, and going
in quest of them, came up with them near Cape St Vincent on the coast of
Portugal. A furious contest took place, in which the hostile vessels
grappled with each other, and the crews fought with the utmost rage, not
only using their hand weapons but artificial fire-works. The fight
continued with great fury from morning till night; when the vessel in
which my father was took fire, as did likewise a great Venetian galley to
which she was fast grappled by strong iron hooks and chains. In this
dreadful situation neither of them could be relieved, on account of the
confusion and terror of fire, which increased so rapidly that all who were
able of both crews leapt into the water, preferring that death to the
torture of fire. In this emergency, my father being an excellent swimmer,
and having the good fortune to lay hold of an oar, made for the land,
which was little more than two leagues distant. Sometimes swimming, and at
other times resting on the oar, it pleased God, who preserved him for the
accomplishment of greater designs, that he had sufficient strength to
attain the shore, but so exhausted by his exertions and by long
continuance in the water that he had much ado to recover. Being not far
from Lisbon, where he knew that many Genoese his countrymen then dwelt, he
made all haste to that city; where making himself known, he was
courteously received and entertained by the Genoese.

After remaining some time at Lisbon, where he behaved himself honourably,
being a man of comely appearance, it happened that Donna Felipa Moniz, a
lady of good family, then a boarder in the nunnery of All-Saints whether
my father used to go to mass, fell in love with him and married him. The
father of his lady, Peter Moniz Perestrello, being dead, the newly married
pair went to live with the widow; who seeing her son-in-law much addicted
to cosmography, informed him that her husband, Perestrello, had been a
great sea-faring man, and had gone with two other captains to make
discoveries with the license of the king of Portugal, and under an
agreement that they were to divide their discoveries into three portions,
and each to have a share by lot. That accordingly they had sailed from
Lisbon towards the south-west, where they discovered the islands of
Madeira and Porto Sancto, places which had never been seen before. And as
Madeira was the largest, they divided it into two portions, making Porto
Sancto the third, which had fallen to the