Pêro da Covilhã

Pedro or Pêro da Covilhã (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpeɾu dɐ kuviˈʎɐ̃]; c. 1460 – after 1526) was a Portuguese diplomat and explorer.

He was a native of Covilhã in Beira. In his early life he had gone to Castile and entered the service of Don Juan de Guzmán, brother of Enrique de Guzmán, 2nd Duke of Medina Sidonia. Later, when war broke out between Castile and Portugal, he returned to his own country, and attached himself, first as a groom, then as a squire, to Afonso V of Portugal and his successor John II of Portugal.

Mission to the East

King John II put him in charge of diverse private missions, and finally, to use his knowledge of different languages, ordered him and Afonso de Paiva to undertake a mission of exploration in the Near East and the adjoining regions of Asia and Africa, with the special assignment to learn where cinnamon and other spices could be found, as well as of discovering the land of legendary Prester John, by overland routes.Bartolomeu Dias, at the same time, went out to by sea find the Prester's country, as well as the termination of the African continent and the ocean route to India.