is a river labelled "Nilus Fluvius" drawn parallel to the coast of Africa, albeit without communication with Atlantic (it ends in a lake). It depicts some giant ants digging up gold dust from its sands, with the note "Hic grandes formice auream serican [or servant] arenas" ("Here great ants guard gold sands"). In the mappa mundi made by Pietro Vesconte for the c. 1320 atlas of Marino Sanuto, there is an unnamed river stemming from the African interior and opening in the Atlantic ocean. The 1351 Medici-Laurentian Atlas shows both the Egyptian Nile and the western Nile stemming from the same internal mountain range, with the note that "Ilic coligitur aureaum". The portolan chart of Giovanni da Carignano (1310s-20s) has the river with the label, iste fluuis exit de nilo ubi multum aurum repperitur. In the more accurately-drawn portolan charts, starting with the 1367 chart of Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano and carried on in the 1375 Catalan Atlas, the 1413 chart of the Catalan converso Mecia de Viladestes, etc. the "River of Gold" is depicted (if only speculatively), draining into the Atlantic Ocean somewhere just south of Cape Bojador. The legend of Cape Bojador as a terrifying obstacle, the 'cape of no return' to European sailors, emerged around the same time (possibly encouraged by Trans-Saharan traders who did not want to see their land route sidestepped by sea). The river is frequently depicted with a great river island midway, the "Island of Gold", first mentioned by al-Masudi, and famously called "Wangara" by al-Idrisi and "Palolus" in the 1367 Pizzigani brothers chart. It is conjectured that this riverine "island" is in fact just the Bambuk-Buré goldfield district, which is practically surrounded on all sides by rivers - the Senegal river to the north, the Falémé River to the west, the Bakhoy to the east and the Niger and Tinkisso to the south. The 1413 portolan chart of Mecia de Viladestes gives perhaps the most detailed depiction of the early state of European knowledge about the Senegal River prior to the 1440s. Viladestes labels it "River of Gold" ("riu del or") and locates it a considerable distance south of Cape Bojador (buyeter) - indeed, south of a mysterious "cap de abach" (possibly Cape Timris). There are extensive notes about the plentifulness of ivory and gold in the area, including a note that reads The galley of Jaume Ferrer is depicted off the