But The Master And Seamen Were Afraid Of Being
Detained, And Suspected That The Islanders Had No Mind To Be Discovered,
And Might Burn Their Vessel; Wherefore They Sailed Back To Portugal,
Hoping To Be Rewarded For Their Discovery By Don Henry.
But he reproved
them severely, and ordered them to return quickly; wherefore the master
and all his crew escaped from Portugal with their ship, and never
returned.
It is likewise reported, that while the master and seamen of
this vessel were at church in the foresaid island, the boys of the ship
gathered sand for the cook room, a third part of which was found to be
pure gold.
Among others who set out to discover this island was one Jattes de Fiene,
whose pilot Peter Velasquez, of the town of Palos de Moguer, told the
admiral in the monastery of St Mary de la Rabida, that they sailed 150
leagues south-west from Fayal, and discovered the island of Flores in
their return, to which they were led by observing numbers of birds to fly
in that direction, and because these were land birds they concluded that
they were making for land, as they could not rest upon the waters. Leaving
Flores, they sailed so far to the north-east, that they came to Cape Clear
in the west of Ireland, where they met with a stiff western gale and yet a
smooth sea, whence they concluded that there must be land in that
direction by which the sea was sheltered from the effects of the west wind;
but it being then the month of August, they did not venture to proceed in
search of that supposed island, for fear of winter.
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