jo6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



poffible was ufed on my part to examine this affair to the 

 bottom. A number of letters were written, and meflengers 

 fent ; and, at this prince's defire, his father dire(5led, that all 

 the records of government fliould be confuited to fatisfy 

 me. But neter any thing occurred which gave room to 

 imagine the prince of Shoa had ever been fovereign of Be- 

 nin, nor was the weflern ocean, or that date, known to them 

 in my time. Yet the country alluded to could be no other 

 than Abyflinia ; and, indeed, the crooked ftafF, as well as. 

 the crofs, corroborate this opinion, unlefs the whole was. 

 an invention of the Negroes, to flatter the king of Portu«^ 

 gal. 



That prince was refolved no longer to delay the difco*- 

 very of the markets of the fpice-trade in India, and the pat- 

 fage over land, through Abyffinia, to the eallern ocean. He, 

 therefore, as has been before faid, difpatched Covillan and 

 de Paiva to Alexandria, with the neceffary letters and cre- 

 dit. They had likewiic a map, or chart, given them, made 

 under the diredlion of prince Henry, which they were to 

 correct, or to confirm, according as it needed. They were 

 10 enquire what were the principal markets for the fpicc,. 

 and particularly the pepper-trade in India ; and what were 

 the different channels by wllich this was conveyed to Eu« 

 rope ; whence came the gold and fiLver, the medium of this 

 trade ; and, above all, they were to inform themfelves di- 

 ftinaiy, whether it was poiiible to arrive in India by failing- 

 round the fouthern promontory of Africa. 



From Alexandria thefe two travellers proceeded to Cairo^, 

 thence to Suez, the port on the bottom of the Red Sea, where 

 fining a caravan of weilern> Moors, they continued their 



J route 



