Page:The story of geographical discovery.djvu/93

 Rh hold, set up one of these pillars at the mouth of a large river, which he therefore called the Rio do Padrao; it was called by the natives the Zaire, and is now known as the River Congo. Diego Cam was, on this expedition, accompanied by Martin Behaim of Niirnberg, whose globe is celebrated in geographical history as the last record of the older views (p. 104).

Meanwhile, from one of the envoys of the native kings who visited the Portuguese Court, information was received that far to the east of the countries hitherto discovered there was a great Christian king. This brought to mind the mediæval tradition of Prester John, and accordingly the Portuguese determined to make a double attempt, both by sea and by land, to reach this monarch. By sea the king sent two vessels under the command of Bartholomew Diaz, while by land he despatched, in the following year, two men acquainted with Arabic, Pedro di Covilham and Affonso de Payba. Covilham reached Aden, and there took ship for Calicut, being the first Portuguese to sail the Indian Ocean. He then returned to Sofala, and obtained news of the Island of the Moon, now known as Madagascar. With this information he returned to Cairo, where he found ambassadors from Joao, two Jews, Abraham of Beja and Joseph of Lamejo. These he sent back with the information that ships that sailed down the coast of Guinea would surely reach the end of Africa, and when they arrived in the Eastern Ocean they should ask for Sofala and the Island of the Moon. Meanwhile Covilham returned to the Red Sea, and made his way into Abyssinia, where he married and settled down, transmitting from time to