Chapters XLIX to LXVII contain the acts of the great expedition of fourteen sail which set out from Lagos in 1445, under the leadership of Lançarote, for the purpose of punishing the Moors on the Island of Tider and avenging Gonçalo de Cintra. In all twenty-six ships left Portugal that year, being the largest number that had perhaps ever sailed down the Western side of the Dark Continent at one time. After accomplishing their object some returned home, but others, more bold, determined to explore further South, if perchance they might find the River of Nile and the Terrestrial Paradise. Arriving at the Senegal they thought they had found the Nile of the Negroes, and went no further. A curious description of the Nile, and its power according to astronomers, forms the subject of Chapters LXI and LXII, where Azurara has collected all the learning and speculation of the Ancients and Mediævals on the question. Chapters LXVIII to LXXV describe the doings of the remaining ships that left Portugal in 1445, and relate descents on the Canaries and the African coast, and the voyage of Zarco's caravel to Cape Mastos, the furthest point yet reached. Chapters LXXVI and LXXVII contain valuable notes on the life of the peoples south of Cape Bojador, together with an account of the travels of Joham Fernandez, the first European to penetrate far into the interior of Africa. In Chapter LXXVIII Azurara adds up the sum of the African voyages, and finds that up to 1446 fifty-one caravels had sailed to those parts, one of which had passed four hundred and fifty leagues beyond Cape Bojador. Chapters LXXIX to LXXXII are taken up by a description of the Canary Islands, while Chapter LXXXIII deals with the discovery and peopling of the Madeiras and Azores.[25] [Footnote 25: Azurara's laconism with reference to the history of the discovery of the Madeiras and Azores is really regrettable. In many respects his narrative needs to be supplemented from other sources.] Chapter LXXXIV tells how D. Henrique obtained from the Regent a charter, similar to the one he had previously secured in the case of Guinea, to the effect (_inter alia_) that no one was to go to the Canaries, either for war or merchandise, without his leave; and the following chapter (LXXXV) relates a descent on the Island of Palma. In Chapter LXXXVI Azurara narrates in feeling terms the death of the gallant Nuno Tristam in Guinea-land. In Chapter LXXXVII we read how Alvaro Fernandez sailed down the African coast past Sierra Leone, and more than one hundred and ten leagues beyond Cape Verde. Chapter LXXXVIII describes the voyage of another Lagos fleet of nine caravels to the Rio Grande, while the next five chapters (LXXXIX-XCIII) relate that of Gomez Pirez to the Rio d'Ouro in 1446. Chapters XCIV and XCV are devoted to the trafficking venture of the year 1447, the unhappy fate of the Scandinavian Vallarte, and an expedition to the fisheries off the Angra dos Ruyvos.