■^ Portuguese Explorations 



Probably this Negro returned with the second voyage 

 of De Sintra in that year (1462). De Sintra travelled with 

 another captain, Sueiro da Costa, and together these explorers 

 seem to have extended their voyage along the Liberian coast 

 as far as Cape Palmas, though this promontory did not 

 receive its present Portuguese name till a later date.^ 



The Cavalla River was perhaps the limit of De Sintra's 

 explorations in 1462, and after this there came a pause of 

 nine years before further progress was made. Then, in 1471, 

 the Portuguese captains, grown bold by familiarity with the 

 smooth seas of the Atlantic coast of Africa, sailed eastwards from 

 Cape Palmas to that Gold Coast of two hundred years' tradition, 

 and farther on across the Bight of Biafra to the southward 

 bend of the African continent. 



They had already named what we now know as Liberia 

 the " Malagueta " coast. The Malagueta pepper being 



' It was very soon noticed that this headland near the River Cavalia was 

 covered with a remarkable and striking form of palm tree. At the present day 

 Cape Palmas is very notable for its growths of coconut palms, which crowd 

 its rocky promontories and islets. But in all probability when the first Portuguese 

 explored these coasts there were no coconut palms growing on Cape Palmas, 

 but the stately fan palm (Borassus) which I have photographed myself on this 

 spot, still lingering in the scrub. As will be seen later in the book, the first British 

 explorer of this coast notices the considerable numbers of Fan palms in the close 

 vicinity of Cape Palmas. 



When I asked the Grebo people at Cape Palmas if the coconut was in- 

 digenous to their country, they replied positively that according to their traditions 

 this tree was introduced by the Portuguese. Yet Dapper in the seventeenth 

 century alludes indirectly to the Coco palm and its fruit as one of the products of 

 the Grain Coast. 



The Coco palm is indigenous to the islands and shoresi of the Pacific 

 and perhaps of the Indian Ocean. Apparently by the agency of man it was 

 transported across the Central American isthmus to the Atlantic coast of that 

 continent, and the far-sighted Portuguese planted it on the West African 

 littoral : bringing it no doubt from Northern Brazil at the same time that they 

 brought the pineapple. This last grows everywhere in the coast regions of Liberia, 

 as though it was a native, and its presence there is noted by Dutch and English 

 voyagers a hundred and fifty years after the Portuguese discovery of Liberia. 



43 



