is some five hundred miles north of Rio Ja- 
neiro, he gave the name of Porto Seguro ; and, naturally con- 
cluding that he had thus discovered a more southern part of the 
same continent which had but recently been made known by 
Columbus, he took possession of it in the name of his sovereign, 
under the appellation of Santa Cruz, or the Holy Cross. The 
mouth of the Orinoco, in latitude nine north, was the southern 
limit of the discoveries made by Columbus. 
The natives were at first much alarmed at this unexpected visit 
of the Portuguese, and incontinently fled to their hills and woods. 
But having secured two of their number, the admiral presented 
them with mirrors, brass rings, bells, and other trinkets, and then 
set them at liberty to rejoin their fugitive companions, whose ter^ 
