"Homeric and other pre-Christian fancies led many in the early Christian period still to look for Paradise in the north, among the Upper Boreans, in the south among the blameless Ethiopians, or in the west in the Isles of the Blessed, of the Hesperides, or of Fortune. Thus Capella, who was probably a pagan survival at the beginning of the most brilliant age of patristic literature, naturally enough looks for his Elysium 'where the axis of the world is ever turning' at the northern pole [Capella, vi, 664]; but when we find Archbishop Basil of Novgorod speculating about a Paradise in the White Sea [see Karamsin'sRussian History, as cited by Marinelli,Erdkunde, p. 22, note 84; and by Cardinal Zurla,Vantaggi derivati alla Geografia, etc., p. 44] we have a better illustration of the undying vigour of the oldest and most poetic of physical myths, under almost any changes of politics and religion."
138(p. 176).Or else upon their feathers for the rest of the time ... other fish.—[This bird is thePhœnicopterus.]—S.
Ibid:Other birds, etc.—[See note 128 to p. 156, on theBuceros Africanus.]—S.
Ibid:Other fish.—[This is thePristis.]—S.
139(p. 176).Quite alive.—[This fish appears to be theRemora.]—S.
140(p. 176).The two palm trees, etc.—[These palm trees exist on some old MS. maps. We may compare this passage with what the author says in ch. xxxi, and with the notes on pp. 96, 177; also Introduction, p. iv. Barros (Decade I, ch. xiii) says "Lancerote reached the two palm trees which Dinis Fernandez, when he went there, marked out as a feature worthy of notice ... where the natives of the land say the Azanegue Moors are divided from the idolatrous Negroes." And, in fact, the course of this stream forms a remarkable boundary between the Moors, or Berbers, who inhabit the northern bank, and the Negro Jaloffs who dwell on the southern bank (seeDurand, vol. ii, p. 60, andRennell, Appendix, p. 80).]—S.
141(p. 177).This green land.—[On the manuscript map of João Freire of 1546, appears marked at the entrance of the river Senegal, the "arvoredo" of which Azurara speaks.]—S.
142(p. 177).Azanegue prisoners.—[Compare this important passage with what Azurara says in other places, pp. 41, 45-6, 48-9, 55; andIntroduction to vol. ii, pp. iv, xxvi, lviii, lix, about the Infant and the information which he collected from the natives, and which he compared with the geographical charts he was constantly studying.]—S.
143(p. 178).Entereth into it so.—[This same confusion which the Portuguese mariners made between the Senegal and the Nile is one more proof of the influence which the geographical system of the ancients exercised over them. According to Pliny, the Niger was an arm of the Nile. The river Senegal traverses in its course nearly 350 leagues from its source in the country of Fouta (Jallon) to the Atlantic (see Durand,Voyage au Sénégal, p. 343, and Demanet,Nouvelle histoire d'Afrique, vol. i, p. 62, iv, xii, xxii-xxv, xxxiii, xlii-xliii, xlvii-xlix, lviii.)]—S. Also see Introduction to vol. ii, p. lviii, etc.
144(p. 180).Mediterranean Sea, etc.—[This passage shows that Azurara only had notice at that time of the ivory commerce which was carried on through the ports of the Levant situated on the Mediterranean, and that he had no knowledge that a like commerce was carried on through the ports of the empire of Marocco, situated on the west coast of Africa. "I learnt," says he, "that in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea," etc. ... and these words of his are important, as showing that a man, otherwise well informed in matters of commerce and navigation, was not aware that the ivory trade was carried on by the western coast; which gives us one more proof of the priority of the Portuguese in the discovery of Guinea. Our author, then, knew the truth: for until that epoch the trade in ivory was carried on by the Arabs by way of Egypt, the Arabs going to the coast of Zanzibar to seek for the same, since there the better quality was to be found (see Masudi,Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque du Roi, i, p. 15;Ibn-al-Wardi, ibid, ii, p. 40;El Bakoui, ibid, pp. 394, 401). The Arab caravans also brought ivory from places in the neighbourhood of the Niger. These caravans followed the routes of the ancient Itineraries (seeIbn-al-Wardi, Notices et Extraits des MSS., ii, pp. 35-7, and Edrisi (Jaubert), vol. i, pp. 10-26, 105-120, 197-293). But the principal centre of this commerce with the interior of Africa was in the northern part, then already known under the name of Barbary, and in the countries which form to-day the kingdoms of Fez and Marocco. The expressions of Azurara about the size of the elephant are evidently exaggerated, because the species indigenous to Africa is only the second in size in the (animal) family of the Proboscidians, or "trunked" Pachyderms. The African elephant is smaller than the Asiatic elephant, although the tusks of the latter are smaller than those of the former. The details given in this part of our Chronicle are, in our opinion, so important for the information they give about the state of knowledge among our first discoverers, the influences of ancient tradition, and the mediæval spirit which dominated them, that it seems opportune to indicate here to the reader what we consider most worthy of study and of reflection, in order that we may be able to estimate the state of instruction in Portugal relative to those matters in the beginning of the fifteenth century, seeing that up to now no (writing) work has yet appeared upon the subject from any one of our nation. Among other passages of this Chronicle we noted, on p. 156, note 128, the extraordinary exaggeration with which our seamen described the beak of theBuceros Africanus, of which they said "the mouth and maw of these birds is so great that the leg ofa man, however large it were, could go into it as far as the knee." We have also seen another marvellous description of the beak of thePhœnicopterus, and finally the one which was inspired by the account given them of the elephant by the Negroes—an exaggeration which reminds one of the description given by a Byzantine writer of the eleventh century, Michael Attaliotes, when he saw an elephant for the first time in Constantinople (see the extract from the Greek MSS. of the Royal Library at Paris [Bibliothèque Nationale], on p. 499 of the work of M. Berger de Xivrey:Recits de l'antiquité sur quelques points de la fable, du merveilleux et de l'histoire naturelle). In these exaggerated and marvellous accounts, therefore, of birds and animals which were unknown as late as then, we find a proof of the influence of the teratological traditions of antiquity and of the Middle Ages, in consequence of the studies which men had previously made of the figures they saw depicted in the planispheres and Mappemondes of their time; and also we may see in this a result of the reading of Pliny, and above all of theTreatise on Marvels, attributed to Aristotle, "the philosopher," as Azurara calls him (see p. 12, note 19), whose authority was so great among the Portuguese of the fifteenth century that even the "Proctors of the People" (in theCortesof 1481), quoted his work on "Politics" (see ourMemoir on the Cortes, ii, p. 186). We see, then, that our seamen of that period were impregnated with these traditions, and were diligent readers of works which during the Middle Ages were given the title ofMirabilia, the reading of which enchanted (in that age) not only men of education, but even students, and often the people, to whom ecclesiastics read in public those marvellous relations, as we see, among other examples from the case of Giraldus Cambrensis, who thrice read to the people in Oxford his description of Ireland; and still more in the celebrated statutes made in 1380 by Bishop Wykeham for the college which he founded in the same city, in which he determined that the chronicles of various realms should be read to the students and the marvels of the world (Mirabilia Mundi); seeSprengel, p. 221, and Wharton,History of English Poetry, i, p. 92. In the period at which the statutes we mention were given to (New) College in Oxford, the relations between Portugal and England were knit more closely than in preceding centuries. The Court of the King, D. John I, adopted most of the English usages, and the literary communication between the two peoples was more extensive than in earlier time. The citation of the romances of chivalry made by the King to his knights, the adoption of the French language (which was then that of the Court of England), the devices and mottoes of which the Infants made use, prove the existence of that influence. Besides this, divers passages of King D. Duarte'sLeal Conselheiroshow that the Infants of the House of Aviz (often) discussed various literary matters with the King, their father, and other literary persons, and that they even debated about the rules and regulations for properly translating classical works. We have also noticed that King D. John I, in the discourse which he made to the fidalgos who remained at Ceuta in 1415, cited theDe Regimine Principumof Fr. Gil de Roma, bidding them recall to memory how they had often read the same in his Privy Chamber. So then, at that epoch of discoveries, in which the greatest enthusiasm prevailed for the prosecution of enterprises of such moment, the reading of theMarvels of the World, and of theTravels of Marco Polo, which the Infant D. Pedro brought from Venice, formed beyond doubtthe delight of all those famous men, courtiers of the Infant D. Henry, of his illustrious father, and of his brothers—courtiers, moreover, who received their education in the royal or princely palaces. The passages, then, which we read in this Chronicle, and which we indicate to the reader, in spite of their brevity, and of the defects which the critical study of our own time enables us to note—these passages, we say, are of the highest importance when they are studied in harmony with other contemporary documents. The great men of the fifteenth century, formed in the school of the Infant Don Henry, were unquestionably possessed of great erudition for those times—an erudition and knowledge which at first eludes observation, through being muffled up in the rudeness of a language without polish, and which was more energetic in action than explicit and agreeable in writing, but it is nevertheless clear that they knew all that was known in their age.
It was this notable school, therefore, which prepared the great body of geographical learning which we note appearing in the famous congress of Portuguese and Spanish geographers at Badajoz in 1524 and 1525: at which, in the discussion which took place on the demarcation of the Moluccas and on the size of the world, Aristotle was quoted along with Strabo, Eratosthenes, Macrobius, St. Ambrose, Pliny, Theodosius, Marinus of Tyre, Alfergani, and Pierre d'Ailly, etc.]—S.
Long as this note is, a word must be added to it:—
Santarem here covers a large part of the field of mediæval geography, but his treatment in this place is hardly so clear or exhaustive as one might expect from the author of theEssai sur Cosmographie, or the compiler of the leadingAtlasof mediæval maps. As to the immediate subject, the phraseMediterranean[Sea] was first used in the sense of a proper name by St. Isidore of Seville,c.a.d.600 (OriginsorEtymologies, Book xiii); though its adjectival use, like the parallel expressions "Our [sea]," "the Roman [sea]," "the Inner [sea]," was of course much earlier. As late as Solinus (c.a.d.230) this last is clearly the only shade of meaning. As to the commerce of North Africa, we must refer to the Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xxii-xxvi, xlv-lvi, lxiv. As to the mediævalMirabilia, it is strange that Santarem gives no adequate reference to the great sources of these collections: Pliny'sNatural History, and above all Solinus'Collectanea, principally compiled from Pliny, Mela, and Varro, and itself reproduced (wholly or partially) in well-nigh every mediæval work of similar character, translated into the pictorial language of Mappemondes, such as that ofHereford, ofEbstorp, or of thePsalter(Brit. Mus.Add. MSS.28,681). On these, seeDawn of Modern Geography, pp. 243-273, 327-391. Santarem's remarks hardly give a sufficient idea of the systematic domination exercised over much of mediæval thought, not only in geography, natural history and ethnology, but in other departments also by the pseudo-science represented in theseMirabilia.
145(p. 183).Paulus Orosius.—[Here we must note the omission of the name of Diodorus Siculus among the authors cited by Azurara, especially as he is, among all the ancient historians, the one who has left us the most important and circumstantial account of the Nile. The first Latin version of Diodorus by Poggio only appeared in 1472, nineteen years after Azurara had finished this chronicle. The worksof Orosius were held in high estimation among the learned of the Middle Ages. This writer was born at Braga in Lusitania, agreeably to the opinion of some authors. (SeeFr. Leam de St. Thomas, bened. lusit. I, ii, p. 308; and Baronius, an. 414.) His work,Historiarum adversus Paganos, which begins with the creation of the world and comes down to the year 316 of Jesus Christ, was printed for the first time in 1471, that is, eighteen years after Azurara had finished his Chronicle, but during the Middle Ages copies of this work were so multiplied that even in England the book was to be found in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon people (see Wright,Essay on the State of Literature and Learning under the Anglo-Saxons, p. 39), a detail which affords one proof the more of the literary relations between the Spanish peninsula, and the peoples and nations of the North in the first centuries of the Middle Ages.]—S. SeeDawn of Modern Geography, pp. 353-5.
146(p. 184).Mossylon Emporion(Mossille Nemporyo).—[Azurara alters the name. The passage to which the Chronicler refers is the following:—Et Ægyptum superiorem fluviumque Nilum, qui de litore incipientis maris Rubri videtur emergere in loco qui dicitur Musilon Emporium, notMossile Nemporyo. (Orosius, Bk.i, vi.)]—S. On thisEmporion, see Bunbury'sAncient Geography, vol ii, pp. 692;Solinus, ch. lvi.
147(p. 184).Josepho Rabano.—[This is the celebrated author of the history of the Jews, Flavius Josephus, whose work was first composed in Syriac and afterwards in Greek. It was so much esteemed by the Emperor Titus that he ordered it to be put into the public library. The first Latin translation which was printed, according to some bibliographers, was in 1470, seventeen years after this Chronicle was finished.]—S.
148(p. 184).Meroë.—[On this African island the reader can consultPtolemy, iv, 8;Herodotus, ii, 29;Strabo, Bks.xvii-xviii; and, above all,Diodorus Siculus, i, 23, etc. The Master Peter quoted by Azurara is the famous Petrus Aliacus, or de Aliaco (d'Ailly), in his bookImago Mundi, finished in 1410: a book which had a great vogue in the fifteenth and even in the sixteenth century.]—S. Cf. also Pliny,H. N., ii, 73; v, 9; Cailliaud,L'isle de Meroe.
149(p. 184).Gondojre.—[According to our belief the reading should be Gondolfo. This writer had travelled in Palestine, and his life is (to be found) written inAnglia Sacra, tom. ii].—S. The Master Peter mentioned just before is rather a doubtful case. He is possibly the writer of the eleventh-century treatise "Contra Simoniam," etc., or the "Magister Scholarum" of the thirteenth, usually called the "Master of Stommeln."
150(p. 185).Crocodiles.—Here we have an original MS. note.—[This is an animal, as Pliny relateth, which breedeth in the Nile, and whose custom and nature is to live by day on land and by night in the water; in the water to feed on the fish upon which it liveth and maintaineth itself, and on the land to sleep and refresh itself. But when it cometh out in the morning to the bank, if it findeth a boy or a manit quickly killeth him, and it is said that it swalloweth them whole. And it is a very evil and very dangerous beast.]
Compare other original notes of MS. written in the same character on pp. 7, 8, 13, etc. On the Nile and its crocodiles and other wonders, as conceived by mediæval writers, we may also compareSolinus, ch. xxxii.
On Azurara's reference toCæsarea(Cherchel) immediately preceding, Santarem remarks as follows:—[This is Julia Cæsarea, now Cherchel, as is proved by various Roman inscriptions discovered there lately, and communicated to the Institute of France (Royal Academy of Inscriptions) by M. Hase. This city was one of the busiest of the ancient Regency of Argel.]
151(p. 188).Dog Star(Canicolla).—Here we have an original MS. note.—[This star, as saith the interpreter of Ovid, giveth its name to the Dog Days, which are those days which begin on July 5th and finish on September 5th. And this name came from a bitch which guarded the body of Icarus, when he was slain by the reapers, as Master John of England relateth. And he relateth that because that bitch guarded faithfully the body of its lord, it was numbered among the signs; and because it was a little bitch, the Dog Days took this name of theirs in this form, "Canicullus" for "Cam," or "Canicolla" for "Cadella." And because that bitch of Icarus was poisoned with the stench of its master, who lay dead and already stank, therefore did that star become also a poisonous one; and therefore does the sun still poison when it passeth through that sign, and so do the rays of the sun then poison the meats on earth. Wherefore those thirty-two days which the sun taketh in passing through that sign, are held by physicians to be days hurtful to the health of the body.] [John of England is John Duns Scotus, Franciscan friar, called Doctor Subtilis, one of the chief philosophers of the Middle Ages, and Professor in Oxford(see Wadding, Vita J. Duns Scoti, doctoris subtilis, published in 1644).]—S.
152(p. 188).Ellice and Cenosura.—Here we have another manuscript note.—[These are the two poles, to wit, Arctic and Antarctic. And the interpreter of Ovid saith that each one of these two signs are calledArcom, and thatArcomis a Greek word, and signifieth what in Latin is meant byUrsi, and in the Portuguese language byUrsas; and that, besides, by each of these signs we call the North.]
153(p. 189).So directly passeth the sun, etc.—[See Strabo, Bk.xvii, who refers to the wells without shade during the summer solstice.]—S.
[153a](pp. 188-9).Bishop Achoreus.—[Azurara refers here to Achoreus, the Egyptian high priest of whom Lucan speaks in thePharsalia, Canto x. The passage to which Azurara refers begins with the following verse:—Vana fides veterum, Nilo, quod crescat in arva. Comparing this chapter of Azurara with the episode of Canto x of thePharsalia, we see clearly that it was from Lucan he derived the whole of his description of the Nile.]—S.
154(p. 191).The marvels of the Nile.—[So great was the influence of the systematic geography of the ancients upon the imagination ofthe Portuguese of the fifteenth century, that, on arriving at the Senegal, and seeing that the water was sweet very near to the mouth, and very clear, in the same manner as the Nile (Nulli fluminum dulcior gustus est, said Seneca), and observing the same phenomena, they did not doubt for a moment that they had discovered the Nile of the Negroes. In these two chapters we see something of the vast erudition of Azurara, and at the same time something of the historical and cosmographical knowledge of our first discoverers. Moreover, we must call the attention of the reader to a very important detail, namely, that while Azurara shows himself imbued with the reading of the ancient authors on these matters, in the same way as our mariners, the latter, if we study the spirit of their words, show that they had some knowledge of the system of the Arab geographers in this respect. These latter applied the same terms (as our first Portuguese explorers) to the two rivers, distinguishing the Nile of Egypt and the Nile of the Negroes. This opinion of the Niger being an arm of the Nile was even maintained in our own day by Jackson, in his work entitled,An Account of the Empire of Marocco and the District of Suze. In vol. xiv of theAnnales des Voyages, by Malte-Brun, 1811, and in vol. xvii of the same work, p. 350, we meet with a curious analysis of this work of Jackson's on the identity of the two rivers.]—S.
What Azurara says here about the Nile, etc., is largely borrowed from Solinus,Collectanea, xxxii; Pliny,Natural History, v, 51-59; viii, 89-97;Pomponius Mela, iii, viii, 9. We may also (for mediæval ideas on the Nile, etc.) cf. Dicuil,De Mensura Orbis Terrae, vi, 4, 7, etc.; ix, 6 (on Mount Atlas); St. Basil,Hexaemeron, iii, 6; Vibius Sequester; Procopius,De Bell. Goth., ii, 14, 15; iv, 29; St. Isidore,Origins, xiv, 5; Ven. Bede,De Natur. Rer.; and above all, Edrisi (Jaubert), i, 11-13, 17-19, 27-33, 35, 37, 297, 301-5, 312, 315, 320-325, ii, 137; Masudi,Meadows of Gold, ch. xiv (see Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xliv-l, andDawn of Modern Geography, pp. 267-8, 323-6, 367, 462-3, 348, 363, 365.)
155(p. 191).Fish or some other natural product of the sea.—[This important passage is one proof the more of the priority of our discoveries on the west coast of Africa.]—S. Not, of course, an absolute proof, though it strengthens the plausibility of the Portuguese claim.
156(p. 193).Arms of the Infant.—[This island, as well as the other of which mention is made above, where these sailors encountered the Arms of the Infant carved upon the trees, are very clearly marked, as between Cape Verde and the Cape of Masts, on a curious map of Africa in the unpublishedAtlasof Vaz Dourado, executed in 1571 (seeMémoire sur la navigation aux côtes occidentales d'Afrique, by Admiral Roussin, p. 61—Des iles de la Madeleine).]—S.
157(p. 193).This tree, etc.—[This is the baobab, a tree noted for its enormous size, and which is to be met with on the Senegal, on the Gambia, and even on the Congo, at which point Captain Tucklay (Tuckey) mentions it among the trees to be found on the banks of the Zaire. This tree had been described by Adanson (Histoire Naturelle du Sénégal, Paris, 1757, pp. 54 and 104), and from this circumstance Bernardo Jussieu gave it the name of Adansonia. Itstrunk is sometimes more than 90 ft. in circumference (see the work cited above). Our mariners, and Azurara himself, however, described it 310 years before the French naturalist who gave it the botanical name by which it is now known.]—S.
158(p. 194).Rio d'Ouro.—[Some French writers, who have lately treated of the famous Catalan Atlas in the Royal Library of Paris, to which they assign the date of 1375, assert that the Catalans reached the Rio d'Ouro before the Portuguese, because on this map is marked a galliot, with a legend referring to Jayme Ferrer, who sailed to a river of that name (in 1346).
Without discussing this point here, let us say, nevertheless, that as to this voyage of the Catalans, whose arrival at the said river is not attested by any document, the reader should consult the map of M. Walckenaer, published in the scientific journal,Annales des Voyages, tom. 7, p. 246 (a.d.1809), in which that learned geographer says, with good reason, that the said legend and project of Jayme Ferrer's voyage (as stated) does not at all prove that geographical knowledge in 1346 extended beyond Cape Bojador, or even beyond Cape Non (see also ourMemoir on the priority of our discoveries, and theAtlaswhich accompanies the said memoir).]—S. Cf. Introduction to vol. ii, pp. lxiii-lxiv.
159(p. 194).To the Kingdom.—[By this passage, and similar ones in chs. x, xi, and xvi, it is proved that the commercial relations of the Portuguese with the west coast of Africa beyond Bojador were established before the middle of the fifteenth century. The imports then consisted of gold-dust, slaves, and skins of sea-calves.]—S. Cf. Introduction to vol. ii, pp. x-xiii, lxi-lxxi.
160(p. 198).Tider.—[An island hard by Arguim (or forming one of the Arguim group). We must now add to what we said before, that this island, as well as those of the Herons (Ilha das Garças), and of Naar, is very clearly marked on the unpublished map of Vaz Dourado, but without the names given in this Chronicle. That cosmographer (Dourado) included them all under the denomination ofIsles of Herons.]—S.
161(p. 199).Isle of Cerina.—[Comparing our text with the excellent map of Vaz Dourado, we find on the latter this island marked as nearest to the continent, and also nearest to the mouth of the St. John River. Dourado marks Arguim to the north, and to the south ofP. dos Reysmarks four islands, which are those of Herons, of Naar, of Tider, and this one of which Azurara speaks. On the map of D'Anville, which is to be found in the work of P. Labat,Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique, tom. I, a map which includes the part of the coast from Cape Branco to the River of St. John, we read over an island very near Tider the word "Grine," which appears to be the Cerina of Azurara.]—S.
162(p. 204).Arrived at the end, etc.—[On the position of this stream, see the map of d'Anville, published in the work of P. Labat,Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique, tom. I; and theMémoire sur la navigation aux côtes occidentales d'Afrique, by Admiral Roussin, at p. 44, where he speaks of theBaie du Lévrier, which is 8 leaguesin extent from N. to S., and 6 leagues across. This bay, in which our sailors entered, is to the north of the Cape of St. Anne.]—S.
163(p. 212).This Prince.—[Compare this passage with what we said in note 92, ch. xxx, as to the authority of this chronicle.]—S.
164(p. 214).Point of Santa Anna.—[It is situate to the south of the Rio de S. João, on the chart of João Freire of 1546.]—S.
165(p. 218).Islands.—[We think that these islands are the ones marked on certain charts, principally French, with the name of "Ilhas da Madalena."]—S].
166(p. 220).Buffaloes.—[It was, in fact, the African buffalo that our seamen saw there.]—S.
167(p. 224).Hermes.—(Ἔρμας). Azurara refers here to the book of this author entitledThe Shepherd, composed in the pontificate of St. Clement sometime before the persecution of Domitian which began in the year 95. Origen, Eusebius, St. Jerome, St. Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian mentioned this work. By this passage we see that Azurara, in citing it, did not admit the view of Gelasius, who classed it among the apocryphal books.]—S.
168(p. 225).As he could.—[Compare this passage with what we have said in previous notes about the Infant's plans.]—S.
169(p. 225).Nile.—[The Senegal, or Nile of the Negroes.]—S.
170(p. 226).An island.—[It must be the Island of Gorea (Goree), situate in 14° 39' 55" N. lat. On this island see Demanet,Nouvelle histoire de l'Afrique, tom. 1, pp. 87-97, passim.Notices statistiques sur les colonies françaises(troisième partie, pp. 187-189), a work published by the Ministry of Marine in 1839.]—S.
171(p. 228).Cape of the Masts.—[This cape appears marked with this name in nearly all the ancient MS. maps of the sixteenth century. It is clear then that the name of this cape was first given to that point by Alvaro Fernandez. Barros (Decade I, liv. 1, fol. 26, ed. 1628) says of this voyage: "He passed to the place they now call the Cabo dos Mastos: a name he then gave it on account of some bare palm trees that at first sight looked like masts set up."]—S.
172(p. 229).A hind.—[This description leaves not the smallest doubt that the animal which our seamen saw there, and of which the author treats, is the antelope, and probably "the other beasts" were herds of the same kind. On the history of the antelopes the reader should consult Buffon and Cuvier.]—S.
173(p. 230).Dwellings(Essacanas).—[This word is not to be found either in theElucidarioor in Portuguese dictionaries; it is met with, however, in the heptaglot of Castell, and in Golius, but there the meaning of this Arabic word is given as being "a place where a person dwells." Even if this be admitted for the explanation of thetext, the latter still remains obscure; however, it seems to us that the author meant to say, that all those observations were made in the "(Essacanas) dwellings ... that exist on certain sandbanks, according," etc. The mariners drew their charts, and marked the coasts, banks, etc., on the very spots themselves.]—S.
174(p. 230).Charts.—[This passage shows in the clearest manner that the first hydrographical maps of the west coast of Africa, beyond Bojador, were made by the Portuguese under the orders of the Infant D. Henrique, and that these maps were adopted and copied by the cosmographers of the whole of Europe (seeMemoria sobre a prioridade dos descobrimentos dos Portuguezes, etc., §§ ix, x, and xi).]—S.
175(p. 230).Oadem.—[We judge this to be the place called by Cadamosto Hoden (Guaden), and of which he says: "On the right of Cape Branco inland there is an inhabited place named Hoden, which is distant from the coast a matter of six days' journey by camel;" but he says the contrary of what we read in the text, for he adds: "The which is not a place of dwelling, but the Arabs foregather there, and it serves as a calling-place for the caravans that come from Timbuctoo and other Negro parts to this our Barbary from here." This spot, with the very name given by Cadamosto, is marked agreeably to this account on the chart of the Itineraries of the caravans which M. Walckenaer added to his work,Recherches géographiques sur l'intérieur de l'Afrique.]—S.
176(p. 231).Carts.—[Alquitões, an Arabic term not met with either in our dictionaries or in theElucidario, but found in the heptaglot dictionary of Castell, in the word "Alquidene," "waggons for the transport of women and men," and in Golius. We do not find this word in the war regulations of the Kings D. John I and D. Affonso V (Souza,Prov. da hist. gen., iii). Azurara thus employed in this place an Arabic term which had fallen out of use in Portuguese in the fifteenth century.]—S.
177(p. 231).Few.—[See the description in the travels of Clapperton.]—S.
178(p. 231).Confetti.—[See theItinèraire de Tripoli de Barbarie à la ville de Tomboctu, by the Cheyk Hagg-Kassem, published by M. Walckenaer in hisRecherches sur l'intérieur de l'Afrique, p. 425; the account agrees with that in the text.]—S.
179(p. 231).Bestiality.—[This same description and expression is to be found inLeo Africanus.]—S. The last may be read in the Hakluyt Soc. ed., vol. i, pp. 130-3, 153-4, 158-161, 218.
180(p. 232).Fernandez.—[As to João Fernandez, see ch. xxix, and the note on the stay of this traveller at the Rio do Ouro in 1445, and also ch. xxxii.]—S.
181(p. 232).Went with them.—[Though this account of João Fernandez is very important, because anterior by almost a century tothe description of the well-known Leo Africanus, yet the most important part of it is wanting: namely, the route he followed, and the places he visited during the seven months he spent with the caravans. Despite the omission of these details, however, his description which this chapter contains, and its exactness, is confirmed by the later writings of Leo Africanus, Marmol, and other travellers, to whom we refer the reader.]—S.]
182(p. 232).All of sand.—Here is another note of the original MS.: [Of this land speaketh Moses in the 15th chapter of Exodus, and Josephus and Master Pero (Peter), who commented on it, where they write of the troubles of the people of Israel for want of water, and of how they found a well of pure water; where he relateth how Moses, by God's command, threw in the piece of wood and made it sweet. And this took place before they arrived at the place where God sent them the manna.] See note 148 (to p. 183).
183(p. 232).Tagazza(Tagaoz).—[This land is the Tagaza of Cadamosto (ch. xii, p. 21), and Tagazza of Jackson, on the way from Akka to Timbuctoo.]—S. See Leo Africanus, Hakluyt Soc. ed., 117, 798, 800, 816, 829; Pacheco Pereira,Esmeraldo, 43; Dr. Barth,Reise, iv, 616.
184(p. 233).Palms.—[See Denham and Clapperton.]—S.
185(p. 233).Water.—[See the Itineraries already cited and published in M. Walckenaer'sRecherches, etc., and also theDescription of Africa, by Leo Africanus.]—S.
186(p. 233).Write.—[This detail is very curious, because it indicates that in the fifteenth century, when JoãoFernandezjourneyed with the caravans, some of those tribes which we suppose to be Berbers had not yet adopted the Arabic characters. It is to be deplored that Azurara is not more explicit in this place, seeing that Arabic authors mention books written in this language. Oudney tells of various inscriptions, written in unknown characters, which he saw in the country of the Touariks. Very few of this tribe speak Arabic, which he was surprised at, because of the frequent communication between them and nations that only speak that tongue.—VideClapperton's Travels, and Leo Africanus in Ramusio, etc.]—S. See the Hakluyt Soc. Leo Africanus, pp. 133, 165-7.
187(p. 233).Berbers.—[According to Burckhardt,Trav., pp. 64 and 207, these are the Berbers. Our author includes here the Lybians. Compare with Leo Africanus in Ramusio.]—S. See the Hakluyt Soc. Leo Africanus, pp. 129, 133, 199, 202-5, 218.
188(p. 233).These last.—[It appears from this passage that the Touariks are treated of, and their conflicts with the Negro Fullahs, or of the Foullan.]—S. On the Tuâreg, see Leo (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), pp. 127, 151, 198, 216, 798-9, 815-6; also Dubois,Tombouctou la mystérieuse, and Hourst,Sur le Niger.
189(p. 233).To sell.—[It was this trade in Negro slaves which the Christian merchants carried on with North Africa that led to thesingular claim of Zuniga and other Spanish writers, that the Castilians—and in particular the Andalusians—trafficked in the Negroes of Guinea before the Portuguese; and by a confusion, either ignorant or intended, they tried to dispute with us the priority of our discovery of Guinea, and our exclusive commerce with this part of Africa which we were the first to find. See ourMemoria, already cited, § xvii.]—S.
190(p. 234).Not certain.—[This passage shows that Azurara did not believe in the existence of the great empire of Melli very rich in gold mines, though in the preceding century it had been visited by the celebrated Arab traveller Ibn-Batuta.]—S. On Melli, cf. Leo Africanus (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), pp. 125, 128, 133-4, 201, 823, 841.
191(p. 234).On the heavens.—[Leo Africanus says that amongst the Arabs and other African peoples many persons are to be met with who, without ever having opened a single book, discourse fairly well on astrology.]—S. See Leo Africanus, (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), pp. 177, 460, 600.
192(p. 234).Hussos francos.—Meaning unknown. The word is not found in Portuguese dictionaries.
193(p. 235).Fifty leagues.—[This figure does not seem to be exaggerated.VideRennell's "Memoir on the rate of travelling as performed by camels," in thePhilosophical Transactions, vol. lxxxi, p. 144. The author refers to certain camels of the desert and the country of the Touariks (Tuâreg), which by their extreme speed travel in one day a distance that takes an ordinary camel ten. But these do not journey with the ordinary caravans, but are used only for warlike enterprises.]—S.
194(p. 236).Resin[Anime].—See Garcia de Orta'sSimples e Drogas, ed. Conde de Ficalho, vol. ii, pp. 43, 44.
195(p. 236).Six hundred leagues.—[We think this should read 200 and not 600 as in the text, which seems to be a mistake, because the known portion of the west coast of Africa to Cape Bojador has not an extension agreeing with the numeral letters in the text.]—S.
196(p. 237).Already heard.—[On this important passage, see ourMemoria sobre a prioridade, etc., §§ ix, x, xviii.]—S.
197(p. 238).Maciot.—[Compare this with what is said in the book:Histoire de la première descouverte et conqueste des Canaries faite dès l'an 1402 par messire Jean de Bethencourt, ensuite du temps même par F. Pierre Bontier, et Jean Le Verrier, prestre domestique dudit Sieur de Bethencourt, etc., published in Paris in 1630. It is clear that Azurara had collected information of this expedition of Bethencourt from ancient accounts. This chronicle was finished in the library of King Affonso V in 1453, and Cadamosto sailed in the service of Portugal two years later (1455), so that his account of the Canaries is posterior to that of Azurara.]—S.
198(p. 242).Bad man.—Another MS. note. ["Marco Polo saith that in the realm of Grand Tartary there are other like men, who when they receive their guests, thinking to give them pleasure, let them have their women, in the belief that as they do this for them in this world, so the gods will do likewise for themselves in the other. And this they hold because they are idolaters and have no law, but live only in those first idolatries."]
199(p. 245).Discover.—[This passage shows that the Infant had in view the discovery of Guinea from the commencement of the expeditions he fitted out. In this, Azurara differs somewhat from Cadamosto's account.]—S.
200(p. 246).Machico.—[Compare with Barros,Decade I, i, ff. 6, 7 and 8, ed. Lisbon, 1628. The silence preserved by Azurara about Robert Machim and Anne d'Arfet seems to show that this romance had not been invented in his day.]—S.
201(p. 247). 1445 ...Gonçalo Velho.—[In the unpublished chart of Gabriel de Valsequa, made in Majorca in 1439, the following note is written in the middle of the Azores islands: "The which islands were found by Diego de Sevill, pilot of the King of Portugal, in the year 1432" (according to the better reading). We transcribe this note because of the date and the name of the discoverer, seeing that the date agrees with what Padre Freire says in hisLife of Prince Henry(pp. 319, 320),i.e., that it was in 1432 that the island of Santa Maria (Azores) was discovered by Gonçalo Velho, and not by Diego de Senill, as Valsequa says. De Murr, in his dissertation on the globe of Martin de Behaim, also declares that the Azores were found in 1432. Nevertheless, a great confusion as to the true date of the discovery of the Azores exists among the authorities; and if maps anterior to 1432 are compared with what Padre Freire says (p. 323) as to the discovery of the Island of St. Michael, that the existence of this island "accorded (as the Infant said) with his ancient maps," the discovery of the Azores would appear to have been effected before 1432. In fact, in the Parma map of the fourteenth century, these islands are marked; while the Catalan Map of the Paris National Library shows the following islands in the archipelago of the Azores named in Italian:—Insula de Corvi marini (Island of Corvo); Le Conigi; San Zorzo (St. Jorge); Li Colombi; Insula de Brasil; Insule de Sante (Maria?).
In the unpublished map of the Pinelli Library, the date of which has been fixed as between 1380 and 1400, the said islands are marked with the following names:—Caprana; I. de Brasil; Li Colombi; I. de la Ventura; Sã Zorzi; Li Combi; I. di Corvi marini.
In the Valsequa Chart of 1439 these islands indicated by the cosmographer are marked to the number of eight, three being small ones. The names are:—Ilha de Sperta; Guatrilla; Ylla de l'Inferno; Ylla de Frydols; Ylla de Osels (Uccello); Ylla de ...; Ylla de Corp-Marinos; Conigi.
It is noteworthy that the names of these islands, in the map of the Majorcan cosmographer, which is the most modern, are all altered, while in the Catalan map made by his compatriots, sixty-four years earlier, the following names given by the Portuguese discoverers are found: Ilha de Corvo, de S. Jorge, and de Santa Maria, just as in theItalian maps of the fourteenth century.]—S. The seven islands mentioned rather confusedly by Azurara at end of ch. lxxxiii (p. 248, top) are the Azores.
[201a](p. 248).Reasonings.—Azurara here omits a document of extreme interest, which was given in full by Affonso Cerveira—another instance of the superiority of our unhappily-lost original to the court historian's copy.
202(p. 252).Algarve.—[The Kings of Castille complained of these invasions, and there were many disputes between Portugal and Castille as to the lordship of these islands. Las Casas, in hisHistoria de India, an unpublished MS., treats at length of this subject, especially in ch. viii. Compare with what Azurara says in this chapter, Barros,Decade I, i, cap. 12, fol. 23, ed. 1628.]—S.
[202a](p. 252).Enregistered.—Viz., by Affonso Cerveira, in the original chronicle.
203(p. 254).Tristam.—[This river kept the name of Rio de Nuno, or Rio de Nuno Tristão, as appears from nearly all the old maps, in memory of this catastrophe.]—S.
[203a](p. 255).Twenty-one.—Again not counting Nuno Tristam himself.
204(p. 257.).Sines.—Sines, on the extreme S.W. coast of the Estremadura province of Portugal, was the birthplace of Vasco da Gama, discoverer of the sea-route to India, and one of the world's great navigators. It lies 147 miles S.S.E. of Setubal.
205(p. 258).Cape of Masts.—[Videnote to p. 227 of this version.]
206(p. 260). Ariver.—[This river is marked in the map of Juan de La Cosa (1500) with the name of Rio de Lagos, in that of João Freire (1546) and in others with that of Rio do Lago; and though Dourado marks a river to the south of the Cabo dos Matos, he gives it no name.]—S.
207(p. 261).Beyond C. Verde.—[The great inlet which they had reached, and which is situate 110 leagues south of Cape Verde, is beyond Sierra Leone, and is marked in the maps of Juan de la Cosa (1500), Freire (1546), and Vaz Dourado, with the cape of Santa Anna to the south.
On this voyage, then, counting from the Rio de Lagos, our mariners passed the following spots marked on the above-mentioned ancient maps:—R. Gambia; R. de Santa Clara; R. das Ostras; R. de S. Pedro; Casamansa; Cabo Roxo; R. de S. Domingos; R. Grande; Biguba; Besegi; Amallo; R. de Nuno; Palmar; Cabo da Verga.
We have also R. de Pichel (maps of La Cosa and Dourado; R. da Praia in Freire); R. de Marvam (in Freire [1546]; Rio do Ouro in Dourado); R. do Hospital (in La Cosa [1500]; R. das Soffras in Freire [1546], and called by Dourado R. dos Pes [1571]); R. da Tamara (La Cosa); R. da Maia (Freire), and de Tornala in Dourado; R. de Caza (de Case in La Cosa and Freire); Serra Leoa (Sierra Leone).]—S.
208(p. 264).River ... caravels.—[Undoubtedly the Rio Grande. Cf. Walckenaer,Histoire générale des Voyages, vol. i, p. 79, note: where he corrects the mistake of Clarke in hisProgress of Maritime Discovery(1803), p. 221.]—S.
209(p. 265).Cape of ... Ransom.—[On old maps this cape is marked to the south of Arguim, and it appears under the same name in that of Juan de La Cosa, while in João Freire it is calledPorto do Resgate.]—S.
210(p. 267).Expenses with ... Moors.—[This passage shows that trading relations with Africa were already beginning to assume a more regular character.]—S.
211(p. 268).Porto da Caldeira.—[A name not met with in the oldest maps (e.g., Benincasa of 1467), which is one of those most nearly contemporaneous with our discoveries, and contains many names given by our explorers; the same remark applies to those of La Cosa (1500) and Freire (1546), etc. It seems, then, that our seamen gave this name to a port within theRio do Ouro, as the text would indicate. The caravel of Gomez Pirez reaching the mouth of this river, cast anchor; afterwards the captain decided to go to the end of the river, that is, six leagues up; and arriving there he entered a port on which our men had previously bestowed the name ofPorto da Caldeira.]—S.
212(p. 268).Well content.—[To our mind this important passage shows that before the discovery of the Rio do Ouro by the Portuguese, Europeans did not trade there. The very declaration of the Arabs seems to us to contradict the opinion held by some that the Catalans knew this river in 1346, and that Jacques Ferrer made his way to this point (see p. 194, note 158, and note 74). In fact, it is clear that the Arabs of that part were well aware that to get caravans to that place meant a journey of many days across the desert, and also that, even were this journey undertaken, they would perhaps find a difficulty in persuading others to change the roads used from remote antiquity, and come and traffic at a point of which they know little, and give it a preference to the recognisedentrepôtsof ancient caravan commerce.]—S.
213(p. 274).Land ... level.—[The low land marked on ancient maps to the north of the Rio do Ouro.]—S.
214(p. 275).Rocks.—[We saw before how Gomez Pires, on reaching the Rio do Ouro, cast anchor at the mouth of the river, and afterwards made his way up the stream to a port at its furthest part, which our mariners had named the Porto da Caldeira, where he stayed twenty-one days in order to establish commercial relations with the Arabs of the African hinterland. But, as these negociations came to nothing, he set sail and moved four leagues from there towards the other bank of the river, and came upon an island in the river (the "ilot de roches très élevé" of the maps of Admiral Roussin); and after they had made eleven leagues in all, they met with the Arabs, who took refuge in "some very big rocks that were there." These rocks are the seven mountains marked in maps by our mariners of that time, and they are depicted in the Mappemonde of Fra Mauro (1460), and copied fromthese very Portuguese nautical charts—the "lofty mountains" of the globe of Martin de Behaim, of Nuremburg.]—S.
215(p. 277).Meça.—[A city in the province of Sus and empire of Marocco.Leo Africanus, Bookii, says it was built by the ancient Africans.]—S.
216(p. 278).Guineas.—[This passage shows that even then traffic in the Guinea negroes was carried on through the ports on this side of Cape Não. The Infant then knew, before he undertook the business, that this was one of the commercialentrepôtsbetween Marocco and the Negro States, just as is since 1810 the small kingdom (founded by Hescham) of the independent Moors to the south of Marocco, of the commerce between Marocco and Timbuctoo.]—S.
217(p. 278).Eighteen Moors.—[This detail shows the great influence possessed by João Fernandez over the Moors, doubtless owing to his speaking Arabic and having travelled with them. M. Eyriès, in the biographical article he wrote on this intrepid traveller (Biographie universelle) says, with justice, that he was the first European to penetrate into the interior of Africa, and that the details of his story present a great analogy with those of the account given by Mungo Park.]—S.
218(p. 280).Denmark, Sweden and Norway.—[King Christopher then reigned in these three Kingdoms. He was grandson of the Emperor Robert, and nephew of Eric XII, who had abdicated in 1441. He died on January 6th, 1448, and the three crowns were separated.]—S. They were united in 1397 by the Union of Calmar.
219(p. 286).Lost men ... Returned to the Kingdom.—[This detail, which is not to be found in ch. xv of theFirst Decadeof Barros, where he treats of this expedition, is of the greatest importance, because it explains the event related in the letter of Antoniotto Usus di Mare,i.e., Antonio da Nole, dated December 12th, 1455, and found in the archives of Genoa in 1802 by Gräberg (Annali di geografia e di statistica, vol. ii, p. 285), in which that traveller tells how he met in those parts with a man of his own country, whom he took to be a member of the expedition of Vivaldi, which had set out one hundred and seventy years before, and of which nothing had been heard since its departure, according to Italian writers. Now it cannot be admitted that a descendant of the Genoese expeditioners of Thedisio Doria and Vivaldi would have kept his white colour if his ancestor had remained among the negroes, nor could he know the language. Therefore, Antoniotto can have seen no other white man in those parts except one of the mariners of the Portuguese caravel of Affonso and Vallarte of which Azurara treats in the text: especially as neither the different Portuguese captains, nor Cadamosto, found in any part of the African coast beyond Bojador a single vestige or tradition of other Europeans having gone there before their discovery by the Portuguese. Of the expedition of Vivaldi no news arrived after its departure in the thirteenth century. In the time of Antoniotto there remained a tradition only that it had set out intending to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar and make an unaccustomed voyage to the West. Antoniotto was a man of good education,and we see that he knew the authors who treated of this event; but having imbibed these traditions, and knowing of the existence of a Christian who had remained in these parts, he came to the conclusion—of course in ignorance of the fact mentioned by Azurara—that this man might be a descendant of the members of Vivaldi's expedition, "ex illis galeis credo Vivaldœ qui se amiserit sunt anni 170." If this important passage of Azurara's chronicle be confronted with the letter of Antoniotto, and both with the account of Cadamosto's second voyage, there remains not the least doubt that the man mentioned by Antoniotto was one of the three belonging to the caravel of Fernando Affonso and Vallarte, who had remained there in 1447, that is, eight years before Antoniotto visited the same parts, and that he was not a descendant of the men of Vivaldi's caravel, whose destiny had then for nearly two centuries been unknown. The passage also seems to refute the conjecture of the publisher of the said letter, and the induction of Baldelli in hisMillone, vol. i, p. 153, etc., about the Medicean Portulano and the two maps of Africa therein, which we have analysed in our "Memoir on the priority of the Portuguese in the Discovery of the West Coast of Africa beyond Cape Bojador," where we show that these maps, far from disproving our priority, rather confirm it.]—S.
220(p. 286).The Cabo dos Ruyvos.—[Otherwise theAngra dos Ruivosof ancient maps (see note 53). On the great abundance of fish in these parts, see the curious and erudite work of M. Berthelot (De la péche sur la côte occidentale d'Afrique.Paris, 1840).]—S.
221(p. 288).Path of Salvation.—[Some modern writers, founding themselves on the accounts of Cadamosto, have tried to make out that the Portuguese were the first among modern nations to introduce the slave trade from the beginning of their discoveries on the coast of Africa. It does not fall within the limits of this note to show how erroneous such assertions are; but we will nevertheless say that the celebrated Las Casas, in hisHistoria de las Indias, MSS., ch. xix, says that Jean de Bethencourt brought many captives from the Canaries whom he sold in Spain, Portugal, and France.]—S.
222(p. 289).Toil in arms.—[Barros could not supply the want of a continuation of the text of Azurara (Dec. I, Bk.i, cap. i, fol. 32). This great historian confesses that everything he relates of the prosecution of these discoveries is taken from some memoranda he found in the Torre and in Treasury Books of King Affonso V. To show how deplorable it is that Azurara did not complete this Chronicle, at least as far as the death of the Infant, and include the discoveries made from this year of 1448 to 1460, it suffices to say that from this year henceforward all is confusion in the dates and events relative to this prosecution both in Barros and in Goes (Chronica do principe D. João, ch. viii, which is devoted to these discoveries).
Barros limits himself to citing, in the year 1449, the licence given by the king to D. Henry to people the seven islands of the Azores. From this year he leaps to the year 1457, in which he only speaks of the king's donation to the Infant D. Fernando, and only in the year 1460 does he relate that at this time Antonio de Nolli, a Genoese by nation and a noble man, "who owing to some troubles in his own country had come to this kingdom" in company with Bartholemew deNolli, his brother, and Raphael de Nolli, his nephew, obtained a licence from the Infant to go and discover the Cape Verde Islands; and that some servants of the Infant D. Fernando went on the same discovery at the same time by Prince Henry's order.
So he (Barros) leaves us in ignorance of the regular progress of our discoveries on the west coast of Africa from 1448, the year in which Azurara finished this Chronicle, until 1460, in which the Infant died. Damião de Goes, who pretended to relate more exactly and circumstantially these events, leaves us in the same confusion in ch. viii of theChronicle of the Prince D. John, where he treats of Prince Henry's discoveries; and, besides, he makes a great mistake regarding the portion of coast discovered to the year 1458 (see ch. xvi, pp. 39 and 40 of the work cited), an error which is refuted by what Azurara says in ch. lxxviii of this present Chronicle.]—S.
Santarem is mistaken in assuming (see note 219, to p. 286) that "Antonio da Nole" and Antoniotto Uso di Mare are one and the same.
223(p. 289).Albert the Great.—[Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, one of the most learned men of the Middle Ages. His works were published at Lyons in twenty-one folio volumes. See the art.,Albert le Grand, in vol. xix of theHistoire littéraire de la France, p. 362, etc.]—S.
In addition to works already mentioned, see theOccidentefor March 11th, 1894 (especially Brito Rebello's article on Lagos, the Villa do Iffante, etc.); Pinheiro Chagas,Historia de Portugal; L. de Mendonça on Portuguese ships of the fifteenth century, inMemorias da Commissão Portugueza(Columbus Centenary);Historia da Universidade da Coimbra(Braga), vol. i, pp. 135-140.
APPENDIX.
ADDENDA TO INTRODUCTION TO VOL. I.
Dr. Sousa Viterbo, writing on Azurara in theRevista Portugueza Colonial e Maritima(October 20th, 1898), supplies the following fresh facts relating to the life of the Chronicler, gleaned by him from theChartularyof the Convent of the Order of St. Bernard at Almoster, near Santarem. On December 27th, 1465, Azurara was appointed Procurator of that famous convent by the Abbess, and in this capacity his name appears in various documents,e.g., of January 21st, 1471, and February 22nd, 1472. The post was an important, and doubtless also a lucrative, one. He had a residence in Santarem, and no doubt lived there for a portion of each year during the last eight years of his life. On December 1st, 1473, we find him in Lisbon on convent business, and on April 2nd, 1474, his servant, one Gonçalo Pires, was named Procurator in his stead. It seems, therefore, that the Chronicler died between the last two dates.
Azurara, though he was forbidden to marry owing to his position as a Knight of the Order of Christ, nevertheless had a son and two daughters by one Inez Gonçalves, as appears from certain Royal letters of legitimation. Their names were:—
(1) Caterina da Silveira—of the household of the Countess of Loulé—legitimated by letters of June 22nd, 1482 (v.Torre do Tombo Livo2 D. João II, f. 138).
(2) Gonçalo Gomez de Azurara—Squire of the household of King John II—legitimated by letters of April 14th, 1483 (v.Torre do Tombo, LivoI, Legitim. de Leitura Nova, f. 243).
(3) Filipa Gomez—legitimated on the same day as her brother, Gonçalo Gomez (same reference as No. 2).
The foregoing information was kindly supplied by General Brito Rebello, who had discovered these letters during his researches in the Torre.
* * * * *
As to the date when theChronicle of Guineawas written,videvol. ii of the standard work of Dr. Gama Barros, entitledHistoria da Administração Publica em Portugal nos Seculos XII a XV, note 14, pp. 396-9, where the question is fully discussed.
As to the history of the MS. of the sameChronicle, videtheBoletim de Bibliographia Portugueza, vol. i, p. 41, etc. Art. by Senhor Ernesto do Canto.
In support of the reliability of the events recorded in the sameChronicle, it should be remembered that Affonso de Cerveira, from whose notes the book was compiled, was factor at Benim, and was thus enabled to obtain information at first hand.
CORRIGENDA TO VOL. I.
P. xxiii, line 23,instead of"for many years"read"many years ago."