Quotes About Discovery

Laurence Bergreen

You must so conduct this voyage of discovery that you do not encroach upon the demarcation

King Charles conferred the title of captain on both Magellan and Faleiro.

Magellan could only have marveled at the speed with which his plan to reach the Spice Islands had come together.

And Magellan came well armed for what would be the most important meeting of his life.

Magellan of October was on the

what would actually occur once he set forth from Seville.

13, 1519, the fleet entered the lush and gorgeous Bay of Saint Lucy and approached the mouth of the River of January—Rio de Janeiro.

Magellan led his ships in and around the islands of the bay, but found no sign of a strait.

Trinidad went first, slipping past Sugar Loaf and coming quietly to anchor in the harbor. Magellan had arrived in the New World.

the final days of 1499, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, a Spanish mariner, first saw the coast of what would later be called Brazil.

Magellan refused to consider this huge bay as anything more than that.

Heaving long passed the point of no return to South America

Pinzón explored the easternmost shores of Brazil and ventured into the mouth of the Amazon River

the newly discovered land went by various names; not until 1511 did "Brazil" first appear on a map

Finally, on February 27, the armada explored a promising inlet

Magellan named the inlet Bahía de los Patos, Duck Bay

Even young relatives of Magellan found themselves the object of derision and were stoned.

and carefully explored it to locate an entrance to the strait.

From the time we left that bay until the present day, we sailed fourteen thousand four hundred and sixty leagues"—nearly sixty thousand miles—"and furthermore completed the circumnavigation of the world from east to west.

trying to lure Magellan and Faleiro back to Portugal.

Magellan brought a prominent personage with him: Ruy Faleiro, a mathematician, astronomer, and nautical scholar.

Although this was his first visit to Brazil, Magellan was familiar with the brilliantly evocative descriptions

but they found only a primitive structure sheltering two hundred gravesites.