MARCO POLO. 3 



The country was first made known to (modern) European 

 nations by the celebrated Venetian traveller Marco Polo, in 

 the thirteenth century. He, however, did not himself visit the 

 island, but heard various accounts of it during his travels in 

 Asia, under the name of Magaster or Madeigascar. A chapter 

 of his book of travels (33, B. iii. Yule's ed. pp. 345-354) 

 is devoted to a description of it ; but much of what he relates 

 is evidently confused with accounts of Zanzibar and countries 

 on the mainland of Africa, as he says that ivory is one of 

 the chief productions, and that elephants, giraffes, and other 

 animals (which never existed in the island), were numerous. 

 His well-known account of the rukh or gigantic bird, long 

 thought to be entirely fabulous, has during the last few years 

 been discovered to have a basis of fact in the existence of the 

 now-extinct JEpyornis, a struthious- bird allied to the New 

 Zealand Moa, and which produced the largest of all known 

 eggs. 



It was not until the commencement of the sixteenth century 

 that Europeans set foot upon the great island. Towards the 

 end of the previous century the adventurous Portuguese navi- 

 gators Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco de Gama reached the 

 southernmost portions of Africa and rounded the Cape of 

 Good Hope, thus discovering the sea route to India and the 

 farther East. On the Mozambique coast they found numbers 

 of Arabs trading with India and well acquainted with Mada- 

 gascar. But in 1505 King Manoel of Portugal sent out a 

 great expedition of twenty-two ships to the Indies, under the 

 command of Don Erancisco de Almeida, the first viceroy, with 

 orders to build fortresses at Sofala and Quiloa for the pro- 

 tection of the Portuguese commerce in Africa. Juan de Nova, 

 whose name is preserved in that of a small island in the 

 Mozambique Channel, sailed in this expedition. Almeida 

 sent back in the beginning of the following year eight ships 

 loaded with spices to Portugal, under the command of 

 Fernando Soares. On their way they discovered, on the 1st 

 of February 1506, the east coast of Madagascar.* From this 



* See The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed " The Navigat07, " 

 Major's ed., London, 1868, p. 415. 



