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Mutiny was nearly breaking out on board the ship of Nicholas Coelho; but he was warned by a young boy who had overheard the discussions of the malcontents, and he therefore took all the means in his power to defeat their objects.
Being separated, as it was expected would be the case, they all steered for the Cape de Verde, where Paulo da Gama, Coelho, Diaz, and Nunez rejoined one another, but the Captain-Major had not arrived. At length his ship made her appearance, when, to show their joy, they saluted him with salvoes from their artillery, for fears had been entertained that he was lost.
Coelho kept silence until the King bade him speak. He then, Joab Nunez acting as interpreter, delivered the message he had brought from the Captain-Major. After hearing it, the King bade him retire, saying that the overseer of the treasury would bring him an answer; but Nicolas replied that he could receive no answer but from the King himself.
Nicolas Coelho went in command of her, with ten seamen and twelve men-at-arms with crossbows.
Then the following day, before the morning, Vasco da Gama again ordered Nicolas Coelho to go in a boat with sails and oars, and with provisions to eat, and told him to go as far as the head of the river, to see if he could find anyone to speak to, to learn what country they were in. He went up the river a distance of more than twenty leagues, and returned without having found anything.
Therefore he sent for the three knights, Diogo Lopez Pacheco, Alvaro Gonçalves, and Pedro Coelho, who had counselled him to do the dreadful deed and had themselves struck the blow, and bade them leave their property and all they had, and fly while there was yet time to foreign lands for refuge. The knights saw the wisdom of the advice, and sought shelter in Castile.
With this they remained satisfied. Some days having passed thus with heavy storms, the Lord was pleased to assuage the tempest a little and the sea grew calm, so that the ships could speak one another; and Nicolas Coelho, coming up to speak, shouted to the captain-major that "it would be well to put about, since every moment they had death before their eyes, and so many men who went in their company were so piteously begging with tears and cries to put back the ships.
Like Coelho, he struck the Brazilian coast at Bahia; but, instead of proceeding to the south, as his predecessor had done, he remained for some while at the spot. It is said that when De Souza landed he fell in with a Portuguese of the name of Correia. This worthy is supposed to have formed one of Cabral's expedition. For some reason or other he was marooned at that place.
This was Brazil, and the point where now stands Porto Seguro. On the 28th, after a skilful reconnaissance of the coasts had been made by Coelho, the Portuguese sailors landed upon the American shores, and became aware of a delicious mildness of temperature, with a luxuriance of vegetation greatly exceeding anything which they had seen on the coasts of Africa or of Malabar.
Paulo da Gama, who also had come up within speaking distance, heard all this. When they had heard these words of Nicolas Coelho, who, on ending his speech, at once begun to move away, the captain-major answered him that he would hold a consultation with the pilot and his crew, and that, whatever he determined to do, he would make a signal to him of his resolution.
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