Note 49 — GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA; (continued 2)

(p. 31). A fathom deep ... ever be able to return ... (see Introduction to vol. ii, pp. v, viii-x, lxiv, lxx).

Here Santarem has the following notes:—

[α. This passage shows that the Portuguese mariners already, before the expedition of Gil Eannes, knew that beyond Cape Bojador the great desert of the Sahara was to be met with, and that the land was not less sandy than that of "Libya." This last term of Plinian geography, and the circumstances which the author relates in this chapter, show that before these expeditions our seamen had collected all the notices upon that part of the African continent found in the ancient geographers, and in the accounts of the Moors of the caravans which traversed the great desert. This is confirmed by what Azurara says in ch. lxxvii, as we shall see in due course].

[β. The reader will observe from this passage that in spite of the hydrographical knowledge which our mariners had already obtained of those coasts, from their imperfect understanding of what are called the Pelagic currents, those sailors of the fifteenth century still feared the great perils which the passage of that Cape offered to their imagination. Azurara makes clear to us here how powerful, even at this epoch, was the influence of the traditions of the Arabic geographers about the Sea of Darkness, which according to them existed beyond the isles of Kalidad (the Canaries), situated at the extremity of the Mogreb of Africa. See Edrisi, Backoui, and Ibn-al-Wardi. Lastly, on the superstitious and other fears of mediæval navigators, the reader can consult the Itinera Mundi of Abraham Peritsol, translated from Hebrew into Latin by Hyde]. Cf. Introduction to vol. ii, p. x. Cape Bojador, in N. lat. 26° 6' 57", W. long. (Paris) 16° 48' 30", is thus described by the most recent French surveys: "Viewed from the north there is nothing remarkable, but from the west there appears a cliff of about 20 metres in height. A little bay opens on the south of the Cape."