Note 136 — GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA; (continued 3)

(p. 174). River of Nile.—[Compare this passage with our remarks in the notes to chs. liii, xxxii, xv, and xiii, about the true plans of the illustrious Infant, author of these discoveries. These passages reveal to us, in spite of the brevity of the Chronicler, the intention and the system of the Prince in relation to these expeditions. It is clear that he desired not only to discover those countries, but above all to obtain information from the natives themselves of the interior of Africa, in order to compare it with the scientific, historical, and geographical ideas of antiquity and of the Middle Ages, with a view of prosecuting his discoveries till the East was reached. Thus, Garcia de Resende says, with good reason (Chronicle of the King D. John II, ch. cliv), when treating of the discovery of the Congo, made twenty-five years after the death of the Infant:—"In the year 1485, the King desiring the discovery of India and Guinea, which the Infant D. Henry, his uncle, first among all the Princes of Christendom, commenced,..."]—S. What Gomez Pirez says here implicitly contradicts Lançarote's statement, p. 172; see note 135.