they came to the Isthmus of Darien, where only a narrow neck of land divides the South Sea from the Western Sea, in which are the islands belonging to Spain.  The smaller ship accordingly set sail again from Thedori, and though they went as far as twelve degrees south, they did not find Cattigara, [236] which Ptolemy considered to lie considerably south of the equator; however after a long voyage, they arrived in sight of the Cape of Good Hope, and thence sailed to the Cape Verde Islands.  Here this ship also, after having been so long at sea, began to be leaky, and the men, who had lost several of their companions through hardships in the course of their adventures, were unable to keep the water pumped out.  They therefore landed at one of the islands called Santiago, to buy slaves.  As our men, sailor-like, had no money, they offered cloves in exchange for slaves.  When the Portuguese officials heard of this, they committed thirteen of our men to prison.  The rest, eighteen in number, being alarmed at the position in which they found themselves, left their companions behind, and sailed direct to Spain.  Sixteen months after they had sailed from Thedori, on the sixth of September 1522 they arrived safe and sound at a port [San Lucar] near Seville.  These sailors are certainly more worthy of perpetual fame, than the Argonauts who sailed with Jason to Colchis; and the ship itself deserves to be placed among the constellations more than the ship Argo.  For the Argo only sailed from Greece through the Black Sea; but our ship setting put from Seville sailed first southwards, then through the whole of the West, into the Eastern Seas, then back again into the Western.

I humbly commend myself to your Most Reverend Lordship.

Written at Valladolid twenty-fourth of October 1522.

Your Most Reverend and Most Illustrious Lordship’s

Most humble and perpetual servant,

Maximilianus Transylvanus.

Cologne—­[printed] at the house of Eucharius Cervicornus.  A.D. 1523—­in the month of January.

Bibliographical Data

The Line of Demarcation

Papal Bulls of 1493.—­The originals of the bulls of May 3 and 4 exist in the archives of the Vatican; and authenticated copies are in the Archivo general de Indias at Seville, their pressmark being “Patronato, Simancas—­Bulas; Est. 1, caj. 1, leg. 1.”  The Archivo Nacional of Lisbon (which is housed in the Torre do Tombo) has one of the originals of the Bull of May 4—­pressmark, “Gaveta 10, maco 11, n deg.. 16.”  The Inter caetera of May 3 was not known to be in existence until 1797, when it was discovered by Munoz in the Simancas archives (from which many documents have since been transferred to the archives at Seville); in recent years it has been found in those of the Vatican also.  There is in the British Museum a MS. copy (in Spanish translation) of the