k>6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



poflible was ufed on my part to examine this affair to the 

 bottom. A number of letters were written, and meffengers 

 .Cent ; and, at this prince's defire, his father directed, that all 

 the records of government mould be confulted to fatisfy 

 me. But never any thing occurred which gave room to 

 imagine the prince of Shoa had ever been fovereign of Be- 

 nin, nor was the weftern ocean, or that Hate, known to them 

 in my time. Yet the country alluded to could be no other 

 than Abyflinia ; and, indeed, the crooked flafF, as well as 

 the crofs, corroborate this opinion, unlefs the whole was, 

 an invention of the Negroes, to flatter the king of Portu- 

 gal. 



That, prince was refolved no longer to delay the difco- 

 very of the markets of the fpice-trade in India, and the paf- 

 fage over land, through Abyflinia, to the eaflern ocean. He 3 

 therefore, as has been before faid, difpatched Covillan and 

 de Paiva to Alexandria, with the neceflary letters and cre- 

 dit. They had likewife a map, or chart, given them, made 

 under the direction of prince Henry, which they were to 

 correct, or to confirm, according as it needed. They were 

 to enquire what were the principal markets for the fpice,, 

 and particularly the pepper- trade in India ; and what were 

 the different channels by which this was conveyed to Eu- 

 rope ; whence came the gold and filyer, the medium of this 

 trade; and, above all, uhey were to inform themfelves di- 

 flinctly, whether it was poflible to arrive in India by failing 

 round the fouthern promontory of Africa.. 



From Alexandria thefe two travellers proceeded to Cairo, 

 thence to Suez, the port on the bottom of the Red Sea, where 

 joining a., caravan of weitcrn Moors, they continued their 



i route 



