"After passing a great river beyond Rio Grande we met such strong currents in the sea that no anchor could hold. The other captains and their men were much alarmed, thinking we were at the end of the ocean, and begged me to put back. In the mid-current the sea was very clear, and the natives came off from the shore and brought us their merchandise. As the current grew even stronger we put back and came to a land, where were groves of palms near the shore, with their branches broken. There we found a plain covered with hay and more than five thousand animals like stags, but larger, who showed no fear of us. Five elephants with two young ones came out of a small river that was fringed by trees. We went back to the ships, and next day made our way from Cape Verde and saw the broad mouth of a great river, which we entered and guessed to be the Gambia. We went up the river as far as Cantor (some five hundred miles). Farther than this the ships could not go, because of the thick growth of trees and underwood. When the news spread through the country that the Christians were in Cantor, they came from Timbuktu in the north, from Mount Gelu in the south. Here I was told there is gold in plenty, and caravans of camels cross over there with goods from Carthage, Tunis, Fez, Cairo, and all the land of the Saracens. I asked the natives of Cantor about the road to the gold country. They told me the King lived in Kukia and was lord of all the mines on the right side of the river of Cantor, and that he had before the door of this palace a mass of gold just as it was taken from the earth, so large that twenty men could hardly move it, and that the King always fastened his horse to it. While I was thus trafficking with these negroes, my men became worn out with the heat, and so we returned towards the ocean." [Illustration: SKETCH OF AFRICA FROM FRA MAURO'S GREAT MAP OF THE WORLD, 1457. In the African portions of Fra Mauro's map which have already been given they are shown exactly as Fra Mauro drew them, with the north at the _bottom_ and the south at the _top_, as is nearly always the case in mediaeval maps. In this outline of Africa, which is generally supposed to show the results of Prince Henry's labours, the map has been put the right way up. It was prepared between 1457 and 1459.] But Diego Gomez had succeeded in making friends with the hostile natives of this part. He left behind him a better idea of Christian men than some of the other explorers had done. His own account of the conversion of the Mohammedan King who lived near the mouth of the river Gambia, which was visited on the return voyage, is most interesting.