with European colonization and
native customs), and coasting the West Sahara (whose tribes, trade and
trade-routes he likewise describes in detail), he arrived at the Senegal,
whose lower course had already, as he tells us, been explored by the
Portuguese 60 m. up. The negro lands and tribes south of the Senegal, and
especially the country and people of Budomel, a friendly chief reigning
about 50 m. beyond the river, are next treated with equal wealth of
interesting detail, and Cadamosto thence proceeded towards the Gambia,
which he ascended some distance (here also examining races, manners and
customs with minute attention), but found the natives extremely hostile,
and so returned direct to Portugal. Cadamosto expressly refers to the chart
he kept of this voyage. At the mouth of the Gambia he records an
observation of the "Southern Chariot" (Southern Cross). Next year (1456) he
went out again under the patronage of Prince Henry. Doubling Cape Blanco he
was driven out to sea by contrary winds, and thus made the first known
discovery of the Cape Verde Islands. Having explored Boavista and Santiago,
and found them uninhabited, he returned to the African mainland, and pushed
on to the Gambia, Rio Grande and Geba. Returning thence to Portugal, he
seems to have remained there till 1463, when he reappeared at Venice. He
died in 1477.

Besides the accounts of his two voyages, Cadamosto left a narrative of
Pedro de Cintra's explorations in 1461 (or 1462) to Sierre Leone and beyond
Cape Mesurado to El Mina and the Gold Coast; all these relations first
appeared in the 1507 Vicenza Collection of Voyages and Travels (the _Paesi
novamente retrovati et novo mondo da Alberico Vesputio Florentino_); they
have frequently since been reprinted and translated (_e.g._ Ital. text in
1508, 1512, 1519, 1521, 1550 (Ramusio), &c.; Lat. version, _Itinerarium
Portugallensium_, &c.,1508, 1532 (Grynaeus), &c.; Fr. _Sensuyt le nouveau
monde_, &c., 1516, 1521; German, _Newe unbekante Landte_, &c., 1508). See
also C. Schefer, _Relation des voyages ... de Ca' da Mosto_ (1895); R.H.
Major, _Henry the Navigator_ (1868), pp. 246-287; C.R. Beazley, _Henry the
Navigator_ (1895), pp. 261-288; Yule Oldham, _Discovery of the Cape Verde
Islands_ (1892), esp. pp. 4-15.

It may be noted that Antonio Uso di Mare (Antoniotto Ususmaris), the
Genoese, wrote his famous letter of the 12th of December 1455 (purporting
to record a meeting with the last surviving descendan