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This mountain is four leagues from the Nativity, and eighteen leagues from Cabo Santo, or the Holy Cape. That night he anchored six-leagues beyond Monte Christo. Next day he advanced to a small island, near which there were good salt pits, which he examined.
In the hills of Cabo Blanco there are found among the gneiss, angular masses of opaque quartz, slightly translucid on the edges, and varying from grey to deep black. I do not think it constitutes a vein. The waters of the lake* decompose the gneiss by erosion in a very extraordinary manner. It may be drunk without being filtered.
Touching at several places on the coast, he at length reached an until then unknown cape, to which he gave the name of Il Cabo Tormentoso, or the Cape of Storms, on account of the furious gales and heavy seas he there encountered.
This all is a remarkable combination, difficult to be found any where but in the same spot which Columbus visited and described. Further, the coast from the port of San Salvador had run west to Rio de Mares, a distance of seventeen leagues, and from Rio de Mares it had extended N. W. fifteen leagues to Cabo de Palmos; all of which agrees fully with what has been here supposed.
Much had already been done, for in 1471 Fernando Po had reached the mouth of the Niger, and all the coast southward from Morocco was well known and visited annually, for slaves used to cultivate the vast estates in the Alemtejo; but it was not till 1484 that Diogo Cão, sent out by the king, discovered the mouth of the Congo, or till 1486 that Bartholomeu Diaz doubled the Cabo Tormentoso, an ill-omened name which Dom João changed to Good Hope.
I found the latitude of the cape to be 10 degrees 36 minutes 45 seconds; I could only make use of the angles which gave the image of the sun reflected on a plane glass; the horizon of the sea was very misty, and the windings of the coast prevented me from taking the height of the sun on that horizon. The environs of Cabo Blanco are not uninteresting for the study of rocks.
And Tonet, who remembered having seen it before, called it the Cabo de la Mala Dona, the farthest outpost of the coast. Algiers was more to port! The breeze was freshening every moment. The swelling lateen sail, as the boat heeled, described a saucy curve on the tilted mast The prow went merrily up and down, throwing a lively spray from the chop.
Leaving Cabo Laguna, where he remained until the 20th October, Columbus steered to the N.E. towards Cabo del Isleo, but meeting with shoals inside the small island, he did not come to anchor until the day following. Near this extremity of Isabella they found a lake, from which the ships were supplied with water.
Proceeding still farther on, without stopping to satisfy his curiosity in visiting the coast, he at length reached the most westerly promontory of Africa, to which he gave the name of Cabo Verde, or the Green Cape, from the number of palm trees with which it was covered.
From Cabo del Enganno to Cabo de Liampa in China, the distance is 1000 or 1200 leagues. In New Spain there are many trees, flowers, and fruits of various kinds, that are useful to man. The principal tree is named Metl, which does not grow either very tall or very thick.
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