OF ACCOMPANYING ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 819 



" In this year" (Major pr. H. 131), the Azores Island seen by a runaway negro slave from the 

 highest mountain on Santa Maria visited by Cabral and named St. Michael: — Terceira was discov- 

 ered "before 1450," and from this island San Jorge and Graciosa are in sight: Fayal and Pica were 

 discovered " before 1466." 



" In this year " (Galvan.. Churchill coll., and Major pr. H. 95), by permission of prince Henry, 

 Lancarote " having fitted out six caravels " sailed to the Arguin islets, and chiefly there procured 

 "about two hundred captives," of "every variety of colour from nearly white to the deepest black." 

 Returning to Portugal, the captives " very soon became Christians, and were treated with great kind- 

 ness by their" masters, and "some of the young girls were adopted by noble ladies." 



" 1445 A. D." (Major pr. H. 95), under instructions from prince Henry, Antam Gonsalves revis- 

 iting the Rio d'Ouro: "an old Moor returned voluntarily,'' "wishing to see prince Henry," and Joao 

 Fernandes " by his own desire was left behind." 



The people were found by Fernandes to be " shepherds, who wandered witli their cattle where- 

 ever they could find pasture : the fodder was scanty, the land desert and sandy, with no trees except 

 small ones, such as figueras do inferno" {cactiform Euphorbia), "thorn-trees" (Balanites A egyp- 

 tiaca), "and a few palms" (Hyphaene ?); "there were very few flowers: all the water was from wells, 

 except a very few running streams : the people were called Alarves, Azanegues, and Berbers ; they 

 were Mohammedans; their language, written and spoken, differed from those of other Moors ; they 

 waged war with the negroes, and took a great number prisoners ; " " their camels were very numerous, 

 and could travel fifty leagues in a day, and they had plenty of cattle in spite of the thinness of the 

 pasture." At the invitation of two horsemen, who " mounted him on a camel," he journeyed South- 

 ward several days to the chief, Ahude Maymon, who with his family and "retinue were about one 

 hundred and fifty in number," and was hospitably entertained : "their principal food was milk and 

 sometimes a. little meat with seeds of wild herbs gathered on the mountains; wheat was considered a 

 luxury; for many months they and their horses and dogs lived entirely on milk ; those on the sea- 

 shore ate nothing but fish, mostly raw or dried ; " their merchandise, besides slaves and "gold from 

 the negro country, consisted of wool, butter, cheese, dates which they imported, amber, civet, gum 

 anime, oil and skins of sea- wolves " {seals). At the end of " seven months,'' Fernandes was discov- 

 ered on the shore South of Arguin Island and taken off by Antam Gonsalves. 



"In this year" (Major pr. H. 96), Diniz Dias, furnished by prince Henry with a caravel and 

 determined to sail farther than his predecessors, passing the mouth of the Senegal, " which separates 

 the Azanegues or Tawny Moors " (Barabra) " from the Jaloffs, the first real Blacks " (negroes) : 

 coasting along, " the caravel caused great astonishrrtent among the natives, till at length four " 

 approached '• in a canoe ; but when they found it contained men," fled with such speed that they 

 could not be overtaken : Dinis continued to (the termination of the Desert in) a remarkable headland 

 which he called Cape Verde, and landing, set up a wooden cross (Galvan.). 



" Aug. roth " (Major pr. H. 102), sailing of a fleet of " six-and-twenty caravels," to punish a mas- 

 sacre by the natives of Tider (South of the Arguin islets) : the village, about which were "a few cot- 

 ton-trees " (Gossypium), was destroyed, the natives soon put to flight, and "fifty-seven" of them 

 captured The object of the Expedition accomplished, six caravels under Gomes Pires proceeded 

 Southward, passing the "two palm-trees "(....) "twenty leagues" before reaching the Senegal, 

 and continuing to Cape Verde ; where the natives proved numerous and hostile, using arrows of reeds 

 or charred wood, " with long iron heads " tipped " with vegetable poison." 



Adansonia digitata of Equatorial Africa. On an island near were "many large baobab trees," 

 one of them measuring " a hundred and eight palms " around the trunk — (Major) ; and subsequently, 

 one was found by Cadamosto at the mouth of the Senegal " one hundred and twelve feet " around 

 the trunk (Drur.) : in ascending the Nile, the first baobab was found by Lepsius eg. and sin. 166 

 "beyond Kamlin " in about 15 ; the fruit brought down the river under the name of "habhab"is 

 described by Alpinus pi. 67, Forskal p. xlix, and Delile, as used medicinally : at Zanzibar, the tree 

 appeared to me introduced, the natives using the shell of the fruit for water-buckets, but young stocks 

 were springing up spontaneously. Eastward, has long been introduced into Hindustan, though so far 

 as observed by myself not attaining there unusual dimensions ; its fruit used by the fishermen of 

 Guzerat as floats for their nets, used also " medicinally by the natives, who like the Africans esteem 

 it cooling the leaves are eaten with their food, and are said to restrain excessive perspiration" (Bom- 

 bay mecf'trans. i. 18, and Graham) ; a few trees were generally found by Gibson "at places where the 

 Musselmen have been." The bark according to Drury "furnishes indestructible cordage, and a 

 coarse thread used for cloth and ropes." 



Cape Verde had already been passed by Alvaro Fernandes ; five negroes came on board there, 

 and were kindly treated ; but when " they reached the shore they encouraged other natives to make 

 an attack and six boats put out with thirty-five or forty men in them prepared for fighting ; " two 

 negroes were captured. Alvaro Fernandes continued South to a cape where were many standing 



