Born 1450,
Covilhã, Portugal
Died 1545,
Abyssinia [Ethiopia]
When he traveled to Abyssinia, or modern-day Ethiopia, Pero da Covilhã’s mission was to find the mythical Christian king Prester John. Instead, Covilhã wound up in comfortable captivity and spent the rest of his life in Abyssinia.
Covilhã was born in Portugal, in a village that bore his family name. As a youth, he went to Spain and served seven years in the household of the duke of Medina Sidonia in Andalusia. He then returned to Portugal and became a member of the court of King Alfonso. Because he could speak Spanish, Covilhã was sent back to Spain to spy on rebel Portuguese who lived there. He later went to North Africa where he served as both a diplomat and a commercial agent in Morocco. As a result of this experience he became fluent in Arabic.
In 1481 Alfonso’s son, John II, succeeded to the throne; he revived voyages of exploration for which Portugal had been famous during the reign of John I (1385-1433), the most glorious period in Portugal’s history. John II called Covilhã back to Portugal and introduced him to Afonso de Paiva, a man from the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. The king entrusted Covilhã and de Paiva with an important mission: John II wanted them to find Prester John, a mythical Christian king living somewhere in the East. Although looking for the land of Prester John was the main object of their journey, they had another tall order to fill: John II wanted them to find out:
what were the principal markets for the spice and particularly the pepper trade in India; and what were the different channels by which this was conveyed to Europe; whence came the gold and silver, the medium of this trade; and above all they were to inform themselves distinctly, whether it was possible to arrive in India by sailing round the Southern promontory of Africa.
The journey was planned with the help of Jose Vizinho and the king’s physician, Master Rodrigo, both of whom had been present when the king turned down Christopher Columbus’s (see entry) request for Portuguese help in making his famous voyage.
Accompanied by de Paiva, Covilhã was to make his journey to the east coast of Africa by traveling overland from the north. About the same time, King John sent another Portuguese, Bartolomeu Dias, on a voyage by sea that was to lead him around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. The geographical information supplied by Dias and Covilhã would enable the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (see separate entries) to make his epic voyage around Africa to India a few years later.
On May 7, 1487, Covilhã and de Paiva received their final instructions from John, who gave them 400 gold cruzados to pay for the expedition. The cruzado was a coin made from solid gold earned in trade with the west coast of Africa. Covilhã and de Paiva departed from the town of Santarém in central Portugal, equipped with a “map for navigating, taken from the map of the world … and a letter of credence for all the countries and provinces of the world.”
Covilhã and de Paiva headed for the Spanish port of Barcelona and from there went to Naples, Italy. On the Greek island of Rhodes they disguised themselves as Muslim merchants and bought a supply of honey to sell in Egypt. Unfortunately, in Alexandria, Egypt, they fell ill with fever, and the local governor impounded their honey. After they recovered they bought a fresh supply of goods and pushed on to Cairo, Egypt. In 1488 they met a group of pilgrims from Morocco who were traveling to Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula. With the pilgrims they sailed for two months over the Red Sea to the port of Aden at the entrance to the Indian Ocean.
At Aden the two Portuguese travelers separated. De Paiva would go to Abyssinia to look for Prester John while Covilhã pursued information about the spice trade and the possibility of reaching India by sailing around Africa. Covilhã first went across the Indian Ocean to Cannanore, a port on the Malabar Coast of southwest India. His next stop was Calicut, which was the center for the Indian spice trade. At Goa, 300 miles to the north, Covilhã took a ship to Hormuz on the south coast of Persia. Hormuz was the principal port of the Persian Gulf at that time. He then journeyed down the coasts of Arabia and Africa to Sofala, an important Arab port in what is now Mozambique.
The trip to Sofala convinced Covilhã that Africa could be circumnavigated. He returned to Cairo in 1490 with this valuable information, stopping at the ports of Kilwa, Mombasa, and Malindi along the way. When he reached Cairo, he learned that de Paiva had died without finding Prester John. Covilhã was preparing to return to Portugal to deliver his information when he met two Portuguese, Rabbi Abraham de Beja and Joseph de Lamego. They had been searching for him to deliver letters they were carrying from John II. They themselves had been sent to learn about trade in the port of Hormuz. When they learned that Covilhã had already been to Hormuz, Lamego agreed to carry Covilhã’s reports back to Portugal.
Apparently the letters Covilhã received instructed him to concentrate on the search for Prester John. He sailed to Aden and Hormuz, then to Jidda on the west coast of Arabia. Next he visited the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Arabia. He went back to Sinai and found a ship sailing down the Red Sea that took him to the port of Zeila in what is now Somalia.
When Covilhã reached Zeila, he learned that Emperor Iskander of Abyssinia was nearby, engaged in a war with a Muslim king. Covilhã was able to meet the emperor and accompanied him back to his stronghold at Shewa in the Ethiopian highlands. The emperor took a liking to Covilhã and treated him well. He told the Portuguese that some time in the future “he would send him to his country with much honor.” Before long, however, Iskander was killed in battle and Covilhã’s circumstances changed dramatically. He found himself kept more or less as a prisoner at the Abyssinian court. On one occasion Covilhã was given permission to leave. Laden with gifts from the Abyssinians, he started for home accompanied by a large band of retainers. Unfortunately, the members of his escort party became involved in a scuffle with local residents along the way. Displeased, the new emperor recalled the whole party back to his court at Tegulet. Covilhã was forced to settle down in Abyssinia. He married a noblewoman and was given an official position and valuable lands. He was not permitted to leave the country, but he was allowed to write to the king of Portugal to explain that he was being detained.
Covilhã’s letters to John II aroused immense interest about Africa in Europe. The king sent a Portuguese named Fernao Gomez to try to help Covilhã, supported by the fleet of Afonso de Albuquerque. Gomez reached Abyssinia in 1508 but, like Covilhã, once he arrived he was not allowed to leave. In 1520 John II sent an official mission to Abyssinia under Rodrigo da Lima. Da Lima found both Covilhã and Gomez still living there.
Da Lima was impressed with the knowledge Covilhã had obtained on his journeys. According to the report written about the da Lima mission, Covilhã was “a man who knows all the languages that can be spoken, both of Christians, Moors and Gentiles, and who knows all the things for which he was sent; moreover, he gives an account of them as if they were present before him.”
When the da Lima expedition left Abyssinia in 1526 they took an Ethiopian envoy with them back to Portugal. Although relations between the two countries had apparently improved, Covilhã remained in Abyssinia. It is not known whether Covilhã’s permanent residence there was by choice, or because he was never allowed to leave. For whatever reason, the Portuguese explorer stayed in his adopted country for the rest of his life.
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