new houses.[219] In this settlement (within the narrow space of some 100 acres), there were said to have been, besides the Infant's own Court or palace, a church, a chapel,[220] a study, and an observatory (the earliest in Portugal), together with an arsenal, a dockyard, and a fort. Here cartography and astronomical geography were diligently studied, and practical mariners were equipped for their work. [Footnote 217: See Azurara, _Guinea_, iv; Barros, _Asia_, Decade I, i, 16.] [Footnote 218: From the Venetian _Darcena_; see Goes, _Chron. do pr. D. João IV_; O. Martins, _Filhos de D. João I_, p. 75.] [Footnote 219: It retained its importance till the Prince's death, when it gradually declined; it was sacked by Drake in 1597; and ruined by earthquakes. Finally it became again as deserted as before the Infant's time. Ferdinand Denis believed that before the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 there were traces of a much earlier habitation of the Sagres Promontory, including buildings (Moorish?) at least as old as the XIth century. The headland measures only one kilometre in circuit, half a kilometre in its extreme length.] [Footnote 220: Prince Henry's will refers to the Church of St. Catherine, and the Chapel of St. Mary; see the _MS. Collection_ of Pedro Alvarez, iii; Martins, _Os Filhos de D. João_, p. 74. The observatory was not on Sagres Cape proper, but "un peu en avant quand on vient de l'Ouest" (V. St. Martin).]