The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell, of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions

Note 268 — Extracts from “The Admirable Adventures and Strange Fortunes of Master Antonie Knivet, which went with Master Thomas Candish in his Second Voyage to the South Sea, 1591,” published in Purchas His Pilgrimes, Part IV, lib. vi, c. 7. London, 1625.

Reading edition

There is no such city in Angola. It seems to me that Knivet found the name in Linschoten, a translation of whose work appeared in 1698. Linschoten says here of the island of Luandu, which lies in front of the Portuguese town of S. Paul de Loanda, that “there were seven or eight villages upon it, at one of which called ‘Holy Ghost’, resides the Governor of Kongo, who takes care of the right of fishing up shells.” This “Governor” was an officer of the King of Kongo. The island, with its valuable cowrie fishery, was ceded to Portugal in 1649.

Return to Extracts from “The Admirable Adventures and Strange Fortunes of Master Antonie Knivet, which went with Master Thomas Candish in his Second Voyage to the South Sea, 1591,” published in Purchas His Pilgrimes, Part IV, lib. vi, c. 7. London, 1625.