According to Gaspar Fructuoso, Zarco, in clearing a path through the forests of Madeira, set the woodland on fire, and seven years elapsed before the last traces of the conflagration were extinguished. The seven years is, no doubt, an extra touch; but a fire of tremendous severity must have taken place, from Cadamosto's account.[203] The whole island, he declares, had once been in flames; the colonists only saved their lives by plunging into the torrents; and Zarco himself had to stand in a river-bed for two whole days and nights, with all his family. Yet, according to Azurara, so much wood was soon exported from the island to Portugal, that a change was produced in the housebuilding of Spain: loftier dwellings were built; and the Roman or Arab style was superseded by one originating in the new discoveries among the Atlantic Islands. Almost all Portugal, Cadamosto tells us in 1455, was now adorned with tables[204] and other furniture made from the wood of Madeira. [Footnote 203: On his visit in 1455.] [Footnote 204: It has been also suggested, that the wooden crosses set up by Henry's orders in new-discovered lands were from the material thus provided.] In the settlement of Porto Santo, Bartholemew Perestrello, a gentleman of the household of Prince Henry's brother, the Infant John, took part[205] with Zarco and Vaz. Perestrello imported rabbits, which destroyed all the colonists' experiments in crops and vegetable planting; but receiving the captaincy of the island, he made some profit from breeding goats and exporting dragon's blood. His grant of Porto Santo, originally for his lifetime only, was extended by decree of November 1st, 1446, to a donation in perpetuity for himself and his descendants. On the death of Bartholemew, Prince Henry bestowed the captaincy on his son-in-law, Pedro Correa da Cunha, in trust for the first Governor's son Bartholemew, who was still a minor. Da Cunha later contracted with young Bartholemew's mother and uncle--the widow and brother of the first grantee--for a sum of money in return for a cession of his interim rights; and Prince Henry authorised this contract by a decree from Lagos (May 17th, 1458), confirmed by King Affonso V at Cintra (August 17th, 1459). [Footnote 205: He accompanied Zarco in the second voyage of 1420.] Young Bartholemew entered into his governorship in 1473, and it was formally confirmed to him (15th March, 1473) by Affonso V. It was his sister, a daughter of the elder Bartholemew, named Felipa Moñiz de Perestrello, whom Christopher Columbus married in Lisbon; after which he lived for some time in Porto Santo, enjoying the use of Perestrello's papers, maps, and instruments.