The _Ilha De San Thome_, Or Island Of St Thomas, Which Is Said To Have
Received Its Name From The
Saint to whom the chapel of the great
monastery of _Thomar_ is dedicated, and to which all the African
discoveries
Are subjected in spirituals, has its southern extremity
almost directly under the equinoctial, and is a very high land of an oval
shape, about fifteen leagues in breadth, by twelve leagues long.
The most southerly of these islands, in lat. 1 deg. 30' S. now called Annobon,
was originally named Ilha d'Anno Bueno, or Island of the Happy Year,
having been discovered by Pedro d'Escovar, on the first day of the year
1472. At a distance, this island has the appearance of a single high
mountain, and is almost always topt with mist. It extends about five
leagues from north to south, or rather from N. N. W. to S. S. E. and is
about four leagues broad, being environed by several rocks and shoals. It
has several fertile vallies, which produce maize, rice, millet, potatoes,
yams, bananas, pine-apples, citrons, oranges, lemons, figs, and tamarinds,
and a sort of small nuts called by the French _noix de medicine_, or
physic nuts[3]. It also furnishes oxen, hogs, and sheep, with abundance
of fish and poultry; and its cotton is accounted excellent.
Including the voyages of Cada Mosto and Pedro de Cintra, which have been
already detailed, as possibly within the period which elapsed between the
death of Don Henry in 1463, and King Alphonzo, which latter event took
place on the 28th August 1481, and the detached fragments of discovery
related in the present Section, we have been only able to trace a faint
outline of the uncertain progress of Portuguese discovery during that
period of eighteen years, extending, as already mentioned, to Cape St
Catherine and the island of Annobon.
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