y. A contemporary chronicler, Azurara, tells
the story more simply, and merely states that these captains were young
men, who, after the ending of the Ceuta campaign, were as eager for
employment as the prince for discovery; and that they were ordered on a
voyage having for its object the general molestation of the Moors as well
as the prosecution of discoveries beyond Cape Nam.

DISCOVERY OF PORTO SANTO.

The Portuguese mariners had a proverb about the Cape, "He who would pass
Cape Not either will return or not," [Quem passar o Cabo de Nam, ou
tornara ou nam], intimating that if he did not turn before passing the
Cape he would never return at all. On this occasion it was not destined to
be passed, for the two captains were driven out of their course by storms,
and accidentally discovered a little island, where they took refuge, and
which, from that circumstance, they called Porto Santo. On their return
their master was delighted with the news they brought him, more on account
of its promise than its substance. In the same year he sent them out again
with a third captain, Bartholomew Perestrelo, to convey a supply of seeds
and animals for the newly-found island. Unfortunately, however, among the
animals were some rabbits, which multiplied so rapidly that they
overspread the whole island, and, by devouring every plant and blade of
grass which grew there, soon changed a fruitful land into a bare
wilderness.

MADEIRA DISCOVERED.

In the following year, Zarco and Vaz, seeing from Porto Santo something
that seemed like a cloud, but yet different (the origin of so much
discovery, noting the difference in the likeness), built two boats, and,
making for this cloud, soon found themselves alongside a beautiful island
abounding in many things, but most of all in trees, on which account they
gave it the name of Madeira (wood). The two discoverers landed upon the
island in different places. The prince, their master, afterwards rewarded
them with the captaincies of the districts adjacent to those places. To
Perestrelo he gave the island of Porto Santo, to colonize it. Perestrelo,
however, did not make much of his captaincy; and spent his life in
endeavouring to make head against the rabbits, which were as destructive
as a plague of locusts, and which by their fecundity resisted all his
efforts to exterminate them. This captain has a place in history, as being
the father-in-law of Columbus, who, indeed, lived at Porto Sant