PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES 



i499> Joao Fernandez fitted out his expedition, and sailed 

 in the spring o£ 1500; he arrived off the east coast of Green- 

 land and sailed along it, but the ice prevented him from 

 landing. We have no information at all as to where else he 

 may have been on this voyage. But having returned to Portugal, 

 perhaps after a comparatively unsuccessful expedition, and 

 finding furthermore that the king had issued letters patent to 

 Gaspar Cortereal, whose voyage had been more successful, Fer- 

 nandez may have despaired of finding support for fresh enter- 



Portion of Diego Ribero's map of 1529 [Nordenskiold, 1897] 



prises in Portugal, and have turned at once to Bristol, where 

 he took part in getting together an Anglo-Portuguese undertak- 

 ing, and was thus the " llavorador " who first brought news to 

 Greenland. 



It must, of course, be admitted that the hypothesis here 

 put forward of the voyage and discovery of Joao Fernandez 

 is no more than a guess; but it seems more consistent than 

 any of the explanations hitherto offered, and, as far as I can 

 see, it does not conflict on any point with what contemporary 

 documents have to tell us. It may be supposed that here, 

 as so frequently has happened, the name of the discoverer, 



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