Note 212 — GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA; (continued 5)

(p. 268). Well content.—[To our mind this important passage shows that before the discovery of the Rio do Ouro by the Portuguese, Europeans did not trade there. The very declaration of the Arabs seems to us to contradict the opinion held by some that the Catalans knew this river in 1346, and that Jacques Ferrer made his way to this point (see p. 194, note 158, and note 74). In fact, it is clear that the Arabs of that part were well aware that to get caravans to that place meant a journey of many days across the desert, and also that, even were this journey undertaken, they would perhaps find a difficulty in persuading others to change the roads used from remote antiquity, and come and traffic at a point of which they know little, and give it a preference to the recognised entrepôts of ancient caravan commerce.]—S.