Note 90 — A JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF VASCO DA GAMA IN 1497-99.
Ernest Georg Ravenstein translation
On Prester John, see Zarncke (Abhd. K. Sächs. G. der Wiss., 1876 and 1879), and G. Uzielli (Boll. della Soc. Africana d’Italia, 1892, viii). Vasco da Gama had no doubt received special instructions to inquire for that Christian potentate. At one time he was looked for inland from Benin, but the information received from Pero de Covilhão, whom King John had despatched overland to India, in 1487, no less than that furnished by Lucas Marcos, an Abyssinian priest, who came to Lisbon soon after Covilhão’s departure, confirmed the Portuguese in the belief that the “Prester John” they were in quest of was the Emperor of Ethiopia, whose capital at that time was in Shoa. (See Covilhão’s narrative, as given by Alvarez, Hakluyt Soc., 1881.)