liuing creature commeth into it, their skins will come off, and yet fish breede in it. There are crabs which be very sweete, and so strong in their clawes, that they will breake the iron of a pikeaxe. There be others also in the sea little and hairie, but whosoeuer eateth of them dieth immediately. There be likewise certaine oisters, which they doe call Bras, the shels whereof haue so large a compasse, that they doe Christen in them. In the sea also there are liuely stones, which doe grow and increase like vnto fish, whereof very good lime is made: and if they let it lie when it is taken out of the water, it looseth the strength and it neuer burneth after.
The flowers of Xistus and Arbor tristis are such. There is also a certaine tree, which beareth flowers at the sunne set, which fall downe as soone as they be growne. Their is a fruit also, as they say, whereof if a woman that is conceaued of childe eateth, the childe by and by mooueth. There is further a kinde of herbe there growing, which followeth the sunne, and remooueth after it, which is a very strange and maruailous thing.
The Isles of Maldiuia. In the yeere 1512 in the moneth of Ianuarie Alfonsus de Albuquerque went backe from Malaca vnto Goa,[1] and the ship wherein he went was lost, and the rest went from his companie. Simon de Andrada, and a few Portugals were driuen vnto the Islands of Maldiua, being many and full of palme trees: and they stand lowe by the water: which staied there till they knew what was become of their gouernour. These were the first Portugals that had seene those Islands, wherein there growe Cocos, which are very good against all kinde of poison.
Iohn de Solis. In this yeere 1512.[2] there went out of Castile one Iohn de Solis borne in Lisbon, and chiefe pilot vnto Don Fernando. And he hauing licence went to discouer the coast of Brasill. He tooke the like course that the Pinsons had done: he went also to the Cape of S. Augustine, and went forwards to the south, coasting the shore and land, and he came vnto The Port de Lagoa: and in 35. degrees of southerly latitude he found a riuer which they of Brasill call Parana-guaçu, that is,
- ↑ Barros decad. 2. lib. 7. cap. 1.
- ↑ According to Herrera this was in 1508. "In the year 1508," says he, "John Diaz de Solis, and Vincent Yanez Pinzon sailed from Sevil, in the two Caravels the King had fitted out, and from the Islands of Cabo Verde passed over directly to Cape St. Augustin, and proceeding thence to the Southward, coasting along the Continent, came into about forty degrees of South Latitude, erecting Crosses wheresoever they landed, and took possession in the most solemn Manner." See Herrera's History of the West Indies. Vol. i. p. 332.
