BARTHOLOMIETJ DIAS S FURTHEST EAST. JO5 



My own reading of the three accounts is that Bartholomieu 

 Dias landed at St. Croix, and then sailed three days to the east, 

 to the Penedo das Fontes. Here he landed, took his boats up 

 the river to St. Mary's Cove, where there was a spring at the 

 place where the well now is, watered his ships, and left a box of 

 documents relating to his voyage, together with an emblem of 

 Christianity, to mark, as it were, the farthest limit of the Faith 

 in this unknown country. 



Why Pacheco, and after him De Barros, confused St. Croix 

 with the Penedo das Fontes is that here also a cross was erected. 

 This is only surmise, but it explains the mysterious cross which 

 is supposed to have been set up at Cape Padrone ; it seems 

 unlikely that these storm-tossed ships should have anchored oft* 

 an open coast, and have taken on shore a great stone pillar just 

 after having done the same at St. Croix, which is only 35 miles 

 distant. At the Penedo das Fontes, the Kowie Fountain Rocks, 

 there is a good ship's channel between the rocks and the coast, 

 and the rocks form a natural breakwater off the mouth of the 

 river as it then existed (it has since been diverted about a mile 

 to the west). De Barros says very plainly that a cross was set 

 up on an islet half a league ( a mile and a half ) from the shore, 

 and that it was called the Penedo das Fontes. This is the 

 actual distance of the Fountain Rocks from the shore, whereas 

 St. Croix is two and a half miles from the shore. The cross was 

 set up on an islet, but that islet was St. Croix, which was wrongly 

 identified with the Penedo das Fontes. At the Penedo das 

 Fontes, as I take it, the rocks off the mouth of the Kowie River, 

 the Rio Infante, and the turning-point of the expedition, the 

 explorers wished to place a cross on the mainland. Hence they 

 selected a position on a " sandy cliff," which I would identify 

 with the great sand-dunes above St. Mary's Cove, and this T 

 would make the place of the cross supposed to have been erected 

 at Cape Padrone. As a matter of fact, these sand-dunes are 

 now used for the same purpose, and a pillar has been erected 

 there for the guidance of shipping, the Glendower Tower, which 

 goes to show that the position is a very marked one from the sea. 

 The fact that Dias called the Fountain Rocks the Penedo das 

 Fontes, the Rock of the Fountains, indicates that he anchored 

 here and watered his ships. The river in those days reached 

 the sea just opposite the rocks, and then turned westwards 

 parallel with the coast, the channel being separated from the sea 

 by a ridge of low dunes. After about a mile, the river then 

 came up against the west bank, where the fountains were (the 

 present well at St. Mary's Cove), and then turned inland. No 

 more suitable place could have existed for watering the ships, 

 and the heavy stone cross could have been comfortably off- 

 "oaded into the boats as the ships lay under the lee of the Foun- 

 tain Rocks x , and could have been landed in the calm waters of 

 the lagoon. To have tried to land a heavy stone in boats in the- 



