The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume XVI, No. 6 [‎359v] (71/232)

644 THE VOYAGES OF DIOGO CAO AND BARTHOLOMEU DIAS, 1482-88.
The expedition left Lisbon at the end of July or in the beginning
of August, 1487, and sailed direct for the Congo, beyond which the coast
was examined with attention, capes and bays being named either after
saints, on account of striking physical features, or in connection with
some occurrence in the course of the voyage. On reaching the Angra
do Salto, which we conceive to be identical with the Golfo das Aldeas,'
now known as Port Alexander, the two negroes carried off by Cao
were restored to their friends. It is just possible that the store-vessel
was left in this safe and commodious harbour, where fish abounded,
good water was plentiful, and natives with herds of sheep and bullocks
within reach.
Struggling against south-westerly winds and a current setting to
the north, Dias passed the last pillar set up by Cao.f He may have
named the country to the south in honour of S. Barbara, whose day is
December 4, and entered on December 8 the Golfo de S. Maria da
Concei<jao, our modern Walvisch bay. Here he seems to have tarried,
for, taking the saints’ names bestowed along this coast for our guide,
the next locality named by him must have been the Golfo de S. Thome
(December 21), only 145 miles beyond. It cannot have taken a fort
night to make so short a run. It was probably here that the first
negress was landed.
AYe may then suppose Dias to have sailed southward along the
desolate coast of sandhills, where he possibly experienced the hot blasts
of an easterly wind, and hence bestowed upon this forbidding region the
appropriate name of “ Areias gordas,” that is, “ hell.” The gulf of St.
I homas was probably named on December 21, and a few days after
wards Dias arrived at the Cabo da Volta and the Serra parda, where he
erected the padrao dedicated to Santiago, fragments of which have been
recovered, and have already been referred to. He also landed here the
second of his negresses, probably leaving her with natives who had
come down to the shore to fish.+
* Cosa’s Golfo do Saco and the G. do Salto of the Cantino map refer, no doubt to
tw same locality. Cosa places the name near where Port Alexander should be whilst
Cantino locates it on a barren coast between that port and Great Fish bay, not frequented
even by fishermen. ^
be ilfTr have ab "°^ tel y no direct information about Dias’s proceedings from the time
h t f n A n gra d ? Sal ° US arrival at Cabo da Volta ’ whe re he set up his first pillar
' tells 'T ,r ] ant T ti0n ° f tb0 VOyage is very effused. He
tells us pp 18o, 186) that the first padrao, that of Sant lago, was set up on a Serr i
parda, at the Angra dos Hheos, in 24° S., or 120 leagues (400 miles), beyond cSs
h^ve b!en 1 n 22 ° S 6 ^ 1168 !. ^ ^ fUrtheSt ’ wbicb Barr03 <P- 175 > assu ™s to
have been in 22 S, would carry us to 28° 20', or within 50 miles of an Angra das
Volt as, which he places in 29° S.,and which it is thought survives in Cape Volta to the
south of the Orange river, in 28° 42' S. P • > to the
-o thU8 tba ! tbe two localities > whi <* Do Barros separates by an interval of
o , cannot in reality be very distant from each other.