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Porto Santo is a small island, not far from Madeira, on which a Portuguese navigator, named Zarco, let loose, somewhere about the year 1420, a doe and a recently born litter of rabbits, which we may feel quite sure belonged to one of those domestic breeds which have all been derived from the wild rabbit of Europe known to zoologists as Lepus Cuniculus.
Zarco was appointed governor of the southern and western portion of the island, and Captain Vaz of the northern and eastern.
In one corner of my vineyard stood a solitary palm, which tradition asserted was planted when Zarco discovered the island; and the groves of orange, citron, and pomegranate trees were always peopled with humming-birds, and flocks of green canaries.
After having landed the different animals and seeds which had been sent out by Don Henry, and seeing them properly distributed, Perestrello returned into Portugal to make a report to the prince, and Zarco and Vaz remained to superintend the infant colony.
Yet, and howsoever the others perished, in the mouth of this one man the story lived and came after many days to ears that understood it. "For Prince Henry, hearing the pilot's tale, believed verily that this must be the island for which his sea-captains had been searching, and in 1420 sent Zarco forth again to seek it, with the old man on board.
On the present occasion it was not destined to be passed; for these captains, Joham Gonçalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz, were driven out of their course by storms, and accidentally discovered a little island, where they took refuge, and from that circumstance called the island Porto Santo.
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