Читать книгу The History of Voyages & Travels (All 18 Volumes) - Robert Kerr - Страница 71

In the subsequent year, 1446, Don Henry sent out a small squadron of three caravels, under the command of Antonio Gonzales, assisted by Diego Alfonso, and by Gomez Perez, the kings pilot. They were directed to proceed for the Rio del Ouro, and were strictly enjoined to cultivate the friendship of the natives by every possible means, to establish peace with them and to use their utmost endeavours to convert them to the Christian religion; among other instructions, they were urged to pass unnoticed the insults or neglect of honour which they might experience from the negroes. The Portuguese endeavoured, but ineffectually, to conciliate the natives, and to remove the angry prejudices which they entertained. They returned to Lagos with no other fruit from their voyage except one negro whom they had received in ransom, and an aged Moor who requested permission to accompany them to Portugal. One of their own companions, Juan Fernandez, from an ardent desire to procure information for the prince, got leave to remain among the Assanhaji Arabs.

Next year, 1447, Antonio Mendez was ordered to return in search of Juan Fernandez, from whose inquisitive disposition much information was expected. In this expedition he was accompanied by two other caravels, commanded by Garcia Mendez and Diego Alfonso, but they were separated by a storm in the early part of the voyage. Alfonso was the first who reached the coast at Cape Branco, where he landed, and set up a wooden cross as a signal to his consorts, and then proceeded to the islands of Arguin, which afforded shelter from the tremenduous surf which breaks continually on the coast of Africa. While waiting at Arguin for the other ships, Alfonso paid many visits to the continent, where he made prisoners of twenty-five of the natives. When the other two ships of the squadron had joined, they went to the Rio del Ouro in search of their countryman, Juan Fernandez, who had been several days anxiously looking out for a vessel to carry him off.

After experiencing many hardships, Fernandez had succeeded in gaining the friendship of a considerable person among the Moors, and was accompanied to the shore by that mans slaves in a body. The natives exerted themselves to procure the release of some of their countrymen who were prisoners with the Portuguese, to whom they gave nine negroes and a quantity of gold dust by way of ransom. To the place where this transaction took place, the navigators gave the name of Cabo do Resgati , or Cape Ransom; where likewise Fernam Tavares, an aged nobleman, received the honour of knighthood, a distinction he had long been entitled to, but which he would only receive upon the newly discovered coast. During the homeward voyage, Gonzales touched at a village near Cape Branco, where he increased his captives to ninety.

Juan Fernandez described the natives of the coast as wandering shepherds, of the same race with the Moor who had been brought over to Portugal by Antonio Gonzales in the former voyage. After he had been conveyed to a considerable distance inland, he was stripped of all his clothes, and even deprived of all the provisions he had taken on shore. A tattered coarse rug, called an alhaik , was given him instead of the clothes he had been deprived of. His food was principally a small farinaceous seed, varied sometimes by the roots which he could find in the desert, or the tender sprouts of wild plants. The inhabitants, among whom he lived as a slave, unless when better supplied by means of the chase, fed on dried lizards, and on a species of locust or grasshopper. Water was bad, or scarce, and their chief drink was milk. They only killed some of their cattle on certain great festivals; and, like the Tartars, they roamed from place to place in quest of a precarious sustenance for their flocks and herds. The whole country presented only extensive wastes of barren sand, or an uncultivated heath, where a few Indian figs here and there variegated the dreary and extensive inhospitable plain. A short time before he rejoined his countrymen, Fernandez acquired the protection and kindness of Huade Meimon, a Moor of distinction, who permitted him to watch for the arrival of the ships, and even assigned him a guard for his protection.

In the interval between these two voyages of Gonzales, Denis Fernandez, a gentleman of Lisbon, who had belonged to the household of the late king, fitted out a vessel for discovery under the patronage of Don Henry, with a determination to endeavour to penetrate farther to the southwards than any preceding navigator. He accordingly passed to the southwards of the Senegal river, which divides the Azanhaji moors from the Jaloffs, or most northern negroes, and fell in with some almadias or canoes, one of which he captured, with four natives. Proceeding still farther on, without stopping to satisfy his curiosity in visiting the coast, he at length reached the most westerly promontory of Africa, to which he gave the name of Cabo Verde, or the Green Cape, from the number of palm trees with which it was covered. Alarmed by the breakers with which the shore was everywhere guarded, Denis did not venture to proceed any farther, especially as the season was already far advanced, but returned with his captives to Portugal, where he met with a flattering reception from Don Henry, both on account of his discovery of the Cape de Verd, and for the natives he had procured from the newly discovered coast, without having been traded for with the Moors.

SECTION V.

Progress of Discovery from Cape de Verd to the Gambia .

Soon after the return of Denis from the Cape de Verd, Gonzales Pachecos, a wealthy officer belonging to the household of Don Henry, fitted out a ship at his own expence, of which he gave the command to Dinisianez da Gram, one of the princes equerries, who was accompanied by Alvaro Gil, an essayer of the mint, and Mafaldo de Setubal. After touching at Cape Branco, they steered along the coast for the isle of Arguin, making descents in several places, where they made a considerable number of captives from the Moors. At the isle De las Garças they found another caravel, commanded by Lourenço Dias, which formed part of a considerable squadron that had been lately fitted out from Lagos. Two days afterwards, the admiral of that squadron, Lançarot, and nine other caravels arrived. Gram informed Lançarot of his success in making fifty prisoners, whom he had dearly purchased by the loss of seven of his men, who had been murdered by the Moors. Lançarot immediately sailed for Arguin, bent on revenge, and sacrificed the lives of eight, and the liberty of four of the natives, to the memory of Gonzales da Cintra and the mariners of Gram. On this occasion two of the Portuguese officers were knighted on the newly discovered coast, which seems then to have been a fashionable ambition among them, no doubt arising from the prevailing zeal for maritime discovery. From Arguin Lançarot passed over to the isle of Tider, whence the inhabitants made their escape to the adjacent continent; but the Portuguese soon followed, and the astonished Moors fled on all sides, after a sharp skirmish, in which a good many of them were slain, and sixty taken prisoners.

The fleet now separated, a part returning home by way of the Canaries, while Lançarot, with several other caravels, advanced along the coast of Africa southwards, till he got beyond what the Moors called the Çahara, or Sahara, of the Assenaji. This Moorish nation is mentioned by Abulfeda as the ruling tribe in Audagost, or Agadez, and as inhabiting the southern part of Morocco. They are therefore to be considered as the peculiar people of the great desert and its environs, at its western extremity on the Atlantic. The latter part of their name, aji , or rather aspirated haji , signifies a pilgrim, and is now the appropriate title of one who has made the great pilgrimage of Mecca. In the present case, the name of Assenaji probably signifies the Wanderers of the Desert . The Sanhaga, or Assenaji tribe, is now placed at no great distance from the African coast, between the rivers Nun and Senegal; and this latter river has probably received its Portuguese name of Sanaga from that tribe. Ptolemy likewise probably named Cape Verd Arsinarium , from the same people, from which it may be inferred that they anciently occupied both sides of the Senegal river, which is named Dardalus by that ancient geographer.

Twenty leagues beyond the southern boundary of the great desert, Lançarot came to the mouth of a large river, which had been formerly seen by Denis Fernandez, and named by him Rio Portugues , or the Portuguese river; which was called Ouedech by the natives, and afterwards got the name of Canaga, Zanaga, Sanhaga, Sanaga, or Senega, now the Senegal. Lançarot passed in safety over the bar of this river, and endeavoured to explore its course upwards, but the weather became unfavourable, and forced him again to sea, when he proceeded with part of his squadron to Cape Verd, near which place he took in a supply of water and goats flesh. The fleet was again dispersed by a second storm, and only three vessels remained under the command of Lançarot. With these he made a descent on the island of Tider, where he captured fifty-nine Moors; and with these, and some natives he had made prisoners on the banks of the Senegal, he returned into Portugal.

In the year 1447, Nuna Tristan made another voyage to the coast of Africa; and, advancing beyond Cabo dos Mastos , or the Cape of Masts, so named from some dead palms resembling masts, seen there by Lançarot, who made this discovery in the former voyage, Nuna Tristan proceeded southwards along the coast of Africa, 180 miles beyond Cape Verd, where he reached the mouth of a river which he called Rio Grande, or the Large River, since called Gamber, Gambra, or Gambia. Tristan came to anchor at the mouth of this river, and went in his boat with twenty-two armed men on purpose to explore its course. Having reached to a considerable distance from his ship, he was environed by thirteen almadias or canoes, manned by eighty negroes, who advanced with dreadful yells, and poured in continual vollies of poisoned arrows, by which he, and almost every man in his boat were wounded before they could regain the ship. Nuno Tristan and all the wounded men died speedily of the effects of these poisoned weapons, himself only living long enough to recount the nature of the terrible disaster to the small remainder of the crew who had been left in charge of the caravel; which was brought home by only four survivors, after wandering for two months in the Atlantic, scarcely knowing which way to steer their course.

There appears some difficulty and contradiction in regard to the river discovered by Nuna Tristan, from the vague name of Rio Grande. Instead of the Gambia, in lat. 13° 30' N. some of the Portuguese historians are inclined to believe that this fatal event took place at another river, in lat. 10° 15' N. at least 500 nautical miles beyond the Gambia, to the S.S. E. which was afterwards called Rio de Nuno. This is scarcely probable, as no notice whatever is taken of the great archipelago of shoals and islands which extend from Cabo Rosso to beyond the mouth of that river which is still called Rio Grande. Yet it must be acknowledged that our remaining information respecting these early Portuguese voyages of discovery, is unfortunately vague and unsatisfactory.

In the same year, 1447, Alvaro Fernando proceeded to the coast of Africa, and is said to have advanced forty leagues beyond Tristan, having arrived at the mouth of a river called Tabite[11], 100 miles to the south of Rio Nuno. Notwithstanding the appearance of a determined opposition on the part of the natives, who had manned five almadias, Alvaro resolved to explore its course in his boat, and proceeded up the river for that purpose, with the utmost circumspection. One of the almadias stood out from the rest, and attacked his boat with great bravery, discharging a number of poisoned arrows, by which Alvaro and several of his men were wounded, which forced him to desist and return to his ship. Being, however, provided with theriac and other antidotes against the poison, Alvaro and all his men recovered from their wounds. He resolved, after leaving the river Tabite, to proceed along the coast, which he did to a sandy point; and, apprehending no danger in so open a situation, was preparing to land, when he was suddenly assailed by a flight of poisoned arrows, from 120 negroes who started up from a concealment. Alvaro, therefore, desisted from any farther attempt to explore the coast, and returned to Lagos to give an account of his proceedings.

[11] No such name occurs in the best modern charts, neither is there a river of any consequence on the coast which answers to the distance. The first large river to the south of the Nuno is the Mitomba, or river of Sierra Liona, distant about 130 maritime miles.--E.

In the same year, ten caravels sailed from Lagos for Madeira, the Canaries, and the coast of Africa, but returned without making any progress in discovering the coast. Under this year likewise, 1447, the Antilles, or Caribbee islands, are pretended to have been discovered by a Portuguese ship driven, thither by a storm. But the fact rests only on the authority, of Galvano, a Portuguese historian, and is not at all credible. Indeed the story is an absolute fable; as the inhabitants are said to have spoken the Portuguese language, and to have had seven cities in their island. In the same year, Gomez Perez went with two caravels to Rio del Ouro, whence he carried eighty Moors to Lagos as prisoners.

About this period the progress of discovery was arrested by political disputes in Portugal, which ended in a civil war between Don Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, and King Alphonso V. his nephew and son-in-law, in the course of which Don Pedro was slain. Don Henry appears to have taken no share in these disputes, except by endeavouring to mediate between his nephew and brother; and, after the unhappy catastrophe of Don Pedro, Don Henry returned to Sagres, where he resumed the superintendence of his maritime discoveries.

SECTION VI.

Discovery and Settlement of the Açores [1].

[1] So called from the number of hawks which were seen on these islands when first discovered, Açor signifying a hawk in the Portuguese language; hence Açores or Açoras, pronounced Azores, signifies the Islands of Hawks.--Clark.

These nine islands, called the Açores, Terceras, or Western islands, are situated in the Atlantic, 900 miles west from Portugal, at an almost equal distance from Europe, Africa, and America. The Flemings pretend that they were discovered by a navigator of their nation, John Vanderberg, who sailed from Lisbon in 1445 or 1449. Santa Maria, one of these islands, 250 leagues west from Cape St. Vincent, was first seen on the 15th August 1432, by Cabral, who sailed under the orders of Don Henry. San Miguel was taken possession of by the same navigator on the 8th May 1444; and Ponta Delgada its capital, received its charter from Emanuel in 1449. Tercera was given to Jacome de Brujes in 1450, by Don Henry, in which year St. George was discovered. Pico and Gracioso were discovered about the same time. Perhaps Fayal may actually have been first explored, as many of the inhabitants are of Flemish descent, under the command and protection of the Portuguese. Flores and Corvo, which lie seventy leagues west from Tercera, are not reckoned among the Açores by some writers. In this latter island, the Portuguese pretend that there was discovered an equestrian statue made from one block of stone. The head of the man was bare, his left hand rested on the mane of his horse, and his right pointed towards the west , as if indicating the situation of another continent. In addition to all this, an inscription appeared to have been traced on a rock beneath the statue, but in a language which the Portuguese did not understand.

In the slow progress of discovery, the perils endured by the officers and men employed by Don Henry, from the Moors and Negroes, frequently occasioned murmurs against his plans of discovery; but the several clusters of islands, the Madeiras, Cape Verd, and Açores, formed a succession of maritime and commercial colonies, and nurseries for seamen, which took off from the general obloquy attending the tedious and hitherto unsuccessful attempts to penetrate farther into the southern hemisphere, and afforded a perpetual supply of navigators, and a stimulus to enterprize. The original prejudices against the possibility of navigating or existing in the torrid zone still subsisted, and although the navigators of Don Henry had gradually penetrated to within ten degrees of the equator, yet the last successive discovery was always held forth by the supporters of ignorant prejudice, as that which had been placed by nature as an insurmountable barrier to farther progress in the Atlantic. In this situation, the settlement of the Açores was of considerable importance. In 1457, Don Henry procured the grant of many valuable privileges to this favourite colony, the principal of which was the exemption of the inhabitants from any duties on their commerce to the ports of Portugal and even of Spain.

In 1461, a fort was erected in the isle of Arguin on the African coast of the Moors, to protect the trade carried on there for gold and negro slaves. Next year, 1462, Antonio de Noli, a Genoese, sent by the republic to Portugal, entered into the service of Don Henry, and in a voyage to the coast of Africa, discovered the islands which are known by the name of the Cape de Verd Islands, though they lie 100 leagues to the westward of that Cape. In the same year Pedro de Cintra, and Suera de Costa, penetrated a little farther along the coast of Africa, and discovered the river or Bay of Sierra Liona or Mitomba, in lat. 8° 30' N. This constituted the last of the Portuguese discoveries, carried on under the direct influence and authority of Don Henry, the founder and father of modern maritime discovery, as he died next year, 1463, at Sagres, in the sixty-seventh year of his age; and, for a time, the maritime enterprise of the Portuguese nation was palsied by his death.

Thus, during a long period of fifty-two years, this patriotic prince devoted almost his whole attention, and the ample revenues which he enjoyed as Duke of Viseo end grand master of the military order of Christ, in extending the maritime knowledge, and consequently the commercial prosperity of his country. The incidents of the last seven years of the life of this distinguished prince, are involved in uncertainty, and we know very little with regard to the progress of his maritime discoveries from 1456, the date of the second of the voyages of Cada Mosto, of which we propose to give a separate account, till the year of his death, 1463. From the year 1412, when he began his operations, at which time he could scarcely exceed fifteen years of age, the navigators who had been formed under his auspices and direction, and often instructed by himself in the theory of navigation and cosmography, gradually explored the western coast of Africa, from Cape Nam or Non, in lat. 28° 15', certainly to Rio Grande, in lat. 11° N. or rather to Rio de Nuno, not quite a degree farther south; but it is highly probable that the southern limit of discovery in his time extended to Cabo Verga, in lat. 10° N. the northern boundary of the country usually called the Sierra Liona, or the Ridge of Lions, perhaps to the gulf of Mitomba, or bay of Sierra Liona, in lat. 8° 30' N. an extent of 29° 15' of latitude, or 1185 nautical miles; a mere nothing certainly when compared with modern navigation, but a wonderful effort in the infancy of the science, when even coasting voyages of any extent along well known shores, and in frequented seas, were looked upon as considerable efforts. No brilliant discovery, indeed, rewarded the perseverance of Don Henry, and the courage of his servants; but an indestructible foundation of useful knowledge was laid, for overthrowing the ignorant prejudices of the age, and by which, not long afterwards, his plans were perfected by completing the circumnavigation of Africa, and by the discovery of the New World. Dr. Vincent, the learned editor and commentator of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, is disposed to limit the discoveries of Don Henry to Cape Verd[2], but Ramusio believed that the Island of St. Thomas was settled in his time; and the ingenious translator of the Lusiad of Camoens is of opinion that some of his commanders passed beyond the equator[3]. According to Mickle, it was the custom of his navigators to leave his motto, Talent de bien faire , wherever they came; and in 1525 Loaya, a Spanish captain, found that device carved on the bark of a tree in the island of St. Matthew, or Anabon, in the second degree of southern latitude. But this proof is quite inconclusive, as the navigators long reared in the school of this great prince might naturally enough continue his impress upon the countries they visited, even after his lamented death.

[2] Peripl. of the Erythr. Sea, 193.

[3] Hist. of the Disc. of India, prefixed to the translation of the Lusiad, I. 158.

About seven years before the decease of Don Henry, two voyages were made to the African coast by Alvise da Cada Mosto, a Venetian navigator, under the auspices of the Duke of Viseo; but which we have chosen to separate from the historical deduction of the Portuguese discoveries, principally because they contain the oldest nautical journal extant, except those already given in our First Part from the pen of the great Alfred, and are therefore peculiarly valuable in a work of this nature. Their considerable length, likewise, and because they were not particularly conducive to the grand object of extending the maritime discoveries, have induced us to detach them from the foregoing narrative, that we might carry it down unbroken to the death of the great Don Henry. These voyages, likewise, give us an early picture of the state of population, civilization, and manners of the Africans, not to be met with elsewhere.

To this we subjoin an abstract of the narrative of a voyage made by Pedro de Cintra, a Portuguese captain, to the coast of Africa, drawn up for Cada Mosto, at Lagos, by a young Portuguese who had been his secretary, and who had accompanied Cintra in his voyage. The exact date of this voyage is nowhere given; but as the death of Don Henry is mentioned in the narrative, it probably took place in that year, 1463.