The celebrated Portuguese historian, Emanuel de Faria, in his Asia Portuguesa , has recorded all the Portuguese voyages, from their first attempts under Don Henry, to their developement of China and Japan, and has even left an account of all the ships that sailed from Lisbon for Africa and Asia, down to the year 1600; but was unable to ascertain the dates of many important events. Neither he nor De Barros have been able to remove the uncertainty respecting the first discovery of the island of St. Thomas on the coast of Africa, the south end of which touches the equinoctial. During the remainder of the reign of Alphonzo, the line of coast, from Cape Verga in lat. 10° N. to Cape St. Catherine in 1° 40' S. was much frequented by the Portuguese. Of this coast an ample account has been given by Dapper and Barbot, chiefly following a tract published by Gotard Artus of Dantzick, which is to be found in De Bry's Collection, and that of David von Nyendael and others. This was the work of a Dutch navigator, which was first translated in to German, and thence by Artus into Latin. But our peculiar department is confined to actual voyages and travels, and the progress of discovery; and it would both much exceed our proper limits, and would be an entire deviation from our plan of arrangement, to admit lengthened geographical and topographical disquisitions; which, so far as they are at all admissible, must be reserved for the more particular voyages and travels, after those of general discovery have been discussed.
There are four principal islands in the Gulf of Guinea, or Bight of Biafra, as it is usually called by English navigators, Ferdinand Poo, Princes isle, St. Thomas, and Annobon, the discovery of which have been related as follows by Barbot, and his account seems the most probable[2]. Fernando Lopez discovered the first of these in 1471, in lat. 3° 40' N. giving it the name of Ilha formosa , or the Beautiful Island, which was afterwards changed to that of Fernando Poo , which it still retains. In an account of the kingdom of Congo, in Churchill's Collection, viii. 527, more properly named the Oxford Collection, or that of Osborne, v. 2. This island, and a river on the coast of the continent of Africa, directly east, now called Cameroon River, are said to have taken their names of Fernando Poo from their first discoverer. Some writers assign the discovery of these four islands, and that of St. Matthew, to Fernando Gomez, who formed the Guinea trade. Perhaps they were discovered under his auspices, by the navigators whom he employed. This island is composed of very high land, easily seen at a great distance, and the Portuguese had formerly sugar plantations upon it. The Ilha do Principe , or Princes Island, in lat. 1° 30' N. was either discovered by Fernando Lopez, or by Santaren and Escobar, about the same period, and probably received its name in honour of the illustrious prince, Don Henry. This island is described as consisting of high table mountains, pyramidal at their bases, and visible at the distance of twenty leagues; being about nine leagues long by five leagues broad. It is said to abound in oranges, lemons, bananas, cocoa-nuts, sugar-canes, rice, many species of sallad herbs, and to be susceptible of producing the European grains. The mandioca, or root of the cassada plant, is generally used for bread, of which the juice while raw is said to be a virulent poison; while its meal, or rasped root, after the malignant juice is carefully pressed out, is used for bread. The inhabitants also, have sheep, hogs, goats, and an immense number of poultry; but these have probably been introduced by the Portuguese.
[2] Clarke, I. 295.
The Ilha de San Thome , or island of St. Thomas, which is said to have received its name from the saint to whom the chapel of the great monastery of Thomar is dedicated, and to which all the African discoveries are subjected in spirituals, has its southern extremity almost directly under the equinoctial, and is a very high land of an oval shape, about fifteen leagues in breadth, by twelve leagues long.
The most southerly of these islands, in lat. 1° 30' S. now called Annobon, was originally named Ilha d'Anno Bueno, or Island of the Happy Year, having been discovered by Pedro d'Escovar, on the first day of the year 1472. At a distance, this island has the appearance of a single high mountain, and is almost always topt with mist. It extends about five leagues from north to south, or rather from N. N. W. to S. S. E. and is about four leagues broad, being environed by several rocks and shoals. It has several fertile vallies, which produce maize, rice, millet, potatoes, yams, bananas, pine-apples, citrons, oranges, lemons, figs, and tamarinds, and a sort of small nuts called by the French noix de medicine , or physic nuts[3]. It also furnishes oxen, hogs, and sheep, with abundance of fish and poultry; and its cotton is accounted excellent.
[3] These may possibly be the nuts of the Ricinus Palma Christi, from which the castor oil is extracted.--E.
Including the voyages of Cada Mosto and Pedro de Cintra, which have been already detailed, as possibly within the period which elapsed between the death of Don Henry in 1463, and King Alphonzo, which latter event took place on the 28th August 1481, and the detached fragments of discovery related in the present Section, we have been only able to trace a faint outline of the uncertain progress of Portuguese discovery during that period of eighteen years, extending, as already mentioned, to Cape St. Catherine and the island of Annobon. A considerable advance, therefore, had been made since the lamented death of the illustrious Don Henry; which comprehended the whole coast of Guinea, with its two gulfs, usually named the Bights of Benin and Biafra, with the adjacent islands, and extending to the northern frontier of the kingdom of Congo[4]. If the following assertion of de Barros could be relied on, we might conclude that some nameless Portuguese navigators had crossed the line even before the death of Don Henry; but the high probability is, that the naval pupils of that illustrious prince continued to use his impress upon their discoveries, long after his decease, and that the limits of discovery in his time was confined to Cape Vergas. Some Castilians, sailing under the command of Garcia de Loaysa, a knight of Malta, landed in 1525 on the island of St. Matthew, in two degrees of southern latitude[5]. They here observed that it had been formerly visited by the Portuguese, as they found an inscription on the bark of a tree, implying that they had been there eighty-seven years before[6]. It also bore the usual motto of that prince, talent de bien faire .
[4] Strictly speaking the northern limits of Loango, one of the divisions of the extensive kingdom of Congo, is at the Sette river, ten leagues S.S. E. from Cape St. Catherine.--E.
[5] There is no island of that name in this position; so that the island of St. Matthew of de Barros must refer to Annobon.--E.
[6] These dates would throw back the discovery of this island, and the passage of the line by the mariners of Don Henry, to the year 1438, at a time when they had not reached the latitude of 25° N. which is quite absurd.--E.
In the paucity of authentic information respecting these discoveries, it seems proper to insert the following abstract of the journal of a Portuguese pilot to the island of St. Thomas, as inserted by Ramusio, previous to the voyage of Vasco de Gama, but of uncertain date; although, in the opinion of the ingenious author of the Progress of Maritime Discover, this voyage seems to have been performed between the years 1520 and 1540. In this, state of uncertainty, it is therefore made a section by itself, detached in some measure from the regular series of the Portuguese discoveries.
SECTION II.
Voyage of a Portuguese Pilot from Lisbon to the Island of St. Thomas[1].
[1] Ramusio. Clarke I. 298. This voyage was communicated by the relator to Count Raimond della Torre, a nobleman of Verona.--Clark.
Before I left Venice, I was requested by letter from Signior Hieronimo Fracastro of Verona, that, on my arrival at Conde, I would send, him an account of my voyage to San Thome, to which island our ships often sail for cargoes of sugar. The passage of the equinoctial line, under which that island, is situated, appeared