OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 627 



nations of Europe ; the mission of Pedro de Covilham and 

 Alonso de Payva (in 1487), which was sent by King John II. to 

 see for the African Prester John, prepared the way, if not for 

 Bartholomew Diaz, at all events, for Vasco de Gama.* Trust- 

 ing to the reports brought by Indian and Arabian pilots to 

 Calicut, Goa, and Aden, as well as to Sofala, on the eastern 

 shores of Africa, Covilham sent word to King John II., by two 

 Jews from Cairo, that, if the Portuguese would prosecute their 

 voyages of discovery southward, along the west coast, they 

 would reach the termination of Africa, from whence the 

 navigation to the Moon Island, the Magastar of Polo, to Zan- 

 zibar and to Sofala, " rich in gold," would be extremely easy. 

 But before this news reached Lisbon, it had been already long 

 known there, that Bartholomew Diaz had not only made the 

 discovery of the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo tormentoso) but 

 that he had also sailed round it, although only for a short dis- 

 tance. f Accounts of the Indian and Arabian trading-places 

 on the eastern shores of Africa, and of the configuration of 

 the southern extremity of the continent, may, indeed, early in 



* Barros, dec. i. liv. iii. cap. 4, p. 190, says expressly, that Bartholomew 

 Diaz, "e os de sua companhia per causa dos perigos e tormentas, que em o 

 dobrar delle passaram, Ihe pazeram nome Tormentoso." The merit of 

 first doubling the Cape does not, therefore, belong, as usually stated, to 

 Vasco de Gama. Diaz was at the Cape in May 1487, nearly, therefoie, 

 at the same time that Pedro de Covilham and Alonso de Payva 

 set forth from Barcelona on their expedition. In December of the 

 same year (1487), Diaz brought the news of this important discovery to 

 Portugal. 



t The planispherium of Sanuto, who speaks of himself as " Marinus 

 Sanuto, dictus Torxellus de Veneicis," appertain to the work, entitled 

 Secreta fidelium Crucis. "Marinus ingeniously preached a crusade 

 in the interest of commerce, with a desire of destroying the prosperity 

 cf Egypt, and directing the course of trade in such a manner as to carry 

 the products of India through Bagdad, Bassora, and Tauris (Tebriz), 

 to Kaffa, Tana (Azow), and the Asiatic coasts of the Mediterranean. 

 Sanuto, who was the cotemporary and compatriot of Polo, with whose 

 Milione he was, however, unacquainted, was characterised by grand 

 views regarding commercial policy. He may be regarded as the Eaynal 

 of the middle ages, without the incredulity of the philosophical abbe" 

 of the eighteenth century." (Examen critique, t. i. pp. 231, 333-348.) 

 The Cape of Good Hope is set down as Capo di Diab on the map of Fra 

 Mauro, compiled between the years 1457 and 1459. Consult the learned 

 treatise of Cardinal Zurla, entitled II Mappamundo di Fra Mavro 

 Camaldole^. 1806, 54. 



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