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This legend of the aborigines is laid in Ceará, a northern province of Brazil, at that time unknown and unconquered.

In 1603, Pero Coelho, a gentleman of Parahyba, another northerly province, then already belonging to the Portuguese, arrived at the mouth of the river Jaguaribe in Ceará, with a command of 80 colonists and 800 Indians. He there founded the first settle-
ment in Ceará, and called it Nova Lisboa.

This Pero Coelho was abandoned by his comrades when a certain João Soromenho was sent to him with reinforcements, and was authorised to pay the ex-
penses of the expedition by making captives or slaves. He did not respect even the Indians of the Jaguaribe river, who were friendly to the Portuguese.

This proved the downfall of the growing settlement. The natives resented such tyranny. Pero Coelho, with his wife and young children, was compelled to fly by land to his own province.

In the first expedition was Martim Soares Moreno, a youth from Rio Grande do Norte, another northerly