Since the admiral's discovery, in 1498, of the Pearl Coast, that is, the extreme northern shore of South America, nothing had occurred to modify his views formed at that time concerning the new regions, except to show that this southern addition of the Asiatic continent was much larger than had at first been supposed. His special aim in this fourth voyage was to do what various circumstances had prevented him from doing before, namely, to sail along the eastern and southern coasts of Asia to India, passing, of course, through the supposed strait between the main-land and the land of Paria. It is certainly extraordinary that this idea entertained by Columbus corresponded so closely with the actual conformation of the eastern Asiatic coast, and its southern addition of the Australian archipelago; that this conformation is so closely duplicated in the American coasts; and that the position of the admiral's hypothetical strait was almost identical with the actual narrowest part of the American continent. Columbus followed the coast to the western limit of Bastidas' voyage and could find no opening in the shore, either because the ancient chroniclers were faulty in making no mention of this great supposed southern extension of Asia, or because the strait had in some way escaped his scrutiny. He therefore abandoned the search, and gave himself up to other schemes, but he never relinquished his original idea, and died, 1506, in the belief that he had reached the coast of Asia, and without the suspicion of a new continent. Moreover, his belief was shared by all cosmographers and scholars of the time. _Peter Martyr_, dec. i. cap. viii.; _Humboldt_, _Exam. Crit._, tom. i. p. 26; tom. iv. p. 188; Preface to _Ghillany_; _Major's Prince Henry_, p. 420; _Kohl's Hist. Discov._, pp. 140, 238-9; _Draper's Int. Develop._, p. 445; _Stevens' Notes_, p. 37.
[1503.] Another expedition was sent by Portugal in search of the Cortereals, but returned unsuccessful. _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._, p. 58; _Peschel_, _Geschichte der Entd._, p. 334.
According to Harrisse, _Bib. Am. Vet._, pp. 173-4, we have "authentic deeds and depositions proving beyond doubt a French expedition to Brazil as early as 1503;" in support of which he refers to _De Gonneville_, _Mémoires_, Paris, 1663; _De Brosses_, _Hist. des Navigations_, Paris, 1756, tom. i. pp. 104-14; _Revista Trimensal_, Rio de Janeiro, tom. vi. p. 412-14; _D'Avesac_, in _Bulletin de la Soc. Géog._, tom. xiv. p. 172.