[36] The MS. has _Garçõees_, a word not to be found in the dictionary, but evidently an augmentative of _garça_, a heron. Pimental, in his _Arte de Navegar_, mentions large birds with dark wings and white bodies as being met with a hundred leagues to the west of the Cape of Good Hope, which are known as _Gaivotões_.—KOPKE. The Gaivota, or gull, however, in no respect resembles a heron. [37] That is, towards Tristão da Cunha, Gama being at that time 400 miles to the N.N.W. of these islands. [38] Kopke supposes that we should read _phoca_ instead of _quoqua_, but this is not very likely, as _lobo marinho_ is employed throughout the _Rutter_ to describe the _phocæ_ or seals. Among the animals which these early navigators must have met with, but which are not mentioned, are porpoises (_peixe de porco_) and dolphins (_doiradas_ or gilt-heads). [39] _Lobo marinho_, sea-wolf, a term vaguely applied to all species of seals, as also to the sea-elephant, has been translated throughout as _seal_. [40] _Golfão, i.e._, Zostera nana, which is met with along the coast of South-Western Africa. [41] A Portuguese fathom, or _braça_, is equal to 5.76 feet. [42] This was considerably to the north of St. Helena Bay, which was only reached three days later. [43] A reference, no doubt, to Pero d’Alenquer, Vasco da Gama’s pilot, who had been with B. Dias during his memorable voyage round the Cape, as had probably others of this armada. [44] Now called Berg River.—KOPKE. [45] Castanheda and Goes state that Nicolau Coelho was sent to take the soundings. It is, however, much more probable that this duty was intrusted to Pero d’Alenquer, who had already doubled the Cape with Bartholomew Dias, and had touched at several points in its vicinity.—KOPKE. I cannot see how his having been with Dias can have conferred any very special qualification for taking soundings in a bay which Pero d’Alenquer had never seen before. On subsequent occasions Coelho seems to have been employed repeatedly upon this duty. [46] _Baço_, a vague term, meaning also brown or blackish. [47] Castanheda, in his first edition (1551), adopted this statement, but subsequently suppressed it. D. Jeronymo Osorio, Bishop of Silves, in _De rebus Emanuelsis_, has “pudenta ligneis vaginis includunt.—KOPKE. The use of such a sheath is universal among the Bantu tribes of Southern Africa, but seems now to be more honoured in the breach than the observance among the Hottentots, here spoken of. John of Empoli, who went to India with Afonso de Albuquerque (_Ramusio_, i), observed such a sheath made of leather with the hair on, among the Hottentots of the Bay of S. Blas. Leguat (Hakluyt Society’s edition, 1891, p. 288) found it still in use in 1698.