 CHAPTER XVIII. The last voyage of Henry's lifetime was that of his faithful servant, Diego Gomez, by which the Cape Verda Islands first became clearly and fully known. It followed close upon Caudamostos venture. No long time after the Prince equipped at Lagos a caravelle called the Ren, and set over it Diego Gomez, with two other caravelles of which the same Gomez was captain in chief. Their orders were to go as far as they could. But after passing a great river beyond the Rio Grande, we met such strong currents in the sea that no anchor could hold. The other captains and their men were much alarmed, thinking we were at the end of the ocean, and begged me to put back. Inside the midcurrent, the sea was very clear, and the natives came off from the shore and brought us their merchandise—cotton cloth, ivory, and a quart measure of malagette pepper—in grain and in its pods as it grows, which delighted us. As the current prevented our going farther and even grew stronger, we put back and came to a land where there were groves of palms near the shore, with their branches broken, so tall that from a distance I thought they were the mass or spars of Negroes vessels. So we went there and found a great plain covered with hay, and more than five thousand animals, like stags but larger, who showed no fear of us. Five elephants came out of a small river that was fringed by trees, three full grown, with two young ones, and on the shore we saw holes of crocodiles in plenty. We went back to the ship, and next day made our way from Cape Verde and saw the broad mouth of a great river, three leagues in width which we entered, and guessed to be the Gambia. Here wind and tide were in our favor, so we came to a small island in midstream and rested there the night. In the morning we went farther in and saw a crowd of canoes full of men who fled at the sight of us, for it was they who had killed Nuno Tristum and his men. Next day we saw beyond the point of the river some natives on the right hand bank who welcomed us. Their chief was called Frangizic and he was the nephew of Faro Sangol, the great prince of the Negroes. There they gave us one hundred and eighty pounds worth of gold in exchange for our goods. The lord of the country had a Negro with him named Buka, who knew the tongue only of Negro land, and finding him perfectly truthful, I asked him to go with me to Cantor and promised him all he needed. I made the same promise to his chief and kept it. We went up the river as far as Cantor, which is a large town near the river side. Farther than this the ships could not go because of the thick growth of trees and underwood, but here I made it known that I had come to exchange merchandise and the natives came to me in very great numbers. When the news spread through the country that the Christians were in Cantor, they came from Tambucadu in the north, from Mount Gellu in the south, and from Kiyokun, which is a great city with a wall of baked tiles. Here too, I was told, there is gold in plenty and caravans of camels cross over there with goods from Carthage, Tunis, Fez, Cairo, and all the land of the Saracens. These are exchanged for gold, which comes from the mines on the other side of Sierra Leone. They said that range ran southwards, which pleased me very greatly because all the rivers coming from Thence, as far as could be known, ran westward, but they told me that other very large rivers ran eastward from the other side of the ridge. There was also, they said, east of these mountains a great lake, narrow and long, on which sailed canoes like ship. The people on the opposite sides of this lake were always at war, and those on the eastern side were white. When I asked who ruled in those parts, they answered that one chief was a negro, but towards the east was a greater lord, who had conquered the negroes a short time before. As Saracen told me, he had been all through that land and had been present at the fighting, and when I told this to the prince, he said that a merchant in Oren had written him two months before about this very war and that he believed it. Such were the things told me by the negroes at Cantor. I asked them about the road to the gold country and who were the lords of that country. They told me the king lived in Kukia and was lord of all the mines on the right side of the river of Cantor, and that he had, before the door of his palace, a mass of gold just as it was taken from the earth, so large that twenty men could hardly move it, and that the king always fastened his horse to it and kept it as a curiosity on account of its size and purity. The nobles of his court wore in their nostrils and ears ornaments of gold. The parts to the east were full of gold mines, but the men who went into the pits to get gold did not live long because of the foul air. The gold sand was given to women to wash the gold from it. I inquired the road from Cantor to Kukia and was told the road ran eastward, where there was great abundance of gold, as I can well believe, for I saw the negroes who went by those roads laden with it, while I was thus trafficking with these negroes of Cantor. My men became worn out with the heat, and so we returned towards the ocean. After I had gone down the river fifty leagues, they told me of a great chief living on the south side who wished to speak with me. We met in a great wood on the bank, and he brought with him a vast throng of people armed with poisoned arrows, asagais, swords, and shields, and I went to him carrying some presents and biscuit and some of our wine, for they have no wine except that made from the date-palm, and he was pleased and extremely gracious, giving me three negroes and swearing to me by the one only God, that he would never again make war against Christians, but that they might trade and travel safely through all his country. Being desirous of putting to proof this oath of his, I sent a certain Indian named Jacob, whom the prince had sent with us, in order that in the event of our reaching India, he might be able to hold speech with the natives, and I ordered him to go to the place called Al-Qazet, with the lord of that country, to find Mount Gelu, and Timbuktu, through the land of Jalafa, a knight had gone there with him before. This Jacob, the Indian, told me that Al-Qazet was a very evil land, having a river of sweet water and abundance of lemons, and some of these he brought to me, and the lord of that country sent me elephants teeth and four negroes, who carried one great ivory tusk to the ship. Now the houses here are made of seaweed, covered with straw, and while I stayed here at the river mouth three days, I learned that all the mischief that had been done to the Christians had been done by a certain king called Namimonsa, who has the country near the great headland by the mouth of the river Gambia. So I took great pains to make peace with him, and sent him many presents by his own men in his own canoes, which were going for salt along the coast to his own country, for this salt is plentiful here, and of a red color. Now Namimonsa was in great fear of the Christians lest they should take vengeance upon him. Then I went on to a great harbor, where I had many negroes come to me, sent by Namimonsa to see if I should do anything, but I always treated them kindly. When the king heard this, he came to the riverside with a great force, and sitting down on the bank sent for me, and so I went and paid him all respect. There was a bishop there of his own faith, who asked me about the God of the Christians, and I answered him, as God had given me to know. And then I questioned him about Muhammad, whom they believe. At last the king was so pleased with what I said, that he sprang to his feet and ordered the bishop to leave his country within three days, and swore that he would kill anyone who should speak the name of Muhammad from that day forward, for he said he trusted in the one only God, and there was no other but he whom his brother, Prince Henry, worshiped. Then calling the infant his brother, he asked me to baptize him, and all his lords and women. He himself would have no other name than Henry, but his nobles took our names, like James and Nuno. So I remained on shore that night with the king, but did not baptize him, as I was a layman. But next day I begged the king, with his twelve chief men and eight of his wives, to dine with me on my caravelle, and they all came unarmed, and I gave them fowls and meat and wine, white and red, as much as they could drink, and they said to one another that no people were better than the Christians. Then again on shore the king asked me to baptize him, but I said I had not leave from the pope, but I would tell the prince who would send a priest. So Nomi Mansa at once wrote to Prince Henry to send him a priest, and someone to teach him the faith, and begged him to send him a falcon with the priest, for he was amazed when I told him how we carried a bird on the hand to catch other birds, and with these he asked the prince to send him two rams and sheep and geese and ganders and a pig, and two men to build houses and plan out his town, and all these wishes of his I promised him that the prince would grant, and he and all his people made a great noise at my going. But I left the king at Gambia and started back for Portugal. In Caravell I sent straight home, but with the others I sailed to Cape Verda. And as we came near the seashore we saw two canoes putting out to sea, but we sailed between them and the shore, and so cut them off. Then the interpreter came to me and said that Bezeghici, the lord of the land, and an evil man, was in one of them. So I made them come into the Caravell, and gave them to eat and drink, with a double share of presents, and making as if I did not know him to be the chief, I said, is this the land of Bezeghici? He answered, yes, it is. And I, to try him, exclaimed, why is he so bitter against the Christians? He would do far better to have peace with them, so that they might trade in his land, and bring him horses and other things as they do for other lords of the Negroes. Go and tell your lord, Bezeghici, that I have taken you, and for love of him have let you go. At this he was very cheerful, and he and his men got into their canoes as I bade them, and as they all were standing by the side of the Caravell I called out, Bezeghici, Bezeghici, do not think I did not know thee, I could have done to thee what I would, and now, as I have done to thee, do thou also to our Christians. So they went off, and we came back to Arguen, and the Isle of the Herons, where we found flocks of birds of every kind, and after this came home to Lagos, where the prince was very glad of our return. And after this for two years no one went to Guinea, because King Afonso was at war in Africa, and the prince was quite taken up with this. But after he had come back from Al-Qassar, I reminded him of what King Nomamansa had asked of him, and the prince sent him all he had promised, with a priest, the abbot of Soto-Dakasa, and a young man of his household named John Delgado. This was in 1458. Two years afterwards King Afonso equipped a large caravelle, and sent me out as captain, and I took with me ten horses, and went to the land of the Barbasins, which is near the land of Nomamansa. And these Barbasins had two kings, but the king of Portugal gave me power over all the shores of that sea, that any ships I might find off the coast of Guinea should be under me, for he knew that there were those who sold arms to the moors, and he bade me to seize such and bring them bound to Portugal. And by the help of God I came in twelve days to this land of the Barbasins, and found two ships there, one under Gonzalo Ferreira of Oporto, of the household of Prince Henry, that was conveying horses. The other was under Antonio del Nale of Genoa. These merchants injured our trade very much, for the natives used to give twelve negroes for one horse, and now gave only six. And while we were there, a caravelle came from Gambia, which brought us news that a captain called De Prado was coming with a richly laden ship, and I ordered Ferreira to go to Cape Verde and look for that ship and seize it on pain of death and loss of all his goods. And he did so, and we found a great prize which I sent home with Ferreira to the king, and then I and Antonio del Nale left that coast and sailed two days and one night towards Portugal, and we sighted islands in the ocean, and as my ship was lighter and faster than the rest, I came first to one of those islands to a good harbor with a beach of white sand, where I anchored. I told all my men and the other captains that I wished to be first to land, and so I did. We saw no trace of natives and called the island Santiago, as it is still known. There were plenty of fish there, and many strange birds, so tame that we killed them with sticks, and I had a quadrant with me and wrote on the tablet of it the altitude of the Arctic pole, and I found it better than the chart, for though you see your course of sailing on the chart well enough, yet if once you get wrong, it is hard by map alone to work back into the right course. After this we saw one of the Canary Islands, called Palma, and so came to the island of Madeira, and then adverse winds drove me to the Azores, but Antonio Del Nalle stayed at Madeira, and catching the right breeze he got to Portugal before me, and begged of the king, the captaincy of the island of Santiago, which I had found, and the king gave it him, and he kept it till his death. But de Prado, who had carried arms to the moors lay in irons, and the king ordered him to be brought out, and then they martyred him in a cart, and threw him into the fire alive with his sword and gold. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of Prince Henry the Navigator, The Hero of Portugal, and of Modern Discovery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dion Giants, Salt Lake City, Utah. Prince Henry the Navigator by Charles Raymond Beasley. Chapter 19. Henry's Last Years and Death. 1458 to 60. While Caudamosto and Diego Gomez were carrying the prince's flag farther from the shores of Europe than Alexander or Caesar had ever ventured, the prince himself was getting more and more absorbed in the project of a new holy war against the infidel. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 into the hands of the Ottoman Turks had at least the effect of frightening and almost of rousing Western Christendom at large. In the most miserably divided of Latin states, there was now a talk about doing great things, though the time, the spirit for actually doing them, had long passed by or was not yet come. Spain, the one part of the Western Church and state, which was still living in the crusading fervor of the 12th century, was alone ready for action. The Portuguese kingdom in particular, under Afonso V, had been keeping up a regular crusade in Morocco and was willing and eager to spend men and treasure in a great Levantine enterprise. So the Pope's legate was welcomed when he came in 1457 to preach the holy war. Afonso promised to keep up an army of 12,000 men for war against the Ottoman and struck a new gold coinage, the cruzado, to commemorate the year of deliverance. But Portugal by itself could not deliver New Rome or the Holy Land, and when the other powers of the West refused to move, Afonso had to content himself with the old crusade in Africa, but he now pushed on even more zealously than before his favorite ambition. A land empire on both sides of the Straits and Prince Henry's last appearance in public service was in his nephew's camp in the Morocco campaign of 1458. In the siege of Al-Qassar, the little, the Lord infant forced the batteries, mounted the guns, and took charge of the general conduct of the siege. A breach was soon made in the walls and the town surrendered on easy terms, for it was not, said Henry, to take their goods or force a ransom from them that the king of Portugal had come against them, but for the service of God. They were only to leave behind in Al-Qassar their Christian prisoners. For themselves they might go with their wives, their children, and their property. The stout-hearted veteran, Edward Manezes, became governor of Al-Qassar and held the town with his own desperate courage against all attempts to recover it. When the besiegers offered him terms, he offered them in return his scaling letters that they might have a fair chance. When they were raising the siege, he sent them a message, would they not try a little longer? It had been a very short affair. Meantime Henry, returning to Europe by way of Cuda, re-entered his own town of Sogres for the last time. His work was nearly done, and indeed of that work there only remains one thing to notice. The Great Venetian Map, known as the Camaldolese Chart of Framaro, executed in the convent of Morano, just outside Venice, is not only the crowning specimen of medieval draftsmanship, but the scientific review of the prince's exploration. As Henry himself closes the middle age of exploration and begins the modern, so this map, the picture and proof of his discoveries, is not only the last of the older type of plan, but the first of the new style, the style which applied the accurate and careful methods of Portolano drawing to a scheme of the whole world. It is the first scientific atlas, but its scale is too vast for anything of a detailed account. It measures six feet, four inches across, and in every part it is crammed with detail. The work of three years of incessant labor, 1457 to nine, from Andrea Bianco and all the first coasters and draftsmen of the time. In general, there is an external carefulness as well as gorgeousness about the workmanship. The coast, especially in the Mediterranean and along the west coast of Europe, would almost suit a modern admiralty chart while its notice, the first notice of Prince Henry's African and Atlantic discoveries, is the special point of the whole work. There is a certain disposition to exaggerate the size of rivers, mountains, towns, and the whole proportion of things as we get farther away from the well-known ground of Europe, Russia, and the north and northeast of Asia are somewhat too large, but along the central belt it is fair to say that the whole of the country west of the Caspian is thoroughly sound, the best thing yet done in any projection. No one could look at Framaro's map and fail to see at a glance a picture of the old world and the more it is looked at, the more reliable it will prove to be by the side of all earlier essays in this field. No one can look at the Arabic maps and their imitations in medieval Christendom, whether conscious or unconscious, as in the Spanish example of 1109 without despair. It is almost hopeless to try and recognize in these anything of the shape, the proportions, or the distribution of the parts of the world which are named and which one might almost fancy it was meant to represent at the time. Place the map of 1459 by the side of the Hereford map of 1300 or of Idrisi's scheme of 1130 made at the Christian court of Sicily or in fact, beside any of the theoretical maps of the thousand years that had gone to make the Italy and the Spain of Framaro and Prince Henry and it will seem to be almost absurd to ask the question, do these belong to the same civilization in any kind of way? What would the higher criticism answer out of its infallible internal evidence tests? Of course, these are quite different. The one is merely a collection of the scratchings of savages. The other is the prototype of modern maps. Yet the Christian world is answerable for both kinds. It had struggled through ignorance and superstition and tradition into clearer light and truer knowledge. And when Greek geography came to be reprinted and revived, this was in part at least a consequence of that revival of true science which had begun in that very dark time, the night of the 12th century where we are not likely to see any signs of dawn till we look not so much at what is written now as at what the poor besotted savages of the ages of Abelard and Bernard and Aquinas and Dante have left to bear witness of themselves. Between Henry's return from Alcacer and his death while the Great Venetian map was in making, two years went by, years in which Diego Gomez was finding the Cape Verda Islands and pushing the farthest south of European discovery, still farther south, but of the prince's own working apart from that of his draftsmen, we have little or nothing but a set of charters. These charters were concerned with the trade profits of the Guinea commerce and the settlers in the new found lands off the continent, Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries, and have an interest as being a sort of last will and testament of the prince to his nation, settling his colonies, providing for the working of the lands he had explored before it should be too late. Already on the 7th June, 1454, Afonso had granted to the Order of Christ for the explorations made and to be made at the expense of the aforesaid order, the spiritual jurisdiction of Guinea, Nubia, and Ethiopia with all rights as exercised in Europe and at the motherhouse of Tomar. Now on the 28th December, 1458, Prince Henry granted in his town that the said order should receive one 20th of all merchandise from Guinea, slaves, gold, and all other articles. The rest of the profit to fall to the prince's successor in this kingdom of the seas. In the same way, on the 18th September, 1460, the prince grants away the church revenues of Porto Santo and Madeira to the Order of Christ and the temporalities to the crown of Portugal. It was his to give for by royal decree of September 15th, 1448, the whole control of the African and ocean trade and colonies had been expressly conferred upon the infant. No ships, as we have seen, could sail beyond Bohedor without his permit. Whoever transgressed this forfeited his ship and all ships sailing with his permit were obliged to pay him one fifth or one tenth of the value of their freight. But the end was in sight. The prince was now 66 and he had spent himself too strenuously for there to be much hope of a long life in him. Of late years, pressed by the increasing claims of his work, he had borrowed enormous sums from his half-brother, the millionaire Duke of Braganza. Now his body failed him like his treasures. What we know of his death is mainly from his body servant, Captain Diego Gomez, who was with him at the last. In the year of Christ, 1460, the Lord infant Henry fell sick in his own town on Cape St. Vincent and of that sickness he died on Thursday, November 13th in the self-same year. And King Afonso, who was then at Evora with all his men, made great mourning on the death of a prince so mighty who had sent out so many fleets and had won so much from Negro land and had fought so constantly against the Saracens for the faith. And at the end of the year, the King bathed me, come to him. Now till then I had stayed in Lagos by the body of the prince, my Lord, which had been carried into the church of St. Mary in that town. And I was bitten to look and see if the body of the prince were at all corrupted, for it was the wish of the king to remove it to the monastery of Batalja, which D. Henry's father, King John, had built. But when I came and looked at the body, I found it dry and sound, clad in a rough shirt of horsehair. Well, doth the church repeat, thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For how the Lord infant had been chased, a virgin to the day of his death, and what and how many good deeds he had done in his life is to be remembered, though it is not for me here to speak of this, for that would be a long tale. But the King Afonso had the body of his uncle carried to Batalja and laid in the chapel that King John had built, where also lie buried the aforesaid King John and his queen, Philippa, mother of my Lord the Prince and all the five brothers of the infant. He was brawny and large of frame, says Azurara, strong of limb as any. His complexion was fair by nature, but by his constant toil and exposure of himself it had become quite dark. His face was stern and when angry, very terrible. Brave as he was in heart and keen in mind, he had a passion for the doing of great things. Luxury and avarice never found lodgment within him. For from a youth he quite left off the use of wine, and more than this, as it was commonly reported, he passed all his days in unbroken chastity. He was so generous that no other uncrowned prince in Europe had so noble a household, so large and splendid a school for the young nobles of his country. For all the best men of his nation and still more those who came to him from foreign lands were welcomed at his court, so that often the medley of tongues and peoples and customs to be heard and seen there was a wonder. And none who worthily came to him left the court without some proof of his kindness. Only to himself was he severe. All his days were spent in work and it would not easily be believed how often he passed the night without sleep, so that by his untiring industry, he conquered the impossibilities of other men. His virtues and graces, it is too much to reckon up. Wise and thoughtful of wonderful knowledge and calm bearing, courteous in language and manner, and most dignified in address. Yet no subject of the lowest rank could show more obedience and respect to his sovereign than this uncle to his nephew from the very beginning of his reign, while King Afonso was still a minor, constant in adversity and humble in prosperity. My Lord, the infant never cherished hatred or ill will against any, even though they had grievously offended him, so that some who spoke as if they knew everything said that he was wanting in retributive justice, though in all other ways most impartial. Thus they complained that he forgave some of his soldiers who deserted him in the attack on Tangier when he was in the greatest danger. He was wholly given up to the public service and was always glad to try new plans for the welfare of the kingdom at his own expense. He gloried in warfare against the infidels and in keeping peace with all Christians, and so he was loved by all, for he loved all, never injuring any, nor failing in due respect and courtesy towards any person, however humble, without forgetting his own position. A foul or indecent word was never heard to issue from his lips. To holy church above all, he was most obedient, attending all its services and in his own chapel, causing them to be rendered as solemnly as in any cathedral church. All holy things he reverenced and he delighted to show honor and to do kindness to all the ministers of religion. Nearly one half of the year was passed by him in fasting and the hands of the poor never went out empty from his presence. His heart never knew fear except the fear of sin. End of chapter 19. Chapter 20 of Prince Henry the Navigator, the hero of Portugal and of modern discovery. This is a LibriVox recording. A LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dion Giants, Salt Lake City, Utah. Prince Henry the Navigator by Charles Raymond Beasley, chapter 20. The results of Prince Henry's work. Henry's own life is in one way the least important part of him. We have seen how many were the lines of history and of progress in Christendom, in Portugal, in science that met in him. How Greek and Arabic geography, both knowledge and practical exploration was as much a part of what he found to work with as the memoirs of Christian pilgrims, traders and travelers for a thousand years. How the exploring and expanding energy which the North men poured into Europe leading directly to the crusading movement was producing in the Portugal of the 15th century the very same results as in the France and Italy and England of the 12th and 13th. And now on the failure of the Syrian crusades the Spanish counterpart of those crusades the greatest of social and religious upheavals in the Middle Ages had reached such a point of success that the victorious Christians of Spain could look out for new worlds to conquer. Again, we have seen how the 12th, 13th and 14th century progress in science especially in geographical maps and plans the great extension of land travel and the new beginnings of ocean voyaging during the same time must be taken into any view of the prince's life and work. We have now to look for a moment at the immense results of that same life which had so vast and so long a preparation. For just as we cannot see that work of his could have been done without each and every part of that many cited preparation in the history of the past. So it is quite as difficult to see how the great achievements of the generation that followed him and of the century that wonderful 16th century which followed the age of Henry's courtiers and disciples could have been realized without the impetus he had given and the knowledge he had spread. For it was not merely that his seamen had broken down the middle wall of superstitious terror and had pierced through into the unknown South for a distance of nearly 2000 miles. It was not merely that between 1412 and 1460 Europeans passed the limits of the West and of the South as legend had so long fixed them. Not merely that the most difficult part of the African coast between Bohador and the Gulf of Guinea had been fairly passed and that the waterway to India was more than half found. This was true enough when Vasco de Gama was once round the South Cape, he soon found himself not in an unknown and untroversed ocean, but embarked upon one of the great trade routes of the Mohammedan world, the main part of the distance between the Prince's farthest and the Southern Cape of Good Hope was passed in two voyages in four years, 1482 to six, but there was more than this. Henry did not only accomplish the first and most difficult steps of his own great central project, the finding of the way round Africa to India, he not only began the conversion of the natives, the civilization of the coast tribes and the colonization of certain trading sites, he also founded that school of thought and practice which made all the great discoveries that have so utterly eclipsed his own. From that school came Columbus who found a Western route to India starting from the suggestion of Henry's attempt by South and East Bartholomew Diaz who reached and rounded the southernmost point of the Old World continent and laid open the Indian Ocean to European sailors, Degama who was the first of those sailors to reap the full advantage of the work of 90 years, the first who sailed from Lisbon to Calicut and back again, Albuquerque who founded the first colonial empire of modern Europe, the first great out-settlement of Christendom, the Portuguese trade dominion in the East, Magellan, who finally proved what all the great discoverers were really assuming the roundness of the world, the nameless adventurers who seem to have touched Australia sometime before 1530, the draftsmen who left us our first true map of the globe. So it is not in the actual things done by the princess efforts that we can measure his importance in history. It is because his work was infinitely suggestive because he laid a right foundation for the onward movement of Europe and Christendom because he was the leader of a true renaissance and reformation that he is so much more than a figure in the story of Portugal. There are figures which are of national interest, there are others which are less than that, figures of family or provincial importance, others again which are always dear to us as human beings, as men who felt the ordinary wants and passions and lived the ordinary life of men with a brilliancy and an intense power that was all their own. There are other men who stand out as those who have changed more or less but changed vitally and really the course of the world's history without whom the whole of our modern society, our boasted civilization, would have been profoundly different. For after all the modern Christian world of Europe has something to boast of, though its riders spend much of their time in reviling and decrying it, it is something that our Western world has conquered or worsted every other civilization upon earth that with the single exception of China it has made everyone of the coveted tracts of Asia its own that it has discovered, settled and developed a new continent to be the equal of the old, that it has won not a complete but a good working knowledge of the whole surface of the globe. We are at home in the world now we say and if we would know what that means we must look at the Europe of the 10th or even the 14th century, look at the theoretical maps of the Middle Ages, look at the legends and the pseudoscience of a civilization which was shut up within itself and condemned for so long to fight in a narrowing circle against incessant attacks from without and the barbarism which this state of things kept alive within. Then perhaps we shall take things a little less for granted and perhaps also we shall begin to think that if this great advance, the greatest thing in modern history as we know it that which is the distinction and glory of the last 300 years is at all due to the inspiration and the action of Henry of Portugal and obscure prints of the 15th century that obscure prints may possibly belong to the rank of the great civilizers the men who have most altered society and advanced it, men like Alexander and Caesar and the founders of the great world religions. It may be as well to trace out very shortly the evidence for such a claim as this and to see how the prince's work was followed up first on his own lines to south and east second on other lines which his own suggested to west and north. One, King Afonso the 5th, Henry's nephew the rather more of a hard fighter and tournament king than a man who could fully take up his uncle's plans had yet caught enough of his inspiration to push on steadily though slowly. The advance round Africa, he had already done his best to get the great map of Fra Morrow finished this which embodied all the achievements of the navigator and gave the most complete and perfect view of the world that had ever yet appeared had come out in 1459 just before Henry's death the last tribute of science to the prince's work. Now in 1461 left alone to deal with the discovery and conquest of Guinea, Afonso repaired Henry's fort in the Bay of Arguan and sent one Pedro de Cintra to survey the coast beyond the Rio Grande, the farthest point of Caudamosto in his first voyage as generally known. Pedro went 600 miles into the bite of Benin past a mountain range called Sierra Leone from the lion-like growl of the thunder on its summits and turned back near the point afterwards known as Fort La Mina, 1461. Sometime in the next few years, another courtier once Suiero de Costa followed Pedro de Cintra to Guinea but without any new results. When Caudamosto left Portugal, February 1, 1463, he tells us there were no more voyages to the new found parts. The slave trade nearer home was now indeed absorbing all energies and Afonso's main relation with Africa voyaging is to be found in his regulations for the security of this trade. But in 1471, there was another move in the line of further discovery for exploring energy was not dead or worn out but only waiting a leader. Fernando Poe now reached the island in the farthest inlet of the Gulf of Guinea which is still called after him finding as he went on that the eastern bend of Africa which men had followed so confidently since 1445, the year of the rounding of Cape Verde, now ended with a sharp turn to the south, it was a great disappointment. But in spite of this discouragement at the very same time, two of the foremost of the Portuguese pilots, Martin Fernandez and Alvaro Esteves passed the whole of the Guinea coast the bites of Benin and of Biafra and crossed the equator into a new heaven and a new earth on the edge of which the caravans of Portugal had long been hovering as they saw like Caudamosto, stars unknown in the northern hemisphere and more and more nearly lost sight of the northern pole. In 1475, Cape St. Catherine, two degrees south of the line was reached and then after six more years of languishing exploration and flourishing trade, King John II succeeded of Fonzo V and took up the work in the spirit of Prince Henry the Navigator. Now in six short years exploration carried out the main part of the design of so many years, the southern Cape of Africa was rounded and the way to India laid open for the time had come and the man John added a new chapter to discovery by the travelers he sent across the dark continent and the sailors he dispatched to the Arctic seas to find a northeast passage to China. He died just as he was fitting up the expedition that was to enter upon the promised land and the glory of Dagamas voyage filled to one who had not labored but entered upon the fruits of the toil of other men, the palace king, Emmanuel the Fortunate, but at least the names of Diaz and Diego Cam and Covalham, the rounding of the Cape of Storms, the first journey, though an overland one straight from Lisbon to Malabar belonged to the second founder of Portuguese and European Discovery, John the Perfect. Less than four months after his father's death, John, who was heir apparent, had drawn part of his income from the African trade and its fisheries, sent out Diego de Asambuga with 10 caravals to superintend three undertakings. First, the construction of a fort at St. George Domina to secure the trade of the Guinea coast. Second, the rebuilding of Henry's old fort at Argyn. Third, the exploration of the yet unknown coast as far as possible. For this, stones, brick, wood, mortar, and tools for building were sent out with the fleet and carved pillars were taken to be set up in all fresh discovered lands instead of the wooden crosses that had previously done duty. Each pillar was 14 hands high, was carved in front with the royal arms and on the sides with the names of the king and the discoverer with the date of discovery in Latin and Portuguese. Asambuga's fleet sailed on the 11th of December, 1480, made a treaty with the chief Bezeghici near Cape Verde and reached La Mina on the south coast of Guinea on January 19, 1482, after a year spent in fort building and treaty making with the natives of Northwest Africa. Fort End Church at La Mina were finished in 20 days and Asambuga sent back his ships with a great cargo in slaves and gold but without any news of fresh discovery. John was not disposed to be content with this. In 1484, Diego Cam was ordered to go as far to the south as he could and not to wait anywhere for other matters. He passed Cape St. Catherine just beyond the line which since 1475 had been the limit of knowledge and continuing south reached the mighty river Congo called by the natives Zaire and now known as the second of African rivers the true counterpart of that western Nile which every geographer since Ptolemy had reproduced and which in the Senegal, the Gambia and the Niger the Portuguese had again and again sought to find their explanation. Cam, by agreement with the natives took back four hostages to act as interpreters and next year returned to and passed the Congo and sailed 200 leagues beyond to the site of the modern Wallvish Bay 1485. Here as the coast seemed to stretch interminably south so he had now really passed quite nine-tenths of the distance to the Southern Cape Cam turned back to the Congo where he persuaded the king and people to profess themselves Christians and allies of Portugal. Already in 1484, a native embassy to King John had brought such an account of an inland prince one Ogani, a Christian at heart that all the court of Lisbon thought he must be the long lost Pristar John and the Portuguese monarch all on fire with his hope sent out at once in search of this great Catholic Lord by sea and land. Bartholomew Diaz sailed in August 1486 with two ships first to search for the Pristar and then to explore as much new land and sea as he could find within his reach. Two envoys, Covalham and Pava, were sent on the same errand by the way of Jerusalem, Arabia and Egypt. Another expedition was sent to ascend the Senegal to its junction with the Nile. A fourth party started to find the way to Cathay by the Northeast passage. Camoans has sung of the travels of Covalham who first saw cloves and cinnamon, pepper and ginger and who pined away in a state of confinement at the Pristar's absinthean court. But the voyage of Diaz hardly finds a place in the Luciads and the very name of the discoverer is generally forgotten. Vasco de Gama has robbed him only two successfully. John Diaz had been the second captain to double Bohador. Dinez Diaz in 1445 had been the discoverer of Senegal and of Cape Verda. Now 40 years later, Bartholomew Diaz achieved the greatest feat of discovery in all history before Columbus for the North men's finding America was an unknown and transitory good fortune. While the voyage of 1486 changed directly or indirectly the knowledge, the trade, the whole face of the world at once and forever. Sailing with two little frigates, each of 50 tons burden in the belief that ships which sail down the coast of Guinea might be sure of reaching the end of the continent by persisting to the South, Diaz in one voyage of 16 months performed the main task which Henry 70 years ago had set before his nation. Passing Walvitch Bay and the farthest pillar of Diego Cam, he reached a headland where he set up his first pillar at what is still known as Diaz Point. Still coasting southwards and tacking frequently, he passed the Orange River, the northern limit of the present Cape Colony. Then putting well out to sea, Diaz ran 13 days before the wind due south hoping by this wide sweep to round the southern point of the continent which could not now be far off. Finding the cold became almost arctic and buffeted by tremendous seas. He changed his course to East and then as no land appeared after five days to North the first land scene was a bay where cattle were feeding now called Flesh Bay which Diaz named from the cows and cowherds he saw there. After putting ashore to natives, some of those lately carried from Guinea or Congo to Portugal and sent out again to act as scouts for the European colonies, the ships sailed east seeking in vain for the land's end till they found the coast tanned gradually but steadily towards the North. Their last pillar was set up in Algoa Bay, the first land trodden by Christians beyond the Cape at the Great Fish River 60 miles farther on and quite 500 miles beyond the point that Diaz was looking for so anxiously, the crew refused to go any farther and the admiral turned back, only certain of one thing that he had missed the Cape and that all his trouble was in vain, worn out with the worry of his bitter disappointment and incessant useless labor, he was coasting slowly back when one day the veil fell from his eyes for there came in sight that so many ages unknown promontory round which lay the way to India and to find which had been the great ambition of all enterprise since the expansion of Europe had begun afresh in the opening years of that 15th century. While Diaz was still tossing in the storms off the Great Cape, Covalham and his friends had started from Lisbon to settle the course of the future sea route to India by an observation of all the coasts of the Indian Ocean to explore what they could of upper Africa to find Pristar John and to ally the Portuguese experiment with anything they could find of Christian power in greater or middle or further India. As King John's Senegal adventurers had been exploring the Niger, the Sahara caravan routes, the city of Timbuktu and the fancied Western Nile so the obsidian travelers surveyed all the ground of Africa and Malabar which the first fleet that could round the Cape of storms must come to keep southward, Covalham wrote home from Cairo after his first visit to Calicut on one side and to Mozambique on the other. If you persist, Africa must come to an end and when ships come to the eastern ocean, let them ask for Sofala and the island of the moon Madagascar and they will find pilots to take them to Malabar. Yet another chapter of discoveries was opened by King John's Cathay fleet. He failed to get news of a northeast passage but beyond the north coast of Asia there was found a frozen island whose name of Novei Zimlea or Nova Zambia still keeps the memory of the first Portuguese attempts on the road where so many Dutch and English seamen perished in after years. The great voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497 to nine, the empire founded by Albuquerque, 1506 to 15 in the Indian seas, were the other steps in the complete achievement of Prince Henry's ambition when in the early years of the 16th century a direct and permanent traffic was fairly started between Malabar and Portugal when European settlements and forts controlled the whole eastern and western coasts of Africa from the mouth of the Red Sea to the mouth of the Mediterranean and the five keys of the Indies Malacca, Goa, Ormuz, Aden and Ceylon were all in Christian hands when the Muslim trade between East Africa and Western India had passed into a possession of the kings of Lisbon Don Henry might see of the travail of his soul and be well satisfied. The supposed discovery of Australia about 1530 or somewhat earlier and the travels of Ferdinand Mendes Pinto in Japan and the furthest east the opening of the trade with China in 1517 and the complete exploration of Absinia the Prestors Kingdom in 1520 by Alvarez and the other Catholic missionaries the millions converted by Francis Xavier and the Jesuit preachers in Malabar and the union of the old native Christian church of India with the Roman 1599 were other steps in the same road. All of them, if traced back far enough bring us to the court of Sogres and the same is true of Spanish and French and Dutch and English empires in the southern and eastern world. Henry built for his own nation but when that nation failed from the exhaustion of its best blood other peoples entered upon the inheritance of his work. But though he was not able himself to see the fulfillment of his plans both the method of a Southeast passage and the men who followed it out to complete success were his, his workmanship and his building. Degame, Diego Kham, the Diaz family and most of the great seamen who followed the path they had traced were either brought up from boyhood in the household of the infant as the chronicle of the discovery tells us of each new figure that comes upon the scene or look to him as their master owed to the school of Sogres their training and began their practical seamanship under his leave and protection. Even the lines upon which the national expansion and exploration went on were so strictly and exclusively the same as he had followed that when a different route to the Indies was suggested after his death by Christopher Columbus the court of John II refused to treat it seriously. And this brings us to the other the indirect side of Henry's influence. It was in Portugal says Ferdinand Columbus in his life of the admiral his father that the admiral began to think that if men could sail so far south one might also sail west and find lands in that quarter. The second great stream of modern discovery can thus be traced to the generous Henry of Camoans, Lucieds no less plainly though more indirectly than the first the Western path was suggested by his success in the Eastern but that success had turned the heads of his own people. When Columbus the son of the Genoese Wulcomer who had been a resident in Lisbon since 1470 submitted to the court of John II some time before 1484 a proposal to find Marco Polo's Chepangu by a few weeks sail west from the Azores he was treated as a dreamer. John as Henry's disciple and successor was like other disciples narrower than his master in the master's own way. He was ready for any expense and trouble but no novelty. He would only go on as he had been taught. He had reason to be confident and his scientific Junto of four Martin Behame of Nuremberg among them to whom Columbus was referred were too much elated with their new improvements in the Austrelab and the now assured confidence that the Southern Cape would soon be passed they could not endure with patience the vehement dogmatism of an unknown theorist but as he was too full of his message to be easily shaken off he was treated with the basis trickery. At the suggestion of the Bishop of Ciudad Columbus was kept waiting for his answer and asked to furnish his plans in detail with charts and illustrations. He did so and while the council pretended to be pouring over these for a final decision a caravel was sent to the Cape Verda Islands to try the route he had suggested a trial with the pickings of Italian brains. The Portuguese sailed westward for several days till the weather became stormy then as their heart was not in the venture they put back to Europe with a fresh stock of the legends Henry had so heartily despised they had come to an impenetrable mist which had stopped their progress apparitions had warned them back the sea in those parts swarmed with monsters it became impossible to breathe. Columbus learned how he had been used and his wife's death helped to decide him in his disgust for place and people. Towards the end of 1484 he left Lisbon three years later when he had become fully as much disgusted with the deletory sloth and tricks of Spain he offered himself again to Portugal. King John had repented of his meanness on March 20, 1488 he wrote in answer to Columbus eagerly offering on his side to guarantee him against any suits that might be taken against him in Lisbon but the court of Castile now became in its turn afraid of quite losing what might be infinite advantage Columbus was kept in the service of Ferdinand and Isabella and at last in August 1492 the Catholic Kings sent him out from Palos to discover what he could on his own terms what followed the discovery of America and all the subsequent ventures of the Cabots of Amerigo Vespuci of Cortes and Pizarro de Soto and Raleigh and the Pilgrim Fathers are not often connected in any way with the slow and painful beginnings of European expansion in the Portugal of the 15th century but it is a true and real connection all the same the whole onward and outward movement of the great exploring age was set in motion by one man it might have come to pass without him but the fact is simply that through him it did as a matter of history result and let him that did more than this go before him end of chapter 20 end of Prince Henry the Navigator the hero of Portugal and of modern discovery by Charles Raymond Beasley