Some Writers Have Placed
This Journey As Prior In Point Of Time To The Voyage Of Diaz, And Have
Even Imagined That The Navigator Was Directed Or Instructed By The Report
Which Covilham Transmitted Respecting India.
Of the relation of this
voyage by Alvarez, which Purchas published in an abbreviated form, from a
translation out of the Italian in the collection of Ramusio, found among
the papers of Hakluyt, Purchas gives the following character:
"I esteem it
true in those things which he saith he saw: In some others which he had by
relation of enlarging travellers, or boasting Abassines, he may perhaps
sometimes rather _mendacia dicere_, than _mentiri_." To _tell_ lies rather
than _make_ them.
Covilham, or Covillan, was born in a town of that name in Portugal, and
went, when a boy, into Castile, where he entered the service of Don
Alphonso, duke of Seville. On a war breaking out between Portugal and
Castile, he returned into his native country, where he got into the
household of King Alphonso, who made him a man-at-arms. After the death of
that king, he was one of the guard of King John, who employed him on a
mission into Spain, on account of his knowledge in the language. He was
afterwards employed in Barbary, where he remained some time, and acquired
the Arabic language, and was employed to negotiate a peace with the king
of Tremesen. He was a second time sent into Barbary on a mission to King
_Amoli-bela-gegi_, to procure restitution of the bones of the infant Don
Fernando, in which he was successful.
After his return, he was joined in commission, as before-mentioned, with
Alphonso de Payva, and these adventurous travellers left Lisbon in May
1487. Covilham was furnished with a very curious map for these times, by
the Prince Emanuel, afterwards king of Portugal, which had been copied and
composed, with great care and secrecy, by the licentiate Calzadilla,
afterwards bishop of Viseo, assisted by Doctor Rodrigo, and a Jewish
physician named Moses; which map asserted the practicability of passing by
sea to India round the southern extremity of Africa, on some obscure
information which had been collected by those who constructed it.
With a supply of 500 crowns in money, and a letter of credit, or bills of
exchange, Covilham and De Payva went first to Naples, where their bills of
exchange were paid by the son of _Cosmo de Medici_. From Naples they went
by sea to the island of Rhodes, and thence to Alexandria in Egypt, whence
they travelled as merchants to Grande Cairo, and proceeded with the
caravan to _Tor_[2] on the Red Sea, near the foot of Mount Sinai. They
here received some information respecting the trade which then subsisted
between Egypt and Calicut, and sailed from that place to Aden, a trading
city of Yemen, on the outside of the Straits of Babelmandeb. The
travellers here separated; Covilham embarking in one vessel for India,
while De Payva took his passage in another vessel bound for Suakem on the
Abyssinian coast of the Red Sea, having engaged to rejoin each other at
Cairo, after having carried the directions of their sovereign into effect.
The Moorish ship from Aden in which Covilham had embarked, landed him at
Cananor on the coast of Malabar, whence, after some stay, he went to
Calicut and Goa, being the first of the Portuguese nation who had
navigated the Indian ocean; having seen pepper and ginger, and heard of
cloves and cinnamon. From India he went by sea to Sofala on the eastern
coast of Africa, where he is said to have examined the gold mines, and
where he procured some information respecting the great island of
Madagascar, called by the Moors the _Island of the Moon_. With the
various and valuable information he had now acquired, relative to the
productions of India and their marts, and of the eastern coast of Africa,
he now determined to return to Egypt, that he might be able to
communicate his intelligence to Portugal. At Cairo he was met by
messengers from King John, informing him that Payva had been murdered,
and directing him to go to Ormuz and the coast of Persia, in order to
increase his stock of commercial knowledge. The two messengers from the
king of Portugal whom Covilham met with at Cairo, were both Jewish rabbis,
named Abraham of Beja and Joseph of Lamego. The latter returned into
Portugal with letters from Covilham, giving an account of his
observations, and assuring his master that the ships which sailed to the
coast of Guinea, might be certain of finding a termination of the African
Continent, by persisting in a southerly course; and advising, when they
should arrive in the _eastern ocean_, to inquire for Sofala and the
Island of the Moon.
Covilham and Rabbi Abraham went from Cairo, probably by sea, to Ormuz and
the coast of Persia, whence they returned in company to Aden. From that
place, Abraham returned by the way of Cairo to Portugal with the
additional information which had been collected in their voyage to the
Gulf of Persia; though some authors allege that Joseph was the companion
of this voyage, and that he returned from Bassora by way of the desert to
Aleppo, and thence to Portugal.
From Aden, Covilham crossed the straits of Babelmandeb to the south-
eastern coast of Abyssinia, where he found Alexander the king, or negus,
at the head of an army, levying tribute or contributions from his
rebellious subjects of the southern provinces of his dominions. Alexander
received Covilham with kindness, but more from motives of curiosity than
for any expectations of advantage that might result from any connection
or communication with the kingdom of Portugal. Covilham accompanied the
king to Shoa, where the seat of the Abyssinian government was then
established; and from a cruel policy, which subsists still in Abyssinia,
by which strangers are hardly ever permitted to quit the country,
Covilham never returned into Europe.
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