[170] (p. 226). An island.—[It must be the Island of Gorea (Goree), situate in 14° 39' 55" N. lat. On this island see Demanet, Nouvelle histoire de l'Afrique, tom. 1, pp. 87-97, passim. Notices statistiques sur les colonies françaises (troisième partie, pp. 187-189), a work published by the Ministry of Marine in 1839.]—S.
[171] (p. 228). Cape of the Masts.—[This cape appears marked with this name in nearly all the ancient MS. maps of the sixteenth century. It is clear then that the name of this cape was first given to that point by Alvaro Fernandez. Barros (Decade I, liv. 1, fol. 26, ed. 1628) says of this voyage: "He passed to the place they now call the Cabo dos Mastos: a name he then gave it on account of some bare palm trees that at first sight looked like masts set up.">[—S.
[172] (p. 229). A hind.—[This description leaves not the smallest doubt that the animal which our seamen saw there, and of which the author treats, is the antelope, and probably "the other beasts" were herds of the same kind. On the history of the antelopes the reader should consult Buffon and Cuvier.]—S.
[173] (p. 230). Dwellings (Essacanas).—[This word is not to be found either in the Elucidario or in Portuguese dictionaries; it is met with, however, in the heptaglot of Castell, and in Golius, but there the meaning of this Arabic word is given as being "a place where a person dwells." Even if this be admitted for the explanation of the text, the latter still remains obscure; however, it seems to us that the author meant to say, that all those observations were made in the "(Essacanas) dwellings ... that exist on certain sandbanks, according," etc. The mariners drew their charts, and marked the coasts, banks, etc., on the very spots themselves.]—S.
[174] (p. 230). Charts.—[This passage shows in the clearest manner that the first hydrographical maps of the west coast of Africa, beyond Bojador, were made by the Portuguese under the orders of the Infant D. Henrique, and that these maps were adopted and copied by the cosmographers of the whole of Europe (see Memoria sobre a prioridade dos descobrimentos dos Portuguezes, etc., §§ ix, x, and xi).]—S.
[175] (p. 230). Oadem.—[We judge this to be the place called by Cadamosto Hoden (Guaden), and of which he says: "On the right of Cape Branco inland there is an inhabited place named Hoden, which is distant from the coast a matter of six days' journey by camel;" but he says the contrary of what we read in the text, for he adds: "The which is not a place of dwelling, but the Arabs foregather there, and it serves as a calling-place for the caravans that come from Timbuctoo and other Negro parts to this our Barbary from here." This spot, with the very name given by Cadamosto, is marked agreeably to this account on the chart of the Itineraries of the caravans which M. Walckenaer added to his work, Recherches géographiques sur l'intérieur de l'Afrique.]—S.
[176] (p. 231). Carts.—[Alquitões, an Arabic term not met with either in our dictionaries or in the Elucidario, but found in the heptaglot dictionary of Castell, in the word "Alquidene," "waggons for the transport of women and men," and in Golius. We do not find this word in the war regulations of the Kings D. John I and D. Affonso V (Souza, Prov. da hist. gen., iii). Azurara thus employed in this place an Arabic term which had fallen out of use in Portuguese in the fifteenth century.]—S.
[177] (p. 231). Few.—[See the description in the travels of Clapperton.]—S.
[178] (p. 231). Confetti.—[See the Itinèraire de Tripoli de Barbarie à la ville de Tomboctu, by the Cheyk Hagg-Kassem, published by M. Walckenaer in his Recherches sur l'intérieur de l'Afrique, p. 425; the account agrees with that in the text.]—S.
[179] (p. 231). Bestiality.—[This same description and expression is to be found in Leo Africanus.]—S. The last may be read in the Hakluyt Soc. ed., vol. i, pp. 130-3, 153-4, 158-161, 218.