me his
kingdom was put an end to, and no one of that race or title has since
reigned. Yet Alonso de Payva actually believed that the emperor of
Ethiopia was Presbyter John, having learnt that he was a Christian king
over a Christian nation, as shall be more particularly declared hereafter.
At their separation they agreed to meet again at Cairo, when each had
executed his part of the royal orders.

Pedro de Covillian sailed from Aden for the Indies, in a ship belonging
to the Moors of Cananor, and went to Calicut and the island of Goa, where
he acquired complete information respecting the spices of India, the
commodities which come from other places, and the towns of the Indies;
the names of all which he inserted, but ill written, in his chart. From
India he went to Sofala, where he procured information respecting the
great island of St Lawrence, called the Island of the Moon by the Moors.
Observing that the natives of Sofala were black, like those of Guinea, he
concluded, that all the coast between was under subjection to the Negroes,
and consequently that navigation was practicable from Guinea to Sofala,
and thence to the Indies. Returning from Sofala, he went to Ormus, and
thence to Cairo, where he learnt that Alonso de Payva was dead, and meant
to have returned to Portugal. He chanced to meet at Cairo two Spanish
jews, Rabbi Abraham, a native of Viseo, and Joseph, born in Lamego; who,
after the departure of Covillian and Payva from Portugal, had told the
king that they had been in Cairo, where they had received much
information concerning Ormus, and of its trade with the Indies. From
these Jews Covillian received letters from the king, directed to him and
Payva, ordering them to return along with the Jews, if they had seen all
that he had given them in charge. If they had not executed all his
original instructions, they were now directed to send by the Jews an
exact account of all the knowledge they had acquired, and to use their
utmost efforts to visit Presbyter John, and to give all the information
in their power respecting Ormus, to Rabbi Abraham, who had sworn by his
law not to return to Portugal without visiting that place.

On receiving these letters, Covillian changed his intention of returning
into Portugal, and dispatched Joseph there with letters to the king,
giving an account of all that he had seen and learnt in India and Sofala,
and transmitted the chart on which he had inserted all the places he had
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