“As the year 6681 of Eusebius begins on September 1, 1481, we gather from this inscription that the order for the expedition was given between January and August, 1482. Of course the departure may have been delayed, but the delay cannot have been a long one, as Cão was home again before April, 1484.
“Cão came back to Lisbon probably in the beginning of 1484, and certainly before April of that year. The king, first of all, made him a ‘cavalleiro’ of his household. He then, on April 8, 1484, ‘in consideration of the services rendered in the course of a voyage of discovery to Guinea, from which he had now returned,’ granted him an annuity of ten thousand reals, to be continued to one surviving son; and a few days afterwards, on April 14, he separated his ‘cavalier’ from the common herd and made him noble, and gave him a coat-of-arms charged with the two padrões which he had erected on the coast of Africa.
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“Far more useful for our purpose is the pillar which formerly stood on Cape Cross, and which Captain Becker of the Falke carried off to Kiel[13] in 1893. Dr. Scheppig has fully described the pillar.
“The Portuguese inscription says—‘In the year 6685 of the creation of the world, and of Christ 485, the excellent, illustrious King D. João II. of Portugal did direct this land to be discovered, and this padrão to be set up by Dº Cão, a cavalleiro (knight) of his household.’
“As the year 6685 of the Eusebian era begins on September 1, 1485, Cão must have departed after that day, and before the close of the year. As he had returned from his first voyage before April, 1484, his departure must have been delayed for reasons not known to us.
“The Voyage of Bartholomeu Dias, 1487-88.
“No sooner had Cão’s vessels returned to the Tagus than King John, whose curiosity had been excited by the reports about the supposed Prester John, brought home by d’Aveiro, determined to fit out another expedition to go in quest of him by doubling Africa, Friar Antonio of Lisbon and Pero of Montaroyo having already been despatched on the same errand by way of Jerusalem and Egypt. The command of this expedition was conferred upon Bartholomeu Dias de Novaes, a cavalier of the king’s household.... It certainly was our Bartholomew who commanded one of the vessels despatched in 1481 with Diogo d’Azambuja to the Gold Coast.
Historical Sketches.
“The appointment seems to have been made in October, 1486, for on the 10th of that month King John, ‘in consideration of services which he hoped to receive,’ conferred upon Bartholomeu Dias, the ‘patron’ of the S. Christovão, a royal vessel, an annuity of 6,000 reis.