In
this same year, Don George de Menesses, governor of Molucca, and Don
Henriques, sent a vessel on discovery towards the north, commanded by
Diego de Rocha, having Gomez de Sequiera as pilot.
In lat. 9 deg. or 10 deg. N.
they discovered several islands in a group, which were called the islands
of Sequiera; whence they returned to the island of Bato-China. In 1526,
Sebastian Gabota, chief pilot to the emperor, a native of Bristol in
England, whose father was a Venetian, sailed from Seville with four ships,
intending to have gone to the Moluccas by a western course. Gabota came
to Pernambuco in Brasil, where he waited three months for a favourable
wind to get round Cape St Augustine. In the Bay of _Patos_, or of ducks,
the admirals ship was lost; and despairing of being able to accomplish
the voyage to the Moluccas, he built a pinnace for the purpose of
exploring the Rio Plata. Gabota accordingly ran sixty leagues, or 120
miles up that river; when coming to a bar, he left the large ships there,
and went with the boats of the squadron 120 leagues, or 480 miles farther
up the river Parana, which the inhabitants considered to be the principal
river. He here constructed a fort, and remained in that place above a
year; From thence he rowed still farther up the Parana, till he came to
the mouth of another river called _Paragioa_, or Paraguay; and,
perceiving that the country produced gold and silver, he kept on his
course, sending one of the boats in advance, which was taken by the
natives.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 119 of 812
Words from 32816 to 33093
of 224388
