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where, some time afterwards, he was rejoined by his traveiling companion Abraham, who had been sent out with
him by the king. They had returned; — but i t was only
to wander forth to Africa in company with other brethren
of their faith banished by Joao.
Just as Joseph the shoemaker and Abraham the Rabbi
had been by their travels of service to the king i n his i n tention of subduing foreign countries to the rule of his
sceptre, other Jews were engaged at home in mathematical
researches, which being afterwards applied to later discoveries, were found to be of no inconsiderable service.
In order to lessen the danger of losing one's self far
from the coast on an unknown sea, J O J I O gave commands
to the most celebrated mathematicians of the kingdom, that
they should consult together to contrive the means of being
able with greater certainty to show the course the ship
should keep in the open sea, and be able to find out where
they were, i f they should happen to be far from a known
coast. After great deliberation and research, the use of the
astrolabe, which until then had only been i n requisition for
astronomical purposes, was applied to navigation; and this
discovery is for the greater part, i f not entirely, the work
of Portuguese Jews.
W i t h Martin Behaim, the celebrated knight and navigator from Nuremberg, sat also i n consultation, together w i t h
a Moses and an Abraham, on account of his mathematical
acquirements called Rabbi Abraham E s t r o l i c o (the astro1
descubrio
h la India
Abraham
de Beja
Oriental,
yde
y por esso hizo
Joseph
Zarpater
h las orillas
confianqa de
Rabi
o d e Lam
t go,
quando
los embio por
fierra
Pedro
de Covillam
se embarco com Babi Abraham para Hormuz, y
Joseph de Lamego torno al referido
del Mar Boxo, de donde
Bey con el aviso de lo que hasta
a
enlonces se havia descubierto.
— After Barrios Basnage also,
Ilistoire des Juifs, IX. 729. It is not improbable that one of the
Jews named Abraham, mentioned in the course of this treatise as
being near Safi or Azamor, may have been this same Abraham de Beja.
נMany of our readers may, at the mention of this Abraham Estrolico,
be reminded of R. Abraham Zacuto, the author of ״J u c h a s i n , and
a
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