In Chapter LXXVIII Azurara adds up the sum of the African voyages, and finds that up to 1446 fifty-one caravels had sailed to those parts, one of which had passed four hundred and fifty leagues beyond Cape Bojador.
Chapters LXXIX to LXXXII are taken up by a description of the Canary Islands, while Chapter LXXXIII deals with the discovery and peopling of the Madeiras and Azores.[[25]]
Chapter LXXXIV tells how D. Henrique obtained from the Regent a charter, similar to the one he had previously secured in the case of Guinea, to the effect (inter alia) that no one was to go to the Canaries, either for war or merchandise, without his leave; and the following chapter (LXXXV) relates a descent on the Island of Palma.
In Chapter LXXXVI Azurara narrates in feeling terms the death of the gallant Nuno Tristam in Guinea-land.
In Chapter LXXXVII we read how Alvaro Fernandez sailed down the African coast past Sierra Leone, and more than one hundred and ten leagues beyond Cape Verde.
Chapter LXXXVIII describes the voyage of another Lagos fleet of nine caravels to the Rio Grande, while the next five chapters (LXXXIX-XCIII) relate that of Gomez Pirez to the Rio d'Ouro in 1446.
Chapters XCIV and XCV are devoted to the trafficking venture of the year 1447, the unhappy fate of the Scandinavian Vallarte, and an expedition to the fisheries off the Angra dos Ruyvos.
In Chapters XCVI and XCVII Azurara winds up his narrative, ending with the year 1448. The captives brought to Portugal down to that date by the various voyagers numbered, according to his estimate, 927, "the greater part of whom were turned into the true path of salvation"; and this he counts as the greatest of the Infant's glories, and the most valuable fruit of his lifelong efforts. He then announces his intention to write a second part of the Chronicle, dealing with the final portion of D. Henrique's work—a purpose which to our manifest loss he never carried out—and concludes by giving thanks to the Blessed Trinity on the completion of his task.
The Chronica de Guiné has many features in common with that of Ceuta, but on the whole it reveals a decided advance in power. The style, though at times rather rhetorical, is generally plain and facile, ever and anon rising to a true eloquence. While the narrative portions are vivid, picturesque, and often majestic in their very simplicity, other chapters bristle with quotations, and show a more extensive range of reading and a knowledge truly encyclopædic. All the philosophy, the geography, the history, and even the astrology of the age is called into requisition to support an argument or illustrate a point.
But to return to our subject—the Life of the Chronicler.