Soon after the discovery of the Cape, by which shorter name it is now generally preeminently distinguished, Diaz fell in with the victualler, from which he had separated nine months before. Of nine persons who had composed the crew of that vessel, six had been murdered by the natives of the west coast of Africa, and Fernand Colazzo, one of the three survivors, died of joy on again beholding his countrymen. Of the circumstances of the voyage home we have no account; but it is not to be doubted that Diaz and his companions would be honourably received by their sovereign, after a voyage of such unprecedented length and unusual success.
Soon after the departure of Diaz, King John dispatched Pedro de Covilham and Alphonso de Payva, both well versed in the Arabic language, with orders to travel by land into the east, for the discovery of the country of Presbyter, or Prester John, and to trace the steps of the lucrative commerce then carried on with India by the Venetians for spices and drugs; part of their instructions being to endeavour to ascertain the practicability of navigating round the south extremity of Africa to the famed marts of Indian commerce, and to make every possible inquiry into the circumstances of that important navigation. Some writers have placed this journey as prior in point of time to the voyage of Diaz, and have even imagined that the navigator was directed or instructed by the report which Covilham transmitted respecting India. Of the relation of this voyage by Alvarez, which Purchas published in an abbreviated form, from a translation out of the Italian in the collection of Ramusio, found among the papers of Hakluyt, Purchas gives the following character: "I esteem it true in those things which he saith he saw: In some others which he had by relation of enlarging travellers, or boasting Abassines, he may perhaps sometimes rather mendacia dicere, than mentiri." To tell lies rather than make them.
Covilham, or Covillan, was born in a town of that name in Portugal, and went, when a boy, into Castile, where he entered the service of Don Alphonso, duke of Seville. On a war breaking out between Portugal and Castile, he returned into his native country, where he got into the household of King Alphonso, who made him a man-at-arms. After the death of that king, he was one of the guard of King John, who employed him on a mission into Spain, on account of his knowledge in the language. He was afterwards employed in Barbary, where he remained some time, and acquired the Arabic language, and was employed to negotiate a peace with the king of Tremesen. He was a second time sent into Barbary on a mission to King Amoli-bela-gegi, to procure restitution of the bones of the infant Don Fernando, in which he was successful.
After his return, he was joined in commission, as before-mentioned, with Alphonso de Payva, and these adventurous travellers left Lisbon in May 1487. Covilham was furnished with a very curious map for these times, by the Prince Emanuel, afterwards king of Portugal, which had been copied and composed, with great care and secrecy, by the licentiate Calzadilla, afterwards bishop of Viseo, assisted by Doctor Rodrigo, and a Jewish physician named Moses; which map asserted the practicability of passing by sea to India round the southern extremity of Africa, on some obscure information which had been collected by those who constructed it.
With a supply of 500 crowns in money, and a letter of credit, or bills of exchange, Covilham and De Payva went first to Naples, where their bills of exchange were paid by the son of Cosmo de Medici. From Naples they went by sea to the island of Rhodes, and thence to Alexandria in Egypt, whence they travelled as merchants to Grande Cairo, and proceeded with the caravan to Tor372 on the Red Sea, near the foot of Mount Sinai. They here received some information respecting the trade which then subsisted between Egypt and Calicut, and sailed from that place to Aden, a trading city of Yemen, on the outside of the Straits of Babelmandeb. The travellers here separated; Covilham embarking in one vessel for India, while De Payva took his passage in another vessel bound for Suakem on the Abyssinian coast of the Red Sea, having engaged to rejoin each other at Cairo, after having carried the directions of their sovereign into effect.
The Moorish ship from Aden in which Covilham had embarked, landed him at Cananor on the coast of Malabar, whence, after some stay, he went to Calicut and Goa, being the first of the Portuguese nation who had navigated the Indian ocean; having seen pepper and ginger, and heard of cloves and cinnamon. From India he went by sea to Sofala on the eastern coast of Africa, where he is said to have examined the gold mines, and where he procured some information respecting the great island of Madagascar, called by the Moors the Island of the Moon. With the various and valuable information he had now acquired, relative to the productions of India and their marts, and of the eastern coast of Africa, he now determined to return to Egypt, that he might be able to communicate his intelligence to Portugal. At Cairo he was met by messengers from King John, informing him that Payva had been murdered, and directing him to go to Ormuz and the coast of Persia, in order to increase his stock of commercial knowledge. The two messengers from the king of Portugal whom Covilham met with at Cairo, were both Jewish rabbis, named Abraham of Beja and Joseph of Lamego. The latter returned into Portugal with letters from Covilham, giving an account of his observations, and assuring his master that the ships which sailed to the coast of Guinea, might be certain of finding a termination of the African Continent, by persisting in a southerly course; and advising, when they should arrive in the eastern ocean, to inquire for Sofala and the Island of the Moon.
Covilham and Rabbi Abraham went from Cairo, probably by sea, to Ormuz and the coast of Persia, whence they returned in company to Aden. From that place, Abraham returned by the way of Cairo to Portugal with the additional information which had been collected in their voyage to the Gulf of Persia; though some authors allege that Joseph was the companion of this voyage, and that he returned from Bassora by way of the desert to Aleppo, and thence to Portugal.
From Aden, Covilham crossed the straits of Babelmandeb to the south– eastern coast of Abyssinia, where he found Alexander the king, or negus, at the head of an army, levying tribute or contributions from his rebellious subjects of the southern provinces of his dominions. Alexander received Covilham with kindness, but more from motives of curiosity than for any expectations of advantage that might result from any connection or communication with the kingdom of Portugal. Covilham accompanied the king to Shoa, where the seat of the Abyssinian government was then established; and from a cruel policy, which subsists still in Abyssinia, by which strangers are hardly ever permitted to quit the country, Covilham never returned into Europe. Though thus doomed to perpetual exile in a strange and barbarous land, Covilham was well used. He married, and obtained ample possessions, enjoying the favour of several successive kings of Abyssinia, and was preferred to some considerable offices in the government. Frequent epistolary intercourse took place between him and the king of Portugal, who spared no expence to keep open the interesting correspondence. In his dispatches, Covilham described the several ports which he had visited in India; explained the policy and disposition of the several princes; and pointed out the situation and riches of the gold mines of Sofala; exhorting the king to persist, unremittingly and vigorously, in prosecuting the discovery of the passage to India around the southern extremity of Africa, which he asserted to be attended with little danger, and affirmed that the cape was well known in India. He is said to have accompanied his letters and descriptions with a chart, in which the cape and all the cities on the coast of Africa were exactly represented, which he had received in India from a Moor. Covilham was afterwards seen by, and intimately acquainted with Francesco Alvarez, his historian, who was sent on an embassy into Abyssinia by Emmanuel king of Portugal. Alvarez, who appears to have been a priest, calls Covilham his spiritual son, and says that he had been thirty-three years in great credit with Prette Janni, so he calls the king of Abyssinia, and all the court, during all which time he had never confessed his sins, except to GOD in secret, because the priests of that country were not in use to keep secret what had been committed to them in confession. This would protract the residence of Covilham in Abyssinia, at least to the year 1521, or 1522; but how long he may have lived there afterwards does not appear.
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El Tor is on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea, near the mouth of the Bahr Assuez, or Gulf of Suez, in lat. 28° 10' N. long. 33° 36' E. –E.