No doubt the prince's good intentions were greatly furthered by the
convenience of this mode of trading. In short, gain made for itself its
usual convenient channels to work in, and saved itself as much as it could
the trouble of discovery, or of marauding. Ca da Mosto being, as was said
before, the first modern European visiting Africa who himself gives an
account of it, and being, moreover, an honest and intelligent man,
possessing the rare combination of keen observation and clear narrative
power, all that he writes is most valuable. He notices the differences,
both as regards the people and the country, to be found on the opposite
sides of the Senegal River. On the northern side he finds the men small,
spare and tawny, the country arid and barren; on the southern side, the
men "exceeding black, tail, corpulent and well made; the country green,
and full of green trees." This latter is the country of Jalof, the same
that Prince Henry first heard of in his intercourse with the Moors. Both
men and women, Ca da Mosto says, wash themselves four or five times a day,
being very cleanly as to their persons, but not so in eating, in which
they observe no rule. They are full of words, and never have done talking;
and are, for the most part, liars and cheats. Yet, on the other hand, they
are very charitable; for they give a dinner or a night's lodging and a
supper, to all strangers who come to their houses, without expecting any
return.

KING BUDOMEL.

Leaving the country of the Jalofs, Ca da Mosto proceeded eight hundred
miles further, as he says, (but he must, I think, have over-estimated his
reckoning,) to the country of a negro potentate, called King Budomel. Here
it appears that the religion, of the court at least, was Mohammedan, and
Ca da Mosto records a conversation which he had with Budomel upon the
subject. "The king asked him to give his opinion of their manner of
worship, and also some account of his own religion. Hereupon Ca da Mosto
told him, in presence of his doctors, that the religion of Mohammed was
false, and the Romish the true one. This made the Arabs mad, and Budomel
laugh; who, on this occasion, said that he looked upon the religion of the
Europeans to be good, for that none but God could have given them so much
riches and understanding. He added, however, that the Mohammedan law must
be also good; and that he believed the negroes were more sure of salvation
than the Christians; because God was a just