[4] Clarke says in the same year 1418.  But this could not well be, as the
    Discovery of Puerto Santo was made so late as the 1st of November of
    that year.  The truth is, that only very general accounts of these
    early voyages remain in the Portuguese historians.—­E.

[5] Such is the simple and probable account of the discovery of Madeira in
    Purchas.  Clarke has chosen to embellish it with a variety of very
    extraordinary circumstances, which being utterly unworthy of credit,
    we do not think necessary to be inserted in this place.  See Progress
    of Maritime Discovery, I. 157.—­E.

[6] In the Introduction to the World Displayed, Dr Johnson remarks on this
    story, that “green wood is not very apt to burn; and the heavy rains
    which fall in these countries must surely have extinguished the
    conflagration were it ever so violent.”  Yet in 1800 Radnor forest
    presented a conflagration of nearly twenty miles circumference, which
    continued to spread for a considerable time, in spite of every effort
    to arrest its progress.—­E.

[7] De Barros; Lafitan; Vincent, in the Periplus of the Erythrean sea;
    Meikle, in his translation of the Lusiad.  Harris, in his Collection,
    Vol.  I. p. 663, postpones this discovery to the year 1439.—­Clarke.

[8] In Purchas this person is named Antonio Gonsalvo; but the authority of
    Clarke, I. 188, is here preferred.—­E.

[9] Progr. of Nav.  Disc.  I. 184.

[10] This tribe of Assenhaji, or Azanaghi, are the Zenhaga of our maps,
    and the Sanhagae of Edrisi and Abulfeda.  They are at present
    represented as inhabiting at no great distance from the coast of
    Africa, between the rivers Nun and Senegal.—­Cl.

[11] No such name occurs in the best modern charts, neither is there a
    river of any consequence on the coast which answers to the distance. 
    The first large river to the south of the Nuno is the Mitomba, or
    river of Sierra Liona, distant about 130 maritime miles.—­E.

SECTION VI.

Discovery and Settlement of the Acores[1].

These nine islands, called the Acores, Terceras, or Western islands, are situated in the Atlantic, 900 miles west from Portugal, at an almost equal distance from Europe, Africa, and America.  The Flemings pretend that they were discovered by a navigator of their nation, John Vanderberg, who sailed from Lisbon in 1445 or 1449.  Santa Maria, one of these islands, 250 leagues west from Cape St Vincent, was first seen on the 15th August 1432, by Cabral, who sailed under the orders of Don Henry.  San Miguel was taken possession of by the same navigator on the 8th May 1444; and Ponta Delgada its capital, received its charter from Emanuel in 1449.  Tercera was given to Jacome de Brujes in 1450, by Don Henry, in which