of the Angra de Sain Bras 9 



antelopes (gazellas), and the roots of certain plants. Crayfish 

 or * Cape lobsters ' abounded near the anchorage. 



The author of the roteiro affirms that the bh'ds of the 

 country resembled the birds in Portugal, and that amongst them 

 were cormorants, larks, turtle-doves, and gulls. The gulls are 

 called ' guayvotas,' but ' guayvotas ' is probably another instance 

 of the eccentric orthography of the author and equivalent to 

 ' gaivotas.' 



In December the squadron reached the Angra de Sao Bras, 

 which was either Mossel Bay or another bay in close proximity 

 to Mossel Bay. Here penguins and seals were in great 

 abundance. The author of the roteiro calls the penguins 

 ' sotelycairos,' which is more correctly written ' sotilicarios ' by 

 subsequent writers. The word is probably related to the Spanish 

 sotil and the Latin subtilis, and may contain an allusion to the 

 supposed cunning of the penguins, which disappear by diving 

 when an enemy approaches. 



The sotilicarios, says the chronicler, could not fly because 

 there were no quill-feathers in their wings ; in size they were as 

 large as drakes, and their cry resembled the braying of an ass. 

 Castanheda, Goes, and Osorio also mention the sotilicario in their 

 accounts of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama, and compare its 

 flipper to the wing of a bat — a not wholly inept comparison, for 

 the under-surface of the wings of penguins is wholly devoid or 

 feathery covering. Manuel de Mesquita Perestrello, who visited 

 the south coast of Africa in 1575, also describes the Cape 

 penguin. From a manuscript of his Roteiro in the Oporto 

 Library, one learns that the flippers of the sotilicario were 

 covered with minute feathers, as indeed they are on the upper 

 surface and that they dived after fish, upon which they fed, and 

 on which they fed their young, which were hatched in nebts 



c 



