I only stayed to enquire from veteran Portuguese what
merchandise was the most highly prized among the AEthiopians and people
of the furthest South, and then went home to find the best light craft
for the ocean coasting that I had in mind." Meantime the Prince ordered
a caravel to be equipped, which he gave to one Vincent, a native of
Lagos, as captain, and caused to be armed to the teeth, as was required,
and on the 21st of March, 1455, Cadamosto sailed for Madeira. On the
25th they were off Porto Santo, and the Venetian stops to give us a
description of the island, which, he says in passing, had been found and
colonised by the Prince's seamen twenty-seven years before. It was worth
the settling. Every kind of grain and fruit was easily raised, and there
was a great trade in dragon's blood, "which is made from the tears of a
tree."
On March 27th, Cadamosto sailed from Porto Santo to Madeira, forty miles
distant, and easily seen from the first island when the weather was
cloudy, and here the narrative stops some time to describe and admire
sufficiently. Madeira had been colonised under the lead and action of
the Prince four and twenty years before, and was now thickly peopled by
the Portuguese settlers.
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