at they have driven from the upland, to the Portuguese at
Arguin, in all nearly a thousand a year, so that the Europeans, who used
to plunder all this coast as far as the Senegal, now find it more
profitable to trade.

The mention of the Senegal brings Cadamosto to the next stage of his
voyage, to the great river, "which divides the Azaneguys, Tawny Moors,
from the First Kingdom of the Negroes."

The Azaneguys, Cadamosto goes on to define more exactly as a people of a
colour something between black and ashen hue, whom the Portuguese once
plundered and enslaved but now trade with peacefully enough. "For the
Prince will not allow any wrong-doing, being only eager that they should
submit themselves to the law of Christ. For at present they are in a
doubt whether they should cleave to our faith or to Mahomet's slavery."
But they are a filthy race, continues the traveller, all of them mean
and very abject, liars and traitorous knaves, squat of figure, noisome
of breath, though of a truth they cover their mouths as of decency,
saying that the mouth is a very cesspool and sewer of impurity. They oil
their hair with a foul-smelling grease, which they think a great virtue
and honour. Much do they make also of their gross fat women, whose
breasts they deform usually, that they may hang out the more, straining
their bodies (when) at seventeen years of age with ropes.

Ignorant and brutal as they are, they know no other Christian people but
the Portuguese, who have enslaved and plundered them now fourteen
years. This much is certain, that when they first saw the ships of Don
Henry sailing past, they thought them to be birds coming from far and
cleaving the air with white wings. When the crews furled sail and drew
in to the shore, the natives changed their minds and thought they were
fishes; some, who first saw the ships sailing by night, believed them to
be phantoms gliding past. When they made out the men on board of them,
it was much debated whether these men could be mortal; all stood on the
shore, stupidly gazing at the new wonder.

The centre of power and of trade in these parts was not on the coast,
but some way inland. Six days' journey up the country is the place
called Tagaza, or the Gold-Market, whence there is a great export of
salt and metals which are brought on the camels of the Arabs and
Azaneguys down to the shore. Another route of merchants is inland to the
Negro Empire of Melli and the city of Timbuctoo, where