kernels like chestnuts." And so, we are told, all the captains put
back along the coast, in a mind to enter the aforesaid River of Nile,
but one of the caravels getting separated from the rest and not liking
to enter the Senegal alone, went straight to Lagos, and another put back
to water in the Bay of Arguin and the Rio d'Ouro estuary, where there
came to them at once the Moors on board the caravel, full of confidence
because they had never had any dealings before with the merchants of
Spain, and sold them a negro for five doubloons, and gave them meat and
water from their camels, and came in and out on board the ship, so that
there was great fear of treachery, but at last without any quarrel they
were all put on shore, under promise that next July their friends would
come again and trade with them in slaves and gold to their hearts'
content. And so, taking in a good cargo of seal-skins, they made their
way straight home.

Meantime two of the other caravels and a pinnace, which had been
separated early in the voyage from the main body, under the pilotage of
the veteran Diniz Diaz, had also made their way to C. Verde, had fought
with the natives in some desperate skirmishes--one knight had his
"shield stuck as full with arrows as the porcupine with quills," and had
turned back in the face of the same discouragements as the rest; and so
would have ended the whole of this great enterprise but for the
dauntless energy of one captain and his crew.

Zarco of Madeira had given his caravel to his nephew with a special
charge that, come what might, he was not to think of profit and trading,
but of doing the will of the Prince his lord. He was not to land in the
fatal Bay of Arguin, which had been the end of so many enterprises; he
was to go as Diniz Diaz had first gone, straight to the land of the
Negroes, and pass beyond the farthest of earlier sailors. Now the
caravel, says Azurara proudly, was well equipped and was manned by a
crew that was ready to bear hard ship, and the captain was full of
energy and zeal, and so they went on steadily, sailing through the great
Sea of Ocean till they came to the River of Nile, where they filled two
pipes with water, of which they took back one to the city of Lisbon. And
not even Alexander, though he was one of the monarchs of the world,
ever drank of water that had been brought from so far as this.

"But now, still going on, they passed C. Verde and landed upon the
islands I have spoken