Covilham Was Furnished With A Very Curious Map For These Times, By
The Prince Emanuel, Afterwards King Of Portugal, Which
Had been copied and
composed, with great care and secrecy, by the licentiate Calzadilla,
afterwards bishop of Viseo, assisted by
Doctor Rodrigo, and a Jewish
physician named Moses; which map asserted the practicability of passing by
sea to India round the southern extremity of Africa, on some obscure
information which had been collected by those who constructed it.
With a supply of 500 crowns in money, and a letter of credit, or bills of
exchange, Covilham and De Payva went first to Naples, where their bills of
exchange were paid by the son of _Cosmo de Medici_. From Naples they went
by sea to the island of Rhodes, and thence to Alexandria in Egypt, whence
they travelled as merchants to Grande Cairo, and proceeded with the
caravan to _Tor_[2] on the Red Sea, near the foot of Mount Sinai. They
here received some information respecting the trade which then subsisted
between Egypt and Calicut, and sailed from that place to Aden, a trading
city of Yemen, on the outside of the Straits of Babelmandeb. The
travellers here separated; Covilham embarking in one vessel for India,
while De Payva took his passage in another vessel bound for Suakem on the
Abyssinian coast of the Red Sea, having engaged to rejoin each other at
Cairo, after having carried the directions of their sovereign into effect.
The Moorish ship from Aden in which Covilham had embarked, landed him at
Cananor on the coast of Malabar, whence, after some stay, he went to
Calicut and Goa, being the first of the Portuguese nation who had
navigated the Indian ocean; having seen pepper and ginger, and heard of
cloves and cinnamon.
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