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THE CAPTIVITY OF HANS STADE

therefore God had helped us unexpectedly, and had saved us from shipwreck, and also that we knew not where we were.

When they heard this they marvelled and thanked God, and told us that the harbour in which we were was called Supraway,[1] and that we were about eighteen miles[2] away from an island called Sancte Vincente,[3] belonging to the king of Portugal, and that they lived there, and those whom we had seen in the small ship had made off, because they had thought that we were Frenchmen.

We also asked of them, how far from there was the island of Sancte Catharina,[4] for that we were bound thither. They said it might be about thirty miles (leagues) to the south, and that there was a nation of savages there called Carios,[5] of whom we should be well on our guard, and they

  1. ↑ Superaqui is the long tongue of land which, with the Ilha Peças, forms the northern passage into the bay and harbour of Paranaguá, The latter is in S. lat. 25 deg. 84 min. 8 sec., and in W. long. (G.) 48 deg. 26 min. 50 sec.
  2. ↑ The reader must bear in mind that Hans Stade's miles are North German meilen, which may be assumed as equivalent to long leagues. More correctly, it is one fifteenth of a degree=4·606 English statute miles=8,106 yards. The Flemish league is 6,869 yards; and the Dutch, which is probably the measure here used, is only 6,480 yards.
  3. ↑ St. Vincent, for whose name see preface, is the well known island, harbour and town, in the province of São Paulo, S. lat. 24 deg. 1 min. 11 sec., and W. long. (G.) 46 deg. 30 min. 20 sec. The settlement was founded by Martim Affonso de Sousa in A.D. 1532, and is first described in the Epistola of P. Anchieta. Being exposed to storms and harassed by pirates, it was superseded in A.D. 1543 by Santos, so called "Ex ejusdem vocationis nosochomio ibi constituto," and this is now the chief if not the only port of export in the province of S. Paulo. For further details see chapter 38.
  4. ↑ Santa Catharina, in S. lat. 27 deg. 35 min., with S. Sebastian and S. Francisco, are the principal islands of southern Brazil. The chief settlement is Nossa Senhora do Desterro, called by the natives Jurumerim or Jururémerim (Varnhagen, i, 38). Here there was a British Consulate before it was removed to Santos. See chap. 9.
  5. ↑ The Carijós are repeatedly alluded to in the following pages (e. g., chapters 9, 18, 30, and Part 11, chapter 2). They were southerners in-
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