THE MEDITERRANEAN LOOKS WEST 93 



hand in with any explorers who might help extend militant 

 Christianity across the world. 



Though much of the emphasis of exploration in the twelfth 

 century was eastward into Asia, the Genoese undertook to 

 push their trading ventures westward through the Straits of 

 Gibraltar. In 1270 a Genoese fleet under Lancelot Malocello 

 sailed along the West African coast, rediscovered the long- 

 forgotten Canaries, and called them again traditionally the 

 Fortunate Isles. Twenty years later one of the famous Doria 

 captains, looking for a water route to the Indies for strictly 

 commercial reasons, sailed into the Sea of Darkness as far 

 south as Cape Nun, beyond any previous reach of a European 

 vessel. Within the next hundred years Italian navigators dis- 

 covered and named most of the Madeiras. For a time the Cape 

 Verde Islands were known as the Islands of Antonio, after 

 Antonio Noli, another Italian. 



There is an interesting counterclaim, as reported by Gal- 

 vano, concerning the discovery of Madeira in the fourteenth 

 century. It concerns a bold and eccentric Englishman named 

 Macham and reads thus: ''About the time of 1344 the island 

 of Madeira was discovered by an Englishman called Macham, 

 who sailing out of England into Spain, with a woman of his, 

 was driven out of his direct course by a tempest and arrived in 

 that island and cast his anchor in that haven which now is 

 called Machico after his name. And because his lover was then 

 seasick, he went on land with some of his company and in the 

 meantime his vessel weighed anchor and put to sea, leaving 

 him there. Whereupon his lover, for thought, died. Macham, 

 who greatly loved her, built on this island a chapel or hermi- 

 tage to bury her in and wrote upon the stone of her tomb his 

 name and hers and the occasion upon which they arrived 

 there. After this he made himself a boat out of a tree, the 

 trees being of great compass, and went to sea in it with men 



