rst a threatening look
and were now invited to a parley by the Europeans with every sign that
could be thought of.

As the natives would not come any nearer, the caravel returned to the
mouth of the river, and next morning at about nine o'clock the whole
fleet started together upstream to explore "with the hope of finding
some more friendly natives by the kind care of Heaven." Four miles up
the negroes came out upon them again in greater force, "most of them
sooty black in colour, dressed in white cotton, with something like a
German helmet on their heads, with two wings on either side and a
feather in the middle. A Moor stood in the bow of each Almadia, holding
a round leather shield and encouraging his men in their thirteen canoes
to fight and to row up boldly to the caravels. Now their oars were
larger than ours and in number they seemed past counting." After a short
breathing space, while each party glared upon the other, the negroes
shot their arrows and the caravels replied with their engines, which
killed a whole rank of the natives. The savages then crowded round the
little caravel and set upon her; they were at last beaten off with heavy
loss and all fled; the slave interpreters shouting out to them as they
rowed away that they might as well come to terms with men who were only
there for commerce, and had come from the ends of the earth to give the
King of Gambra a present from his brother of Portugal, "and for that we
hoped to be exceeding well loved and cherished by the king of Gambra.
But we wanted to know who and where their king was, and what was the
name of this river. They should come without fear and take of us what
they would, giving us in return of theirs."

The negroes shouted back that they could not be mistaken about the
strangers, they were Christians. What could they have to do with them;
they knew how they had behaved to the King of Senegal. No good men could
stand Christians who ate human flesh. What else did they buy negro
slaves for? Christians were plundering brigands too and had come to rob
them. As for their king, he was three days' journey from the river,
which was called Gambra.

When Cadamosto tried to come to closer quarters, the natives
disappeared, and the crews refused to venture any farther upstream. So
the caravels turned back, sailed down the river, and coasted away west
to Cape Verde, and so home to Portugal. But before the Venetian ends his
journal, he tells us how near Prin