ON THE POSITION OF THE MERIDIONAL LINE, &c

of inquiry. The mathematiciaris of John II., two physicians of Jewish names, and a German cosmographer, the famous Martin Behaim of Nuremberg, invented the astrolabe and calculated tables of declina- . tion *: the art of navigation was improved, and instead of creeping along the shore, the mariners of Europe gave themselves to the deep. The eastern direction of the coast of Guinea seemed to open a speedy prospect of India: but when the African continent agam pointed to the south, the hopes of the Portuguese were blasted; they viewed with astonishment the stars of a new hemisphere, and long hesitated. on the verge of the equator. The thirty-five degrees of southern latitude from the line to the southern promontory were discovered in two successive: voyages by the captains of John Il.: the promontory was . turned ; and a just confidence in the powers of man imposed on the Cape of Tempests the more auspicious name of Care or Goop Hope.

. Lam told, but I do not believe, that the King of Portugal received from Congo the first intelligence of the Christian Empire of Abyssinia: the unknown space between the Nile and the Zayre is occupied by deserts and savages; and a more easy mode of intércourse may be found in the common pilgrimage of Jerusalem. The curiosity of John II. was imperfectly.gratified : his first messengers returned after a feeble and fruitless effort: his second ambassadors were more worthy of their trust, but Payva died: in Abyssinia, and his associate Covigliam was detained a perpetual exile in that solitary land. Yet, before his captivity, the intrepid Covigliam had transmitted home an account of his first labours. From the Red Sea, he had visited the coasts of the ocean as far as Calicut on the Indian and Sofala on the African side. At Calicut he had seen the great market. of oriental spices; at Sofala he had learned from the Arabian mariners, that the southern ocean is boundless and navigable; and he justly concluded that the Caravels which traded to Guinea might explore their way to the isle of Madagascar. and the shores of Malabart. Columbus plunged into the sea of

# Geddes’s.Charch History of Æthiopia, p. 89.

+ Covigliam himself related his adventures to Francesco Alvares, who was found im Abyssinia (1520), ufter an exile of thirty years, Viaggio della Ethiopia, c. 103: in Ramusio, tom. i, fol. 254.

darkness ;

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