40' S. This Last Discovery Was Made By Sequetra, A Person In The King's
Immediate Service.
Many suppose that then were these countries and
islands discovered which had never been before known since the flood.
In the year 1480, the valiant King Don Alphonzo died, and was succeeded
by his son Don John II. who, in 1481, gave orders to Diego d'Azambuxa to
construct the castle of St George del Mina, on the African coast. In 1484,
Diego Caon, a knight belonging to the court, discovered the coast as far
as the river Congo, on the south side of the line, in seven or eight
degrees of latitude[14], where he erected a stone pillar, with the royal
arms and titles of Portugal, with the date of his discovery. He proceeded
southwards from thence along the coast, all the way to a river near the
tropic of Capricorn, setting up similar stone pillars in convenient
places. He afterwards returned to Congo, the king of which country sent
ambassadors by his ship into Portugal. In the next year, or the year
following, John Alonzo d'Aveiro brought home from Benin pepper with a
tail[15], being the first of the kind ever seen in Portugal.
In 1487, King John sent Pedro de Covillan and Alphonzo de Payva, both of
whom could speak Arabic, to discover India by land. They left Lisbon in
the month of May, and took shipping in the same year at Naples for the
island of Rhodes, and lodged there in the hotel of the Knights of St John
of Jerusalem, belonging to Portugal. From thence they went to Alexandria
and Cairo, and then along with a caravan of Moors to the haven of Toro.
There they embarked on the Red Sea, and proceeded to Aden, where they
separated; de Payva going into Ethiopia, while Covillan proceeded to
India. Covillan went to the cities of Cananor and Calicut, and thence to
Goa, where he took shipping for Sofala, on the eastern coast of Africa.
He thence sailed to Mosambique, and the cities of Quiloa, Mombaza, and
Melinda, returning back to Aden, where he and Payva had formerly
separated. Thence he proceeded to Cairo, where he hoped to have rejoined
his companion; but he here learnt by letter from the king his master,
that de Payva was dead, and he was farther enjoined by the king to travel
into the country of Abyssinia[16] He returned therefore, from Cairo to
Toro, and thence to Aden; and hearing of the fame of Ormuz, he proceeded
along the coast of Arabia by Cape Razalgate to Ormuz. Returning from the
Gulf of Persia to the Red Sea, he passed over to the realm of the
Abyssinians, which is commonly called the kingdom of Presbyter John, or
Ethiopia, where he was detained till 1520, when the ambassador, Don
Roderigo de Lima, arrived in that country. This Pedro de Covillan was the
first of the Portuguese who had ever visited the Indies and the adjacent
seas and islands.
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