They Sailed Along This _Eastern_ Coast Of
Ethiopia To A Line Corresponding With The Meridian Of Sicily, About Five
Or
Six degrees _within_ the equinoctial, the gold mines belonging to the
king of Portugal being about the middle of that
Coast.[2] Beyond that
coast of the gold mines, and nine degrees to the south of the _winter
tropic_,[3] they came to a great promontory called the Cape of Good Hope,
which is almost 5000 miles distant from our country. From thence they
came to the cape anciently called _Prasum_, which was considered by
Ptolemy as the extremity of the southern regions, all beyond being
unknown to the ancients. After that they reached the country of the
_Troglodites_, now called _Zaphala_, or Sofala, which our ancestors
affirm to have abounded in gold, infinitely more than any other part of
the earth. Stretching from Sofala across the _Barbaric Gulf_,[4] they
came into the Indian Ocean, and at length to the city of Calicut. Such
was their voyage, which carefully calculated, as following the coasts of
the ocean, extends to the prodigious length of 15,000 miles; but which,
if the lands and mountains would allow in a direct line, were greatly
shorter.
Before passing the Cape of Good Hope, in consequence of being forced out
of their course by a S.W. wind, they discovered a new country to which
they gave the name of the _Land of Parrots_, because they found, there an
incredible number of these birds, of many beautiful colours, some of them
a cubit and a half in length and more.
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