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Covilham, not considering that he had yet done enough for his country, quitted India, and went to the eastern coast of Africa, where he visited Mozambique, Sofala long famous for its gold-mines, of which the reputation, by means of the Arabs, had even reached Europe and Zeila, the Avalites portus of the ancients, and the principal town of the Adel coast, upon the Gulf of Oman, at the entrance of the Arabian Sea.
This part of Africa lies between latitudes 19° and 18° south; and as Gama had the corrected chart of Covilham on board, in which Sofala was marked as the limit of his progress, and Sofala was two degrees to the south of where he then was, he must have known that he had now passed the barrier, and that the discovery was ascertained, his circumnavigation being now connected with the route of Covilham.
One year later, Pedro de Covilham, provided with letters of credit on the house of Medici, started upon a similar mission by land. He crossed the Mediterranean and after leaving Egypt, he travelled southward. These many voyages had convinced the Portuguese geographers and cartographers that while the voyage to the Indies by an eastern sea-route was possible, it was by no means easy.
He entered Abyssinia in 1488, and in 1521, that is, 33 years afterwards, the almoner to the embassy of John de Lima found him. Covilham, notwithstanding he was as much beloved by the inhabitants as by their sovereign, was anxious to return to Portugal, and John de Lima, at his request, solicited the king to grant him permission to that effect, but he did not succeed. "I dwell," observes Dr.
Covilham was furnished with a very curious map for these times, by the Prince Emanuel, afterwards king of Portugal, which had been copied and composed, with great care and secrecy, by the licentiate Calzadilla, afterwards bishop of Viseo, assisted by Doctor Rodrigo, and a Jewish physician named Moses; which map asserted the practicability of passing by sea to India round the southern extremity of Africa, on some obscure information which had been collected by those who constructed it.
Païva doubtless perished in his adventurous enterprise, being never again heard of. As for Covilham, he travelled to Aden, whence he embarked for the Malabar coast.
For a time he was baffled in his attempt to round the Cape by the strong south-easterly winds, which blow there continually during the summer season; but at last he commenced coasting along the eastern shores of Africa, and at every suitable spot he landed some of his sailors to make inquiries about Covilham and the court of Prester John.
To tell lies rather than make them. Covilham, or Covillan, was born in a town of that name in Portugal, and went, when a boy, into Castile, where he entered the service of Don Alphonso, duke of Seville. On a war breaking out between Portugal and Castile, he returned into his native country, where he got into the household of King Alphonso, who made him a man-at-arms.
The travellers here separated; Covilham embarking in one vessel for India, while De Payva took his passage in another vessel bound for Suakem on the Abyssinian coast of the Red Sea, having engaged to rejoin each other at Cairo, after having carried the directions of their sovereign into effect.
By sea the king sent two vessels under the command of Bartholomew Diaz, while by land he despatched, in the following year, two men acquainted with Arabic, Pedro di Covilham and Affonso de Payba. Covilham reached Aden, and there took ship for Calicut, being the first Portuguese to sail the Indian Ocean.
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