Portugal, and it was one of the distinguished sons of that little nation who had the honour of being its discoverer. In the year 1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral, sailing from Lisbon ostensibly to make an all-sea voyage to India, diverted his course off the Cape of Good Hope and sailed to the south-west. Forty-two days after leaving Portugal the eyes of the adventurous seaman rested upon Mount Paschoal in the State of Bahia. [Illustration: BEAUTIES AT PERNAMBUCO.] The event was momentous and the hour propitious, for everything favoured Portuguese expansion. The independence of the little kingdom was an accomplished fact, and the possibility of absorption of it by Spain was a remote contingency. The Moors, driven out of the Iberian Peninsula and hurled back to their native Africa, were no longer a menace. In addition to this the Portuguese were quick to perceive that a new era was dawning upon the world, and they were determined to have a hand in the shaping and controlling the future destinies of the newly discovered continent. The conquest and colonisation of Brazil were a national corollary to the earlier discoveries of Portuguese navigators. Cabral, with his companions, was at first inclined to believe that they had struck upon another island similar to those recently discovered in the Caribbean seas by their Spanish rivals, and he christened it, after the fashion of the period, “The Island of the True Cross,” and it was only when the geographical error was realised that the name was altered to Brazil. This name had been used long before, for a western island of the Azores was named “De Brazi,” being derived from the red dye woods which grow so plentifully in tropical latitudes. [Illustration: NEAR RIO.]