 Chapter 13. Prince Henry the Navigator, the hero of Portugal and of modern discovery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rita Boutros. Prince Henry the Navigator by Charles Raymond Beasley. Chapter 13. The Armada of 1445 Well, Gonzalo Pacheco had been wasting time and men and the good name of Europe and Christendom in his plunderings between Cape Bohador and Cape Blanco. The memory of the death of Gonzalo de Sintra was kept alive in Lagos and the men of the town came in solemn deputation to the Prince Before the summer of this same year, 1445 was out to beg him for permission to take full, perfect and sufficient vengeance. In other words, they offered to equip the largest fleet that had ever sailed on an ocean voyage as it now began to be called a Guinea voyage since the Prince began his work. As far as we know, this was also one of the greatest armadas that had been sent out into the new discovered or rediscovered or undiscovered seas and lands since the European nations had begun to look at all beyond their own narrow limits. Neither the fleet of 1341 which found the canaries and of which Boccaccio tells us, nor the Genoese expedition of 1291, nor the Catalan venture of 1346, nor de Bethancourt's armament of 1402 for the conquest of the fortunate isles was anything like this armada of 1445. For this last was a real sign of national interest in a work which was not only discovery but profit and a means to more. It proved that in Portugal in however base and narrowly selfish away, there was now a spirit of general enterprising activity and till this had been once awakened there was not much hope of great results from the efforts of individuals. The first contingent now equipped in Lagos for the Prince at once approved of his men's idea numbered 14 caravals, 14 of the best sailing ships afloat as Caramosto said a little later, but this was only the central fleet under Lanzarote as admiral. Three more ships came from Madeira, one of them under Tristan Vaz, the colonizer of Fungal. Diniz Diaz headed another contingent from Lisbon. Zarko, the chief partner in the discovery and settlement of Madeira sent his own caraval in command of his nephew. In all there were seven and 20 ships, caravals, galleys and pinnaces. Since the Carthaginians sent out their colonists under Hano beyond the pillars of Hercules, a larger and braver fleet had not sailed down that desolate west of Africa. Gil Ianes who had rounded Bohedor was there with the Diaz who had passed the green headland and come first to the land of the Negroes and the list of captains was made up of the most daring and seasoned of Spanish semen. Scarcely a man who had ventured on the ocean voyages of the last 30 years was still alive and able-bodied who did not sail on the 10th August, 1445. At the start Cape Blanco was appointed as the rendezvous with favoring wind and tide. The ships raced out as far as Arguin. Lawrence, a younger brother of the Diaz family, drew ahead and was the first to fall in with Pacheco's three caravals which were slowly crawling home after their losses. Now hearing of the great fleet that was coming after to take vengeance, they turned about to wait for them. As it was worthwhile to have revenge, though one had to live on short rations. So now 30 European ships and their crews were included in the fleet. The pioneer, Lawrence Diaz and the rest, lay two at the Isle of Harrens in the bank of Arguin. While waiting there they saw some wonderful things in birds, and Azurara tells this what they told him, though rather doubtfully. The great beaks of the Marabou, or profit bird, struck them most, a cubit long and more, three fingers breath across, and the bill smooth and polished. Like a bechos scabbard and looking as if artificially worked with fire and tools, the mouth and gullet so big that the leg of a man of the ordinary size would go into it. On these birds particularly says Azurara, our men refresh themselves during their three days stay. Slowly but surely, two by two, three by three, nine caravals mustered at Cape Blanco, and as the flagship of Lanzarote was among them, an attack was made at once with 278 men picked from among the crews, the footmen and lancers in one boat and the archers in another, Azurot himself and the men at arms behind. They were steered by pilots who had been on the coast before and knew it, and it was hoped they would come upon the natives of Tider Island with the first light of dawn. But the way was longer than the pilots reckoned. The night was pitchy dark, without moon or stars, the tide was on the ebb, and at last the boats were aground. It was well on in the morning before they got off on the flood and rode along the coast to find a landing place. The shore was manned with natives, not at all taken by surprise, but dancing, yelling, spitting and throwing missiles in insolent defiance. After a desperate struggle on the beach, they were put to flight with trifling loss, eight killed, four taken, but when the raiders reached the village they found it empty. The women and children had been sent away, and all their wretched little property had gone with them. The same was found true of all the villages on that coast, but in a second battle on the next day, 57 moors were captured and the army went back on shipboard once more. And now the fleet divided. Lanzarot, holding a council of his captains, declared the purpose of the voyage was accomplished. They had punished the natives and taken vengeance for Gonzalo de Sintra and the other martyrs. Now it was for each crew and captain to settle whether they would go farther. All the prisoners, having now been divided like prize money between the ships, there was nothing more to stay for. Five caravals at once returned to Portugal after trying to explore the inlet of the sea at Cape Blanco, but they only went up in their boats five leagues and then turned back. One stayed in the Bay of Arguin to traffic enslave and lost one of the most valuable captives by sheer carelessness, a woman badly guarded, slipped out and swam ashore. But there was a braver spirit in some others of the fleet. The captain of the king's caravelle, which had come from Lisbon in the service of the king's uncle, swore he would not turn back. He, Gomez Pires, would go on to the Nile. The prince had ordered him to bring him a certain word of it. He would not fail him. Lanzarot for himself said the same, and another one, Alvero de Freitas, capped the offers of all the rest. He would go on beyond the Negro Nile to the earthly paradise to the farthest east, where the four sacred rivers flowed from the tree of life. Well, do you all know how our lord the infant sets great store by us, that we should make him know clearly about the land of the Negroes, and especially the river of Nile? It will not be a small guar d'un that he will give for such service. Six caravelles in all formed the main body of the Perseverance, and these coasted steadily along till they came to Diaz's Cape of Palms, which they knew was near the Senegal and the land of the Negroes. And so beautiful did the land now become, and so delicious was the scent from the shore, that it was as if they were by some gracious fruit garden ordained to the sole end of their delights. And when the men in the caravelles saw the first palms and towering woodland, they knew right well that they were close upon the river of Nile, which the men there call the sanaga. For the infant had told them how little more than twenty leagues beyond the site of those trees they would see the river, as his prisoners of the Azanegue tribes had told him. And as they looked carefully for the signs of this, they saw at last two leagues from land, a color of the water that was different from the rest, for that was of the color of mud. And understanding this to mean that there were shoals, they put farther out to sea for safety when one took some of the water in his hand and put it to his mouth and found that it was sweet. And crying out to the others, of a surety, said they, we are now at the river of Nile, for the water of the river comes with such force into the sea as to sweeten it. So they dropped their anchors in the river's mouth, and they of the caravelle of Vincent Diaz, another brother of Denise and Lawrence, let down a boat into which jumped eight men who pulled ashore. Here they found some ivory and elephant hide, and had a fierce battle with a huge negro whose two little naked children they carried off. But though the chronicle of the voyages stops here for several chapters of rapturous reflection on the greatness of the Nile, and the valorant spirit of the prince who had thus found a way to its western mouth, we must follow the captains as they coast slowly along to Cape Verde, for that the wind was fair for sailing. Landing on a couple of uninhabited islands off the Cape, they found first of all fresh goat skins and other things, and then the arms of the infant and the words of his motto, Talan de bien faire, carved upon trees, and they doubted, like Azuraro in writing down his history from their lips, whether the great power of Alexander or of Caesar could have planted traces of itself so far from home, as these islands were from Sagres. For though the distance looked small enough on a full map of all the world on the chart of the then known, it was indeed a lengthy stretch, some 2,000 miles, fully as great a distance as the whole range of the Mediterranean from the coast of Palestine to the straits of Gibraltar. Now, by these signs, adds the chronicler, they understood right well that other caravals had been there already, and it was so, for it was the ship of John Gonsalves Zarko, captain of Madeira, which had passed this way, as they found for a fact on the day after. And wishing to land, but finding the number of the natives to be such, that they could not land by day or night, they put on shore a ball and a mirror and a paper on which was drawn across. And when the natives came and found them in the morning, they broke the ball and threw away the pieces, and with their asigais broke up the mirror into little bits and tore the paper, showing that they cared for none of these things. Since this is so, said captain Gomez Pires to the archers, draw your bows upon these rascals, that they may know we are people who can do them a damage. But the negroes returned the fire with arrows and asigais, deadly weapons, the arrows unfeathered and without a string notch, but tipped with deadly poison of herbs, made of reed or cane or charred wood with long iron heads, and the asigais poisoned in like manner, and pricked with seven or eight harpoons of iron, so that it was no easy matter to draw it out of the flesh. So they lost heart for going farther, with all the coast land up in arms against them, and turned back to Lagos, but before they left the Cape, they noticed in the desert island where they had found the prince's arms, trees so large that they had never seen the like, for among them was one which was 108 palms round at the foot. Yet this tree, the famous baobab, was not much higher than a walnut. Of its fiber they make good thread for sowing, which burns like flax, its fruit is like a gourd and its kernels like chestnuts. And so we are told all the captains put back along the coast in a mind to enter the aforesaid river of Nile, but one of the caravals, getting separated from the rest and not liking to enter the Senegal alone, went straight to Lagos, and another put back to water in the Bay of Arguin and the Rio de Oro estuary, where there came to them at once the moors on board the caraval, full of confidence because they had never had any damage. And so, taking in a good cargo of seabed, the caravans came in and out on board the ship so that there was great fear of treachery, but at last, without any quarrel, they were all put on shore, under promise that next July their friends would come again and trade with them in slaves and gold to their hearts content. And so, taking in a good cargo of seal skins, they made their way straight home. Meantime, two of the other caravals and a pinnace which had been separated early in the voyage from the main body under the pilotage of the veteran Dines Diaz had also made their way to Cape Verde, had fought with the natives in some desperate skirmishes. One night, had his shield stuck as full with arrows as the porcupine with quills, and had turned back in the face of the same discouragements as the rest, and so would have ended the whole of this great enterprise but for the dauntless energy of one captain and his crew. Zarco of Madeira had given his caravail to his nephew with a special charge that, come what might, he was not to think of profit and trading but of doing the will of the prince his lord. He was not to land in the fatal bay of Arguin which had been the end of so many enterprises. He was to go as Dines Diaz had first gone, straight to the land of the negroes, and passed beyond the farthest of earlier sailors. Now the caravail, says Azarara proudly, was well equipped and was manned by a crew that was ready to bear hardship, and the captain was full of energy and zeal. And so they went on steadily sailing through the great sea of ocean till they came to the river of Nile where they filled two pipes with water of which they took back one to the city of Lisbon. And not even Alexander though he was one of the monarchs of the world ever drank of water that had been brought from so far as this. But now, still going on, they passed Cape Verde and landed upon the islands I have spoken of to see if there were any people there. But they found only some tame goats without anyone to tend them and it was there that they made the signs that the others found on coming after. And then, drawing in close to the Cape, they waited to see if any canoes would come off to them and anchored about a mile off the shore. But they had not waited long before two boats with ten negroes in them put off from the beach and made straight for the caravail like men who came in peace and friendship. And being near, they began to make signs as if for a safe conduct which were answered in like manner. And then at once without any other precaution five of them came on board the caravail where the captain made them all the entertainment that he could, bidding them eat and drink and so they went away with signs of great contentment. But it appeared after that in their hearts they meditated treachery for as soon as they got to land they talked with the other natives on shore and thinking that they could easily take the ship. With this intent there, now set out six boats with five and thirty or forty men arrayed as those who come to fight. But when they came close they were afraid and stayed a little way off without daring to make any attack. And seeing this our men launched a boat on the other side of the caravail where they could not be seen by the enemy and manned it with eight rowers who were to wait till the canoes came nearer to the ship. At last the negroes were tired of waiting and watching and one of their canoes came up closer in which were five strong warriors and at once our boat rode round the caravail and cut them off. And because of the great advantage that we had in our style of rowing in a trice our men were upon them and they having no hope of defense threw themselves into the water and the other boats made off for the shore. And our men had the greatest trouble in catching those that were swimming away for they dived not a whit worse than cormorants so that we could scarcely catch hold of them. One was taken not very easily on the spot and another who fought as desperately as two men was wounded and with these two the boat returned to the caravail. And for that they saw that it would not profit them to stay longer in that place they resolved to see if they could find any new lands of which they might bring news to the infant their lord. And so sailing on again they came to a cape where they saw groves of palm trees dry and without branches which they called the Cape of Masts. Here a little farther along the coast a reconnoitering party of seven landed and found four negro hunters sitting on the beach armed with bows and arrows who fled on seeing the strangers. And as they were naked and their hair cut very short they could not catch them and only brought away their arrows for a trophy. This Cape of Masts or some point of the coast a little to the southeast was the farthest now reached by Zarco's caravail. From here they put back and sailed direct to Madeira and thence to the city of Lisbon where the infant received them with reward enough for this caravail of all those who had sailed at this time 1445 had done most and reached farthest. There was one contingent of the great Armada yet unaccounted for but they were sad defaulters. Three of the ships on the outward voyage which had separated from the main body and Lancerot's flagship had the cowardice or laziness to give up the purpose of the voyage altogether. They agreed to make a descent on the Canary Islands instead of going to Guinea at all that year. Here they stayed some time raiding and slave hunting but also making observations on the natives and the different natural features of the different islands which as we have them in the old chronicle are not the least interesting part of the story of the Lagos Armada of 1445. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of Prince Henry the Navigator the hero of Portugal and of modern discovery. This is a LibriVox recording. A LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dion Giants, Sutleck City, Utah. Prince Henry the Navigator by Charles Raymond Beasley. Chapter 14 Voyages of 1446-8 And yet, but for the enterprise of Zarco's crew, this expedition of 1445 that began with so much promise and on which so much time and trouble had been spent was almost fruitless of novelties, of discoveries, of the main end and object of all the prince's voyages. The next attempt made by Nuno Tristum in 1446 ended in the most disastrous finish that had yet befallen the Christian semen of Spain. Nuno, who had been brought up from boyhood at the prince's court, seeing how earnest he was that his caravals should explore the land of the Negroes and knowing how some had already passed the river of Nile, thought that if he should not do something of right good service to the infant in that land, he could in no wise gain the name of a brave knight. So he armed a caraval and began sail, not stopping anywhere that he might come straight to the black man's land. And passing by Cape Verda, he sailed on sixty leagues and found a river where he judged there ought to be some people living. So he bade them lower two small boats and put ten men in the one and twelve in the other, which pulled straight towards some huts they sighted ahead of them. But before they could jump on shore, twelve canoes came out on the other side and seventy or eighty black moors in them with bows in their hands who began to shoot at our people. As the tide rose, one of the guinea boats passed them and landed its crew so that our men were between a fire from the land and a fire from the boats. They pulled back as hard as they could, but before they could get on board, four of them were lying dead. And so they began to make sail home again, leaving the boats in that they were not able to take charge of them. Four of the twenty-two who went to land in them there did not escape more than two. Nineteen were killed, for so deadly was the poison that with a tiny wound, a mere scratch, that drew blood, it could bring a man to his last end. But above and beyond these was killed our noble knight, Nuno Tristum, earnestly desiring life that he might die not a shameful death like this, but as a brave man should. Of seven who had been left in the Caravelle, two had been struck by the poisoned arrows as they tried to raise the anchors and were long in danger of death, lying a good twenty days at the last gasp without the power to raise a finger to help the others who were trying to get the Caravelle home so that only five were left to work the ship. Nuno's men were saved by the energy and skill of one, a mere boy, a page of the infant's house who took charge of the ship and steered its course due north, then north by east, so that in two months time they were off the coast of Portugal. But they were absolutely helpless and hopeless, knowing nothing of their whereabouts, for in all these two months they had had no glimpse of land, so that when at last they caught sight of an armed fusta they were much troubled supposing it to be a Moorish cruiser. When it came nearer and showed itself to be a Galatian pirate, the poor fellows were almost wild with delight, still more when they found they were not far from Lagos. They had had a terrible time, first they were almost poisoned by the dead bodies of Nuno Tristum and the victims of the savages poisoned arrows, then when at last they had thrown their honor to the winds and those bodies to the fishes, shame faced and utterly broken in spirit. The five richedly ignorant seamen, who were now left alone, drifted with the boundless and terrible ocean on one side and this still more dangerous and unknown coast of Africa on the other for sixty days, a common sailor, little enough skilled in the art of sailing, a groom of the prince's chamber, the young hero who saved the ship, a negro boy who was taken with the first captives from Guinea and two other little lads small enough, this was the crew. As for the rest, B.A.D., Mortue, Cui, Indomani, Morientor, blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, cries the chronicler in that outburst of bewildered grief with which he ends his story. There were widows and orphans left for the prince to care for, and of these he took a special charge. But all the people were not so unlucky as Nuno Tristum. The Caravelle of Zarco of Madeira, which under Zarco's nephew Alvaro Fernandes had already passed beyond every other in the year of the great Armada, 1445, was sent back again on its errand of doing service in the unknown lands of Guinea to the Lord Don Henry. In the black year, 1446, its noble and valiant owner now charged the aforesaid Alvaro Fernandes with the ship well armed to go as far as he could and to try and make some booty. That should be so new and so splendid that it would be a sign of his goodwill to serve the Lord who had made him. So they sailed on straight to Cape Verde and beyond that to the Cape of Mass or Spindle Palms, their farthest of the year before. But they did not turn back here in spite of unfriendly natives and unknown shores still coasting along. They found tracks of men and a little farther on a village where the people came out as men who showed that they meant to defend their homes. In front of them was a champion with a good target on his arm and an ossegai in his hand. This fellow, our captain, rushed upon and with a blow of his lance struck him dead upon the ground. Then, running up, he seized his sword and spear and kept them as trophies to be offered to the Lord infant. The negroes fled and the conquerors turned back to their ship and sailed on. Next day they came to a land where they saw certain of the women of those negroes and seized one who was of age about thirty, with her child a baby of two and another a young girl of fourteen, the which had a good enough presence and beauty for that country. But the strength of the woman was so wonderful that she gave the three men who held her trouble enough to lift her into the boat. And seeing how they were kept struggling on the beach, they feared that some of the people of the country might come down upon them. So one of them put the child into the boat and love of it forced the mother to go likewise without much more pushing. Thence they went on, pursues the story, till they came to a river into which they made an entrance with a boat and carried off a woman that they found in a house. But going up the river somewhat farther, with a mind to make some good booty, there came out upon them four or five canoes full of negroes armed as men who would fight for their country, whose encounter, our men in the boat, did not wish to await in face of the advantage of the enemy, and fearing above all the great peril of poisoned arrows. So they began to pull downstream as hard as they could towards the caravail. But as one of the canoes distanced the others and came up close to them, they turned upon it, and in the fight one of the negroes shot a dart that wounded the captain, Alvaro Fernandez, in the foot. But he, as he had been already warned of the poison, drew out the arrow very quickly and bathed it with acid and oil, and then anointed it well with theriac, and it pleased God that he passed safely through a great trouble, though for some days he lay on the point of death, and so they got back to the caravail. But though the captain was so badly wounded, the crew did not stop in following the coast and went on. All this was over quite new ground, till they came to a certain sand spit directly in front of a great bay. Here they launched a boat and rode out to see the land they had come to, and at once there came out against them full 120 negroes, some with bows, others with shields and asagais, and when they reached the edge of the sea they began to play and dance about, like men clean, worried of all sadness, but our men in the boat, wishing to be excused from sharing in that festival of theirs, turned and rode back to the ship. Now all this was a good 110 leagues, 320 miles, beyond Cape Verde, mostly to the south of the aforesaid Cape, that is, about the place of Sierra Leone on airmaps, and this caravail remained a longer time abroad and went further than any other ship of that year, and but for the sickness of the wounded captain they would not have stopped there, but as it was they came straight back to the bank of Arguen where they met that chief, a hood maimum, of whom we have spoken before in the story of Joan Fernandez, and though they had no interpreter by whom they might do their business, by signs they managed so that they were able to buy a negroes in exchange for certain cloths that they had with them, and so they came safe home. There was not much trouble now in getting volunteers for the work of discovery and a reward of 200 doubloons, 100 from Prince Henry, 100 more from the regent Don Pedro, to the last bold explorers who had got fairly round Senegalbia, added zest to enterprise. In this same year, 1446-7, no fewer than nine caravails sailed to Guinea from Portugal in another armada on the track of Zarco's successful crew. At Madeira they were joined by two more and the whole fleet sailed through the Canary Island group to Cape Verde. Eight of them passed sixty leagues, 180 miles beyond, and found a river, the Rio Grande, of good size enough of which they sailed, except one ship belonging to a bishop, the bishop of Algarve, for that this happened to run upon a sandbank in such wise that they were not able to get her off, though all the people on board were saved with the cargo. And while some of them were busy in this, others landed and found the country just deserted by its inhabitants and going on to find them, they soon perceived that they had found a track which they chanced on near the place where they landed. They followed this track recklessly enough and nearly met the fate of Nuno Tristum, for as they went on by that road they came to a country with great sown fields, with plantations of cotton trees and rice plots in a land full of hills like loaves after which they came to a great wood, and as they were going into the wood the guineas came out upon them in great numbers with bows and asagais and saluted them with a shower of poisoned arrows. The first five Europeans fell dead at once, two others were desperately wounded, the rest escaped to the ships, and the ships went no farther that year. Still worse was the fate of Velarte's venture in the early months of 1448. Velarte was a nobleman of the court of King Christopher of Denmark who had been drawn to the court of Henry at Sogres by the growing fame of the prince's explorations, and who came forward with the stock request, give me a caravelle to go to the land of the Negroes. A little beyond Cape Verde, Velarte went on shore with a boat's crew and fell into the trap which had caught the exploring party of the year before. He and his men were surrounded by Negroes and were shot down or captured to a man, but one escaped swimming to the ship and told how as he looked back over his shoulder to the shore again and again, he saw Velarte sitting a prisoner in the stern of the boat. And when the chronicle of these voyages was in writing, at the end of this self-same year, there were brought certain prisoners from Guinea to Prince Henry who told them that in a city of the upland in the heart of Africa there were four Christian prisoners. One had died, three were living, and in these four men in Europe believed they had news of Velarte and his men. But between the last voyage of Zarco's caravelle in 1446 and the first voyage of Katamasto in 1455 there is no real advance in exploration. The third armada, as it was called, that is the fleet of the nine caravelles of 1446 to 7, the voyage of Gomez Paris to the Rio de Oro at the same time, the trading ventures of the Morocco coast which were the means of bringing the first lion to Portugal in 1447, the expeditions to the Rio de Oro and to Arguen in the course of the same year are not part of this story of discovery but of trade. There is hardly a suspicion of exploring interest about most of them. Even Velarte's venture in 1448 has nothing of the novelty which so many went out to find for the satisfaction of the Lord Henry. Guinea voyages are frequent, almost constant, during these years, and this frequency has at any rate the point of making Europeans thoroughly familiar with the coast already explored if it did little or nothing to bring in new knowledge. But the value and meaning of Henry's life and work was not after all in commerce except in a secondary sense, and these voyages of purely trading interest with no design or at any rate no result of discovery do not belong to our subject. Each of them has its own picturesque beauty in the pages of the old chronicle of the conquest of Guinea but measured by its importance to the general story of the expansion of Europe there is no lasting value in any one of the last chapters of Azurara's voyages his description of the Canaries and of the Inferno of Tenerife of how Madero was peopled and the other islands that are in that part of how the caraville of Alvaro Dornelias took certain of the Canarians of how Gomez Perez went to the Rio de Oro and of the Moors that he took of the caraville that went to Mecca in Morocco and of the Moors that were taken of how on Tom Gonzales received the island of Lancerote in the name of the Prince only the chronicler's summary of results up to the year 1446 the year of Nuno Tristam's failure is of wider interest till then there had been 51 caravels to those parts which had gone 450 leagues 1350 miles beyond the Cape Boyador and as it was found that the coast ran southward with many points the Prince ordered these to be added to the sailing chart and here it is to be noted that what was already known before of the coast of the great sea was 200 leagues 600 miles which have been increased by these 450 also what had been laid down upon the Mapa Mundi was not true but was by guesswork but now it is all from the survey of the eyes of our seaman and now seeing that in this history we have given account sufficient of the first four reasons which brought our noble Prince to his attempt it is time we said something of the accomplishment of his fifth object the conversion of the heathen by the bringing of a number of infidels souls from their lands to this the which by count were 927 of whom the greater part were turned into the true way of salvation and what capture of town or city could be more glorious than this end of chapter 14 chapter 15 of Prince Henry the navigator the hero of Portugal and of modern discovery this is a LibriVox recording a LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dion Giants Salt Lake City Utah Prince Henry the navigator by Charles Raymond Beasley chapter 15 the Azores 1431 to 1460 we have now come very nearly to the end of the voyages that are described in the old chronicle of the discovery and conquest of Guinea and setting aside the story of the famous Venetian Caudamosto this is also the end of the African mainland coasting of Henry's semen though he did not die till 1460 and we have now only reached the year 1448 for Azarara's solemn catalog of Negroes brought to Europe is reckoned only up to that year 927 who had been turned into the true path of salvation yet there is no more exploration in the last ten years of Henry's life worth noting except what falls into this and two of the following chapters the first of these is Caudamosto's own record of his two voyages along the Guinea coast in which he is supposed to have reached Cape Palmer some 500 miles beyond Cape Verde and certainly reached the Gambia whose great mouth like an arm of the sea is well described in his journal the second is the true account of the finding of the Cape Verde islands by Diego Gomez servant of Don Henry who is the story of the prince's death and was as faithful a servant as he had at his court but there is one other chapter of the exploration directed from Sogres and described by Azarara which must find its place and is best spoken of here and now in the interval between the two most active periods of African coasting voyages this is the story of the colonization of the Azores of the Western or Hawk Islands known to map makers at least as early as 1351 for they figure clearly enough on the great Florentine chart of that year though not reclaimed for Europe and Christendom till somewhere about 1430 these islands were found says a legend on the island map of 1439 by Diego de Seville pilot of the King of Portugal in 1427 but these islands were after all only two groups of the archipelago and the rediscovery or finding of the rest fell between the years 1432 and 1450 the voyage of Diego de Seville and Gonzalo Velho to the Azores that is to the island of St. Mary and the formigas has been alluded to as among the earliest of Prince Henry's successes but as it was out of this first attempt that the discovery of the whole group resulted it has been necessary to refer to it again. Cabral rewarded by his Lord with the gift of his discoveries and living in St. Mary's Island as Captain Donatory or Lord of the Land was in charge of the colonization of the islands he had already found and of as many others as might come to light he spent three years 1433 to 6 collecting men and means in Portugal and then settled in the Western Isles with some of the best families in this country with this discovery seem to have come to a standstill but years after somewhere about 1440 to one an odd chance started exploration westward once more there was a hunt after a runaway slave a Negro of course from the continent who had escaped to the top of the highest mountain in St. Mary the weather was of the clearest and he fancied that he saw far off on the horizon the outline of an unknown land was it another island he knew his masters were there as explorers quite as much as colonizers and he must often have heard their talk about the finding of new lands and the will of their Lord the Prince that those new lands should at all costs be found was no secret that will had sent them there that same will would secure their slaves pardon if he came back from hiding with the news of a real discovery so he reasoned to himself and he was right the Prince hearing the news instantly consulted his ancient maps and found that these hinted at lands in the same direction as the slave had pointed out he ordered Cabral to start at once in search of them Cabral tried and missed then came a wonderful test of Henry's knowledge he who had never been within a thousand miles of the place proved to his captain that he had passed between St. Mary and the unknown land and correcting his course sent him out again to seek and to find on the 8th of May 1444 the new island was found on the day of the apparition of St. Michael and named after the festival it is our modern St. Michael of the oranges as with the other islands so with this colonization followed discovery on the 29th of September 1445 Cabral returned with Europeans having before left only a few more's to open up the country now on his return he found these wretched men frightened almost to death by the earthquakes that had kept them trembling since they first landed and if they had been able to get a boat even the lightest they would certainly have escaped in it Cabral's pilot also who had been with him before to that same island declared that of the two great mountain peaks which he had noticed at the two ends of the island east and west only the eastern was now standing the slang name of Azores or Hawks now began to take the place of the old term of western islands from the swarms of Hawks or kites that were found in the new discovered St. Michael and in the others which came to light soon after for the third group Terciera was cited between 1444 to 50 and added to the Portugal that was thus creeping slowly out towards the unknown west as if in anticipation of Columbus throwing its outposts farther and farther into the ocean as its pioneers grew more and more sure of their ground outside the straits of Gibraltar some semen of Prince Henry's returning from Guinea to Spain some adventurer trying to win fame for himself with the Lord infant some merchants sent out to try their luck on the western side as so many had tried on the southern some African coasters driven out of sight of land by contrary winds it may have been any of these it must have been some one of them who found the rest of the Azores Terciera or the island of Jesus St. George Graciosa fail Flores and Corvo who were the discoverers is absolutely unknown at this day we have only a few traces of the first colonization but of two things we may be pretty certain first that the Azores were all found and colonized in Henry's lifetime and for the most part between 1430 and 1450 second that no definite purpose was formed of pushing discovery beyond this group across the waste of waters to the west and so of finding India from the left hand Henry and all his school were quite satisfied quite committed to the southeast route by coasting round the continent not by venturing across the ocean they hoped and meant to find their way to Malabar and cafe as to the settlement of these islands a copy is still left of Henry's grant of the captaincy of Terciera to the Fleming Jacques de Bruges the facts of the case were these jocks came to the prince one day with a little request about the Hawk Islands that within the memory of man the aforesaid islands had been under the aggressive lordship of none other than the prince and as the third of these islands called the island of Jesus Christ was lying waste he the said Jacques de Bruges bagged that he might colonize the same which was granted to him with a succession to his daughters as he had no heirs mail for Jacques was a rich Fleming who had come into the princess service it would seem with the introduction of the Duchess of Burgundy Don Henry's niece since then he had married into a noble house of Portugal and now he was offering to take upon himself all the charges of his venture such a man was not likely to be passed over his design was encouraged and more than this his example was followed and Hidalgo named so Dray Vincent Gil so Dray took his family and adherents across to Terciera the island of Jesus Christ and from thence went on and settled in Graciosa while another Fleming van der Haager joined van der Burgia or de Bruges in Terciera with two ships fitted out at his own cost and filled with his own people and artisans whom he had brought to work as in a new land tried though unsuccessfully to colonize the island of St. George the First Captain Donatory of Vale was another Fleming Job van Herter Lord of Moorkirk and there is a special interest in his name for it is through him that we get in fourteen ninety two the long and interesting notice of the first settlement of the Azores on the globe of Martin Behame now at Nuremberg the globe which was made to play such a curious part as undesigned as it was ungenerous in the Columbus controversy these islands says the tablet attached to them on the map these hawk islands were colonized in fourteen sixty six when they were given by the king of Portugal to his sister Isabel Duchess of Burgundy who sent out many people of all classes with priests and everything necessary for the presence of religion so that in fourteen ninety there were there some thousands of souls who had come out with the noble knight Job de Herter my dear father-in-law to whom the islands were given in perpetuity by the Duchess now in fourteen thirty one Prince Henry provisioned two ships for two years and sent them to the lands beyond Cape Finisterra and they sailing due west for some five hundred leagues found these islands ten in number all desert without quadrupeds or men only tenanted by birds and these so tame that they could be caught by the hand so they called these the islands of the Hawks Azores and next year fourteen thirty two by the king's orders sixteen vessels were sent out from Portugal with all kinds of tame animals that they might breed there of the first settlement of Flores and Corvo the two remaining islands of the group still less is known but in any case it seems not to have been fully carried out till the last years of the prince's life possibly it was the work of his successor in the grand master ship of the order of Christ which now took up a sort of charge to colonize outlying and new discovered lands for among the prince's last acts was his bequest of the islands which had been granted to himself by his brother King Edward in fourteen thirty three to Prince Ferdinand his nephew whom he had adopted with a view of making him his successor in Ames as well as in office in leading the progress of discovery as well as in the headship of the order of Christ and of chapter fifteen chapter sixteen of Prince Henry the navigator the hero of Portugal and modern discovery this is the LibriVox recording a LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dion Jones Salt Lake City Utah Prince Henry the navigator by Charles Raymond Beasley chapter sixteen the troubles of the Regency and the fall of Don Pedro fourteen forty to nine Don Pedro had been nominated soul regent of Portugal on November one fourteen thirty nine and by the end of the next year all the unsettlement consequent on the change at court seem to be at an end but a deep hatred continued between the various parties first of all the count of Barcellos natural son of John the first created Duke of Braganza by Alfonso the fifth had taken up a definite policy of supplanting the regent the queen mother had not forgotten or forgiven Don Pedro's action at Edward's death and the young king himself though engaged to the regents daughter was already distrustful was fitting himself to lead the Barcellos party against the Prince on February eighteen fourteen forty five died the queen Leonor with suspicions of poison diligently fostered by the Malcontents next year fourteen forty six Alfonso now fourteen came of age and his uncle proposed at once to resign all actual power and retire to his states as Duke of Coimbra but the king was either not yet prepared to part with him or still felt some gratitude to his guardian the wisest had in Spain he begged him to keep the chief direction of affairs thanked him for the past and promised to help him in the future more than this he protested that he wished to be married to his cousin Pedro's daughter Isabel they had been formally betrothed four years now Alfonso called on his nobles and the deputies of Cortez to witness the marriage in May fourteen forty seven this royal wedding was celebrated but coldly and poorly as nephew and uncle had now drifted quite apart the more the younger disliked and suspected the elder the more the Hammond became his protestations of regard but he bitterly resented the Duke's action in holding him to his promise and he made up his mind before the marriage that he would henceforth govern as well as rain the Regent just prevented his dismissal by laying down his offices the king seemed almost to relent in parting from his guardian who had kept the kingdom in such perfect peace and now resigned so well discharged a duty but even his wife could not prevent the coming storm she struggled hard to reconcile her father and her husband but the mischief makers were too hard for her persuaded that the Duke was a traitor the king allowed himself to be used to go to him into revolt your father wishes to be punished he said fiercely to the queen and he shall be punished if Henry who in the last six years had only once left sogress tonight Don Pedro's eldest son at Coimbra in 1445 had now been able in presence as well as writing to stand by his brother in this crisis the Regent might have been saved as it was Pedro had hardly settled down in his exile at Coimbra when he found himself charged with the secret murders of King Edward Queen Leonor and Prince John the more monstrous the slander the more absurd and self-contradictory it might be the more eagerly it was made persecution as petty and grinding as that which hunted Wolsey to death at last drove Pedro to take arms his son knighted by Henry himself for the high place of Constable of the realm had been forced into flight the arms of Coimbra arsenal seized for the King's juice his letters to his nephew opened and answered it was said by his enemies who wrote back in the sovereign's name as he would write to an open rebel all this the Prince bore but when he heard that his bastard brother of Braganza who had betrayed and maligned and ruined him was on the march to plunder his estates like an outlaws he collected a few troops and barred his way at this Afonso was persuaded to declare war only one great noble stood by the fallen Regent but this was his friend Almada the Spanish Hercules his sworn brother in arms and in travels one of the heroes of Christendom who had been made account in France and a knight of the garter in England it was he who now escaped from honourable imprisonment at Centra joined Pedro in Coimbra and proposed to him that they should go together to court and demand justice and a fair trial but sword in hand and with their men at their back was it not better to die as soldiers than as traitors without a hearing so on May 5th 1449 the Duke left Coimbra with his little army of vassals one thousand horse and five thousand foot and passed by Batalha where he stopped to revisit the great church and the tombs of his father and his brothers thence he marched straight on Lisbon which the king covered from Centarum with thirty thousand men at the rivulet of Alfaro Biara the armies met a lance thrust or a crossbow shot killed the infant a common soldier cut off his head and carried it to Afonso in the hope of knighthood Almada who fought till he could not stand from loss of blood died with his friend hurling his sword from him he threw himself on the ground with a scornful take your fill of me violets and was cut to pieces though at first leave could hardly be got to bury Don Pedro's body as time went on his name was cleared his daughter bore a son to the king and the proofs of his loyalty the indignant warnings of foreign courts the entreaties of the queen at last brought Alfonso to something like repentance and amendment he buried the regent at Batalha and pardoned his friends those who were left from the butchery of Alfaro Biara End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of Prince Henry the navigator the hero of Portugal and of modern discovery this is a LibriVox recording a LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dion Giants Salt Lake City Utah Prince Henry the navigator by Charles Raymond Beasley Chapter 17 Ca da Mosto 1455 to 6 we have now come to the voyages of the Venetian Ca da Mosto in the service of Prince Henry and though these were far from being the most striking in their general effect they are certainly the most famous the best known of all the enterprises of these 50 years 1415 to 1460 it is true that Ca da Mosto fairly reached Sierra Leone and passing the farthest mark of the earlier Portuguese caravals coasted along many miles of that great eastern bend of the West African coast which we call the Gulf of Guinea but it is to his general fame as a seaman his position in Italy and the interest he aroused by his written and published story that he owed his greater share of attention when I first set my mind begins his narrative on sailing the ocean between the strait of Cadiz and the fortunate islands the one man who had tried to enter the of foresaid ocean since the days of our father Adam was the infant Don Henry of Portugal whose illustrious and almost countless deeds I pass over accepting only his zeal for the Christian faith and his freedom from the bonds of matrimony for his father King John had not given up the ghost before he warned his son Henry with saving precepts that the of foresaid holy faith he should foster with a don'tless mind and not fail in his vows of warring down the foes of Christ therefore every year did Don Henry as it were challenging and hurling defiance at the Moors persist in sending out his caravals as far as the headland called the Cape of Non not from the belief that beyond the said Cape there is no return possible and as for a long time the ships of the Prince did not dare to pass that point Henry roused himself to accomplish this feat seeing that his caravals did much excel all other sailing ships afloat and strictly enjoined his captains not to return before they had passed the said Cape who steadily pressing on and never leaving sight of the shore did in truth pass near 100 miles beyond finding nothing but desert land beyond this again for the space of 150 miles the Prince then sent another fleet which fared no better and finding no trace of men or of tillage returned home and Don Henry growing ever keener for discovery and excited by the opposition as it were of nature sent out again and again till his sailors had reached beyond the desert coast to the land of the Arabs and of those new races called as Zanagais people of a tawny color and finally there appeared to these bold mariners the land of Ethiopia which lies upon the shore of the southern ocean and here again from day to day the explorers discovered new races and new lands now I, Luigi Caramosto who had sailed nearly all the Mediterranean coasts once leaving Venice for Saltogalia, France but being caught by a storm off Cape St. Vincent had to take refuge in the Prince's town near the said Cape and was here told of the glorious and boundless conquest of the Prince once accrued such gain that from no traffic in the world could the light be had the witch continues the candid traitor did exceedingly stir my soul eager as it was for gain above all things else and so I made suit to be brought before the Prince if so be that I might gain leave to sail in his service for since the prophet of this voyage is subject to his pleasure he doth guard his monopoly with no small care with the Prince at last Caramosto made terms either that he the adventurer should furnish the ships at his own cost and take the whole risk upon himself and of the merchandise that he might gain a fourth part to go to his Lord or that the Prince should bear the cost of equipment and should have half the profits but in any case if there was no profit the whole expense should fall upon the traitor the Prince added that he would heartily welcome any other volunteers from Venice and on Caramosto himself he urged an immediate start as for me repeats the sailor my age my vigor my skill equal to any toil above all my passionate desire to see the world and explore the unknown set me all on fire with eagerness and especially the fact that no countrymen of mine had ever tried the like and my certainty of winning the highest honour and gain from such a venture made me forward to offer myself I only stayed to inquire from veteran Portuguese what merchandise was the most highly prized among the Ethiopians and people of the furthest south and then went home to find the best light craft for the ocean coasting that I had in mind meantime the Prince ordered a caravel to be equipped and he gave one to Vincent a native of Lagos as captain and cause to be armed to the teeth as was required and on the 21st of March 1455 Caramosto sailed for Madeira on the 25th they were off Porto Santo and the Venetian stops to give us a description of the island which he says in passing had been found and colonised by the Prince's seaman 27 years before it was worth the settling every kind of grain and fruit was easily raised and there was a great trade in dragon's blood which is made from the tears of a tree on March 27th Caramosto sailed from Porto Santo to Madeira 40 miles distant and easily seen from the first island when the weather was cloudy and here the narrative stops sometime to describe and admire sufficiently Madeira had been colonised under the lead and action of the Prince four and twenty years before and was now thickly peopled by the Portuguese settlers beyond Portugal its existence was hardly known its name was from its woodland here Caramosto repeats the traditional falsehood about the place but the first settlers had destroyed most of this in trying to clear an open space by fire the whole island had once been in flames the colonists only saved their lives by plunging into the rivers and even Zarco the chief discoverer with his wife and children had to stand in a torrent bed for two whole days and nights before they could venture on dry land again the island was forty miles round like Porto Santo it was without a harbour but not without convenient roads for ships to lie in the soil was fertile well watered by eight rivers that flowed through the island various kinds of carved wood are exported so that almost all Portugal is now adorned with tables and other furniture made from these woods hearing of the great plenty of water in the island the prince ordered all the open country to be planted with sugarcane and with vines imported from Crete which do excellent well in a climate so well suited to the grape the vine staves make good bows and are exported to Europe like the wine red and white alike but especially the red the grapes are ripe about Easter in each year and this vintage as early as Caudamostos day was evidently the main interest of the islanders who had all the enthusiasm of a new venture in their experiment for no one had ever tried his hand upon the soil before from Madeira the caravals sailed on three hundred twenty miles to the canaries which says our Venetian there are ten seven cultivated and three still desert and of the seven inhabited four are Christian three heathen even now fifty years after the Bethancourt's conquest neither wine nor grain can be produced on this soil and hardly any fruit only a kind of dye used for clothes in Portugal goats, flesh and cheese also be exported and something Caudamostos fancies might be made of the wild asses that swarm in the islands each of these canary islands being some forty miles from the next the people of one do not understand the speech of their neighbors they have no walls but open villages watchtowers are placed on the highest mountains to guard the people of one village from the attacks of the next for a guerrilla warfare half marauding half serious civil war is the order of the day speaking of the three heathen islands which were also the most populous Caudamostos stops a little over the mention of Tenerife wonderful among the islands of the earth and able to be seen in clear weather for a distance of seventy Spanish leagues which is equal to two hundred and fifty miles and what makes it to be seen from so far is that on the top is a great rock of Ottoman like a pyramid which stone blazes like the mountain of Etna and is full fifteen miles from the plain as the natives say these natives have no iron weapons but fight with stones and wooden daggers they go naked except for the armor of goat skins which they wear in front and behind houses they have none not even the poorest huts but live in mountain caves without faith without God some indeed worship the sun and moon and others planets reverent certain idols in their marriage customs the chiefs have the first right by common consent and at the graves of their dead chiefs are most of their religious sacrifices the islanders have only one art that of stone slinging unless one were to count their mountain climbing and skill in running and in all bodily exercises in which nature has created these canarians to excel all other mortals they paint their bodies with the juice of plants in all sorts of colors they make this the highest point of perfection to be decked out on their skins like a garden bed from the canaries Kata Mosto sells to the white cape Cape Blanco on the mainland some way beyond Bohador towards Ethiopia passing the bay and aisles of Arguen on the way where the crews found such quantities of seabirds that they brought home and here it is to be noticed says the narrative that in sailing from the parts of Cadiz to that Ethiopia which faces to the south you meet with nothing but desert lands till you come to Cape canton from which it is a near course to Cape Blanco these parts toward the south do run along the borders of the negro's land and this great tract of white and arid land full of sand very low lying at a dead level it would be a quick thing to cross in 60 days at Cape Blanco some hills begin to rise out of the plain and this cape was first found by the Portuguese and on it is nothing but sand no trace of grass or trees it is seen from far very sharply marked three-sided and having on it's crest three pyramids as they may be called each one a mile from it's neighbor a little beyond this great desert tract is a vast sea and a wondrous concourse of rivers where only explorers have reached at Cape Blanco there is a mart of Arab traders a station for the camels of the interior and those passed by the Cape who are coming from negro land and going to the Barbary of North Africa as one might expect on such a barren stony soil no wine or grain can be raised the natives have oxen and goats but very few milk of camels and others is their only drink as for religion and hate Christians right bitterly what is of more interest to the Venetian merchant the traders of these parts have plenty of camels which carry loads of brass and silver and even of gold brought from the negroes to the people of our parts the natives of Cape Blanco are black as moles but dress in white flowing robes after the Moorish fashion wound round the head and indeed plenty of Arabs are always hovering off the Cape and the Bay of Arguen for the sake of trade with the infants ships especially in silver grain and woven stuffs and above all in slaves and gold to protect this commerce the prince some time since 1448 built a fort in the bay and every year Portuguese caravans that come here lie under its protection and exchange the negro slaves that they have captured farther south for Arab horses one horse against 10 or 15 slaves or for silks and woven stuffs from Morocco and Granada from Tunis and the whole land of Barbary the Arabs on their side sell slaves that they have driven from the upland to the Portuguese at Arguen in all nearly a thousand a year so that the Europeans who used to plunder all this coast as far as the Senegal now find it more profitable to trade the mention of the Senegal brings Caudamosto to the next stage of his voyage to the great river which divides the Azana guys Tani Moors from the first kingdom of the Negros the Azana guys Caudamosto goes on to define more exactly as a people of a color something between black and ashen hue whom the Portuguese once plundered and enslaved but now trade with peacefully enough for the prince will not allow any wrongdoing being only eager that they should submit themselves to the law of Christ for at present they are in a doubt whether they should cleave to our faith or to Mohammed's slavery but they are a filthy race continues the traveler all of them mean and very abject liars and traitorous naives squat a figure noisome of breath though of a truth they cover their mouths as a decency saying that the mouth is a very cesspool and sewer of impurity they oil their hair with a foul smelling grease which they think a great virtue and honor much do they make of their gross fat women whose breath they deform usually that they may hang out the more straining their bodies when at 17 years of age with ropes ignorant and brutal as they are they know no other Christian people but the Portuguese who have enslaved and plundered them now 14 years this much is certain that when they first saw the ships of Don Henry sailing past they thought them to be birds coming from far and cleaving the air with white wings when the crews furl'd sail and drew into the shore the natives changed their minds and thought they were fishes some who first saw the ships sailing by night believed them to be phantoms gliding past when they made out the men on board of them it was much debated whether these men could be mortal all stood on the shore stupidly gazing at the new wonder the center of power and of trade in these parts was not on the coast but some way inland six days journey up the country is the place called Taghaza or the gold market once there is a great export of salt and metals which are brought on the camels of the Arabs and Azana guys down to the shore another route of merchants is inland to the negro empire of Melly and the city of Timbuktu where the heat is such that even animals cannot endure to labor that no green thing grows for the food of any quadruped so that of 100 camels bearing gold and salt which they store in 200 or 300 huts scarce 30 return home to Taghaza for the journey is a long one tis 40 days from Taghaza to Timbuktu and 30 more from Timbuktu to Melly and how comes it proceeds Kotomosto that these people want to use so much salt and after some fanciful astrological reasoning he gives us his practical answer to cool their blood in the extreme heat of the sun and so much is it needed that when they unload their camels at the entrance of the kingdom of Melly they pack the salt in blocks on men's heads and just carry it like a great army of footmen through the country when one Negro race barters the salt with another the first party comes to the place agreed on and lays down the salt in heaps each man marking his own heap by some token then they go away out of sight about the time of midday sun when the second party comes up being most anxious about the condition and places by each heap so much gold as the buyer thinks good then they too go away the sellers come back in the evening each one visits his pile and where the gold is enough for the seller's wishes he takes it, leaves the salt and goes away for good where it is not enough he leaves gold and salt together and only goes away and the others have paid a second visit now the second party coming up again take away the salt where the gold has been accepted but where it still lies refused they either add more or take their money away altogether according to what they think to be the worth of the salt once the king of Melly who sent out a party with salt to exchange for gold ordered his men to make captive some of the negroes who concealed themselves so carefully they were to wait till the buyers should come up to put down their gold then they were to rush out and seize all they could in this way one man and only one was taken who refused all food and died on the third day after his capture without uttering a word whereby the king of Melly but which induced the men of Melly to believe that the other people were naturally dumb the captors described the appearance of those who escaped their hands men of fine build and height more than a palm's length greater than their own having the lower lip brought out and hung down even to the breast red and bleeding and disclosing their teeth which were larger than the common their eyes black prominent and fierce looking for this treachery the trade was broken off three whole years till the great want of salt compelled the injured negroes to resume and since then the business had gone on as before the gold thus gained is carried by the men of Melly to their city and then portioned out in three parts by the caravan route towards Syria the other two thirds go to Timbuktu and are there divided once again part going to Tunis the head of Barbary and part to the regions of Morocco over against Granada and without the straight of the pillars of Hercules Gibraltar and to those parts come Christian merchants and especially Italians to buy the gold in exchange for merchandise of every sort for among the negroes and azana guys there is no coinage of gold or of silver no money token of metal but the whole is simply matter for exchange from the trade Kotomosto changes to discourse of the politics of the natives their manners and customs their government for the most part a tyranny of the richest and most powerful caste their wars are waged only with offensive arms light spears and swords they have no defensive armor but use horses which they sit as the moors do their ordinary garments are of cotton the plague of excessive drought during all the year except from August to October is aggravated at certain seasons by the worst plague of locusts and I myself have seen them flying by troops upon the sea and shore like an army but a countless number after this long digression Kotomosto comes back to the Gulf of Senegal and this says he is the chief river of the region of the negroes dividing them from the tawny moors the mouth of the estuary is a mile wide but an island lying in mid channel divides the river into two parts just where it enters the sea though the central channel is deep enough the entrance is made difficult to strangers by the shallows and sandbanks on either side every six hours the river rises and falls with the flow and ebb of the ocean and where it pours out its waters you see the flux and reflux of waters reaches to a distance of 60 miles as say the Portuguese who have watched it the Senegal is nearly 400 miles beyond Cape Blanco as Sandy shore stretches between the two up to the river the sailor sees from the shore only the wandering azanagais tawny squat and miserable savages across the stream to the south are the real blacks well built noble looking men and after so long a stretch of arid and stony desert there is now a beautiful green land covered with fruit bearing trees the work of the river which men say comes from the Nile being one of the four most glorious rivers of earth that flow from the garden of Eden and earthly paradise for as the eastern Nile waters Egypt so this doth water Ethiopia now the land of these negroes is at the entering in of Ethiopia from which to Cape Verda the land is all level where the king of Senegal reigning over people that have no cities but only scattered huts lives by the presence that his subjects bring him and goats and horses which are much valued for their scarceness but used without saddle bridle or trappings to these presence the king adds what he can plunder by his own strength especially slaves of which the blacks have a great trade with the azanagais their horses they sell also to the Christian traders on the coast the king can have as many wives and always keeps well above his minimum of 30 to each of whom is assigned a certain state with slaves and cattle but not equal to some more to others less the king goes the round of these farms at will and lives upon their produce any day you may see hosts of slaves bringing fruits of all sorts to the king as he goes through the country with his motley following all living at free quarters of the negroes of these parts most go naked but the chiefs and great men use cotton shirts as the country abounds in this sort of stuff cotton mosto describes in great detail the native manufacture of garments and the habits of the women barefoot and bareheaded they go always dressed in linen enough in apparel vile in life and diet always chattering great liars treacherous and deceitful to the last degree bloody and remorseless are the wars the princes of these barbarians carry on against one another they have no horsemen or body armor but use darts and spears barbed with many poisonous fangs and several kinds of arrows from the beginning of the world they knew nothing of ships before the portuguese came they only used light canoes or skiffs each of which can be carried by three men and in which they fish and go from place to place on the river the boundaries of the kingdom of senegal are the ocean on the west the land of gambra on the south the inland blackmans country on the east and on the north the river niger senegal which as i have said before divides the asenegais from the first kingdom of the negros and the said river concludes caudamasto five years before my coming had been explored by the portuguese who hoped to open up a great commerce in those parts so that every year from that time their ships had been off that coast to trade caudamasto determined to push farther up the river than any had done before and so to come to the land of butamel one of the great negro princes and kingdoms for it was the name both of place and person when he came there he found an emperor so honest that he might have been an example to any christian who exchanged his horses wolf elves and linen goods for the strangers merchandise and slaves with deeds as honorable as his words our adventurer was so taken with lord butamel that he gladly went with him two hundred and fifty miles upcountry on his promising a supply of negro slaves so that he could work but comely and none of them more than twelve years old on this adventurous journey of which we are next given a full account caudamasto is taken charge of by bizboro the princes nephew through whom i saw many things worth noting the venetian was not anxious to put off to sea as the weather was very rough so rough indeed we were off from the bank at the river's mouth to where the ships lay and the captain had to send word to his cruise by negro swimmers who could pass any surf for that they excel all other living men in the water and under it for they can dive an hour without rising it is not worthwhile to follow caudamasto in all his long account he saw and heard of negro life in the course of this journey it is as unsavory as it is commonplace he repeats very much of what he has said before about the azenegais of their servility to their princes who are to them as mortal gods of the everlasting progresses and wonderings of those princes round their kingdoms from crawl to crawl living on the stores each wife has provided of the crawls themselves no towns or castles as people at home might think says caudamasto but merely collections of 40 and 50 huts with a hedge of living trees round intertwined and the royal palace in the middle the prince of budamel has a bodyguard of 200 men besides the volunteer guard of his innumerable children who are broken up in two groups one always at court and these are made the most of the other scattered up and down the country as a sort of royal garrison the wretched subjects who suffer more from their king with a good will than they would from any stranger under force are punished with death for the smallest things and two small classes have any privileges ministers of religion share with the greatest nobles the sole right of access to the person of the mortal god caudamasto set up a mart in the upland and made what profits he could from their miserable poverty making exchanges with cottons, cloths oil, millet, skins palm leaves and above all, of course with gold, what little there was to be had meantime the negroes came stupidly crowding about me wondering at our Christian symbols our white color our dress and shape of body our damascenes garments of black silk and robes of blue cloth or dyed wool all amazed them some insisted that the white color was not natural but put on as with cook and so many others the savages now behaved with caudamasto they spat upon his arm and tried to rub off the white paint then they wondered more than ever when they found the flesh itself was white of gold after all not much was to be got and the exploring party was not long in returning and pushing on beyond Cape Verda to the last the ships and their instruments were the chief terror and delight of the negroes and above all of the negro women the whole thing was the work of demons they said not of men seeing that our engines of war could fell one hundred men at one discharge the trumpets sounding they took to be the yells and furious beast of prey caudamasto gave them a trumpet that they might see it was made by art they changed their minds accordingly and decided that such things were directly made by God himself above all admiring the different tones and crying loudly that they had never seen anything so wonderful the women looked through every part of the ship masts, helm, anchors sails and oars the eyes painted on the bow excited them the ship had eyes and could see before it and the men who used it must be wonderful enchanters like the demons this specially they wondered that we could sail out of all sight of land and yet know well enough where we were all which said they happened without black art scarcely less was their wonder at the sight of lighted candles as they had never before seen any light but that of fire when I showed them how to make candles from wax which before they had always thrown aside as worthless they were still more amazed saying that there was nothing we did not know and now caudamasto was ready to put off from the coast into the ocean and strike south for the kingdom of gambro as he had been charged by the prince who had told him it was not far from the senegal as the negroes had reported to him at sagras and that kingdom he had been told was so rich in gold that if christians could reach it they would gain endless riches so with two aims first to find the golden land and second to make discoveries in the unknown the venetian was just beginning to start afresh when he was joined by two more ships from portugal and they agreed to round Cape Verde together it was only some 40 miles beyond butamel and the caravels reached it next day Cape Verde gets its name from green grass and trees like Cape Blanco from its white sand both are very prominent lofty and seen from a great distance as they run out far into the sea but Cape Verde is more picturesque dotted as it is with little native villages on the side of the ocean and with three small desert islands a short distance from the mainland where the sailors found bird's nests and eggs in thousands of kinds unknown in Europe and above all enormous shellfish turtles of 12 pounds weight soon after passing Cape Verde the coast makes a great sweep to the east still covered with evergreen trees coming down in thick woods to within a bow shot of the sea so that from a distance it seems to touch the high water mark as we thought at first looking on ahead from our ships many countries have been into east and west but never did I see a prettier sight from the place the description again changes to the people and we are told once more with weary some repetitions about the people beyond Cape Verde in most ways the negroes of the Senegal but not obedient to that kingdom and abhorring the tyranny of the negro princes having no king or laws themselves worshipping idols using poisoned arrows which kill at once even though they drew but little blood in short a most truculent folk but very fine of stature black and comely the whole coast east of Cape Verde was found unapproachable except for certain narrow harbors till with a south wind we reached the mouth of a river called Ruin a bow shot across at the mouth and when we sighted this river which was 60 miles beyond Cape Verde we cast anchor at sunset in 10 or 12 paces of water 4 or 5 miles from the shore but when it was day as the lookout saw there was a reef of rocks on which the sea broke itself we sailed on and came to the mouth of another river as large as the Senegal with trees growing down to the water's edge and promising a most fertile country Caudamosto determined to land a scout here and caused lots cast among his slave interpreters which was to land and of these slaves Negros whom the native kings in the past had sold to Portuguese and who had then been trained in Europe I had many with me who were to open the country for our trade and to parley between us and the natives now the lot fell upon the Genoese Caravelle which had joined the explorers to draw into the shore and land a prisoner to try the goodwill of the natives before anyone else ventured the poor wretch instructed to inquire about the races living on the river and their manners polity, king's name and capital gold supply and other matters of commerce had no sooner swam a shore than he was seized and cut to pieces by some armed savages while the ships sailed on making no attempt to avenge their victim till after a lovely coast fringed with trees low lying and rich exceedingly they came to the mouth of the Gombra three or four miles across the haven where they would be and where Caudamasto expected his full harvest of gold and pepper and aromatics the smallest Caravelle started at once the very next morning after the discovery to go upstream taking a boat with it in case the stream should suddenly get too shallow for anything larger while the sailors were to keep sounding the river with their poles all the way everybody too kept a sharp look out for native canoes they had not long to wait two miles up the river three native Almadias came suddenly out upon them and then stopped dead to astonish at the ship and the white men in it to offer to do more though they had at first a threatening look and were now invited to a parley by the Europeans with every sign that could be thought of as the natives would not come any nearer the Caravelle returned to the mouth of the river and next morning at about nine o'clock it started together upstream to explore with the hope of finding some more friendly natives by the kind care of heaven four miles up the negroes came out upon them again in greater force most of them sooty black in color dressed in white cotton with something like a German helmet on their heads with two wings on either side and a feather in the middle more stood in the bow of each Almadia holding a round leather shield and encouraging his men in their thirteen canoes to fight and to row up boldly to the Caravelles now their oars were larger than ours and in number they seemed past counting after a short breathing space while each party glared upon the other the negroes shot their arrows Caravelles replied with their engines which killed a whole rank of the natives the savages then crowded around the little Caravelle and set upon her they were at last beaten off with heavy loss and all fled the slave interpreters shouting out to them as they rode away that they might as well come to terms with men who were only there for commerce to give the king of Gambra a present from his brother of Portugal and for that we hoped to be exceeding well loved and cherished by the king of Gambra but we wanted to know who and where their king was and what was the name of this river they should come without fear and take of us what they would giving us in return of theirs the negroes shouted back mistaken about the strangers they were Christians what could they have to do with them they knew how they had behaved to the king of Senegal no good men could stand Christians who ate human flesh what else did they buy negro slaves for Christians were plundering brigands too and had come to rob them as for their king he was three days journey from the river which was called Gambra when Caudamasto tried to come to closer quarters the natives disappeared and the crews refused to venture any farther upstream so the caravals turned back sailed down the river and coasted away west to Cape Verda and so home to Portugal but before the Venetian ends his journal he tells us how near Prince Henry's ships came to the equator when we were in the river of Gambra once only did we see the north star which was so low that it seemed almost to touch the sea to make up for the loss of the pole star sunk to the third part of the lance's length above the edge of the water Caudamasto and his men had a view of six brilliant stars in form of a cross which the June night was of thirteen hours and the day of eleven Caudamasto only went home to refit for a second voyage though at first he had been baffled by the savagery of the men of Gambra from finding out much about them he resolved to try again sailed out the very next year by way of the canaries and Cape Blanco and found after three days more sailing certain islands off Cape Verda where no one had been before the lookout saw two very large islands towards the larger of which they sailed at once in the hope of finding good anchorage and friendly natives but no one friend or foe seemed to live there so next morning says Caudamasto that I might satisfy my own mind I bade ten of my men armed with missiles and crossbows to explore the inland they crossed the hills that cut off the interior from the coast but found nothing except doves who were so tame that they could be caught in any number by the hand and now from another side of the first island they caught sight of three others towards the north and of two more towards the west they could not be clearly seen because of the great distance but for the matter of that we did not care to go out of our way to find what we now expected that all these other islands were desolate like the first so we went on our way to south and so passed another island and coming to the mouth of a river landed in search of fresh water and found a beautiful fruitful country covered with trees some sailors who went inland found cakes of salt white and small by the side of the river and immense numbers of great turtles with shells of such size that they could make very good shields for an army here they stayed a couple of days exploring in the country and fishing in the river which was so broad and deep they bear a ship of 150 tons burden and a full bow shot would not carry across it then naming their first discovered island Boa Vista and the largest of the group St. James because it was on the feast of the apostle they found it they sailed on along the coast of the mainland till they came to the place of the two palms Boa Vista and Cape Verda and since the whole land was known to us before we did not stay but boldly rounded Cape Verda and ran along to the gambra up this they at once began to steer no canoes came out upon them this time and no natives appeared except a few who hung about some way off and did not offer to stop them ten miles up to the small island where one of the sailors died of a fever and they called the new discovered land St. Andrew after him the natives were now much more approachable and caudamastos men converse with the bolder ones who came close up to the caravel like the men of Senegal two things above all astonished and confounded them the white sails of the ships the skins of the sailors after much debate carried on by yelling from boat to boat one of the negroes came on board the caravel and was loaded with presents to make him more communicative the ruse was successful the string of his tongue was quite loose and he chattered along freely enough the country like the river was called gambra its king for a single ten days journey toward the south but he was himself under the emperor of Melly chief of all the negroes was there no one nearer than Ferris Sangle oh yes, there was Bata Monsa King Batty and a good many other princes who lived quite close to the river would he guide them to Bata Monsa yes, safe enough his country was only some forty miles from the mouth of the gambra and so we came to Bata Monsa where the river was narrowed down to about a mile in breadth where Conta Mosto offered presents to the king and made a great speech before the negro magnates which is abridged in the narrative lest the matter should become a great Iliad King Batty returned the Portuguese presents with gifts of slaves and gold but the Europeans were sadly disappointed with the gold it was not at all equal to what they expected or what the people of Senegal had talked of being poor themselves they had fancied their neighbors must be rich on the other hand, the negroes of Gambra would give almost any price for trinkets and worthless toys because they were new fifteen days or nearly that the Portuguese stay their trading and immense was the variety of their visitors in that time most came on board simply from wonder and to stare at them others to sell their cotton cloths nets, gold rings civet and furs baboons and marmots fruit and especially dates each canoe seemed to differ in its build and its crew from the last crowded with this light craft was like the Rhone near Lyons but the natives worked their boats like gondolas standing one rowing and another steering with oars that were like half a lance in shape a pace and a half long with a round board like a trencher tied at the end and with these they make very good pace being great coasting voyagers venturing far out to sea or away from their own country lest they should be seized and sold for slaves to the Christians after the fortnight stay in Batamons' country the crews began to fall ill and Caudamosto determined to drop down the river once more to the coast noting as he did so all the habits of the natives most of them were idolaters nearly all had implicit faith in charms some worshipped mamud most vile and some were nomads like the gypsies of Europe for at the most part the people of the gambra lived like those of the Senegal dressing in cotton and using the same food except that they ate dogs flesh and were all tattooed women as well as men we need not follow Caudamosto in his accounts of the great trees the wild elephants great bats and horse fish of the country a chief called Numimonsa King Numi living near the mouth of the gambra took him on an elephant hunt in which he got the trophies foot, trunk and skin that he took home and presented to Prince Henry on descending the gambra the caraville tried to coast along the unexplored land but was driven by a storm into the open sea after driving about some time and nearly running on a dangerous coast they came at last to the mouth of a great river which they called Rio Grande for it seemed more like a gulf or arm of the sea than a river and was nearly 20 miles across some 25 leagues beyond the gambra here they met natives in two canoes who made signs of peace but could not understand the language of the interpreters the new country was absolutely outside the farthest limits of earlier exploration and discovery would have to begin afresh Caudamosto had no mind to risk anything more his crew were sick and tired and he turned back to Lisbon observing before he left or Rio Grande as he noticed in his earlier voyage that the north star almost touched the horizon and that the tides of that coast were very marvelous for instead of flow and ebb being six hours each as at Venice the flow here was but four and the ebb eight the tide rising with such force that three anchors could hardly hold the caraville end of chapter 17