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Excerpt: ... Barros could be relied on, we might conclude that some nameless Portuguese navigators had crossed the line even before the death of Don Henry; but the high probability is, that the naval pupils of that illustrious prince continued to use his impress upon their discoveries, long after his decease, and that the limits of discovery in his time was confined to Cape Vergas. Some Castilians, sailing under the command of Garcia de Loaysa, a knight of Malta, landed in 1525 on the island of St Matthew, in two degrees of southern latitude5. They here observed that it had been formerly visited by the Portuguese, as they found an inscription on the bark of a tree, implying that they had been there eighty-seven years before6. It also bore the usual motto of that prince, talent de bien faire . 4 Strictly speaking the northern limits of Loango, one of the divisions of the extensive kingdom of Congo, is at the Sette river, ten leagues S.S. E. from Cape St Catherine.--E. 5 There is no island of that name in this position; so that the island of St Matthew of de Barros must refer to Annobon.--E. 6 These dates would throw back the discovery of this island, and the passage of the line by the mariners of Don Henry, to the year 1438, at a time when they had not reached the latitude of 25

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