Greatly pleased with the soil and climate of this island, and with the gentle manners of the natives, whom they described as in an intermediate state of civilization, and entirely destitute of any appearance of savage ferocity, Zarco and Vaz immediately returned to Portugal, where they made a report of the incidents of their voyage; and to confirm their opinion of the value of their discovery, they requested permission from Don Henry to return for the purpose of establishing a settlement in Puerto Santo. By this discovery an advanced and favourable station was secured towards the south, whence any discoveries along the coast of Africa might be prosecuted with greater ease and safety, and from whence the dangers of the hitherto formidable cape Bojador might be avoided, by keeping a southerly or S. W. course from Puerto Santo. From these considerations Don Henry granted their request; and, yielding to the adventurous spirit which this accidental discovery had excited, he permitted several persons to join in a new projected voyage, among whom was Bartholomew Perestrello, a nobleman of his household.
Three vessels were soon fitted out[4], which were placed under the respective commands of Zarco, Vaz, and Perestrello. These commanders had orders to colonize and cultivate the newly discovered island, and were furnished with a considerable assortment of useful seeds and plants for that purpose. They happened likewise to take with them a female rabbit great with young, which littered during the voyage; and which being let loose with her progeny, multiplied so rapidly, that, in two years, they became so numerous as to occasion serious injury to the early attempts at cultivation, and to baffle every hope of rendering Puerto Santo a place of refreshment for the Portuguese navigators; insomuch that a resolution was formed to abandon the newly established settlement. After having landed the different animals and seeds which had been sent out by Don Henry, and seeing them properly distributed, Perestrello returned into Portugal to make a report to the prince, and Zarco and Vaz remained to superintend the infant colony.
[4] Clarke says in the same year 1418. But this could not well be, as the Discovery of Puerto Santo was made so late as the 1st of November of that year. The truth is, that only very general accounts of these early voyages remain in the Portuguese historians.--E.
Soon after the departure of Perestrello, the attention of Zarco and Vaz was strongly excited by observing certain clouds or vapours at a great distance in the ocean, which continually presented the same aspect, and preserved exactly the same bearing from Puerto Santo, and at length occasioned a conjecture, that the appearance might proceed from land in that quarter. Gonsalvo and Vaz accordingly put to sea and sailed towards the suspected land, and soon discovered that the appearances which had attracted their notice actually proceeded from a considerable island entirely overgrown with wood, to which, on that account, they gave the name of Madeira[5]. After bestowing considerable attention upon the soil and other circumstances of this island, which was utterly destitute of inhabitants, Gonzalvo and Vaz returned to Portugal with the welcome intelligence, and gave so favourable a report of the extent, fertility, and salubrity of Madeira, that Don Henry determined to colonize and cultivate it. Accordingly, with the consent of the king of Portugal, the island of Madeira was bestowed in hereditary property upon Zarco and Vaz; one division named Funchal being given to Zarco, and the other moiety, named Machico , to Vaz.
[5] Such is the simple and probable account of the discovery of Madeira in Purchas. Clarke has chosen to embellish it with a variety of very extraordinary circumstances, which being utterly unworthy of credit, we do not think necessary to be inserted in this place. See Progress of Maritime Discovery, I. 157.--E.
In the year 1420 Zarco began the plantation of Madeira, and being much impeded in his progress by the immense quantity of thick and tall trees, with which it was then everywhere encumbered, he set the wood on fire to facilitate the clearing of the surface for cultivation. The wood is reported to have continued burning for seven years[6], and so great was the devastation as to occasion great inconvenience to the colony for many years afterwards, from the want of timber. Don Henry appears to have been a prince of most uncommonly enlarged and liberal views; not only capable of devising the means of making maritime discoveries, which had never been thought of before his time, but of estimating their value when made, and of applying them to purposes the most useful and important for his country. Reflecting upon the reported fertility of the soil, and the excellence of the climate of Madeira, and comparing both with the judicious foresight of a philosopher, politician, and naturalist, in reference to the most valuable productions of similar climates and soils, he wisely conceived, and successfully executed the idea of introducing the cultivation of sugar and wines into this new colony; For these purposes, Portugal would readily supply him with vines; and with people conversant in their management: But he had to procure sugar canes, and persons experienced in their cultivation, and in the process of manufacturing sugar from their juice, from the island of Sicily, into which that article of culture had been introduced by the Arabs.
[6] In the Introduction to the World Displayed, Dr. Johnson remarks on this story, that "green wood is not very apt to burn; and the heavy rains which fall in these countries must surely have extinguished the conflagration were it ever so violent." Yet in 1800 Radnor forest presented a conflagration of nearly twenty miles circumference, which continued to spread for a considerable time, in spite of every effort to arrest its progress.--E.
So great was the success of this new subject of industry in Madeira, that the fifth part of the produce of one district only, little more than nine miles in circumference, which proportion the prince reserved as the patrimony of his military order, amounted, in some years, to 60,000 arobas of twenty-five pounds each; giving the entire acknowledged produce of one district only, of the island at 7,500,000 pounds, or 2350 tons. This, at the modern price of eightpence a-pound, amounts to the enormous sum of L. 250,000 value of merchantable produce, from a district which could not contain above 5760 English acres; or above the value of L. 43 of average yearly value from every acre of that district. This astonishingly valuable produce was in the infancy of the sugar trade, when that bland and wholesome condiment was still an article of luxury, and not as now almost an indispensable necessary, even in the lowest cottages of modern Europe. The sugars of Madeira were long famous; but after the establishment of the sugar plantations in Brazil, and the destructive ravages of a worm which infested the sugar canes of Madeira, that article, of cultivation had to be abandoned, and the principal attention of the islanders was transferred to the grape, which still continues to supply Europe, America, and the East Indies with the justly celebrated Madeira wine.
At the same time with the grant of Madeira to Zarco and Vaz, Perestrello received a donation of the island of Puerto Santo, on condition of colonizing it and bringing it into culture. But so great was the multitude of rabbits, all said to have been produced from one doe transmitted in a pregnant state from Portugal, that cultivation was attended with peculiar difficulties occasioned by their ravages; insomuch, that in one islet only, 3000 are reported to have been killed at one time.
SECTION III.
Prosecution of Discovery in Africa, to Cape Branco .
Partly diverted from the original object of prosecuting discoveries along the African coast, by the attentions requisite for forming this first establishment of modern colonization, but chiefly owing to the extreme difficulties of the navigation in the infancy of that art, fifteen years were passed from the first discovery of Cape Bojador before that formidable obstacle could be surmounted. In all ages of the world, ignorant and indolent men have represented new and unusual enterprises in scientific pursuits as rash or improper deviations from the established experience and vaunted wisdom of antiquity; and those who promoted them have been held out as dangerous, or even impious innovators. It so fared with Don Henry, who far outstripped the science, or ignorance rather, of his day. At home, the discontented spirits, ignorant of his enlarged views, perhaps envious of the reputation his very limited discoveries had already attained, represented that the tempestuous seas, strong currents, and whirlpools, which they fancied must prevail on the other side of Cape Bajadore, would necessarily destroy every vessel which should attempt to penetrate beyond that absolute limit of human navigation; they alleged that all the country to the south of that cape was utterly unfit for the habitation of mankind, sterile, burnt up, and destitute of soil and water, like the sandy deserts of Lybia; and