

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 119 



Quad-Dra is at present very much stopped up with sand, 

 having an open channel of only about 190 English feet wide. 

 A somewhat more easterly channel in the same mouth is 

 that of the still very little known Saguiel el-Hamra, which 

 comes from the south, and is supposed to have a course of 

 at least 600 geographical miles. One is astonished at the 

 length of these deep, but commonly dry river beds. They 

 are ancient furrows, such as I have seen in the Peruvian 

 desert at the foot of the Cordilleras, between those moun- 

 tains and the coast of the Pacific. In Bouet's manuscript 

 " Relation de TExpedition de la Malouine," the mountains 

 which rise to the north of Cape Nun are estimated 

 at the great elevation of 2800 metres (9185 English feet). 

 Cape Nun is usually supposed to have been discovered 

 in 1433, by the Knight Gilianez, acting under the command 

 of the celebrated Infante Henry Duke of Yiseo, and foun- 

 der of the Academy of Sagres, which was presided over by 

 the pilot and cosmographer Mestre Jacome of Majorca; 

 but the Portulano Mediceo, the work of a Genoese Navi- 

 gator in 1351, already contains the name of Cavo di Non. 

 The passage round this Cape was then as much dreaded as 

 that of Cape Horn has since been, although it is 23' north 

 of the parallel of Teneriffe, and could be reached in a few 

 days' voyage from Cadiz, The Portuguese proverb, " quern 

 passa o Cabo di Num, ou tornara ou no," could not deter 

 the Infante, whose heraldic French motto, " talent de bien 

 faire," expressed his noble, enterprising, and vigorous cha- 

 racter. The name of the Cape, in which a play of words 

 on the negative particle has long been supposed, does not 

 appear to me to have had a Portuguese origin. Ptolemy 



