The _Amazons_ at its mouth has a breadth of no less than thirty leagues, the volume of water proceeding through which penetrates for forty leagues into the sea before losing its sweetness. Whilst lying at the mouth of this river, Pinzon encountered a sudden swelling of the stream, which, meeting the current of the ocean, caused a rise of more than five fathoms, the mountain waves threatening his ships with destruction. Having extricated his vessels with no small difficulty from this danger, Pinzon, finding that there was no object to detain him in this region, showed that he was not less civilised than other Spanish navigators at the time in the matter of requiting hospitality, by carrying off thirty-six natives as slaves. Having the polar star once more to guide him, the mariner pursued his course along the coast, passing the mouths of the _Orinoco_, and entering the gulf of _Pária_, where he took in brazil-wood, and from which he emerged by the celebrated _Boca del Drago_. He subsequently reached Palos about the end of September of the same year, having lost two of his vessels at the _Bahamas_. Vicente Pinzon has the glory of having been the first European to cross the equinoctial line on the Western Atlantic and of having discovered _Brazil_. [Sidenote: 1500.] Later in the same year in which Pinzon had discovered Cape _St. Augustine_ and had taken possession of the neighbouring coast in the name of the sovereigns of Castile, an event happened which illustrates how sometimes in human affairs the effect of accident may almost anticipate the calculations and discoveries of genius.[I] Scarcely eight years had elapsed since Columbus had set out on that voyage which, according to the motto beneath his armorial bearings, gave a new world to Castile and to Léon, when another expedition was equipped by King Emanuel of Portugal, the commander of which, without having the least idea of discovering land to the westwards, accidentally lighted upon the coast of South America.