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.
[1] So called from the number of hawks which were seen on these islands
when first discovered, _Acor_ signifying a hawk in the Portuguese
language; hence Acores or Acoras, pronounced Azores, signifies the
Islands of Hawks. - Clarke.
[2] Peripl. of the Erythr. Sea, 193.
[3] Hist. of the Disc. of India, prefixed to the translation of the Lusiad,
I. 158.
CHAPTER IV.
ORIGINAL JOURNALS OF THE VOYAGES OF CADA MOSTO, AND PIEDRO DE CINTRA TO
THE COAST OF AFRICA; THE FORMER IN THE YEARS 1455 AND 1456, AND THE
LATTER SOON AFTERWARDS[1].
INTRODUCTION.
Alvise Da Cada Mosto, a Venetian, in the service of Don Henry of Portugal,
informs us in his preface, that he was the first navigator from the
_noble city of Venice_, who had sailed on the ocean beyond the Straits of
Gibraltar, to the southern parts of Negroland, and Lower Ethiopia. These
voyages at Cada Mosto are the oldest extant in the form of a regular
journal, and were originally composed in Italian, and first printed at
Venice in 1507. This first edition is now exceedingly scarce, but there
is a copy in the kings library, and another in the valuable collection
made by Mr Dalrymple. These voyages were afterward published by Ramusio
in 1613, and by Grynaeus in Latin. The latter was misled in regard to the
date; which he has inadvertently placed in 1504, after the death of
Prince Henry, and even subsequent to the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope by Bernal Diaz.
