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extremity of the "Land of the True Cross" might be
doubled, just in the same way as Africa had been doubled.
Waldseemiiller's Globe and Map published in the very
year of Behaim's death prove this most conclusively.

This " Caput finis Terrae " of the charts was the goal
of the expedition under Vicente Yanez Pinzon and Juan
Diaz de Solis which left San Lucar in June, 1508. But
disputes between the leaders destroyed its chances of
success, and it came back in October, 1509, having
advanced no further than a Cape of St. Mary1 to the north
of the estuary of La Plata. The estuary between that
cape and the Cabo de S. Antonio has a breadth of 120
sea-miles, and even much further within it cannot be seen
across. It seems indeed that Diaz de Solis failed to
recognise that he had reached the estuary of one of the
largest rivers of the world. In this respect a private
expedition fitted out by Don Nuno Manuel, the Controller
of the Royal Household (Almotacel mdr) and Christdbal
de Haro, a merchant prince of Antwerp, at that time
established at Lisbon, was more successful. One of the
pilots whose vessel arrived on October 12, 15142 at
Madeira, on the homeward voyage, gave an account of
their discoveries to an agent of the famous Welsers of
Augsburg who was stationed there. This account was
forthwith printed in Germany as a ' Newe Zeytung auss
Presilly (Brazil) Landt.' We thus learn that the two
vessels of the expedition doubled a cape in lat. 40°, or one
degree beyond the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope
(i.e., 35° S.), and sailed up a " gulf" for sixty leagues when
a violent storm (pampero) swept them back into the open
sea. The pilot expressed a belief that this "gulf" or
strait would enable a ship to sail to " Malaqua," which he
thought was distant only 600 leagues,3 and proposed to
make this voyage shortly himself. Who was this " fast
friend " of the writer of the ' Newe Zeytung,' whom he
refers to as " the most famous of the King of Portugal's
pilots ? " I believe it was Joao de Lisboa. Gaspar Correa
(' Lendas da India,' t. II., p. 528) credits him with having
discovered the Cabo de S. Maria, on the northern shore of
the estuary of the La Plata; Magellan's pilots are stated4
to have recognised this cape from a description given by

1 This cape, judging from the old charts, is identical, not with the modern
Cabo de S. Maria, but with the Cabo de Ballena near Maldonado in 35° S.

a The date was discovered by Dr. K. Habler in the original MS. still
preserved in the archives of the Fugger family (' Zeitschrift fur Erdkunde,'
Berlin, 1895, p. 352). This discovery disposes of many pages of
conjecture regarding the date of the expedition.

3 Surely the pilot knew better! The meridian distance between
the mouth of the La Plata and Malacca was certainly known to exceed
160°, for it was well known that Malacca, first reached by Lopez de
Sequeira, lay within the Portuguese half of the world, or more than 158°
to the West of the " Line of Division " as laid down by the Treaty of
Tordesillas. Magellan in his ' Memorial of September, 1519,' estimates
the meridian distance between the Cabode S. Maria and Malacca at 177.', .
The actual difference between the Line of Division and the Moluccas is
186°. These coveted islands were thus 6° within the Portuguese half.

* Herrera, Doc. II., lib. IX., c. 10; Varnhagen, ' Historia General
de Brazil/ 1854, L, p. 30.

him, and his name is attached, on Diego Ribero's chart
(1529), to a cape a little further to the north.

Martin Fernandez d'Enciso, whose ' Suma de
Geographia' was printed at Seville in 1519, knew that a
river twenty leagues broad entered the sea to the south of
that cape, and that the country beyond it was inhabited
by man-eaters.

In the meantime news had been received of the
discovery of a great " Southern Ocean " on September 25,
1513, by Vasco Nunez de Balboa,5 and Juan Dias de Sobs
was despatched for a second time with instructions to seek
for a strait or to sail round the southern extremity of
Brazil, so that he might join hands with the Spanish forces
already on the west coast of the New Continent. He
started in October, 1515, explored the estuary of the La
Plata, and sailed up the Parana, where he lost his life in a
skirmish with natives; upon which his faint-hearted
companions returned to Europe.

It will thus be seen that when Magellan submitted his
scheme to the authorities in Spain, the west coast of South
America was known only as far as the estuary of a huge
river, then known as Rio de Solis, and subsequently as Rio
de la Plata. Magellan's friend Christobal de Haro, who
had left Lisbon for Seville on account of a denial of justice
on the part of King Manuel, and who contributed 4,000
ducats towards the expenses of this expedition, naturally
communicated to him the results of his own Brazilian
venture of 1514. It was permissible at that time, notwithstanding
the second voyage of Diaz de Sobs, to believe
that the estuary discovered might eventually turn out to
be connected with a strait leading to the Mar del Sur,
and it is almost certain that this hypothetical strait was
shown on charts which Magellan was able to consult. At
all events, the existence of such a strait was believed in
by a German mathematician, Johann Schoner, who,
depending solely upon the scant and misunderstood
information of the ' Newe Zeytung,' delineates it upon a
globe, the gores for which were printed at Nuremberg in
1515.6 Schoner's name is not engraved upon this globe,
and Magellan, who only left Portugal in 1516, may have
seen it there, and ascribed it to Behaim. There may even
have existed a map in the King's treasury showing such a
" hypothetical" strait. Behaim, however, cannot have
been the author, for when the news of the discovery of the
La Plata first reached Europe he was already dead.7

5 Bernhard Varenius (b. at Hitzaker, 1622, died 1650, at Amsterdam,
shortly before the publication of his famous ' Geographia Generalis,' of
which Isaac Newton, in 1672, published a revised edition—see Dr.
Breusing, in Petermann's Mitth., 1880, p. 136), credits this Balbao with
the discovery of Magellan's Strait (' Geogr. gen.,' cc. 12 and 14).

« See Maplet No. 9.

1 Antonio Galvao, 'The Discoveries of the World' (London, 1862,
p. 66), tells us that D. Pedro, in 1428, brought a chart of the world from
Venice upon which the Strait of Magellan was called " The Dragon's Tail "
(Cola de Dragon) and the Cape of Good Hope " Frunteira de Africa."
See A. Ribeiro dos Santos, " Memoria sobre dois antigos Mappas,"
' Memoriasde Litterature Portugueza,' VIII., 1812. This mysterious map
has never been discovered and never will be.