In the same year Stephen Gomez sailed from Corunna, to endeavour to discover a strait in the northern parts, by which ships might sail from Europe to the Moluccas. This person had been refused employment in the fleet commanded by Loaisa; but the Count Ferdinando de Andrada, with the Doctor Beltram, and a merchant named Christopher de Sarro; fitted out a galleon for him at their joint expence. He went first to the island of Cuba, whence he sailed to Cape Florida, sailing only by day, as he was ignorant of the coast. He passed Cape Angra, and the river Enseada, and so went over to the other side; and it is reported that he came to Cape Razo[59] in lat. 46° N. whence he returned to Corunna with a cargo of _slaves_. But news spread through Spain that he was come home laden with _cloves_, which occasioned much joy at the court of Spain, till the mistake was discovered. Gomez was ten months engaged in this voyage. 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° or 10° 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. On this, Gabota thought it more prudent to return to his fort, after having penetrated 200 leagues or 800 miles up this river. He took on board the people he had left at the fort, and returning to the ships at the bar, sailed back to Seville in 1530. He reported that the Rio Plata was navigable for a great way, and that it rises from a lake named _Bombo_[60] in the kingdom of Peru, whence, flowing through the valleys of Xauxa, it receives the rivers Parso, Bulcasban, Cay, Parima, Hiacax, and several others, by which its waters are greatly increased. It is also