ee islands, are pretended to have been discovered by a
Portuguese ship driven, thither by a storm. But the fact rests only on
the authority, of Galvano, a Portuguese historian, and is not at all
credible. Indeed the story is an absolute fable; as the inhabitants are
said to have spoken the Portuguese language, and to have had _seven
cities_ in their island. In the same year, Gomez Perez went with two
caravels to Rio del Ouro, whence he carried eighty Moors to Lagos as
prisoners.

About this period the progress of discovery was arrested by political
disputes in Portugal, which ended in a civil war between Don Pedro, Duke
of Coimbra, and King Alphonso V. his nephew and son-in-law, in the course
of which Don Pedro was slain. Don Henry appears to have taken no share in
these disputes, except by endeavouring to mediate between his nephew and
brother; and, after the unhappy catastrophe of Don Pedro, Don Henry
returned to Sagres, where he resumed the superintendence of his maritime
discoveries.

[1] Explained by the celebrated Dr Johnson, as "so named from its
progression into the ocean, and the circuit by which it must be
doubled." Introduct. to the World Displayed.--Clarke.

[2] Cape Bojador is imagined to have been the _Canarea_ of Ptolemy.--
Clarke I. 15

[3] The _barcha_ is a sort of brig with topsails, having all its yards on
one long pole without sliding masts, as still used by tartans and
settees. The _barcha longa_ is a kind of small galley, with one mast
and oars.--Clarke, I. p. 153.

[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 conf