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The Black-Sea, or Euxine, is here called the Great Sea. Soldadia, Soldaia, or Sudak, was a city in the Crimea, a little to the west of Caffa. Forst. Barha or Barcha, more properly Bereke-khan, who reigned from 1256 to 1266. Bolgara is the town of Bolgari, the capital of Bulgaria, which subsisted from 1161 to 1578.
It must be admitted however, that on the original chart the nautical phrase "Anda ne barcha," may refer to the difficulty of navigating the strait between Java and Bali, or the one between Bali and Lomboc.
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.
The phrase I had discovered, "Anda ne barcha," or "No boats go here," situated as it is in the Gulf of Carpentaria, had, in my mind, a very great significance, since it not only proves the Portuguese origin of the chart, but also the genuineness of the discovery made in that as it showed that the discoverers were fully aware of the shallowness of the water off this part of the coast of Australia.
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.
The barcha longa is a kind of small galley, with one mast and oars. Clarke, I. p. 153. Clarke says in the same year 1418. But this could not well be, as the Discovery of Puerto Santo was made so late as the 1st of November of that year. The truth is, that only very general accounts of these early voyages remain in the Portuguese historians.
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