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They were the respective representatives of Jack, Paddy, and Sandy, or, to speak more poetically of the Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle, and had the three kingdoms from which they came had been searched throughout their whole extent, there could scarcely have been discovered purer representative types of each, than the three reefers on that spar drifting towards the sandspit between Bojador and Blanco.
Explained by the celebrated Dr Johnson, as "so named from its progression into the ocean, and the circuit by which it must be doubled." Introduct. to the World Displayed. Clarke. Cape Bojador is imagined to have been the Canarea of Ptolemy. Clarke I. 15 The barcha is a sort of brig with topsails, having all its yards on one long pole without sliding masts, as still used by tartans and settees.
About the year 1433, one Gilianez, a native of Lagos, whom the prince had entrusted with the command of a vessel, returned from an unsuccessful attempt to conquer the invincible obstacles which obstructed the passage round Cape Bojador.
"Pope Martin V.," he reminded his visitor, "conceded to the Crown of Portugal all lands that might be discovered between Cape Bojador and the Indies, and your new discovery therefore belongs to me rather than to Spain." "Quite right," murmured his courtiers.
Accordingly, about the year 1418, a new expedition of discovery was fitted out for the express purpose of attempting to surmount the perils of Cape Bojador. In this expedition Juan Gonzales Zarco and Tristan Vaz Texeira, two naval officers of the household of Don Henry, volunteered their services; and, embarking in a vessel called a barcha , steered for the tremendous cape.
Sometime afterwards, as they were sailing towards a black point that remained on the horizon, they came to a large island covered with splendid forests; this was Madeira. In 1433, Cape Bojador, which had for long been such a difficulty to navigators, was first doubled by the two Portuguese sailors, Gillianès and Gonzalès Baldaya, who passed more than forty leagues beyond it.
Not daring to trust themselves beyond sight of land, the mariners crept timorously along the coast, and at length reached Cape Bojador, only sixty leagues, or 180 miles beyond Cape Non.
The journals of the 29th and 30th afford nothing very remarkable. The hot winds from the desert of Sahara began to be felt, which told us we approached the tropic; indeed, the sun at noon seemed suspended perpendicularly above our heads, a phenomenon which few among us had ever seen. On the 1st of July, we recognised Cape Bojador, and then saw the shores of Sahara.
For a long time Cape Bojador, which is situate seventy leagues to the south of Cape Nam, was the extreme limit of discovery. This cape was formidable in itself, being terminated by a ridge of rocks, with fierce currents running round them; but was much more formidable from the fancies which the mariners had formed of the sea and land beyond it.
Between 1435 and 1460, famous captains in his service Gil Eannes, Denis Diaz, the Venetian Cadamosto made those crucial voyages round the Point of Bojador, past the desert to Cape Verde, and beyond as far as Sierra Leone.
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