Note 306 — APPENDIX K. ACCOUNT OF BÁLI.
Reading edition
Couto, on the 3d chapter of the 3d book of the 4th Decada, gives an account of the discovery of Papua by Don Jorge de Meneges (about the year 1528 or 1533) who, in a calm was hurried by a strong current with extraordinary rapidity to the eastward, until he arrived at a country inhabited by a race as black as negroes, or the natives of the southern coast of Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to Mosambique; they visited the king on shore, who was as black as the others.
The monsoon detained Meneges here some months, during which time he had a friendly intercourse with the natives, who became very familiar, supplying him in barter with what he wanted; but they informed him that in the interior there were men who eat human flesh.
"Here," says he, "our people saw both men and women as white and as fair as Germans, and on asking how those people were called, they answered 'Papuas,' and on account of the little knowledge which we had at that time of the country, we concluded that they were islands. But from what we afterwards understood, this must be the country which Marco Polo, the Venetian, calls Lechac, and which he says is very rich in gold."