Chapter XCVII (4)

Santarem here covers a large part of the field of mediæval geography, but his treatment in this place is hardly so clear or exhaustive as one might expect from the author of the _Essai sur Cosmographie_, or the compiler of the leading _Atlas_ of mediæval maps. As to the immediate subject, the phrase _Mediterranean_ [_Sea_] was first used in the sense of a proper name by St. Isidore of Seville, _c._ A.D. 600 (_Origins_ or _Etymologies_, Book xiii); though its adjectival use, like the parallel expressions "Our [sea]," "the Roman [sea]," "the Inner [sea]," was of course much earlier. As late as Solinus (_c._ A.D. 230) this last is clearly the only shade of meaning. As to the commerce of North Africa, we must refer to the Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xxii-xxvi, xlv-lvi, lxiv. As to the mediæval _Mirabilia_, it is strange that Santarem gives no adequate reference to the great sources of these collections: Pliny's _Natural History_, and above all Solinus' _Collectanea_, principally compiled from Pliny, Mela, and Varro, and itself reproduced (wholly or partially) in well-nigh every mediæval work of similar character, translated into the pictorial language of Mappemonde, such as that of _Hereford_, of _Ebstorp_, or of the _Psalter_ (Brit. Mus. _Add. MSS._ 28,681). On these, see _Dawn of Modern Geography_, pp. 243-273, 327-391. Santarem's remarks hardly give a sufficient idea of the systematic domination exercised over much of mediæval thought, not only in geography, natural history and ethnology, but in other departments also by the pseudo-science represented in these _Mirabilia_.]

[Endnote 145: (p. 183). _Paulus Orosius._--[Here we must note the omission of the name of Diodorus Siculus among the authors cited by Azurara, especially as he is, among all the ancient historians, the one who has left us the most important and circumstantial account of the Nile. The first Latin version of Diodorus by Poggio only appeared in 1472, nineteen years after Azurara had finished this chronicle. The works of Orosius were held in high estimation among the learned of the Middle Ages. This writer was born at Braga in Lusitania, agreeably to the opinion of some authors. (See _Fr. Leam de St. Thomas, bened. lusit. I_, ii, p. 308; and Baronius, an. 414.) His work, _Historiarum adversus Paganos_, which begins with the creation of the world and comes down to the year 316 of Jesus Christ, was printed for the first time in 1471, that is, eighteen years after Azurara had finished his Chronicle, but during the Middle Ages copies of this work were so multiplied that even in England the book was to be found in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon people (see Wright, _Essay on the State of Literature and Learning under the Anglo-Saxons_, p. 39), a detail which affords one proof the more of the literary relations between the Spanish peninsula, and the peoples and nations of the North in the first centuries of the Middle Ages.]--S. See _Dawn of Modern Geography_, pp. 353-5.]

[Endnote 146: (p. 184). _Mossylon Emporion_ (_Mossille Nemporyo_).--[Azurara alters the name. The passage to which the Chronicler refers is the following:--_Et Ægyptum superiorem fluviumque Nilum, qui de litore incipientis maris Rubri videtur emergere in loco qui dicitur Musilon Emporium_, not _Mossile Nemporyo_. (_Orosius_, Bk. I, vi.)]--S. On this _Emporion_, see Bunbury's _Ancient Geography_, vol ii, pp. 692; _Solinus_, ch. lvi.]

[Endnote 147: (p. 184). _Josepho Rabano._--[This is the celebrated author of the history of the Jews, Flavius Josephus, whose work was first composed in Syriac and afterwards in Greek. It was so much esteemed by the Emperor Titus that he ordered it to be put into the public library. The first Latin translation which was printed, according to some bibliographers, was in 1470, seventeen years after this Chronicle was finished.]--S.]

[Endnote 148: (p. 184). _Meroë._--[On this African island the reader can consult _Ptolemy_, iv, 8; _Herodotus_, ii, 29; _Strabo_, Bks. XVII-XVIII; and, above all, _Diodorus Siculus_, i, 23, etc. The Master Peter quoted by Azurara is the famous Petrus Aliacus, or de Aliaco (d'Ailly), in his book _Imago Mundi_, finished in 1410: a book which had a great vogue in the fifteenth and even in the sixteenth century.]--S. Cf. also Pliny, _H. N._, ii, 73; v, 9; Cailliaud, _L'isle de Meroe_.]

[Endnote 149: (p. 184). _Gondojre._--[According to our belief the reading should be Gondolfo. This writer had travelled in Palestine, and his life is (to be found) written in _Anglia Sacra_, tom. ii].--S. The Master Peter mentioned just before is rather a doubtful case. He is possibly the writer of the eleventh-century treatise "Contra Simoniam," etc., or the "Magister Scholarum" of the thirteenth, usually called the "Master of Stommeln."]

[Endnote 150: (p. 185). _Crocodiles._--Here we have an original MS. note.--[This is an animal, as Pliny relateth, which breedeth in the Nile, and whose custom and nature is to live by day on land and by night in the water; in the water to feed on the fish upon which it liveth and maintaineth itself, and on the land to sleep and refresh itself. But when it cometh out in the morning to the bank, if it findeth a boy or a man it quickly killeth him, and it is said that it swalloweth them whole. And it is a very evil and very dangerous beast.]

Compare other original notes of MS. written in the same character on pp. 7, 8, 13, etc. On the Nile and its crocodiles and other wonders, as conceived by mediæval writers, we may also compare _Solinus_, ch. xxxii.

On Azurara's reference to _Cæsarea_ (Cherchel) immediately preceding, Santarem remarks as follows:--[This is Julia Cæsarea, now Cherchel, as is proved by various Roman inscriptions discovered there lately, and communicated to the Institute of France (Royal Academy of Inscriptions) by M. Hase. This city was one of the busiest of the ancient Regency of Argel.]]

[Endnote 151: (p. 188). _Dog Star_ (_Canicolla_).--Here we have an original MS. note.--[This star, as saith the interpreter of Ovid, giveth its name to the Dog Days, which are those days which begin on July 5th and finish on September 5th. And this name came from a bitch which guarded the body of Icarus, when he was slain by the reapers, as Master John of England relateth. And he relateth that because that bitch guarded faithfully the body of its lord, it was numbered among the signs; and because it was a little bitch, the Dog Days took this name of theirs in this form, "Canicullus" for "Cam," or "Canicolla" for "Cadella." And because that bitch of Icarus was poisoned with the stench of its master, who lay dead and already stank, therefore did that star become also a poisonous one; and therefore does the sun still poison when it passeth through that sign, and so do the rays of the sun then poison the meats on earth. Wherefore those thirty-two days which the sun taketh in passing through that sign, are held by physicians to be days hurtful to the health of the body.] [_John of England is John Duns Scotus, Franciscan friar, called Doctor Subtilis, one of the chief philosophers of the Middle Ages, and Professor in Oxford_ (_see Wadding, Vita J. Duns Scoti, doctoris subtilis, published in 1644_).]--S.]

[Endnote 152: (p. 188). _Ellice and Cenosura._--Here we have another manuscript note.--[These are the two poles, to wit, Arctic and Antarctic. And the interpreter of Ovid saith that each one of these two signs are called _Arcom_, and that _Arcom_ is a Greek word, and signifieth what in Latin is meant by _Ursi_, and in the Portuguese language by _Ursas_; and that, besides, by each of these signs we call the North.]]

[Endnote 153: (p. 189). _So directly passeth the sun, etc._--[See Strabo, Bk. XVII, who refers to the wells without shade during the summer solstice.]--S.]

[Endnote 153a: (pp. 188-9). _Bishop Achoreus._--[Azurara refers here to Achoreus, the Egyptian high priest of whom Lucan speaks in the _Pharsalia_, Canto x. The passage to which Azurara refers begins with the following verse:--Vana fides veterum, Nilo, quod crescat in arva. Comparing this chapter of Azurara with the episode of Canto x of the _Pharsalia_, we see clearly that it was from Lucan he derived the whole of his description of the Nile.]--S.]

[Endnote 154: (p. 191). _The marvels of the Nile._--[So great was the influence of the systematic geography of the ancients upon the imagination of the Portuguese of the fifteenth century, that, on arriving at the Senegal, and seeing that the water was sweet very near to the mouth, and very clear, in the same manner as the Nile (_Nulli fluminum dulcior gustus est_, said Seneca), and observing the same phenomena, they did not doubt for a moment that they had discovered the Nile of the Negroes. In these two chapters we see something of the vast erudition of Azurara, and at the same time something of the historical and cosmographical knowledge of our first discoverers. Moreover, we must call the attention of the reader to a very important detail, namely, that while Azurara shows himself imbued with the reading of the ancient authors on these matters, in the same way as our mariners, the latter, if we study the spirit of their words, show that they had some knowledge of the system of the Arab geographers in this respect. These latter applied the same terms (as our first Portuguese explorers) to the two rivers, distinguishing the Nile of Egypt and the Nile of the Negroes. This opinion of the Niger being an arm of the Nile was even maintained in our own day by Jackson, in his work entitled, _An Account of the Empire of Marocco and the District of Suze_. In vol. xiv of the _Annales des Voyages_, by Malte-Brun, 1811, and in vol. xvii of the same work, p. 350, we meet with a curious analysis of this work of Jackson's on the identity of the two rivers.]--S.

What Azurara says here about the Nile, etc., is largely borrowed from Solinus, _Collectanea_, xxxii; Pliny, _Natural History_, v, 51-59; viii, 89-97; _Pomponius Mela_, iii, viii, 9. We may also (for mediæval ideas on the Nile, etc.) cf. Dicuil, _De Mensura Orbis Terrae_, vi, 4, 7, etc.; ix, 6 (on Mount Atlas); St. Basil, _Hexaemeron_, iii, 6; Vibius Sequester; Procopius, _De Bell. Goth._, ii, 14, 15; iv, 29; St. Isidore, _Origins_, xiv, 5; Ven. Bede, _De Natur. Rer._; and above all, Edrisi (Jaubert), i, 11-13, 17-19, 27-33, 35, 37, 297, 301-5, 312, 315, 320-325, ii, 137; Masudi, _Meadows of Gold_, ch. xiv (see Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xliv-l, and _Dawn of Modern Geography_, pp. 267-8, 323-6, 367, 462-3, 348, 363, 365.)]

[Endnote 155: (p. 191). _Fish or some other natural product of the sea._--[This important passage is one proof the more of the priority of our discoveries on the west coast of Africa.]--S. Not, of course, an absolute proof, though it strengthens the plausibility of the Portuguese claim.]

[Endnote 156: (p. 193). _Arms of the Infant._--[This island, as well as the other of which mention is made above, where these sailors encountered the Arms of the Infant carved upon the trees, are very clearly marked, as between Cape Verde and the Cape of Masts, on a curious map of Africa in the unpublished _Atlas_ of Vaz Dourado, executed in 1571 (see _Mémoire sur la navigation aux côtes occidentales d'Afrique_, by Admiral Roussin, p. 61--_Des iles de la Madeleine_).]--S.]

[Endnote 157: (p. 193). _This tree_, etc.--[This is the baobab, a tree noted for its enormous size, and which is to be met with on the Senegal, on the Gambia, and even on the Congo, at which point Captain Tucklay (Tuckey) mentions it among the trees to be found on the banks of the Zaire. This tree had been described by Adanson (_Histoire Naturelle du Sénégal_, Paris, 1757, pp. 54 and 104), and from this circumstance Bernardo Jussieu gave it the name of Adansonia. Its trunk is sometimes more than 90 ft. in circumference (see the work cited above). Our mariners, and Azurara himself, however, described it 310 years before the French naturalist who gave it the botanical name by which it is now known.]--S.]

[Endnote 158: (p. 194). _Rio d'Ouro._--[Some French writers, who have lately treated of the famous Catalan Atlas in the Royal Library of Paris, to which they assign the date of 1375, assert that the Catalans reached the Rio d'Ouro before the Portuguese, because on this map is marked a galliot, with a legend referring to Jayme Ferrer, who sailed to a river of that name (in 1346).

Without discussing this point here, let us say, nevertheless, that as to this voyage of the Catalans, whose arrival at the said river is not attested by any document, the reader should consult the map of M. Walckenaer, published in the scientific journal, _Annales des Voyages_, tom. 7, p. 246 (A.D. 1809), in which that learned geographer says, with good reason, that the said legend and project of Jayme Ferrer's voyage (as stated) does not at all prove that geographical knowledge in 1346 extended beyond Cape Bojador, or even beyond Cape Non (see also our _Memoir on the priority of our discoveries_, and the _Atlas_ which accompanies the said memoir).]--S. Cf. Introduction to vol. ii, pp. lxiii-lxiv.]

[Endnote 159: (p. 194). _To the Kingdom._--[By this passage, and similar ones in chs. x, xi, and xvi, it is proved that the commercial relations of the Portuguese with the west coast of Africa beyond Bojador were established before the middle of the fifteenth century. The imports then consisted of gold-dust, slaves, and skins of sea-calves.]--S. Cf. Introduction to vol. ii, pp. x-xiii, lxi-lxxi.]

[Endnote 160: (p. 198). _Tider._--[An island hard by Arguim (or forming one of the Arguim group). We must now add to what we said before, that this island, as well as those of the Herons (Ilha das Garças), and of Naar, is very clearly marked on the unpublished map of Vaz Dourado, but without the names given in this Chronicle. That cosmographer (Dourado) included them all under the denomination of _Isles of Herons_.]--S.]

[Endnote 161: (p. 199). _Isle of Cerina._--[Comparing our text with the excellent map of Vaz Dourado, we find on the latter this island marked as nearest to the continent, and also nearest to the mouth of the St. John River. Dourado marks Arguim to the north, and to the south of _P. dos Reys_ marks four islands, which are those of Herons, of Naar, of Tider, and this one of which Azurara speaks. On the map of D'Anville, which is to be found in the work of P. Labat, _Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique_, tom. I, a map which includes the part of the coast from Cape Branco to the River of St. John, we read over an island very near Tider the word "Grine," which appears to be the Cerina of Azurara.]--S.]

[Endnote 162: (p. 204). _Arrived at the end_, etc.--[On the position of this stream, see the map of d'Anville, published in the work of P. Labat, _Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique_, tom. I; and the _Mémoire sur la navigation aux côtes occidentales d'Afrique_, by Admiral Roussin, at p. 44, where he speaks of the _Baie du Lévrier_, which is 8 leagues in extent from N. to S., and 6 leagues across. This bay, in which our sailors entered, is to the north of the Cape of St. Anne.]--S.]

[Endnote 163: (p. 212). _This Prince._--[Compare this passage with what we said in note 92, ch. xxx, as to the authority of this chronicle.]--S.]

[Endnote 164: (p. 214). _Point of Santa Anna._--[It is situate to the south of the Rio de S. João, on the chart of João Freire of 1546.]--S.]

[Endnote 165: (p. 218). _Islands._--[We think that these islands are the ones marked on certain charts, principally French, with the name of "Ilhas da Madalena."]--S].

[Endnote 166: (p. 220). _Buffaloes._--[It was, in fact, the African buffalo that our seamen saw there.]--S.]

[Endnote 167: (p. 224). _Hermes._--[(Ἔρμας). Azurara refers here to the book of this author entitled _The Shepherd_, composed in the pontificate of St. Clement sometime before the persecution of Domitian which began in the year 95. Origen, Eusebius, St. Jerome, St. Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian mentioned this work. By this passage we see that Azurara, in citing it, did not admit the view of Gelasius, who classed it among the apocryphal books.]--S.]

[Endnote 168: (p. 225). _As he could._--[Compare this passage with what we have said in previous notes about the Infant's plans.]--S.]

[Endnote 169: (p. 225). _Nile._--[The Senegal, or Nile of the Negroes.]--S.]

[Endnote 170: (p. 226). _An island._--[It must be the Island of Gorea (Goree), situate in 14° 39' 55" N. lat. On this island see Demanet, _Nouvelle histoire de l'Afrique_, tom. 1, pp. 87-97, passim. _Notices statistiques sur les colonies françaises_ (troisième partie, pp. 187-189), a work published by the Ministry of Marine in 1839.]--S.]

[Endnote 171: (p. 228). _Cape of the Masts._--[This cape appears marked with this name in nearly all the ancient MS. maps of the sixteenth century. It is clear then that the name of this cape was first given to that point by Alvaro Fernandez. Barros (_Decade I_, liv. 1, fol. 26, ed. 1628) says of this voyage: "He passed to the place they now call the Cabo dos Mastos: a name he then gave it on account of some bare palm trees that at first sight looked like masts set up."]--S.]

[Endnote 172: (p. 229). _A hind._--[This description leaves not the smallest doubt that the animal which our seamen saw there, and of which the author treats, is the antelope, and probably "the other beasts" were herds of the same kind. On the history of the antelopes the reader should consult Buffon and Cuvier.]--S.]

[Endnote 173: (p. 230). _Dwellings_ (_Essacanas_).--[This word is not to be found either in the _Elucidario_ or in Portuguese dictionaries; it is met with, however, in the heptaglot of Castell, and in Golius, but there the meaning of this Arabic word is given as being "a place where a person dwells." Even if this be admitted for the explanation of the text, the latter still remains obscure; however, it seems to us that the author meant to say, that all those observations were made in the "(Essacanas) dwellings ... that exist on certain sandbanks, according," etc. The mariners drew their charts, and marked the coasts, banks, etc., on the very spots themselves.]--S.]

[Endnote 174: (p. 230). _Charts._--[This passage shows in the clearest manner that the first hydrographical maps of the west coast of Africa, beyond Bojador, were made by the Portuguese under the orders of the Infant D. Henrique, and that these maps were adopted and copied by the cosmographers of the whole of Europe (see _Memoria sobre a prioridade dos descobrimentos dos Portuguezes_, etc., §§ ix, x, and xi).]--S.]

[Endnote 175: (p. 230). _Oadem._--[We judge this to be the place called by Cadamosto Hoden (Guaden), and of which he says: "On the right of Cape Branco inland there is an inhabited place named Hoden, which is distant from the coast a matter of six days' journey by camel;" but he says the contrary of what we read in the text, for he adds: "The which is not a place of dwelling, but the Arabs foregather there, and it serves as a calling-place for the caravans that come from Timbuctoo and other Negro parts to this our Barbary from here." This spot, with the very name given by Cadamosto, is marked agreeably to this account on the chart of the Itineraries of the caravans which M. Walckenaer added to his work, _Recherches géographiques sur l'intérieur de l'Afrique_.]--S.]

[Endnote 176: (p. 231). _Carts._--[_Alquitões_, an Arabic term not met with either in our dictionaries or in the _Elucidario_, but found in the heptaglot dictionary of Castell, in the word "Alquidene," "waggons for the transport of women and men," and in Golius. We do not find this word in the war regulations of the Kings D. John I and D. Affonso V (Souza, _Prov. da hist. gen._, iii). Azurara thus employed in this place an Arabic term which had fallen out of use in Portuguese in the fifteenth century.]--S.]

[Endnote 177: (p. 231). _Few._--[See the description in the travels of Clapperton.]--S.]

[Endnote 178: (p. 231). _Confetti._--[See the _Itinèraire de Tripoli de Barbarie à la ville de Tomboctu_, by the Cheyk Hagg-Kassem, published by M. Walckenaer in his _Recherches sur l'intérieur de l'Afrique_, p. 425; the account agrees with that in the text.]--S.]

[Endnote 179: (p. 231). _Bestiality._--[This same description and expression is to be found in _Leo Africanus_.]--S. The last may be read in the Hakluyt Soc. ed., vol. i, pp. 130-3, 153-4, 158-161, 218.]

[Endnote 180: (p. 232). _Fernandez._--[As to João Fernandez, see ch. xxix, and the note on the stay of this traveller at the Rio do Ouro in 1445, and also ch. xxxii.]--S.]

[Endnote 181: (p. 232). _Went with them._--[Though this account of João Fernandez is very important, because anterior by almost a century to the description of the well-known Leo Africanus, yet the most important part of it is wanting: namely, the route he followed, and the places he visited during the seven months he spent with the caravans. Despite the omission of these details, however, his description which this chapter contains, and its exactness, is confirmed by the later writings of Leo Africanus, Marmol, and other travellers, to whom we refer the reader.]--S.]]

[Endnote 182: (p. 232). _All of sand._--Here is another note of the original MS.: [Of this land speaketh Moses in the 15th chapter of Exodus, and Josephus and Master Pero (_Peter_), who commented on it, where they write of the troubles of the people of Israel for want of water, and of how they found a well of pure water; where he relateth how Moses, by God's command, threw in the piece of wood and made it sweet. And this took place before they arrived at the place where God sent them the manna.] See note 148 (to p. 183).]

[Endnote 183: (p. 232). _Tagazza_ (_Tagaoz_).--[This land is the Tagaza of Cadamosto (ch. xii, p. 21), and Tagazza of Jackson, on the way from Akka to Timbuctoo.]--S. See Leo Africanus, Hakluyt Soc. ed., 117, 798, 800, 816, 829; Pacheco Pereira, _Esmeraldo_, 43; Dr. Barth, _Reise_, iv, 616.]

[Endnote 184: (p. 233). _Palms._--[See Denham and Clapperton.]--S.]

[Endnote 185: (p. 233). _Water._--[See the Itineraries already cited and published in M. Walckenaer's _Recherches_, etc., and also the _Description of Africa_, by Leo Africanus.]--S.]

[Endnote 186: (p. 233). _Write._--[This detail is very curious, because it indicates that in the fifteenth century, when João Fernandez journeyed with the caravans, some of those tribes which we suppose to be Berbers had not yet adopted the Arabic characters. It is to be deplored that Azurara is not more explicit in this place, seeing that Arabic authors mention books written in this language. Oudney tells of various inscriptions, written in unknown characters, which he saw in the country of the Touariks. Very few of this tribe speak Arabic, which he was surprised at, because of the frequent communication between them and nations that only speak that tongue.--_Vide_ Clapperton's Travels, and Leo Africanus in Ramusio, etc.]--S. See the Hakluyt Soc. Leo Africanus, pp. 133, 165-7.]

[Endnote 187: (p. 233). _Berbers._--[According to Burckhardt, _Trav._, pp. 64 and 207, these are the Berbers. Our author includes here the Lybians. Compare with Leo Africanus in Ramusio.]--S. See the Hakluyt Soc. Leo Africanus, pp. 129, 133, 199, 202-5, 218.]

[Endnote 188: (p. 233). _These last._--[It appears from this passage that the Touariks are treated of, and their conflicts with the Negro Fullahs, or of the Foullan.]--S. On the Tuâreg, see Leo (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), pp. 127, 151, 198, 216, 798-9, 815-6; also Dubois, _Tombouctou la mystérieuse_, and Hourst, _Sur le Niger_.]

[Endnote 189: (p. 233). _To sell._--[It was this trade in Negro slaves which the Christian merchants carried on with North Africa that led to the singular claim of Zuniga and other Spanish writers, that the Castilians--and in particular the Andalusians--trafficked in the Negroes of Guinea before the Portuguese; and by a confusion, either ignorant or intended, they tried to dispute with us the priority of our discovery of Guinea, and our exclusive commerce with this part of Africa which we were the first to find. See our _Memoria_, already cited, § xvii.]--S.]

[Endnote 190: (p. 234). _Not certain._--[This passage shows that Azurara did not believe in the existence of the great empire of Melli very rich in gold mines, though in the preceding century it had been visited by the celebrated Arab traveller Ibn-Batuta.]--S. On Melli, cf. Leo Africanus (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), pp. 125, 128, 133-4, 201, 823, 841.]

[Endnote 191: (p. 234). _On the heavens._--[Leo Africanus says that amongst the Arabs and other African peoples many persons are to be met with who, without ever having opened a single book, discourse fairly well on astrology.]--S. See Leo Africanus, (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), pp. 177, 460, 600.]

[Endnote 192: (p. 234). _Hussos francos._--Meaning unknown. The word is not found in Portuguese dictionaries.]

[Endnote 193: (p. 235). _Fifty leagues._--[This figure does not seem to be exaggerated. _Vide_ Rennell's "Memoir on the rate of travelling as performed by camels," in the _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. lxxxi, p. 144. The author refers to certain camels of the desert and the country of the Touariks (Tuâreg), which by their extreme speed travel in one day a distance that takes an ordinary camel ten. But these do not journey with the ordinary caravans, but are used only for warlike enterprises.]--S.]

[Endnote 194: (p. 236). _Resin_ [_Anime_].--See Garcia de Orta's _Simples e Drogas_, ed. Conde de Ficalho, vol. ii, pp. 43, 44.]

[Endnote 195: (p. 236). _Six hundred leagues._--[We think this should read 200 and not 600 as in the text, which seems to be a mistake, because the known portion of the west coast of Africa to Cape Bojador has not an extension agreeing with the numeral letters in the text.]--S.]

[Endnote 196: (p. 237). _Already heard._--[On this important passage, see our _Memoria sobre a prioridade_, etc., §§ ix, x, xviii.]--S.]

[Endnote 197: (p. 238). _Maciot._--[Compare this with what is said in the book: _Histoire de la première descouverte et conqueste des Canaries faite dès l'an 1402 par messire Jean de Bethencourt, ensuite du temps même par F. Pierre Bontier, et Jean Le Verrier, prestre domestique dudit Sieur de Bethencourt_, etc., published in Paris in 1630. It is clear that Azurara had collected information of this expedition of Bethencourt from ancient accounts. This chronicle was finished in the library of King Affonso V in 1453, and Cadamosto sailed in the service of Portugal two years later (1455), so that his account of the Canaries is posterior to that of Azurara.]--S.]

[Endnote 198: (p. 242). _Bad man._--Another MS. note. ["Marco Polo saith that in the realm of Grand Tartary there are other like men, who when they receive their guests, thinking to give them pleasure, let them have their women, in the belief that as they do this for them in this world, so the gods will do likewise for themselves in the other. And this they hold because they are idolaters and have no law, but live only in those first idolatries."]]

[Endnote 199: (p. 245). _Discover._--[This passage shows that the Infant had in view the discovery of Guinea from the commencement of the expeditions he fitted out. In this, Azurara differs somewhat from Cadamosto's account.]--S.]

[Endnote 200: (p. 246). _Machico._--[Compare with Barros, _Decade I_, i, ff. 6, 7 and 8, ed. Lisbon, 1628. The silence preserved by Azurara about Robert Machim and Anne d'Arfet seems to show that this romance had not been invented in his day.]--S.]

[Endnote 201: (p. 247). 1445 ... _Gonçalo Velho._--[In the unpublished chart of Gabriel de Valsequa, made in Majorca in 1439, the following note is written in the middle of the Azores islands: "The which islands were found by Diego de Sevill, pilot of the King of Portugal, in the year 1432" (according to the better reading). We transcribe this note because of the date and the name of the discoverer, seeing that the date agrees with what Padre Freire says in his _Life of Prince Henry_ (pp. 319, 320), _i.e._, that it was in 1432 that the island of Santa Maria (Azores) was discovered by Gonçalo Velho, and not by Diego de Senill, as Valsequa says. De Murr, in his dissertation on the globe of Martin de Behaim, also declares that the Azores were found in 1432. Nevertheless, a great confusion as to the true date of the discovery of the Azores exists among the authorities; and if maps anterior to 1432 are compared with what Padre Freire says (p. 323) as to the discovery of the Island of St. Michael, that the existence of this island "accorded (as the Infant said) with his ancient maps," the discovery of the Azores would appear to have been effected before 1432. In fact, in the Parma map of the fourteenth century, these islands are marked; while the Catalan Map of the Paris National Library shows the following islands in the archipelago of the Azores named in Italian:--Insula de Corvi marini (Island of Corvo); Le Conigi; San Zorzo (St. Jorge); Li Colombi; Insula de Brasil; Insule de Sante (Maria?).

In the unpublished map of the Pinelli Library, the date of which has been fixed as between 1380 and 1400, the said islands are marked with the following names:--Caprana; I. de Brasil; Li Colombi; I. de la Ventura; Sã Zorzi; Li Combi; I. di Corvi marini.

In the Valsequa Chart of 1439 these islands indicated by the cosmographer are marked to the number of eight, three being small ones. The names are:--Ilha de Sperta; Guatrilla; Ylla de l'Inferno; Ylla de Frydols; Ylla de Osels (Uccello); Ylla de ...; Ylla de Corp-Marinos; Conigi.

It is noteworthy that the names of these islands, in the map of the Majorcan cosmographer, which is the most modern, are all altered, while in the Catalan map made by his compatriots, sixty-four years earlier, the following names given by the Portuguese discoverers are found: Ilha de Corvo, de S. Jorge, and de Santa Maria, just as in the Italian maps of the fourteenth century.]--S. The seven islands mentioned rather confusedly by Azurara at end of ch. lxxxiii (p. 248, top) are the Azores.]

[Endnote 201A: (p. 248). _Reasonings._--Azurara here omits a document of extreme interest, which was given in full by Affonso Cerveira--another instance of the superiority of our unhappily-lost original to the court historian's copy.]

[Endnote 202: (p. 252). _Algarve._--[The Kings of Castille complained of these invasions, and there were many disputes between Portugal and Castille as to the lordship of these islands. Las Casas, in his _Historia de India_, an unpublished MS., treats at length of this subject, especially in ch. viii. Compare with what Azurara says in this chapter, Barros, _Decade I_, i, cap. 12, fol. 23, ed. 1628.]--S.]

[Endnote 202A: (p. 252). _Enregistered._--Viz., by Affonso Cerveira, in the original chronicle.]

[Endnote 203: (p. 254). _Tristam._--[This river kept the name of Rio de Nuno, or Rio de Nuno Tristão, as appears from nearly all the old maps, in memory of this catastrophe.]--S.]

[Endnote 203A: (p. 255). _Twenty-one._--Again not counting Nuno Tristam himself.]

[Endnote 204: (p. 257.). _Sines._--Sines, on the extreme S.W. coast of the Estremadura province of Portugal, was the birthplace of Vasco da Gama, discoverer of the sea-route to India, and one of the world's great navigators. It lies 147 miles S.S.E. of Setubal.]

[Endnote 205: (p. 258). _Cape of Masts._--[_Vide_ note to p. 227 of this version.]]

[Endnote 206: (p. 260). A _river._--[This river is marked in the map of Juan de La Cosa (1500) with the name of Rio de Lagos, in that of João Freire (1546) and in others with that of Rio do Lago; and though Dourado marks a river to the south of the Cabo dos Matos, he gives it no name.]--S.]

[Endnote 207: (p. 261). _Beyond C. Verde._--[The great inlet which they had reached, and which is situate 110 leagues south of Cape Verde, is beyond Sierra Leone, and is marked in the maps of Juan de la Cosa (1500), Freire (1546), and Vaz Dourado, with the cape of Santa Anna to the south.

On this voyage, then, counting from the Rio de Lagos, our mariners passed the following spots marked on the above-mentioned ancient maps:--R. Gambia; R. de Santa Clara; R. das Ostras; R. de S. Pedro; Casamansa; Cabo Roxo; R. de S. Domingos; R. Grande; Biguba; Besegi; Amallo; R. de Nuno; Palmar; Cabo da Verga.

We have also R. de Pichel (maps of La Cosa and Dourado; R. da Praia in Freire); R. de Marvam (in Freire [1546]; Rio do Ouro in Dourado); R. do Hospital (in La Cosa [1500]; R. das Soffras in Freire [1546], and called by Dourado R. dos Pes [1571]); R. da Tamara (La Cosa); R. da Maia (Freire), and de Tornala in Dourado; R. de Caza (de Case in La Cosa and Freire); Serra Leoa (Sierra Leone).]--S.

[Endnote 208: (p. 264). _River ... caravels._--[Undoubtedly the Rio Grande. Cf. Walckenaer, _Histoire générale des Voyages_, vol. i, p. 79, note: where he corrects the mistake of Clarke in his _Progress of Maritime Discovery_ (1803), p. 221.]--S.]

[Endnote 209: (p. 265). _Cape of ... Ransom._--[On old maps this cape is marked to the south of Arguim, and it appears under the same name in that of Juan de La Cosa, while in João Freire it is called _Porto do Resgate_.]--S.]

[Endnote 210: (p. 267). _Expenses with ... Moors._--[This passage shows that trading relations with Africa were already beginning to assume a more regular character.]--S.]

[Endnote 211: (p. 268). _Porto da Caldeira._--[A name not met with in the oldest maps (_e.g._, Benincasa of 1467), which is one of those most nearly contemporaneous with our discoveries, and contains many names given by our explorers; the same remark applies to those of La Cosa (1500) and Freire (1546), etc. It seems, then, that our seamen gave this name to a port within the _Rio do Ouro_, as the text would indicate. The caravel of Gomez Pirez reaching the mouth of this river, cast anchor; afterwards the captain decided to go to the end of the river, that is, six leagues up; and arriving there he entered a port on which our men had previously bestowed the name of _Porto da Caldeira_.]--S.]

[Endnote 212: (p. 268). _Well content._--[To our mind this important passage shows that before the discovery of the Rio do Ouro by the Portuguese, Europeans did not trade there. The very declaration of the Arabs seems to us to contradict the opinion held by some that the Catalans knew this river in 1346, and that Jacques Ferrer made his way to this point (see p. 194, note 158, and note 74). In fact, it is clear that the Arabs of that part were well aware that to get caravans to that place meant a journey of many days across the desert, and also that, even were this journey undertaken, they would perhaps find a difficulty in persuading others to change the roads used from remote antiquity, and come and traffic at a point of which they know little, and give it a preference to the recognised _entrepôts_ of ancient caravan commerce.]--S.]

[Endnote 213: (p. 274). _Land ... level._--[The low land marked on ancient maps to the north of the Rio do Ouro.]--S.]

[Endnote 214: (p. 275). _Rocks._--[We saw before how Gomez Pires, on reaching the Rio do Ouro, cast anchor at the mouth of the river, and afterwards made his way up the stream to a port at its furthest part, which our mariners had named the Porto da Caldeira, where he stayed twenty-one days in order to establish commercial relations with the Arabs of the African hinterland. But, as these negociations came to nothing, he set sail and moved four leagues from there towards the other bank of the river, and came upon an island in the river (the "ilot de roches très élevé" of the maps of Admiral Roussin); and after they had made eleven leagues in all, they met with the Arabs, who took refuge in "some very big rocks that were there." These rocks are the seven mountains marked in maps by our mariners of that time, and they are depicted in the Mappemonde of Fra Mauro (1460), and copied from these very Portuguese nautical charts--the "lofty mountains" of the globe of Martin de Behaim, of Nuremburg.]--S.]

[Endnote 215: (p. 277). _Meça._--[A city in the province of Sus and empire of Marocco. _Leo Africanus_, Book II, says it was built by the ancient Africans.]--S.]

[Endnote 216: (p. 278). _Guineas._--[This passage shows that even then traffic in the Guinea negroes was carried on through the ports on this side of Cape Não. The Infant then knew, before he undertook the business, that this was one of the commercial _entrepôts_ between Marocco and the Negro States, just as is since 1810 the small kingdom (founded by Hescham) of the independent Moors to the south of Marocco, of the commerce between Marocco and Timbuctoo.]--S.]

[Endnote 217: (p. 278). _Eighteen Moors._--[This detail shows the great influence possessed by João Fernandez over the Moors, doubtless owing to his speaking Arabic and having travelled with them. M. Eyriès, in the biographical article he wrote on this intrepid traveller (_Biographie universelle_) says, with justice, that he was the first European to penetrate into the interior of Africa, and that the details of his story present a great analogy with those of the account given by Mungo Park.]--S.]

[Endnote 218: (p. 280). _Denmark, Sweden and Norway._--[King Christopher then reigned in these three Kingdoms. He was grandson of the Emperor Robert, and nephew of Eric XII, who had abdicated in 1441. He died on January 6th, 1448, and the three crowns were separated.]--S. They were united in 1397 by the Union of Calmar.]

[Endnote 219: (p. 286). _Lost men ... Returned to the Kingdom._--[This detail, which is not to be found in ch. xv of the _First Decade_ of Barros, where he treats of this expedition, is of the greatest importance, because it explains the event related in the letter of Antoniotto Usus di Mare, _i.e._, Antonio da Nole, dated December 12th, 1455, and found in the archives of Genoa in 1802 by Gräberg (_Annali di geografia e di statistica_, vol. ii, p. 285), in which that traveller tells how he met in those parts with a man of his own country, whom he took to be a member of the expedition of Vivaldi, which had set out one hundred and seventy years before, and of which nothing had been heard since its departure, according to Italian writers. Now it cannot be admitted that a descendant of the Genoese expeditioners of Thedisio Doria and Vivaldi would have kept his white colour if his ancestor had remained among the negroes, nor could he know the language. Therefore, Antoniotto can have seen no other white man in those parts except one of the mariners of the Portuguese caravel of Affonso and Vallarte of which Azurara treats in the text: especially as neither the different Portuguese captains, nor Cadamosto, found in any part of the African coast beyond Bojador a single vestige or tradition of other Europeans having gone there before their discovery by the Portuguese. Of the expedition of Vivaldi no news arrived after its departure in the thirteenth century. In the time of Antoniotto there remained a tradition only that it had set out intending to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar and make an unaccustomed voyage to the West. Antoniotto was a man of good education, and we see that he knew the authors who treated of this event; but having imbibed these traditions, and knowing of the existence of a Christian who had remained in these parts, he came to the conclusion--of course in ignorance of the fact mentioned by Azurara--that this man might be a descendant of the members of Vivaldi's expedition, "ex illis galeis credo Vivaldœ qui se amiserit sunt anni 170." If this important passage of Azurara's chronicle be confronted with the letter of Antoniotto, and both with the account of Cadamosto's second voyage, there remains not the least doubt that the man mentioned by Antoniotto was one of the three belonging to the caravel of Fernando Affonso and Vallarte, who had remained there in 1447, that is, eight years before Antoniotto visited the same parts, and that he was not a descendant of the men of Vivaldi's caravel, whose destiny had then for nearly two centuries been unknown. The passage also seems to refute the conjecture of the publisher of the said letter, and the induction of Baldelli in his _Millone_, vol. i, p. 153, etc., about the Medicean Portulano and the two maps of Africa therein, which we have analysed in our "Memoir on the priority of the Portuguese in the Discovery of the West Coast of Africa beyond Cape Bojador," where we show that these maps, far from disproving our priority, rather confirm it.]--S.]

[Endnote 220: (p. 286). _The Cabo dos Ruyvos._--[Otherwise the _Angra dos Ruivos_ of ancient maps (see note 53). On the great abundance of fish in these parts, see the curious and erudite work of M. Berthelot (_De la péche sur la côte occidentale d'Afrique._ Paris, 1840).]--S.]

[Endnote 221: (p. 288). _Path of Salvation._--[Some modern writers, founding themselves on the accounts of Cadamosto, have tried to make out that the Portuguese were the first among modern nations to introduce the slave trade from the beginning of their discoveries on the coast of Africa. It does not fall within the limits of this note to show how erroneous such assertions are; but we will nevertheless say that the celebrated Las Casas, in his _Historia de las Indias_, MSS., ch. xix, says that Jean de Bethencourt brought many captives from the Canaries whom he sold in Spain, Portugal, and France.]--S.]

[Endnote 222: (p. 289). _Toil in arms._--[Barros could not supply the want of a continuation of the text of Azurara (_Dec. I_, Bk. I, cap. i, fol. 32). This great historian confesses that everything he relates of the prosecution of these discoveries is taken from some memoranda he found in the Torre and in Treasury Books of King Affonso V. To show how deplorable it is that Azurara did not complete this Chronicle, at least as far as the death of the Infant, and include the discoveries made from this year of 1448 to 1460, it suffices to say that from this year henceforward all is confusion in the dates and events relative to this prosecution both in Barros and in Goes (_Chronica do principe D. João_, ch. viii, which is devoted to these discoveries).

Barros limits himself to citing, in the year 1449, the licence given by the king to D. Henry to people the seven islands of the Azores. From this year he leaps to the year 1457, in which he only speaks of the king's donation to the Infant D. Fernando, and only in the year 1460 does he relate that at this time Antonio de Nolli, a Genoese by nation and a noble man, "who owing to some troubles in his own country had come to this kingdom" in company with Bartholemew de Nolli, his brother, and Raphael de Nolli, his nephew, obtained a licence from the Infant to go and discover the Cape Verde Islands; and that some servants of the Infant D. Fernando went on the same discovery at the same time by Prince Henry's order.

So he (Barros) leaves us in ignorance of the regular progress of our discoveries on the west coast of Africa from 1448, the year in which Azurara finished this Chronicle, until 1460, in which the Infant died. Damião de Goes, who pretended to relate more exactly and circumstantially these events, leaves us in the same confusion in ch. viii of the _Chronicle of the Prince D. John_, where he treats of Prince Henry's discoveries; and, besides, he makes a great mistake regarding the portion of coast discovered to the year 1458 (see ch. xvi, pp. 39 and 40 of the work cited), an error which is refuted by what Azurara says in ch. lxxviii of this present Chronicle.]--S.

Santarem is mistaken in assuming (see note 219, to p. 286) that "Antonio da Nole" and Antoniotto Uso di Mare are one and the same.]

[Endnote 223: (p. 289). _Albert the Great._--[Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, one of the most learned men of the Middle Ages. His works were published at Lyons in twenty-one folio volumes. See the art., _Albert le Grand_, in vol. xix of the _Histoire littéraire de la France_, p. 362, etc.]--S.]

* * * * *

In addition to works already mentioned, see the _Occidente_ for March 11th, 1894 (especially Brito Rebello's article on Lagos, the Villa do Iffante, etc.); Pinheiro Chagas, _Historia de Portugal_; L. de Mendonça on Portuguese ships of the fifteenth century, in _Memorias da Commissão Portugueza_ (Columbus Centenary); _Historia da Universidade da Coimbra_ (Braga), vol. i, pp. 135-140.