the rivers Euphrates and
Tigris, and were unladen at the city of Basora; from whence they were
carried overland to Aleppo, Damascus, and Barutti; and there the Venetian
galliasses, which transported pilgrims to the Holy Land, came and
received the goods.

In the year 1153, in the time of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, it is
said there came to the city of Lubeck, in Germany, a canoe like a long
barge, with certain Indians, who were supposed to have come from the
coast of Baccalaos[44], which is in the same latitude with Lubeck. The
Germans greatly wondered to see such a boat and strange people, not
knowing whence they came, nor being able to understand their language,
especially as there was then no knowledge of their country. Although the
boat was small in comparison with the seas it had to cross, it is yet
possible that it might have been conveyed by the winds and waves; for in
our days the _almadias_ of the negroes, which are very small boats,
venture to navigate from Quiloa, Mosambique, and Sofala, around the
Cape of Good Hope, even to the island of St Helena, a very small spot in
the ocean, at a great distance from land.

In the year 1300 after Christ, the great soldan of Cairo restored the
trade of spiceries, drugs, and merchandize from India, by the Red Sea; at
which time they unloaded the goods at the port of Judea[45], and carried
them to Mecca; whence they were distributed by the Mahometan pilgrims[46],
so that each prince endeavoured to increase the honour and profit of
his own country. The soldans translated this trade to their own city of
Cairo; whence the goods were carried to the countries of Egypt, Lybia,
Africa, Tunis, Tremessen, Fez, Morocco, and Suz; and some of them were
carried beyond the mountains of Atlas, to the city of Tombuto, and the
kingdom of the Jalophos; till afterwards the Portuguese brought the
Indian trade round the Cape of Good Hope to Lisbon, as we propose to shew
more at large in a convenient place.

A.D. 1344, Peter IV. reigned in Arragon, and the chronicles of his reign
report that Don Lewis de Cerda, grandson of Don John de Corda, requested
his aid to go and conquer the Canary Islands, which had been gifted to
him by Pope Clement VI. a Frenchman. About this time, too, the island of
Madeira is said to have been discovered by an Englishman named Macham;
who, sailing from England into Spain with a lady whom he loved, was
driven out of his course by a tempest, and arrived in a har