Therefore every year did Don Henry, as it were, challenging and hurling defiance at the Moors, persist in sending out his caravels as far as the headland called the Cape of Non (Not), from the belief that beyond the said Cape there is "No" return possible. And as for a long time the ships of the Prince did not dare to pass that point, Henry roused himself to accomplish this feat, seeing that his caravels did much excel all other sailing ships afloat, and strictly enjoined his captains not to return before they had passed the said Cape. Who steadily pressing on, and never leaving sight of the shore, did in truth pass near one hundred miles beyond, finding nothing but desert land.
Beyond this again, for the space of one hundred and fifty miles, the Prince then sent another fleet, which fared no better, and finding no trace of men or of tillage, returned home. And Don Henry, growing ever keener for discovery, and excited by the opposition as it were of nature, sent out again and again till his sailors had reached beyond the Desert Coast to the land of the Arabs and of those new races called Azaneguys, people of a tawny colour.
And finally there appeared to these bold mariners the land of Æthiopia, which lies upon the shore of the Southern ocean, and here again from day to day the explorers discovered new races and new lands.
"Now I, Luigi Ca da Mosto, who had sailed nearly all the Mediterranean coasts, once leaving Venice for 'Celtogallia' (France), but being caught by a storm off C. St. Vincent, had to take refuge in the Prince's town, near the said Cape, and was here told of the glorious and boundless conquests of the Prince, whence accrued such gain that from no traffic in the world could the like be had.
"The which," continues the candid trader, "did exceedingly stir my soul, eager as it was for gain above all things else; and so I made suit to be brought before the Prince, if so be that I might gain leave to sail in his service, for since the profit of this voyage is subject to his pleasure, he doth guard his monopoly with no small care."
With the Prince, at last, Cadamosto made terms: either that he, the adventurer, should furnish the ships at his own cost, and take the whole risk upon himself, and of the merchandise that he might gain a fourth part to go to his lord; or that the Prince should bear the cost of equipment and should have half the profits. But in any case, if there was no profit, the whole expense should fall upon the trader. The Prince added that he would heartily welcome any other volunteers from Venice, and on Cadamosto himself he urged an immediate start. "As for me," repeats the sailor, "my age, my vigour, my skill equal to any toil, above all my passionate desire to see the world and explore the unknown, set me all on fire with eagerness. And especially the fact that no countryman of mine had ever tried the like, and my certainty of winning the highest honour and gain from such a venture, made me forward to offer myself. I only stayed to enquire from veteran Portuguese what merchandise was the most highly prized among the Æthiopians and people of the furthest South, and then went home to find the best light craft for the ocean coasting that I had in mind." Meantime the Prince ordered a caravel to be equipped, which he gave to one Vincent, a native of Lagos, as captain, and caused to be armed to the teeth, as was required, and on the 21st of March, 1455, Cadamosto sailed for Madeira. On the 25th they were off Porto Santo, and the Venetian stops to give us a description of the island, which, he says in passing, had been found and colonised by the Prince's seamen twenty-seven years before. It was worth the settling. Every kind of grain and fruit was easily raised, and there was a great trade in dragon's blood, "which is made from the tears of a tree."
On March 27th, Cadamosto sailed from Porto Santo to Madeira, forty miles distant, and easily seen from the first island when the weather was cloudy, and here the narrative stops some time to describe and admire sufficiently. Madeira had been colonised under the lead and action of the Prince four and twenty years before, and was now thickly peopled by the Portuguese settlers. Beyond Portugal its existence was hardly known. Its name was "from its woodland,"—here Cadamosto repeats the traditional falsehood about the place,—but the first settlers had destroyed most of this in trying to clear an open space by fire. The whole island had once been in flames, the colonists only saved their lives by plunging into the rivers, and even Zarco, the chief discoverer, with his wife and children had to stand in a torrent bed for two whole days and nights before they could venture on dry land again.
The island was forty miles round; like Porto Santo, it was without a harbour, but not without convenient roads for ships to lie in; the soil was fertile, well watered by eight rivers that flowed through the island. "Various kinds of carved wood are exported, so that almost all Portugal is now adorned with tables and other furniture made from these woods."
"Hearing of the great plenty of water in the island, the Prince ordered all the open country to be planted with sugar-cane and with vines imported from Crete, which do excellent well in a climate so well suited to the grape; the vine staves make good bows, and are exported to Europe like the wine, red and white alike, but especially the red. The grapes are ripe about Easter in each year," and this vintage, as early as Cadamosto's day, was evidently the main interest of the islanders, who had all the enthusiasm of a new venture in their experiment, "for no one had ever tried his hand upon the soil before."
From Madeira the caravel sailed on 320 miles to the Canaries, of which says our Venetian, there are ten, seven cultivated and three still desert; and of the seven inhabited four are Christian, three Heathen, even now, fifty years after De Béthencourt's conquest. Neither wine nor grain can be produced on this soil, and hardly any fruit, only a kind of dye, used for clothes in Portugal; goat's flesh and cheese can also be exported, and something, Cadamosto fancies, might be made of the wild asses that swarm in the islands.