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Manuel De Mesquita Perestrelo
Manuel de Mesquita Perestrelo (c. 1510, Santo Estêvão - c. 1580, Santo Estêvão) was a Portuguese navigator and cartographer. The Perestrelo family is traced back to Filippo Pallestrelli, from Piacenza in Lombardy. Pallestrelli settled in Lisbon in 1437, part of the retinue of Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Portugal, who married Edward I of Portugal. Pallestrelli's descendants became the ancient seafaring family of Perestrelo, with respected positions in the Portuguese court, and having their own coat of arms. Christopher Columbus had married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo from this family. The Perestrelo family controlled much of the private trade in Goa, Cochin, Ormus and Malacca, a lucrative trade in spices, condiments, carpets and clothes, realising great profits in the markets of Lisbon, Genoa and Venice. Manuel made numerous trips to India from 1547 onwards. Returning from Cochin on one of these voyages aboard the carrack '' São Bento'', he was shipwrecked at the Mbhashe Riv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
São Bento (carrack)
''São Bento'' (Saint Benedict), commanded by captain Fernão de Álvares Cabral, the son of Pedro Álvares Cabral, was a Portuguese carrack of 900 tons wrecked in April 1554 near the mouth of the Msikaba River, midway between Port Edward and Port St. Johns on the Transkei coast of South Africa. The ship had left Cochin Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of K ... on 1 February 1554 and was en route to Lisbon with a cargo of spices, coconuts, silks, porcelain, cornelian beads, cotton cloth and other luxury goods. There are no hull remains at the site. On the night of 24 April 1554, ''São Bento'' was sailing in stormy weather off the Transkei coast. The ship was in a poor state of repair and overloaded, and when she ran aground she quickly sank at the mouth of a gully o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Francis Bay
St Francis Bay ( af, St Francisbaai) is a holiday town in Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, roughly one hour’s drive from Port Elizabeth. On 11 November 2012 a fire destroyed 76 homes, almost all of them thatched roofed. The building style of the village section of St Francis Bay includes white painted houses with black roofs (mostly thatch) on the canals or around the golf course, or a Mediterranean building style in Santareme and Port St Francis. The Kromme River is navigable for 14 km upstream, and is linked to the St Francis canals system. Whales can be spotted in the Bay from May to late October and dolphins can be seen daily on their way back and forth between the bays of Cape St Francis and Jeffrey’s Bay. The Cape clawless otter is also ever present, frolicking in the waves and rock pools around Port St Francis and at Otters Landing. Bird life is abundant with over 200 species recorded in the area including the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Formosa Peak
Formosa Peak or Peak Formosa is the highest point of the Tsitsikamma Mountains, a coastal range located along the Garden Route in South Africa, and forming part of the Baviaanskloof Mega Reserve. Background The peak was first mapped in 1576 during a voyage by the Portuguese navigator and cartographer, Manuel de Mesquita Perestrelo, when his ship put in at Plettenberg Bay, which he named ''Bahia Formosa'' or "beautiful bay". The peak, which is visible from the bay, had been named ''Formosa'' by the earlier Portuguese explorer, Bartolomeu Dias, in 1488. This was corrupted to ''Moses'', a name still used for the region north of the mountain. Perestrelo, a survivor of the 1554 wrecking of the Portuguese carrack, the '' São Bento'' off Msikaba on the Wild Coast, wrote an account of the disaster. Because of its elevation and sweeping views, Formosa Peak is a popular hiking destination, the normal road approach being from the north via Langkloof The Langkloof is a 160 km lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plettenberg Bay
Plettenberg Bay, nicknamed Plet or Plett, is the primary town of the Bitou Local Municipality in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. As of the census of 2001, there were 29,149 population. It was originally named Bahia Formosa ("beautiful bay") by early Portuguese explorers and lies on South Africa's Garden Route 210 km from Port Elizabeth and about 600 km from Cape Town. History Middle and Later Stone Age Nelson Bay Cave on Robberg and Matjies River Cave at nearby Keurboomstrand were inhabited for over 100,000 years by Middle Stone Age man and then later by ancestors of the Khoisan, who were possibly the same people who traded with the Portuguese survivors of the Sao Goncalves shipwreck. Their tools, ornaments and food debris can be viewed in these caves, which are still being excavated. Colonial period Long before Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape, Portuguese explorers charted the bay in the 15th and 16th centuries, the first being Bartolomeu Dias i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Agulhas
Cape Agulhas (; pt, Cabo das Agulhas , "Cape of the Needles") is a rocky headland in Western Cape, South Africa. It is the geographic southern tip of the African continent and the beginning of the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans according to the International Hydrographic Organization. Historically, the cape has been known to sailors as a major hazard on the traditional clipper route. It is sometimes regarded as one of the great capes. It was most commonly known in English as Cape L'Agulhas until the 20th century. The town of L'Agulhas is located near to the cape. Geography Cape Agulhas is located in the Overberg region, 170 kilometres (105 mi) southeast of Cape Town. The cape was named by Portuguese navigators, who called it ''Cabo das Agulhas''—Portuguese for "Cape of Needles"—after noticing that around the year 1500 the direction of magnetic north (and therefore the compass needle) coincided with true north in the region. The cape is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Correntes
Cape Correntes (sometimes also called "Cape Corrientes" in English) ( Port.: "Cabo das Correntes") is a cape or headland in the Inhambane Province in Mozambique. It sits at the southern entry of the Mozambique Channel.• Cape Correntes was historically regarded as one of the most terrifying obstacles facing sailing ships in the Indian Ocean. It is named after the exceptionally fast southward current that passes here, part of the Mozambique Current, with a tendency to form eddies at this cape. It is also a confluence point of winds, with the capacity to produce unpredictably violent gusts and whirlwinds. Medieval dhows of the Kilwa Sultanate rarely (if ever) sailed below it, thereby making Cape Correntes the southern boundary of the Swahili Coast and cultural zone. Local legends said the cape was inhabited by mermaids that lured unfortunate sailors to their deaths. In the 16th century, Portuguese ships on the ' India Run' that charted an entry into the Mozambique Channel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, based on the misbelief that the Cape was the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and have nothing to do with north or south. In fact, by looking at a map, the southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas about to the east-southeast. The currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water Agulhas current meets the cold-water Benguela current and turns back on itself. That oceanic meeting point fluctuates between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point (about east of the Cape of Good Hope). When following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, however, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Thus, the first mode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern African
Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of river systems; the Zambezi River being the most prominent. The Zambezi flows from the northwest corner of Zambia and western Angola to the Indian Ocean on the coast of Mozambique. Along the way, the Zambezi River flows over the mighty Victoria Falls on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Victoria Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the world and a major tourist attraction for the region. Southern Africa includes both subtropical and temperate climates, with the Tropic of Capricorn running through the middle of the region, dividing it into its subtropical and temperate halves. Countries commonly included in Southern Africa include Angola, Botswana, the Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
História Trágico-marítima
The ''História trágico-marítima'' (trans. ''Tragic History of the Sea'') is a famous 18th-century collection of narrative accounts of the travails and wrecks of several Portuguese ships, principally carracks (''naus'') on the India run between 1552 to 1602, and the oft-harrowing stories of their survivors. The accounts (some of which had been previously published as pamphlets) were collected by historian Bernardo Gomes de Brito and published in two volumes in 1735 and 1736. It is said that Brito had enough material to publish five volumes, but ended up only publishing two. In the course of the 18th century, several collections of other accounts of shipwrecks were published, alleging themselves to be the 'third volume' of Brito's work. Some of these latter accounts were appended to Brito's original in a multi-volume 1904-1909 edition of the ''História'' prepared by Gabriel Pereira. The original title of Brito's collection was ''História trágico-marítima, em que se escr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coimbra
Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto Metropolitan Area, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest city of the Coimbra (district), district of Coimbra and the Centro Region, Portugal, Centro Region. About 460,000 people live in the Região de Coimbra, comprising 19 municipalities and extending into an area of . Among the many archaeological structures dating back to the Roman Empire, Roman era, when Coimbra was the settlement of Aeminium, are its well-preserved aqueduct (watercourse), aqueduct and cryptoporticus. Similarly, buildings from the period when Coimbra was the capital of Portugal (from 1131 to 1255) still remain. During the late Middle Ages, with its decline as the political centre of the Kingdom of Portugal, Coimbra began to evolve into a major cultural centre. This was in large part helped by the establ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inhambane
Inhambane, also known as Terra de Boa Gente (''Land of Good People''), is a city located in southern Mozambique, lying on Inhambane Bay, 470 km northeast of Maputo. It is the capital of the Inhambane Province and according to the 2017 census has a population of 79,724, growing from the 1997 census of 54,157. The settlement owes its existence to a deep inlet into which the small Mutamba River flows. Two protective sandy headlands protect the harbor and form a sandbank. The sister town of Maxixe is located across the bay of Inhambane. History Inhambane is one of the oldest settlements on Mozambique's eastern coast. Dhows traded here as early as the 11th century. Muslim and Persian traders were the first outsiders to arrive to the area by sea and traded pearls and ambergris, and they also traded at Chibuene in the south. The area became well known for its local cotton spinning and production by the Tonga tribe. Sometime before the Portuguese reached the area, the Karanga ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
