ny other ship of that year, and but for
the sickness of the wounded captain they would not have stopped there.
But as it was they came straight back to the Bank of Arguin, "where they
met that chief Ahude Meymam, of whom we have spoken before," in the
story of Joan Fernandez. And though they had no interpreter, by whom
they might do their business, by signs they managed so that they were
able to buy a negress, in exchange for certain cloths that they had with
them. And so they came safe home. There was not much trouble now in
getting volunteers for the work of discovery, and a reward of 200
doubloons--100 from Prince Henry, 100 more from the Regent Don Pedro--to
the last bold explorers who had got fairly round Senegambia, added zest
to enterprise.

In this same year 1446-7, no fewer than nine caravels sailed to Guinea
from Portugal in another armada, on the track of Zarco's successful
crew. At Madeira they were joined by two more, and the whole fleet
sailed through the Canary island group to Cape Verde. Eight of them
passed sixty leagues, 180 miles, beyond, and found a river, the Rio
Grande, "of good size enough," up which they sailed, except one ship,
belonging to a Bishop--the Bishop of Algarve--"for that this happened to
run upon a sand-bank, in such wise, that they were not able to get her
off, though all the people on board were saved with the cargo. And while
some of them were busy in this, others landed and found the country just
deserted by its inhabitants, and going on to find them, they soon
perceived that they had found a track, which they had chanced on near
the place where they landed."

They followed this track recklessly enough, and nearly met the fate of
Nuno Tristam. "For as they went on by that road, they came to a country
with great sown fields, with plantations of cotton trees and rice plots,
in a land full of hills like loaves, after which they came to a great
wood," and as they were going into the wood, the Guineas came out upon
them in great numbers, with bows and assegais and saluted them with a
shower of poisoned arrows. The first five Europeans fell dead at once,
two others were desperately wounded, the rest escaped to the ships, and
the ships went no farther that year.

Still worse was the fate of Vallarte's venture in the early months of
1448. Vallarte was a nobleman of the Court of King Christopher of
Denmark, who had been drawn to the Court of Henry at Sagres by the
growing fame of the P