pinnace commanded by Jago de Guevara, and another small vessel, completely lost sight of the larger ships. Their situation was desperate; for they carried no provisions, having daily received their supplies from the admiral's stores. Guevara, under these circumstances, thought the most prudent course to be adopted was to steer for New Spain. His men had little to subsist on besides the birds which they caught in the rigging. On board of the Pataca there was, by good luck, a cock and hen; and the hen, as soon as the vessel entered the warm latitudes, laid an egg every day. The captain of the other ship offered Guevara a thousand ducats for his two fowls, which the latter refused; the eggs being the chief nourishment of the sick men. At length, after enduring extreme sufferings for some weeks, they saw land; but as they approached the shore, they found it covered with savages. The coast was low, and so beset with breakers, that it appeared utterly impossible to land from their vessels ; nor was it evident that the natives watched them with friendly intentions. But necessity now compelled the adoption of desperate measures: some one must devote himself for the good of all, and Juan de Arrayzaga offered to attempt to gain the beach in an empty chest. He had not proceeded far, however, when the chest upset: he endeavoured to reach the shore by swimming; but his strength soon failed him; and he must inevitably have perished in the waves, had not the Indians rushed forward to his assistance. When drawn on shore, he found himself in the midst of twenty thousand natives, armed with bows and arrows. Apprehension seized him for a moment; but what was his joy, when a cacique, pointing to a cross erected at a little distance, pronounced the words Sancta Maria! Arrayzaga then learned that he was arrived at Tecoantepec, on the coast of Mexico. Provisions were immediately sent on board the Pataca; and Guevara, having landed, was conducted to Cortez.

The storm which had driven the Pataca from her course had dispersed the other vessels of Loyasa's fleet.

THE

Loyasa himself died just when he approached the ached th

F

equa

tor, and the celebrated pilot, Sebastian del Cano,' survived him but four days. The vessels arrived at the Ladrone islands under the command of Salazor. Here they found a Galician, who had deserted from Magellan's fleet, and who had learned the language of the natives. Pursuing their course to the Moluccas, the Spaniards engaged in hostilities with the Portuguese, and having lost their ships, either fell in battle or pined in captivity. Fernando de la Torre, with a few other individuals of Loyasa's fleet, returned from the Moluccas to Europe in 1534, having thus made the complete circuit of the earth.

Cortez had been apprised by the court of Spain of the sailing of Loyasa's expedition, and desired to co-operate with it. As soon as he was informed by Arrayzaga that the admiral had already crossed the Pacific Ocean, he equipped three caravels, which he placed under the command of Alvaro de Saavedra, a skilful and enterprising officer. In October, 1526, Saavedra sailed from Jevatlancio in Mexico, and after discovering a group of islands, which he called The Kings, reached Mindanao, and afterwards the Moluccas, where the Spaniards and Portuguese were now carrying on with each other a war of extermination. It caused not a little astonishment, when, on being questioned whence he came, he replied, from New Spain. On the first appearance of the Spaniards in those seas, the Portuguese were at a loss to comprehend how their rivals, by sailing westward, could reach those sequestered countries, at which they themselves had arrived by holding a directly opposite course. But when Saavedra, in a small caravel, declared that he had crossed the ocean from New Spain, which he estimated to be at a distance of two thousand and fifty leagues, his statement was hardly credited; so much was ignorance confounded by the full discovery of the geographical relationship between the old and new worlds.

The Spanish commander, after taking on board such

of the companions of Magellan and Loyasa as still survived in the Indian islands, sailed from Tidore in June, 1528, to return to Mexico. After a navigation of two hundred and fifty leagues, he anchored near certain Golden Isles, of which his description does not remain ; but which are supposed, with good reason, to have been a part of Papua or New Guinea. The inhabitants were negroes, and entirely naked. Endeavouring to effect his voyage to New Spain, Saavedra reached some islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where he was surprised to find the inhabitants handsome and fair complexioned; they were tattooed and painted all over, on which account he gave the islands the name of Pintados. Adverse winds drove him back again to the Moluccas; whence he made a second attempt to reach Panama, with a cargo of cloves, but with no better success. He died during the voyage, and the vessel returned to Tidore. Saavedra appears to have indulged much in the bold speculation of cutting a canal across the isthmus of Darien.*

The court of Spain, whose policy it was to encourage, in every daring adventurer, the first ambition of conquest, but to prevent the consolidation of his power, began now to view with a jealous eye the success of Cortez. The complaints of his enemies were well received, and commissioners were appointed to enquire into his conduct. The conqueror of Mexico, hurt at this unworthy treatment, and aware that an equitable trial was not to be expected in the New World, where the sentiments of justice and generosity were choked by habitual violence and rapacity, resolved to return to Spain, and vindicate his conduct to the emperor in perHe appeared at Toledo with a costly retinue, and such a display of wealth as was calculated to raise the estimation of those rich countries which he had annexed to the Spanish crown. Some of the Mexican nobility This splendour produced the

son.

followed in his train.

intended effect. Cortez, now marquess del Valle de

*Ant. Galvaom. dos descrobrimentos antigos.

Guaxaca, was received by the emperor with every demonstration of favour and esteem. But although his enemies were silenced, the inflexible policy of the government was not moved by the openness of his behaviour. His authority was abridged; and Antonio de Mendoza was appointed viceroy of New Spain, while the marquess was allowed to retain only the powers of captain-general and admiral of the South Seas.

The enterprising genius of Cortez, thus confined in its operations, and debarred the further pursuit of political greatness, engaged eagerly in the prosecution of geographical discoveries. Here an ample field lay open to him, in which his active spirit might be laudably employed and fame acquired. During his absence in Spain, Nunez de Guzman had marched with an army from Mexico, towards the north-west: he had collected in his course a large quantity of gold, and received the submission of many caciques. To the rugged mountainous country which terminated his progress northward, he gave the name of New Galicia. Cortez, desirous to obtain a perfect knowledge of the coast in the same direction, fitted out an armament at Acapulco, which he placed under the command of Hurtado de Mendoza ; but violent storms, and the misconduct of the officers employed, defeated the object of the expedition. At length, in 1536, Cortez equipped a second fleet, of which he took the command in person, and, after enduring great hardships, discovered the peninsula of California, and advanced above fifty leagues within the Gulf of California, called also the Vermilion Sea. The Spaniards still name it from its discoverer, Mar de Cortez. years later, when the viceroy Mendoza sent an expedition to continue the discoveries of Cortez, the officers engaged in it are said to have reached the fortieth degree of latitude, where they saw snowy mountains on the coast, and met with ships having their yards gilded and bows adorned with silver. These vessels, according to the narrators of the tale, were supposed to have come from Japan or China.

Six

Two vessels, which Cortez sent about the same time with succours to Pizarro, and with orders to steer from Peru to the Moluccas, accomplished the voyage with success. They sailed for a thousand leagues across the Pacific without seeing any land; but afterwards touched at numerous islands. These expeditions, from which so little resulted, are said to have cost Cortez three hundred thousand crowns." * But he hoped that the generosity of the emperor would indemnify him for losses incurred in undertakings of this nature: he also expected to obtain restitution of the estates which had been unjustly wrested from him during the former suspension of his authority. With these views he returned to Spain, in 1540. But his merits weighed lightly in the interested calculations of the Spanish court. Charles V. received him coldly, and evaded his demands. Cortez attended the emperor in the celebrated expedition to Algiers: the vessel in which he had embarked was stranded, and in wading to the shore he lost his valuable jewels. In the combat that ensued he had a horse killed under him, and appeared conspicuous, for the last time, in the field of battle. Charles V. treated him with such neglect, as not even to allow him the favour of an audience. Cortez, on one occasion, forced his way through the crowd, and stood on the step of the emperor's carriage. Charles V., astonished at his boldness, demanded who he was. 66 "I am one," replied the conqueror of Mexico, "who has given you more provinces than your ancestors have left you towns." But his boldness gave offence to imperial pride, and he was allowed to remain in obscurity. His health now rapidly declined: worn out by fatigues, disappointment increased his natural infirmities; and this extraordinary man expired near Seville on the 2d of December, 1547, in the sixty-second year of his age. His remains were interred with great pomp in the chapel of the dukes of Medina Sidonia; but were afterwards removed to New Spain, in conformity with the desire expressed in his will. The titles of Cortez have passed by mar

*Bernal Diaz.