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Fourthly, in the Madeira group, colonisation made progress during the Infant's lifetime. After the discoveries of 1418-20,[[201]] Madeira itself was divided up under the feudal lordship of John Gonçalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz Teixeira; the former receiving the captaincy of the northern half with Machico for his chief settlement; the latter obtaining the southern portion, with Funchal as capital, and the Desertas as an annexe. From the language of the Infant's Charter[[202]] of September 18th, 1460, this settlement appears to have taken place in 1425, when the Prince was 35 years old.
According to Gaspar Fructuoso, Zarco, in clearing a path through the forests of Madeira, set the woodland on fire, and seven years elapsed before the last traces of the conflagration were extinguished. The seven years is, no doubt, an extra touch; but a fire of tremendous severity must have taken place, from Cadamosto's account.[[203]] The whole island, he declares, had once been in flames; the colonists only saved their lives by plunging into the torrents; and Zarco himself had to stand in a river-bed for two whole days and nights, with all his family. Yet, according to Azurara, so much wood was soon exported from the island to Portugal, that a change was produced in the housebuilding of Spain: loftier dwellings were built; and the Roman or Arab style was superseded by one originating in the new discoveries among the Atlantic Islands. Almost all Portugal, Cadamosto tells us in 1455, was now adorned with tables[[204]] and other furniture made from the wood of Madeira.
In the settlement of Porto Santo, Bartholemew Perestrello, a gentleman of the household of Prince Henry's brother, the Infant John, took part[[205]] with Zarco and Vaz. Perestrello imported rabbits, which destroyed all the colonists' experiments in crops and vegetable planting; but receiving the captaincy of the island, he made some profit from breeding goats and exporting dragon's blood. His grant of Porto Santo, originally for his lifetime only, was extended by decree of November 1st, 1446, to a donation in perpetuity for himself and his descendants. On the death of Bartholemew, Prince Henry bestowed the captaincy on his son-in-law, Pedro Correa da Cunha, in trust for the first Governor's son Bartholemew, who was still a minor. Da Cunha later contracted with young Bartholemew's mother and uncle—the widow and brother of the first grantee—for a sum of money in return for a cession of his interim rights; and Prince Henry authorised this contract by a decree from Lagos (May 17th, 1458), confirmed by King Affonso V at Cintra (August 17th, 1459).
Young Bartholemew entered into his governorship in 1473, and it was formally confirmed to him (15th March, 1473) by Affonso V. It was his sister, a daughter of the elder Bartholemew, named Felipa Moñiz de Perestrello, whom Christopher Columbus married in Lisbon; after which he lived for some time in Porto Santo, enjoying the use of Perestrello's papers, maps, and instruments.
Before many years had passed, Madeira became famous for its corn and honey, its sugar cane,[[206]] and, above all, its wine. The Malvoisie[[207]] grape, introduced from Crete, throve excellently, and at last produced the Madeira of commerce. When Cadamosto visited the island, in 1455, he found vine culture already advanced, and become the staple industry of the colonists, who exported red and white wine annually to Europe, and found a market for the vine staves as bows.
As early as 1430[[208]] the Infant issued a charter, regulating the settlement of Madeira; herein Ayres Ferreira (whose children, "Adam and Eve," were the first Europeans born in the island) is mentioned as a companion of Zarco. An early tradition, which has not yet been substantiated, also maintained that Prince Henry instituted family registers for his colonists in this group.[[209]] In 1433 (September 26th), King Duarte, in a charter from Cintra, granted the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, and the Desertas to the Infant Henry; and in 1434 (October 26th), the spiritualities of the same were bestowed on the Order of Christ.[[210]] In December, 1452, a contract was made at Albufeira between the Infant D. Henry and Diego de Teive, one of his "esquires," for the construction of a water-mill to aid in the manufacture of cane-sugar,[[211]] the third part of the produce to go to the Prince. Finally, in 1455, on Cadamosto's visit, the island possessed four settlements and 800 inhabitants, and this prosperity seems to have steadily continued. The charter of 1460[[212]] has been already noticed.
From the work of the Portuguese among the Atlantic Islands arises one question of special interest. Did this westward enterprise of Prince Henry's seamen, which undoubtedly carried them in the Azores and Cape Verdes a great distance (from 20 to 22 degrees) westward of Portugal, lead them on further to a discovery of any part of the American mainland?
On the strength of an enigmatical inscription in the 1448 Map of Andrea Bianco, such a discovery of the north-east corner of Brazil in or before this year has been suggested;[[213]] but this, it must be admitted, is quite lacking in demonstrative evidence, however possible in itself. Yet once more, the "accidental" discovery of this same Land of the Holy Cross by Cabral in 1500 has been urged to much the same effect. For, if really accidental, a similar event might well have happened in earlier years—especially from the time of the Azores settlement of 1432, etc.; or if not accidental, it was based on information obtained from older navigators, who reached the same country.[[214]] Such older navigators towards the west were said to have been Diego de Teive and Pedro Velasco, who in 1452 claimed to have sailed more than 150 leagues west of Fayal; Gonçalo Fernandez de Tavira, who in 1462 sailed (in one tradition) W.N.W. of Madeira and the Canaries; Ruy Gonçalvez de Camara, who in 1473 tried to discover land west of the Cape Verdes; with a certain number of later instances. Some weight has also been attached to a statement of Las Casas, that on his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus planned a southern journey from the Cape Verde Islands in search of lands—especially because, proceeds Las Casas, "he wished to see what was the meaning of King John of Portugal, when he said there was terra firma to the South. Some of the ... inhabitants of ... Santiago came to ... him,[[215]] and said that to the South-West of the Isle of Fogo[[216]] an island was seen, and that King John wished to make discoveries towards the South-West, and that canoes had been known to go from the Guinea coast to the West with merchandise."
Further, Antonio Galvano, after speaking of a voyage which took place in 1447, goes on to mention another (undated, but probably conceived by the author as falling within a year or two of the last) in these terms. "It is moreover told that in the meantime a Portuguese ship, coming out of the Straits of Gibraltar, was carried westwards by a storm much further than was intended, and arrived at an island where there were seven cities, and people who spoke our language." This, however, is too much like an echo of the old Spanish tale of the Seven Bishops and their cities in the Island of "Antillia."