Cadamosto's account of his two voyages is rightly praised[42] as "detailed and vivid." He certainly compiled a map of his journeys, for in noticing the river Barbasini beyond Cape Verde, he says: "I have named it so on the Chart which I have made." The interesting suggestion, that some of Benincasa's portolanos (especially that of 1471) were based on Cadamosto's descriptions and plans of the West African shore-land, is hardly susceptible of proof, but it is not without some corroborative evidence, as may be seen elsewhere.[43] Also, "the journeys of this Marco Polo of West Africa were undertaken in a more scientific spirit, and were more free from chivalrous outrages," than most of those who preceded him along this coast.[44] This is not merely due to himself. It appears from his express statements that the Infant now discouraged slave-raiding, and urged his captains to something of higher value than seal and sea-calf hunting. The value of Cadamosto's work was mainly in his observations and descriptions. He advanced only a little way beyond some of the Prince's earlier explorers (_e.g._, Alvaro Fernandez), except for his discovery of the Cape Verde islands, but he seems to have named[45] and mapped out more carefully than before a good many points of the littoral beyond Cape Verde, and his writings surpass in geographical value anything to be found in Azurara. His notes are also of high value for ethnology and anthropology, and give a better account of the trade-routes, etc. of North-west Africa than any Christian writing of the time. Finally, he is more reliable than many subsequent and more pretentious travellers, and his narrative is as picturesque and effective as it is reliable. For "one inquisitive person shall bring home a better account of countries than twenty who come after him." [Footnote 42: See Nordenskjöld, _Periplus_, 120, and Map section of this Introduction; also pp. xcii-xcvi of the same.] [Footnote 43: See p. cxxxii of this Introduction.] [Footnote 44: The same change is observable in the narrative of Diego Gomez. Cf. his treatment of the Chief Bezeghichi, whom he freely releases when in his power, in order to make him less "bitter against the Christians."] [Footnote 45: _E.g._, the rivers Barbasini, Casamansa, Santa Anna, St. Domingo, and Cape Roxo.]