Destructive ravages of a worm which infested the sugar canes of Madeira,
that article, of cultivation had to be abandoned, and the principal
attention of the islanders was transferred to the grape, which still
continues to supply Europe, America, and the East Indies with the justly
celebrated Madeira wine.
At the same time with the grant of Madeira to Zarco and Vaz, Perestrello
received a donation of the island of Puerto Santo, on condition of
colonizing it and bringing it into culture. But so great was the
multitude of rabbits, all said to have been produced from one doe
transmitted in a pregnant state from Portugal, that cultivation was
attended with peculiar difficulties occasioned by their ravages; insomuch,
that in one islet only, 3000 are reported to have been killed at one time.
SECTION III.
_Prosecution of Discovery in Africa, to Cape Branco_.
Partly diverted from the original object of prosecuting discoveries along
the African coast, by the attentions requisite for forming this first
establishment of modern colonization, but chiefly owing to the extreme
difficulties of the navigation in the infancy of that art, fifteen years
were passed from the first discovery of Cape Bojador before that
formidable obstacle could be surmounted.
