command of two gentlemen of his household, Joham Goncalvez Zarco and
Tristam Vaz, whom he ordered to proceed down the Barbary coast on a
voyage of discovery.

A contemporary chronicler, Azurara, whose work has recently been
discovered and published, 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 that of making discoveries beyond
Cape Nam. The Portuguese mariners had a proverb about this cape--"He who
would pass Cape Not, either will return or not"; intimating that, if he
did not turn before passing the cape, he would never return at all. On
the present occasion it was not destined to be passed; for these
captains, Joham Goncalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz, were driven out of
their course by storms, and accidentally discovered a little island,
where they took refuge, and from that circumstance called the island
Porto Santo. "They found there a race of people living in no settled
polity, but not altogether barbarous or savage, and possessing a kindly
and most fertile soil."

I give this description of the first land discovered by Prince Henry's
captains, thinking it would well apply to many other lands about to be
found out by his captains and by other discoverers. Joham Goncalvez
Zarco and Tristam Vaz returned. 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, together with a third captain,
named Bartholomew Perestrelo, assigning a ship to each captain. His
object was not only to discover more lands, but also to improve those
which had been discovered. He sent, therefore, various seeds and animals
to Porto Santo. This seems to have been a man worthy to direct
discovery. Unfortunately, however, among the animals some rabbits were
introduced into the new island; and they conquered it, not for the
Prince, but for themselves. Hereafter, we shall find that they gave his
people much trouble, and caused no little reproach to him.

We come now to the year 1419. Perestrelo, for some unknown cause,
returned to Portugal at that time. After his departure, Joham Goncalvez
Zarco and Tristam Vaz, seeing from Porto Santo something that seemed
like a cloud, but yet different--the origin of so mu