AZORES DISCOVERED. 



137 



Grande, now the Gambia. He was attacked by the natives with 

 volleys of poisoned arrows, of the effects of which all his crew and 

 officers died but four ; and the ship was at last brought home by 

 these four survivors, after wandering two months upon the At- 

 lantic. The next expedition, under Alvaro Fernando, carried 

 out an antidote against the poisoned shafts of the enemy, which 

 successfully combated the venom, as all who were wounded re- 

 covered. 



The Azores, or Azores, were now discovered, about nine hun- 

 dred miles to the west of Portugal ; but some doubts exist both 

 as to the discoverer and the date. They doubtless received their 

 name from the number of hawks which were seen there, Ac,or 

 signifying hawk in Portuguese. Santa Maria and San Miguel 

 were named from the saints upon whose days they were first 

 seen. Terceira obtained its name from the circumstance that it 

 was the third that was discovered. Fayal was so called from 

 the beech-trees it produced; Graciosa, from its agreeable cli- 

 mate and fertile soil; Flores, from its flowers; and Corvo, from 

 its crows. The various clusters of islands which thus arose in 

 the Atlantic, from the Azores to Cape Verd, now formed a succes- 

 sion of maritime colonies and nurseries for seamen, and thus 

 enabled navigators to avoid the coast, where the outrages they 

 endured from' Moors and negroes threatened to exhaust their 

 patience. The ships of Don Henry had now penetrated within 

 ten degrees of the equator, and the outcry against venturing into 

 a region where the very air was fatal broke out afresh. In this 

 point of view, therefore, the settlement of the Azores was a 

 matter of no little importance. In 1449, King Alphonso gave 

 his uncle, Don Henry, permission to colonize these islands. In 

 1457, Henry obtained for them several important privileges, the 

 principal of which was the exemption of their inhabitants from 

 any duties upon their commerce in Portuguese and Spanish ports. 



In the years 1455-56-57, a Venetian, by the name of Cada- 

 Mosto, undertook, under the patronage of Don Henry, two 



