Americus Vespucius, who has given his name to the whole New World.
Both the new governors were small men, well built and in the prime of life. Ojeda was a famous athlete, who had once, by way of showing his prowess before the Queen, gone out on a narrow piece of timber that projected twenty feet from the
Born at Florence, Italy, in 1452; entered commercial service in Spain; accompanied four expeditions to the New World, on the first of which, in 1497, he claimed to have reached the continent of America before the Cabots and Columbus; died at Seville in 1512.
top of the Giralda tower at Seville, "walked along it as fast as if it had been a brick floor, and at the end of the plank lifted one foot in the air, turned, and walked back as quickly. Then he went to the bottom of the tower, placed one foot against the wall, and threw an orange to the top, a height of two hundred and fifty feet."[1] He was a rough, reckless, bull-headed fighter. Nicuesa, on the contrary, was of noble descent and polished manners, a skilled musician and orator, and a great favorite at court. Both alike were lacking in the thing most essential in a leader, the power of managing men.
Both expeditions sailed from Santo Domingo. Ojeda got away first, on the tenth of November, 1509, with two ships, two brigantines, three hundred men and twelve mares. Nicuesa, the wealthier of the two, had spent all
- ↑ Las Casas.
