It Is About Twelve Leagues To The North-East Of Madeira.

- Astl.

[5] When Sir Amias Preston took this island in 1595, it abounded in corn, wine, and oil, and had good store of sheep, asses, goats, and kine. There was also plenty of fowl, fish, and fruits. - Astl.

[6] From this account it seems to be an inspissated juice. - Astley. This tree has probably received its name from the bark being like the scales of a serpent. About the full of the moon it exudes a vermilion coloured gum. That which grows on the islands and coasts of Africa is more astringent than what comes from Goa. It is found on high rocky land. Bartholomew Stibbs met with it on the banks of the Gambia river, and describes it under the name of _Par de Sangoe_, or blood-wood tree. The gum is a red, inodorous, and insipid resin, soluble in alcohol and oils; and when dissolved by the former, is used for staining marble. - Clarke.

[7] The woods of Madeira are cedar, vigniatico, laurus Indicus, which has a considerable resemblance to mahogany, barbuzano, chesnut, and the beautiful mirmulano, and paobranco. - Clark.

[8] This measure is said to weigh about thirty-three English pounds, so that the quantity mentioned in the text amounts to 1850 quarters English measure. - Astl.

[9] I suppose he means at one crop. The quantity in the text, reduced to avoirdupois weight, amounts to twenty-eight hogsheads, at sixteen hundred weight each. - Astl.

[10] In Clarke, this person is named Ferrero; perhaps the right name of this person was Fernando Pereira, who subdued Gomera and Ferro. - E.

[11] A species of moss, or lichen rather, that grows on the rocks, and is used by dyers. - Clarke.

[12] Other authors call the natives of the Canaries _Guanchos_. - E.

SECTION II.

_Continuation of the Voyage by Cape Branco, the Coast of Barbary, and the Fortia of Arguin; with some account of the Arabs, the Azanaghi, and the Country of Tegazza._

Leaving the Canaries, we pursued our course towards Ethiopia, and arrived in a few days at Cape Branco, which is about 870 miles from these islands. In this passage, steering south, we kept at a great distance from the African shore on our left, as the Canaries are, far-advanced into the sea towards the west. We stood almost directly south for two-thirds of the way between the islands and the Cape, after which we changed our course somewhat more towards the east, or left-hand, that we might fall in with the land, lest we should have overpassed the Cape without seeing it because no land appears afterwards so far to the west for a considerable space. The coast of Africa, to the southwards of Cape Bronco, falls in considerably to the eastwards, forming a great bay or gulf, called the _Forna of Arguin_, from a small island of that name. This gulf extends about fifty miles into the land, and has three other islands, one of which is named _Branco_ by the Portuguese, or the White Island, on account of its white sands; the second is called _Garze_, or the Isle of Herons, where they found so many eggs of certain seabirds as to load two boats; the third is called _Curoi_, or Cori. These islands are all small, sandy, and uninhabited. In that of Arguin there is plenty of fresh water, but there is none in any of the others. It is proper to observe, that on keeping to the southwards, from the Straits of Gibraltar, the coast of exterior Barbary is inhabited no farther than Cape Cantin[1], from whence to Cape Branco is the sandy country or desert, called _Saara_ or _Saharra_ by the natives, which is divided from Barbary or Morocco on the north by the mountains of Atlas, and borders on the south with the country of the Negroes, and would require a journey of fifty days to cross, - in some places more, in others less. This desert reaches to the ocean, and is all a white dry sand, quite low and level, so that no part of it seems higher than any other. Cape _Branco_, or the White Cape, so named by the Portuguese from its white colour, without trees or verdure, is a noble promontory of a triangular shape, having three separate points about a mile from each other.

Innumerable quantities of large and excellent fish of various kinds are caught on this coast, similar in taste to those we have at Venice, but quite different in shape and appearance. The gulf of Arguin is shallow all over, and is full of shoals both of rocks and sand; and, as the currents are here very strong, there is no sailing except by day, and even then with the lead constantly heaving. Two ships have been already lost on these shoals. Cape _Branco_ lies S.W. of Cape Cantin, or rather S. and by W. Behind Cape Branco there is a place called Hoden, six days journey inland on camels, which is not walled, but is much frequented by the Arabs and caravans, which trade between Tombucto,[2] and other places belonging to the Negroes, and the western parts of Barbary. The provisions at Hoden are dates and barley, which they have in plenty, and the inhabitants drink the milk of camels and other animals, as they have no wine. They have some cows and goats, the former being greatly smaller than those of Italy; but the number of these is not great, as the country is very dry. The inhabitants are all Mahometans, and great enemies to the Christians, and have no settled habitations, but wander continually over the deserts. They frequent the country of the Negroes, and visit that side of Barbary which is next the Mediterranean. On these expeditions they travel in numerous caravans, with great trains of camels, carrying brass, silver, and other articles, to Tombucto and the country of the Negroes, whence they bring back gold and _melhegette_, or cardamom seeds[3]. These people are all of a tawny colour, and both sexes wear a single white garment with a red border, without any linen next their skins. The men wear turbans, in the Moorish fashion, and go always barefooted.

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