Note 93 — GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA; (continued 3)

(pp. 98, 99). Dinis Diaz ... convenient place.—["Dinis Diaz" is called by Barros, and all other historians and geographers following his authority, "Dinis Fernandez."]—S.

On Azurara's statement that "the Infant provided a caravel for Dinis Diaz," Santarem adds: [Barros does not agree with Azurara in this, but says on the contrary, "que elle [Diaz] armara hum navio," etc]. The "other land to which the first (explorers) went" is apparently the Sahara coast, from Cape Bojador to the Senegal, which Azurara here admits to be quite a different country from "Guinea" proper (the land of the Blacks). This last, after the discoveries of 1445, the Portuguese recognised as beginning only with the cultivated or watered land to the south of the Sahara. The name, a very early one, whose subtle changes of meaning are very perplexing, like the "Burgundy" of the Middle Ages, was probably derived originally from the city of Jenné, in the Upper Niger Valley (see Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xlv-xlix). [Here Azurara shows that he is already beginning to recognise the geographical error of those who gave an undue extension to the term "Guinea."]—S.

On the reading at the close of this paragraph "concerning this doubt," Santarem remarks: [So it stands in the MS., as verified; but it seems to us that there must be some omission of the copyist, and we propose to restore the text thus: "Filharom quatro daquelles que tiveram o atrevimento," etc.].