Portuguese, respecting the last wishes of Macham, built a chapel above the grave. At Machico, if the story can be believed, the original wooden cross was still to be seen as late as 1820,[1] and even to-day the remnants of it are shown to credulous tourists.[2] Some accounts represent the Capella de N.S. da Visitaçaõ at Machico occupying at least the site of the original chapel. but this again disputed.[3]
Galvaõ omits Morales altogether front his tale, and mentions a Spanish expedition of discovery in 1393 or 1395 on the news of Macham's doings reaching Henry III of Castille.[4] This expedition, we are told, fell in with the Canaries. Barros, the early Portuguese historian, records the discovery of Madeira in 1420 by Zarco and Vaz Teixera, and informs us that the explorers found on the island "the chapel, and the stone and tomb whereupon the foresaid Macham had graven his name."[5] Here be it noticed the monument is of stone.
It is probable, on the whole, that the story had some basis in fact, but the romancers have clearly embellished it with details. There is no large demand upon our credulity in supposing voyagers driven by storm to Madeira. Unless the tradition had been widely prevalent at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries the national pride of the Portuguese historians would surely have prompted them to suppress it. We may take it that some trace of civilised inhabitants, who had come and gone, was found by the Portuguese, and that the rumour of English discovery was current.[6] At the same time there is no first-hand or really authentic evidence, and it is practically certain that the name Machico has as little to do with Macham or Machin as the remnant of the cross now shown
- ↑ Taylor, 'Madeira,' 145.
- ↑ Ib. 51.
- ↑ Ib. 145. I have not been able to find any close and detailed description of the Machico anchorage and harbour, so as to compare it with the Alcaforado account. He mentions a rock, steep-to, and not marked on the charts. This, if it ever really existed, is not shown on the Admiralty chart, nor is allusion made to it in what sailing directions ! have been able to discover. At Fuchhal is, of course, the Loo Rock [Purdy, Memoir .... of the Atlantic Ocean (London, 1825), pp. 204–208]; but then Funchal is not Machico.
- ↑ Galvaõ, Hakl. Soc. Ed., p. 59. Admiral Bethune, the editor, queries the date 1395.
- ↑ Barros, 1496–1570, in his 'Asia' (Lisbaõ, 1552-53): "juge impartial et en mème temps patriote enthusiaste" ('Grande Encyclopédie').
- ↑ Was the island of O'Brazil, which appears first in the Medicean portolano of 1351, Madeira? If so, it may have reflected Macham's discovery.
