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Melli being itself unknown, we can hardly look to discover the situation of Kokhia or Cochia; but it may possibly be Kuku, a town and district to the N.E. of Bornou, which lies in the direction of the text; or it may be Dar Kulla, greatly more to the S.W. but still in the same track. In Grynaeus this place is called Ato.
Even the great desert, which extends 750 miles from north to south, almost to the river Senegal, is thinly interspersed by several wandering tribes of the Azanhaji. Called Tombuto in the original, and Ataubat in Grynaeus. Astl. Hoden stands in an ouasis, or watered island, in the sea of sand, or great desert, about lat. 19°20'N. and W. long. 11°40'. E.
Various early editions of the voyages of this navigator are mentioned in the Bibliotheque Universelle des Voyages , a recent work of much research, published at Paris in 1808. In the titles of these he is named Americo Vespucio, and Alberico Vespucio. In the NOVUS ORBIS of Simon Grynaeus, from which our present article is translated, he is called Americus Vesputius.
This in Ramusio is called Tabacche, and Sambuka in Grynaeus. Astl. Continuation of the Voyage from Senegal, by Cape Verd, the river Barbasini, and to the river Gambia; and, returns to Portugal.
At this place Grynaeus calls him Batrinense; though he had named him rightly Bati-mansa before. Astl. This is now called Cape St Mary. This seems to allude to what is now called Bald Cape, about twenty miles south from Cape St Mary, and stretching somewhat farther west; from which there extends breakers or sunken rocks a considerable distance from the land.
But no one would take up the wager, as they all knew he could perform even better than he mentioned. I was on land in Gomera and Ferro, and touched also at the island of Palma, but did not land there. In Grynaeus, this person is called a patrician or nobleman of Venice, and his surname is omitted. Astley.
The meaning of this expression is obscure. Perhaps it implies that their Mahometan teachers had no mosques, because the Negroes were ignorant of the means and method of construction. The knowledge of God among the northern Negroes was assuredly due exclusively to the Mahometan missionaries. Called Gnumi-Mensa in Grynaeus.
That Oxford was rather "Trojan" than "Greek," that men were more concerned about their dinners and their souls than their prosody and philosophy, in 1531, is proved by the success of Grynaeus. He visited the University and carried off quantities of MSS., chiefly Neoplatonic, on which no man set any value.
In 1531 Simon Grynaeus came from Basle to Oxford and was given precious texts from college libraries to take back with him and have published. Generosity helped to mislead. To keep a manuscript to oneself for personal enjoyment seemed churlish. If it were printed, any one who wished might enjoy it.
In the map of Grynaeus already mentioned, this Terra Psittacorum or Land of Parrots, is placed on the south-west coast of Africa, between the Cape of Good Hope and Congo.
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