The Portuguese Endeavoured, But Ineffectually, To
Conciliate The Natives, And To Remove The Angry Prejudices Which They
Entertained.
They returned to Lagos with no other fruit from their voyage
except one negro whom they had received in ransom, and an aged Moor who
requested permission to accompany them to Portugal.
One of their own
companions, Juan Fernandez, from an ardent desire to procure information
for the prince, got leave to remain among the Assanhaji Arabs.
Next year, 1447, Antonio Mendez was ordered to return in search of Juan
Fernandez, from whose inquisitive disposition much information was
expected. 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. During the
homeward voyage, Gonzales touched at a village near Cape Branco, where he
increased his captives to ninety.
Juan Fernandez described the natives of the coast as wandering shepherds,
of the same race with the Moor who had been brought over to Portugal by
Antonio Gonzales in the former voyage. After he had been conveyed to a
considerable distance inland, he was stripped of all his clothes, and
even deprived of all the provisions he had taken on shore. A tattered
coarse rug, called an _alhaik_, was given him instead of the clothes he
had been deprived of. His food was principally a small farinaceous seed,
varied sometimes by the roots which he could find in the desert, or the
tender sprouts of wild plants. The inhabitants, among whom he lived as a
slave, unless when better supplied by means of the chase, fed on dried
lizards, and on a species of locust or grasshopper. Water was bad, or
scarce, and their chief drink was milk. They only killed some of their
cattle on certain great festivals; and, like the Tartars, they roamed
from place to place in quest of a precarious sustenance for their flocks
and herds. The whole country presented only extensive wastes of barren
sand, or an uncultivated heath, where a few Indian figs here and there
variegated the dreary and extensive inhospitable plain. A short time
before he rejoined his countrymen, Fernandez acquired the protection and
kindness of Huade Meimon, a Moor of distinction, who permitted him to
watch for the arrival of the ships, and even assigned him a guard for his
protection.
In the interval between these two voyages of Gonzales, Denis Fernandez, a
gentleman of Lisbon, who had belonged to the household of the late king,
fitted out a vessel for discovery under the patronage of Don Henry, with
a determination to endeavour to penetrate farther to the southwards than
any preceding navigator. He accordingly passed to the southwards of the
Senegal river, which divides the Azanhaji moors from the Jaloffs, or most
northern negroes, and fell in with some almadias or canoes, one of which
he captured, with four natives. Proceeding still farther on, without
stopping to satisfy his curiosity in visiting the coast, he at length
reached the most westerly promontory of Africa, to which he gave the name
of Cabo Verde, or the Green Cape, from the number of palm trees with
which it was covered. Alarmed by the breakers with which the shore was
everywhere guarded, Denis did not venture to proceed any farther,
especially as the season was already far advanced, but returned with his
captives to Portugal, where he met with a flattering reception from Don
Henry, both on account of his discovery of the Cape de Verd, and for the
natives he had procured from the newly discovered coast, without having
been traded for with the Moors.
SECTION V.
_Progress of Discovery from Cape de Verd to the Gambia_.
Soon after the return of Denis from the Cape de Verd, Gonzales Pachecos,
a wealthy officer belonging to the household of Don Henry, fitted out a
ship at his own expence, of which he gave the command to Dinisianez da
Gram, one of the princes equerries, who was accompanied by Alvaro Gil, an
essayer of the mint, and Mafaldo de Setubal. After touching at Cape
Branco, they steered along the coast for the isle of Arguin, making
descents in several places, where they made a considerable number of
captives from the Moors. At the isle _De las Garcas_ they found another
caravel, commanded by Lourenco Dias, which formed part of a considerable
squadron that had been lately fitted out from Lagos. Two days afterwards,
the admiral of that squadron, Lancarot, and nine other caravels arrived.
Gram informed Lancarot of his success in making fifty prisoners, whom he
had dearly purchased by the loss of seven of his men, who had been
murdered by the Moors.
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