taking up the Portuguese left there before, whom they found in good health, and he gave them some account of the country. This year likewise Nunho Tristan sailed sixty leagues beyond Cabo Verde, and anchoring at the mouth of Rio Grande, or the Great River, ventured up in his boat, where he and most of his men were killed by the blacks with their poisoned arrows. Alvaro Fernandez the same year went forty leagues beyond Rio Grande. Prince Henry, the great encourager, or rather undertaker in all these discoveries, dying, they were afterwards managed by his nephew Alonso, the fifth king of Portugal. Under him,

An. 1449. Gonsalo Vello discovered the islands called Azores, or of Hawks, because many of those birds were seen about them. They are eight in number, viz. S. Michael, S. Mary, Jesus or Tercera, Graciosa, Pico, Fayal, Flores, and Corvo. They are near about the latitude of Lisbon. In the last of them was found the statue of a man on horseback with a cloak, but no hat, his left hand on the horse's mane, the right pointing to the west, and some characters carved on the rock under it, but not understood.

An. 1460. Antony Nole, a Genoese in the Portuguese service, discovered the islands of Cabo Verde, the names whereof are Fogo, Brava, Boavista, Sal, S. Nicholao, S. Lucia, S. Vincente, and S. Antonio. They lie about a hundred leagues west of Cabo Verde, and therefore take name from that cape. He also found the islands Maya, S. Philip, and S. Jacob. This same year Peter de Cintra, and Suero de Costa sailed as far as Serra Leona.

An. 1471. John de Santarem and Peter de Escobar advanced as far as the place they called Mina, or the Mine, because of the trade of gold there; and then proceeded to Cape S. Catharine, thirty-seven leagues beyond Cape Lope Gonzalez, in two degrees and a half of south latitude. Ferdinand Po the same year found the island by him called Hermosa, or Beautiful, which name it lost, and still keeps that of the discoverer. At the same time were found the islands of S. Thomas, Anno Bom, and Principe. Some years passed without

going beyond what was known; but in the meantime king John the second, who succeeded his father Alonso, caused a fort to be built at Mina, which he called fort S. George, and settled a trade there.

An. 1480. James Cam proceeded as far as the river Congo in the kingdom of the same name, called by the natives Zayre, whence he continued his voyage as far as 22 degrees of south latitude, and thence home again.

An. 1486. King John being informed by an ambassador from the king of Benin on the coast of Afric, that there was a mighty prince two hundred and fifty leagues from his country, from whom his master received his confirmation in his throne; and imagining this to be the so much talked of Prester John, he sent Peter de Covillam and Alonso de Payva by land to get intelligence of this great potentate, and some account of India. They went together by the way of Grand Cair to Tor on the coast of Arabia, where they parted, Covillam for India, and Payva for Ethiopia, agreeing to meet by a certain time at Grand Cair: the first went to Cananor, Calicut, and Goa, passed thence to Zofala in Afric, then to Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea on the side of Arabia, and at last to Grand Cair, where he found his companion had died. Hence he sent an account to the king of his proceedings by a Jew come from Portugal, and with another embarked for Ormuz, then went over into Ethiopia, where he was kindly entertained, but never suffered to return home. At the same time these were sent away by land, Bartholomew Diaz put to sea with three ships, and out-going all that had been before him a hundred and twenty leagues, discovered the mountains he called Sierra Parda, and passed on in sight of the bay called De los Vaqueros, or of the Herdsmen, because of the great herds of cattle they saw there; beyond which he touched at the small island Santa Cruz, entered the mouth of the river called Del Infante, and at last came to the now famous, and till then unknown cape, which he called Tormentoso, because he there met with storms; but the king, in hopes of discovering the East

Indies, changed its name to that of Cabo de Buena Esperanza, or Cape of Good Hope: this done he returned home, having discovered more than any man before him. The strange conceit which possessed the heads of the sailors, that there was no possibility of passing beyond Cabo Tormentoso, as they called it, and the great employment the kings of Portugal found in their great discoveries upon the coast of Afric, very much retarded the prosecution of further designs, so that nothing was advanced till

An. 1497. King Emanuel, who with the crown of Portugal had inherited the ambition of enlarging his dominions, and the desire of finding a way by sea to the East Indies, appointed Vasco de Gama, a gentleman of an undaunted spirit, admiral of those ships he designed for this expedition, which were only three, and a tender; their names were the S. Gabriel, the S. Raphael and Berrio; the captains Vasco de Gama admiral, Paul de Gama his brother, and Nicholas Nunez, and Gonzalo Nunez of the tender, which was laden with provisions. Gama sailed from Lisbon on the eighth of July, and the first land he came to after almost five months sail was the Bay of S. Helena, where he took some blacks. The twentieth of November he sailed thence, and doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and on the twenty-fifth touched at the Bay of S. Blas, sixty leagues beyond the aforesaid Cape, where he exchanged some merchandize with the natives. Here he took all the provisions out of the tender, and burnt it. On Christmas-day they saw the land; which for that reason they called Terra do Natol, that is, Christmas land; then the river they named De los Reyes, that is, of the kings, because discovered on the feast of the Epiphany; and after that Cape Corrientes, passing fifty leagues beyond Zofala without seeing it, where they went up a river in which were boats with sails made of palm-tree leaves: the people were not so black as those they had seen before, and understood the Arabic character, who said that to the eastward lived people who sailed in vessels like those of the Portuguese. This river Gama called De Bons Sinays,

or of good tokens, because it put him in hopes of finding what he came in search of. Sailing hence, he again came to an anchor among the islands of S. George opposite to Mozambique, and removing thence anchored again above the town of Mozambique, in 14 degrees and a half of south latitude; whence after a short stay, with the assistance of a Moorish pilot, he touched at Quiloa and Monbaza; and having at Melinde settled a peace with the Moorish king of that place, and taking in a Guzarat pilot, he set sail for India, and crossing that great gulf of seven hundred leagues in twenty days, anchored two leagues below Calicut on the twentieth of May. To this place had Gama discovered twelve hundred leagues beyond what was known before, drawing a straight line from the river Del Infante, discovered by Bartholomew Diaz, to the port of Calicut, for in sailing about by the coast it is much more. Returning home not far from the coast, he fell in with the islands of Anchediva, signifying in the Indian language five islands, because they are so many; and having had sight of Goa at a distance, sailed over again to the coast of Afric, and anchored near the town of Magadoxa. At Melinde he was friendly received by the king, but being again under sail, the ship S. Raphael struck ashore and was lost, giving her name to those sands all the men were saved aboard the other two ships, which parted in a storm near Cabo Verde. Nicholas Coello arrived first at Lisbon, and soon after him Vasco de Gama, having spent in this voyage two years and almost two months. Of a hundred and sixty men he carried out, only fifty-five returned home, who were all well rewarded.

An. 1500. King Emanuel, encouraged by the success of Vasco de Gama, fitted out a fleet of thirteen sail under the command of Peter Alvarez Cabral, and in it twelve hundred men, to gain footing in India. He sailed on the eighth of March, and meeting with violent storms was cast off from the coast of Afric so far, that on Easter eve the fleet came into a port, which for the safety found in it was called Seguro, and the country at that time Santa Cruz, being the same now known

by the name of Brasil, on the south continent of America. Hence the admiral sent back a ship to advertise the king of the accidental new discovery, leaving two Portuguese ashore to inquire into the customs and product of the land. Sailing thence on the twelfth of May for the Cape of Good Hope, the fleet was for twenty days in a most dreadful storm, insomuch, that the sea swallowed up four ships, and the admiral ar rived with only six at Zofala on the sixteenth of July, and on the twentieth at Mozambique; where having refitted, he prosecuted his voyage to Quiloa, and thence to Melinde, whence the fleet stood over for India, and reached Anchediva on the twenty-fourth of August: then coming to Calicut, peace and commerce was there agreed on with Zamori, the king of Calicut, but as soon broken, and the Portuguese entered into strict amity with the kings of Cochin and Cananor, where they took in their lading and returned to Portugal.

An. 1501. John de Nova departed from Lisbon with four ships and four hundred men, and in his way discovered the island of Conception, in eight degrees of south latitude, and on the east side of Afric that which from him was called the island of John de Nova. At Cananor and Cochin he took in all his lading, destroying many vessels of Calicut, and in his return home found the island of St. Helena in 15 degrees of south latitude, distant fifteen hundred forty-nine leagues from Goa, and eleven hundred from Lisbon, being then unpeopled, but since of great advantage to all that use the trade of India.

An. 1502. The king set out a fleet of twenty sail commanded by the first discoverer of India, Vasco de Gama, whose second voyage this was. No new discoveries were made by him, but only trade secured at Cochin and Cananor, several ships of Calicut taken and destroyed, the king of Quiloa on the coast of Afric brought to submit himself to Portugal, paying tribute; and so Vasco de Gama returned home with nine ships richly laden, leaving Vincent Sodre behind with five ships to scour the coasts of India, and secure the factories there.