4 ITS DISCOVERY. 



it appears clear that Soares, and not Almeida, as commonly 

 said in histories, was the real discoverer of the island. 



" In that same year Joao Gomez d'Abreu discovered the 

 ■west coast of Madagascar on the ioth of August, St. Law- 

 rence's Day, from which circumstance [following the usual 

 custom of the early Spanish and Portuguese navigators] the 

 island received the name of San Lorenco [which it retained 

 for more than a hundred years]. He gave the name of Bahia 

 Formosa, apparently the bay between Point Barrow and 

 Point Croker " [S.W. coast]. The famous navigator Tristan 

 da Cunha, who was sent out to India in the same year, also 

 heard of the island through one of his captains, Eodrigo 

 Pereira Coutinho. This officer had been obliged to take 

 refuge in one of the southern ports of Madagascar from a 

 storm which scattered Da Cunha's squadron off the Cape of 

 Good Hope. Hearing glowing accounts of the newly-found 

 country from his subordinate, Da Cunha visited various parts 

 of the same coast, making with his own hand a chart of what 

 he discovered, and was accordingly, though of course mis- 

 takenly, celebrated in song by his countryman Camoens in 

 the Lusiad (c. x. s. 39) as the discoverer of Madagascar: — 



" Green Madagascar's flowery dale shall swell 

 His echoed fame, till ocean's southmost bound 

 O'er isles and shores unknown his fame resound." * 



He reached the northern end of the island on Christmas Day, 

 and accordingly gave it the name of Cape Natal — a name 

 which, however, it has not retained, but has been for long 

 known as Cape Amber or Ambro. 



The ship of Gomez d'Abreu doubled the northern cape, 

 and running along the east coast, reached the mouth of the 

 river Matitanana in the south-east, where he landed. In a 

 letter dated Mozambique, 8th February 1 507, to King Manoel 

 from the celebrated Alfonso d' Albuquerque, who was with 



* Mickle's translation of the Lusiad. See Lyons M'Lcod's Madagascar and 

 its People, p. 6. The original Portuguese ruus thus — 



" Pelo cunha tamhem, que nunca extinto 

 Serf sou nome em todo mar que lava 

 As Ilhas do Austro, e prains, que se chamam 

 Do sao louiienjo, e em todo Sul se afl'am." 



