[1] At This Place Grynaeus Calls Him Batrinense; Though He Had Named Him Rightly Bati-Mansa Before.

- Astl.

[2] This is now called Cape St Mary. - E.

[3] This seems to allude to what is now called Bald Cape, about twenty miles south from Cape St Mary, and stretching somewhat farther west; from which there extends breakers or sunken rocks a considerable distance from the land. - E.

[4] Between the mouth of the Gambia and that of the Casamansa, there are three inlets, which appear to be smaller mouths of the latter river. The most northern of these is named St Peter, the most southerly Oyster river; the intermediate one has no name. - E.

[5] The actual distance is barely a degree of latitude, or less than seventy English miles. Cada Mosto probably estimated by the log, the more circuitous track by sea. - E.

[6] Cada Mosto does not mention the remarkable change which takes place here in the direction of the coast. From the Gambia to Cape Rosso, the coast runs direct south; after which its direction is E.S.E. to the mouth of the river St Ann. - E.

[7] Called in modern charts, Rio S. Dominica. - E.

[8] According to de Faria, Rio Grande was discovered by Nunez Tristan in 1447, nine years before it was visited by Cada Mosto. - Astl.

[9] Cada Mosto is exceedingly superficial in his account of the Rio Grande; and it even seems dubious if he ever saw or entered this river, as he appears to have mistaken the navigable channel between the main and the shoals of the Rio Grande for the river itself; which channel extends above 150 English miles, from the island of Bulam in the E.S.E. to the open sea in the W.N.W. This channel agrees with his description, in being twenty miles wide, whereas the real Rio Grande is greatly smaller than the Gambia. - E.

[10] These may be the island of Waring and the Marsh islands, at the north-western entry of the channel of the Rio Grande, forming part of the Bissagos islands. - E.

SECTION XI.

_The Voyage of Piedro de Cintra to Sierra Leona, and the Windward coast of Guinea; written by Alvise da Cada Mosto._

The two voyages to the coast of Africa in which Cada Mosto was engaged, and which have, been narrated in the foregoing Sections of this Chapter, were followed by others; and, after the death of Don Henry, two armed caravels were sent out upon discovery by orders from the king of Portugal, under the command of Piedro de Cintra, one of the gentlemen of his household, with injunctions to proceed farther along the coast of the Negroes than had hitherto been effected, and to prosecute new discoveries. In this expedition, Piedro de Cintra was accompanied by a young Portuguese who had formerly been clerk to Cada Mosto in his two voyages; and who, on the return of the expedition to Lagos, came to the house of his former employer, who then continued to reside at Lagos, and gave him an account of the discoveries which had been made in this new voyage, and the names of all the places which had been touched at by Piedro de Cintra, beginning from the Rio Grande, the extreme point of the former voyage[1].

De Cintra first went to the two large inhabited islands at the mouth of the Rio Grande which I had discovered in my second voyage, where he landed, and ordered his interpreters to make the usual inquiries at the inhabitants; but they could not make themselves understood, nor could they understand the language of the natives. Going therefore into the interior, they found the habitations of the Negroes to consist of poor thatched cabins, in some of which they found wooden idols, which were worshipped by the Negroes. Being unable to procure any information in this place, Cintra proceeded, in his voyage along the coast, and came to the mouth of a large river between three and four miles wide, which he called Besegue, from a lord of that name who dwelt near its mouth, and which he reckoned to be about forty miles from the mouth of the Rio Grande[2]. Proceeding about 140 miles from the river Besegue, along a very hilly coast; clothed with high trees, and having a very beautiful appearance, they came to a cape to which they gave the name of Verga[3]. Continuing along the coast, they fell in with another cape, which, in the opinion of all the seamen, was the highest they had ever seen, having a sharp conical height in the middle like a diamond, yet entirely covered with beautiful green trees. After the name of the fortress of Sagres, which was built by the deceased Don Henry on Cape St Vincent, the Portuguese named this point Cape Sagres of Guinea. According to the account of the Sailors, the inhabitants of this coast are idolaters, worshipping wooden images in the shape of men, before which they make offerings of victuals as often as they eat or drink. These people are more of a tawny colour than black, having marks on their faces and bodies made with hot irons. They go almost entirely naked, except that they wear pieces of the bark of trees before them. They have no arms, as there is no iron in their country. They live on rice, millet, beans, and kidney beans, larger than ours; and have also beef and goats flesh, but not in any great abundance. Near to Cape Sagres there are several very small uninhabited islands.

The inhabitants of this river have large almadias, carrying from thirty to forty men, who row standing, without having their oars fixed to any thing, as formerly noticed. They have their ears pierced with many holes, in which they wear a variety of gold rings. Both men and women have also a hole through the cartilage of the nose, in which they wear a gold ring, just like that of iron in the noses of our buffalos, which they take out when eating.

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