In This Expedition He Was Accompanied By Two Other Caravels,
Commanded By Garcia Mendez And Diego Alfonso, But They Were Separated By
A Storm In The Early Part Of The Voyage.
Alfonso was the first who
reached the coast at Cape Branco, where he landed, and set up a wooden
cross as a signal to his consorts, and then proceeded to the islands of
Arguin, which afforded shelter from the tremenduous surf which breaks
continually on the coast of Africa.
While waiting at Arguin for the other
ships, Alfonso paid many visits to the continent, where he made prisoners
of twenty-five of the natives. When the other two ships of the squadron
had joined, they went to the Rio del Ouro in search of their countryman,
Juan Fernandez, who had been several days anxiously looking out for a
vessel to carry him off.
After experiencing many hardships, Fernandez had succeeded in gaining the
friendship of a considerable person among the Moors, and was accompanied
to the shore by that mans slaves in a body. The natives exerted
themselves to procure the release of some of their countrymen who were
prisoners with the Portuguese, to whom they gave nine negroes and a
quantity of gold dust by way of ransom. To the place where this
transaction took place, the navigators gave the name of _Cabo do Resgati_,
or Cape Ransom; where likewise Fernam Tavares, an aged nobleman, received
the honour of knighthood, a distinction he had long been entitled to, but
which he would only receive upon the newly discovered coast.
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