while performing a large "volta do mar" to avoid becalming in the Gulf of Guinea. On 21 April 1500, a mountain was seen that was named Monte Pascoal, and on 22 April, Cabral landed on the coast, in Porto Seguro. Believing the land to be an island, he named it Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross). The previous expedition of Vasco da Gama to India already recorded several signs of land near its western open Atlantic Ocean route, in 1497. It has also been suggested that Duarte Pacheco Pereira may have discovered the coasts of Brazil in 1498, possible its northeast, but the exact area of the expedition and the explored regions remain unclear. On the other hand, some historians have suggested that the Portuguese may have encountered the South American bulge earlier while sailing the "volta do mar" (in the Southwest Atlantic), hence the insistence of King John II in moving the line west of the line agreed upon in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. From the east coast, the fleet then turned eastward to resume the journey to the southern tip of Africa and India. Landing in the New World and reaching Asia, the expedition connected four continents for the first time in history. In 1501–1502, an expedition led by Gonçalo Coelho (or André Gonçalves and/or Gaspar de Lemos), sailed south along the coast of South America to the bay of present-day Rio de Janeiro. Among his crew was the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci. According to Vespucci, the expedition reached the latitude "South Pole elevation 52° S" in the "cold" latitudes of what is now Patagonia, near the Strait of Magellan, before turning back. Vespucci wrote that they headed toward the southwest-south, following "a long, unbending coastline". This seems controversial, since he changed part of his description in the subsequent letter (stating that around 32° S, they made a shift to open sea, to south-southeast), maintaining, however, that they reached a similar 50° S latitude. Amerigo Vespucci participated as observer in four Spanish and Portuguese exploratory voyages. The expeditions became widely known in Europe after two accounts attributed to him, published between 1502 and 1504. His last two voyages to the east and southern east coasts of South America, by Portugal, especially the expedition of 1501–1502 to Brazil and beyond, and its meeting with Cabral's ships and men (who had touched the South American, African