THE BOOK OF
EXPLORERS
Portugal gets discouraged
Chapter 12
Portugal had an Explorer named fMagellan,
2gWho wanted to go around the world,
3And so he did,
4hBut he never really understood the part about going ashore in some new place,
5iAnd taking everything you can find,
6jAnd then naming the whole place after yourself,
7Which maybe explains why he died en route round the world,
8Without doing any of the really important colonial things.
9Still, the Portuguese did manage to discover an eastern chunk of South America that didn’t have any gold to speak of,
10And therefore escaped the attention of the kSpanish conquistadors,
11Which gave Portugal a surprisingly large amount of land to help themselves to,
12Except that it was lBrazil,
13And almost completely covered with jungle,
14And much too hot,
15And full of insects and poisonous snakes,
16Which discouraged Portugal so much that it gave up trying to make history altogether,
17And never got to be a mChosen Nation.
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Chapter 12 / 17