[230] The author says five, but from January 13 to January 27, both included, is fifteen days.
[231] Barros says Tangata. It is Mtangata (see note, p. 33).
[232] Zanzibar is only twenty miles (six leagues) from the mainland.
[233] Twenty-seven days carry us from March 20 to April 16.
[234] The author here evidently refers to tornadoes or violent gusts of wind peculiar to the west coast of Africa, and more frequent at the beginning and termination of the rainy season. They generally blow off shore, their approach being indicated by an arch of clouds, from which lightning and thunder constantly proceed. At Sierra Leone the rainy season begins at the end of April (see Africa Pilot, 1893, Part II, p. 10).
[235] The Rio Grande of the Portuguese is an arm of the sea from five to thirteen miles in breadth, called Orango Channel on the Admiralty Chart. It lies between the mainland and the Bissagos islands.
[236] This church was demolished in 1646; the place of burial can no longer be identified.
[237] See Jose da Silva Mendes Leal (Transactions of Lisbon Academy, 1871), and Texeira de Aragão (Boletim Lisbon Geogr. Soc., VI, 1886, p. 583).
[238] This trustworthy man can have been no other than the “Moor” who was carried off from Anjediva (see Appendix E), and who, having been baptised, became known as Gaspar da Gama.
[239] The frazila of Calecut is equal to 10.4 kilogr.; the fanão is worth 25-5/7 reis of 1555 (about 7.45d.) and the cruzado is worth 9s. 8d. But if 3 cruzados are accepted as the equivalent of 50 fanãos, the value of a fanão would be 6.96d.