[8] According to de Faria, Rio Grande was discovered by Nunez Tristan in 1447, nine years before it was visited by Cada Mosto.--Astl.
[9] Cada Mosto is exceedingly superficial in his account of the Rio Grande; and it even seems dubious if he ever saw or entered this river, as he appears to have mistaken the navigable channel between the main and the shoals of the Rio Grande for the river itself; which channel extends above 150 English miles, from the island of Bulam in the E.S.E. to the open sea in the W.N.W. This channel agrees with his description, in being twenty miles wide, whereas the real Rio Grande is greatly smaller than the Gambia.--E.
Taking our departure from the mouth of this vast river, on our way back to Portugal, we directed our course to two large islands and some small ones, which lay about thirty miles distance from the continent, which we found quite low, yet full of large and beautiful green trees, and inhabited by Negroes[10]. Encountering here the same difficulty of intercourse, for want of knowing their language, we made no stop, but took our departure for Portugal, where we arrived in safety.
[10] These may be the island of Waring and the Marsh islands, at the north-western entry of the channel of the Rio Grande, forming part of the Bissagos islands.--E.
SECTION XI.
The Voyage of Piedro de Cintra to Sierra Leona, and the Windward coast of Guinea; written by Alvise da Cada Mosto.
The two voyages to the coast of Africa in which Cada Mosto was engaged, and which have, been narrated in the foregoing Sections of this Chapter, were followed by others; and, after the death of Don Henry, two armed caravels were sent out upon discovery by orders from the king of Portugal, under the command of Piedro de Cintra, one of the gentlemen of his household, with injunctions to proceed farther along the coast of the Negroes than had hitherto been effected, and to prosecute new discoveries. In this expedition, Piedro de Cintra was accompanied by a young Portuguese who had formerly been clerk to Cada Mosto in his two voyages; and who, on the return of the expedition to Lagos, came to the house of his former employer, who then continued to reside at Lagos, and gave him an account of the discoveries which had been made in this new voyage, and the names of all the places which had been touched at by Piedro de Cintra, beginning from the Rio Grande, the extreme point of the former voyage[1].
[1] For this exordium or introduction, we are indebted to the editor of Astley's Collection of Voyages and Travels, said to have been a Mr John Green. The infant Don Henry of Portugal died in 1463; so that there must have been an interval of six or seven years between the second voyage of Cada Mosto and this of Piedro de Cintra: Though de Faria seems to put this voyage as having been executed before the death of that excellent prince, yet Cada Mosto, who then actually resided at Lagos, could not be mistaken is this important particular.-- Astl.
De Cintra first went to the two large inhabited islands at the mouth of the Rio Grande which I had discovered in my second voyage, where he landed, and ordered his interpreters to make the usual inquiries at the inhabitants; but they could not make themselves understood, nor could they understand the language of the natives. Going therefore into the interior, they found the habitations of the Negroes to consist of poor thatched cabins, in some of which they found wooden idols, which were worshipped by the Negroes. Being unable to procure any information in this place, Cintra proceeded, in his voyage along the coast, and came to the mouth of a large river between three and four miles wide, which he called Besegue, from a lord of that name who dwelt near its mouth, and which he reckoned to be about forty miles from the mouth of the Rio Grande[2]. Proceeding about 140 miles from the river Besegue, along a very hilly coast; clothed with high trees, and having a very beautiful appearance, they came to a cape to which they gave the name of Verga[3]. Continuing along the coast, they fell in with another cape, which, in the opinion of all the seamen, was the highest they had ever seen, having a sharp conical height in the middle like a diamond, yet entirely covered with beautiful green trees. After the name of the fortress of Sagres, which was built by the deceased Don Henry on Cape St Vincent, the Portuguese named this point Cape Sagres of Guinea. According to the account of the Sailors, the inhabitants of this coast are idolaters, worshipping wooden images in the shape of men, before which they make offerings of victuals as often as they eat or drink. These people are more of a tawny colour than black, having marks on their faces and bodies made with hot irons. They go almost entirely naked, except that they wear pieces of the bark of trees before them. They have no arms, as there is no iron in their country. They live on rice, millet, beans, and kidney beans, larger than ours; and have also beef and goats flesh, but not in any great abundance. Near to Cape Sagres there are several very small uninhabited islands.
[2] In a note to the second voyage of Cada Mosto, it has been already noticed that he seems to have given the name of Rio Grande to the channel between the Bissagos islands, or shoals of the Rio Grande and the Main. This river Besegue, may possibly be the strait or channel which divides the island named particularly Bissagos, or more properly Bissao, from that of Bassis or Bussi. Yet, this river Besegue may even have been that now called Rio Grande, in which, about twenty-four leagues above its mouth, there is an island called Bissaghe.--E.