says De Barros, the name of
Cape of Storms (_Cabo Tormentoso_) in memory of the storms he had
experienced in these far southern waters; this name (in the ordinary
tradition) was changed by King John to that of Good Hope (_Cabo da Boa
Esperanca_). Some excellent authorities, however, make Diaz himself give
the Cape its present name. Hard by this "so many ages unknown
promontory" the explorer probably erected his last pillar. After
touching at the Ilha do Principe (Prince's Island, south-west of the
Cameroons) as well as at the Gold Coast, he appeared at Lisbon in
December 1488. He had discovered 1260 m. of hitherto unknown coast; and
his voyage, taken with the letters soon afterwards received from Pero de
Covilhao (who by way of Cairo and Aden had reached Malabar on one side
and the "Zanzibar coast" on the other as far south as Sofala, in
1487-1488) was rightly considered to have solved the question of an
ocean route round Afr ica to the Indies and other lands of South and
East Asia.

No record has yet been found of any adequate reward for Diaz: on the
contrary, when the great Indian expedition was being prepared (for Vasco
da Gama's future leadership) Bartolomeu only superintended the building
and outfit of the ships; when the fleet sailed in 1497, he only
accompanied da Gama to the Cape Verde Islands, and after this was
ordered to El Mina on the Gold Coast. On Cabral's voyage of 1500 he was
indeed permitted to take part in the discovery of Brazil (April 22), and
thence should have helped to guide the fleet to India; but he perished
in a great storm off his own Cabo Tormentoso. Like Moses, as Galvano
says, he was allowed to see the Promised Land, but not to enter in.

See Joao de Barros, _Asia_, Dec. I. bk. iii. ch. 4; Duarte Pacheco
Pereira, _Esmeraldo de situ orbis_, esp. pp. 15, 90, 92, 94 and
Raphael Bastos's introduction to the edition of 1892 (Pacheco met
Diaz, returning from his great voyage, at the Ilha do Principe); a
marginal note, probably by Christopher Columbus himself, on fol. 13 of
a copy of Pierre d'Ailly's _Imago mundi_, now in the Colombina at
Seville (the writer of this note fixes Diaz's return to Lisbon,
December 1488, and says he was present at Diaz's interview with the
king of Portugal, when the explorer described his voyage and showed
his route upon the chart he had kept); a similar but briefer note in a
copy of Pope Pius II.'s _Historia rerum ubique gestarum_, from the
s