The life of Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed the Navigator, and its results: comprising the discovery, within one century, of half the world -- With-- the history of the naming of America

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PRINCE IIEXUV OF PORTUGAL,

SUKNAMEl)

THE ^' Av k; a to n.

THE LIFE

PEINCE HENEY OF PORTUGAL,

SUUNAMED

THE NAVIGATOR;

AND ITS RESULTS:

COMPRISING
THE DISCOVERY, WITHIX ONE CENTURY, OF HALF THE WORLD.

■WITH

KEW FACTS IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS ;

A REFUTATION OF FRENCH CLAIMS TO PRIORITY IN DISCOVERY;

PORTUGUESE KNOWLEDGE (SUBSEQUENTLY LOST) OF THE NILE LAKES ;

AND

THE HISTORY OF THE NAMING OF AMERICA.

jf vom Authentic Colcmgorurg documents.

KICHARD HENRY MAJOR, F.S.A, F.R.S.L., etc.

KEEPER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MAPS AND CHARTS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM ;
AND HON. SEC. OF THE KOVAL GEOGKAPHICAi SOCIETY.

ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS, MAPS, ETC.

LONDON :

A. ASHEK & CO., 13, BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GAIIDEN
AND BERLIN, 20, UNTER DEN LINDEN.

18G8.

e7z

" Conceito digao foi do ramo claro
Do venturoso rei, que arou primeiro
O mar, per ir deitar do niiibo caro
0 morador de Abyla derradeiro.
Este, por sua industria e iugenho rarn,
N'um madeiro ajuntaudo outro madeiro,
Descubrir pode a parte, que faz clara
De Argos, da Hydra a luz, da Lebre e da Ara."

Camoens. Os Ludadas, Canto viii. Stanza 71.

.^:.

HIS EXCELLENCY

BOM FHANCISCO D'ALMEIDA,

COUNT DE LAVRADIO,

ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY AND MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY OF

HIS MOST FAITHFUL MAJESTY
AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES's,

ETC. ETC. ETC.,

THE LINEAL DESCENDANT OF

FEANCISCO D'ALMEIDA,

FIRST VICEROY OF THAT INDIAN EMPIRE

FOR WHICH PORTUGAL WAS PRIMARILY INDEBTED

TO THE GENIUS AND PERSEVERANCE OF

PEINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR,

THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED,

WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF

GRATEFUL AFFECTION AND RESPECT,

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

Preface. — Describing the early manuscript documents on which the princi]ial
portions of the work are based, and containing an examination of a
recently published manuscript, the first ever produced to establish
the asserted priority of the French in discoveries on the coast of
Guinea pp. \'ii — lii

CHAPTER I.

The Puhpose, — Prince Henry's object in devoting his life to Atlantic explo-
ration. " A bold conception, which perseveringly followed out, led to the
discovery of half the world ........ 1 — 3

CHAPTER II.

The Prince's Parentage. — Son of Joao I., King of Portugal, founder of the
dj-nasty of Aviz, and of Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster. The history of King Joao's elevation to the thi-one. Death
of the Queen 4 — 25

CHAPTER III.

Ceuta. — Its capture in one day, being the first reiu'isals of the Christians on
the Moors, and the fii'st step towards African exploration. 1415. 26 — 43

CHAPTER IV.

Talext de Biex Faire. — Africa before Prince Henry's time. Sagrcs, the
Prince's school of cartography and navigation. The Prince vindicated
from falsely attributed praise. Progress of cartography. The astro-
labe, quadi-ant and compass, mathematics, and astronomy before the
Pi-ince's time. The Prince's brother, Dom Pedio. The first efforts in
exploration .......... 44 — 65

a 2

IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V.

Porto Santo and Madeira.— Authenticity of discovery In Uth century by
the Englishman, ItoLert Machin, now first established from the evidence
of early MSS. lie-discovery by Zarco and Tristam Vaz. Colonization.
1418—1420 66—77

CHAPTER VI.

Cape Boyador.— Death of King Joao, His eulogium. Gil Eannes succeeds
in doubling Cape Boyador. 1434 — 1436 .... 78 — 85

CH/U'TER VII.

The Sea of Darkxesm. — Ancient voyages and explorations in the Atlantic.
Hanno's voyage analysed. Claims to priority of discoveiy in the Middle
Ages, on behalf of the Genoese, Catalans and Normans, examined and
disproved ........... 86 — 133

CHAPTER VIII.

Glimpses op Light. — The Fortunate Islands, or Canaries, before the time of
Pi-ince Henry. Discovered by the Phoenicians. Description by Statins
Sebosus. King Juba's expedition and description of the islands. The
Canaiies imknown to the Ai'abs. A'"isited by the Portuguese in the
beginning of 14th century. Boccaccio's description of a voyage in 1341
by Portuguese ships, in which were also Italians and Spaniards. Abor-
tive project of the Prince of Fortune. Jean de Bethencourt. Porto
Santo and Madeira now first shown to have been discovered in
the beginning of 14th century by Poi'tuguese ships under Genoese
captains ........... 134 — 152

CHAPTER IX.

Tangier. — Siege of. Its unfortimate results. The fate of Dom Fernando,
the Constant Prince. Death of Dom Duarte. Dom Pedro regent.
Interruption in explorations. 1437 . . . . . 153 — 171

CHAPTER X.

The Azaneoues. — The expeditions to the coast of Africa as far as the Bay
ofArguin. 1441—1444 172—178

CHAPTER XL

Tjie Si.avk Tumie.— I'rinco IL'nry freed from the imputation of liaving been
the originator of the Slave Trade ...... 171) — 189

CONTENTS. V

CHAPTER XII.

Seneoambia. — Expeditions as fur as Eio Grande. 144o — 1448 , 190 — 225

CHAPTER XIII.

The Regent Dom Pedro. — The enmity of the Count de Barcellos. Alfan-o-
beira. Death of the Regent. His character. 1439 — 1449. . 226 — 234

CHAPTER XIV.

The Azores. — Now first shown to have heen discovered in the beginning of
the fourteenth century by Portuguese vessels under Genoese captains.
Rectification of the dates and details of their discovery in Prince Henry's
time. The claims of the Flemings disproved. 1431 — 1466 . 235 — 245

CHAPTER XV.

Cadamosto. — His first voyage. The Gambia discovered. 1455 — 1456 246 — 276

CHAPTER XVI.

Cape Verde Islands. — Cadamosto's description of his second voyage sho^vn
to be full of misrepresentations and misappropriations. Diogo Gomez now
first shown to be the discoverer. Narrative of his voyages now first
pi-inted in English. 1460 277—299

CHAPTER XYll.

Death of Prixce Henry. — Siege of Alcazar Seguer. Diogo Gomez' account
of the Prince's death. Azurara's character of the Piince. 1457 —
1460 300—316

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Stormy Cape. — Expeditions to coasts of Guinea, Benin, and Congo.
The Cape of Good Hope rounded by Barthoknieu Dias, 1487. The
equatorial Nile lakes Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and Lake Tanganpka
8ho^\-n to have been known to the Portuguese in 1587, but since forgotten
until discovered by Burton, Speke, and Sir Samuel Baker. 1460—
1487 317—346

CHAPTER XIX.

Results Westward. — Columbus. M. Margrj-'s assertion that Cohmibus
discovered America under French inspiration answered. The history of
the naming of America at St. Die in LoiTaine. Vespucci. 1470 —
1507 347—388

vi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XX.

Results Eastwabd.— Death of Joao II. King Manoel. Rectification of
dates in Vasco da Gama's voyage round the Cape. French claims to
priority in the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope disproved. First
voyages to India and the Moluccas. First entry into Abyssinia or Country
of Prester John. Discovery of coast of China in 1517. French claims
to firit discovery of China disproved. 1487—1517. . . 389—419

CHAPTER XXI.

Results Southward. — MagaUiaens' voyage and death. The Moluccas
reached by the west. The world circumnavigated. Australia shown to
have been discovered about 1530. First auihenticated discovery of
Australia by the Portuguese m 1601. 1519— 1530 . . . 420—454

CORRIGENDA.

Page 57, line 5, for " Utensilitus " read " Utensilibus."

64, „ 1,/or " 1320 "rm(/« 1306."

89, „ ] 2, /or " coast " read " east."
105, „ 12, /or "navigation" ?'ertfZ "migration."
121, „ 3 from bottom, /or " Deschelier" r«af? " Desceliers."
139, „ 20, for " Alphonso fourth " read " Alphonso IV."
144, „ 7, /or " summits" ?•«((£ "summit."
156, „ 9, " and " omitted at beginning.
159, „ 9, for " Ferdinand " read " Fernando."
165, „ 32, /or " prince" ?Yafi "Prince."
186, „ 30,' /or IX. read XI.
197, last line but two, /or "consists" j-eati "consisted;" last line, /or

" are " read " were."
211, „ 9,/or " Giliancz Datiiyde " read " Gonsalvez de Atayde."
25(), „ 6, " a " omitted.
260, „ 28, /or " beside" rc(ifrf "besides."
305, „ 2, in note, /or "JSeile" read "Neale."

32.^' " 30 1/'"'"'^"^""'''''^'^" Joao."

350, last lino, for " writen " read " written."

368, „ 2, /or " Alonza " read " Alonzo."

391, „ 20, for " preceding chapter" read " last chapter but one."

393, „ 1, in note,/or " IS'eile " read " Noale."

401, ill pagination, /or " 410 " read " 401."

4(),s, hist liiii', /or " inipretor" read " interpreter."

4M, „ l(i, /or " do " rt'oi/ " de."

417, in running title, /or " Westward" read " Eastward,"

424, „ 8, for " order" read "orders."

441, line 7,/or " 1572 " read " 1571."

PREFACE.

It may perhaps be foirly rogardcd as a matter of surprise
that no Englishman has hitherto attempted to prepare a
monograph of the life of Prince Henry the Navigator. If a
phenomenon without example in the world's history, result-
ing from the thought and perseverance of one man, might
be supposed of interest enough to tempt the pen of the
biographer, assuredly that inducement was not wanting.
When we see the small population of a narrow strip of the
Spanish Peninsula, limited both in means and men, become,
in an incredibly short space of time, a mighty maritime
nation, not only conquering the islands and Western Coasts
of Africa and rounding its Southern Cape, but creating
empires and founding capital cities at a distance of two thou-
sand leagues from their own homesteads, we are tempted to
suppose that such results must have been brought about by
some freak of fortune, some happy stroke of luck. Not so :
they were the effects of the patience, wisdom, intellectual
labour, and example of one man, backed by the pluck of a race
of sailors who, when we consider the means at their disposal,
have been unsurpassed as adventurers in any country or in
any age. Doubtless, the geographical position of Portugal,
at the extremity of the European continent, had much to
do with the suggestion of its glorious mission ; but what else

VIU PREFACE.

besides danfrer and death could the formidable waves of the
Atlantic have suggested to her mariners, had it not been for
the conrageons conception and untiinching zeal of one who,
during forty long years of even limited success, knew how
to blend patience with enthusiasm, and conquer disappoint-
ment by devoted persistence in what he had prescribed to
himself as a duty. The story of the life of such an one can
surely not be deemed an uninteresting or unimportant
matter.

Till a comparatively recent date, it is true, the materials
for anything approaching to a satisfactory biography had
not been brought within the reach of the historical student.
The Livy of Portugal, as he has been called, Joao de Barros,
had handed down to us some incomplete details from the
scattered papers of a contemporaneous historian whose
collected work has, as we shall presently see, recently been
made public property.

Two centuries after Barros, an elegant Portuguese writer,
Jose Freire, better known by the name of" Candido Lusitano"
(his pseudonym as a member of the Academy of the
Arcades), produced in 1758, at Lisbon, in 4to., a life of
the Prince, which was more to be commended for the graces
of its style than for the abundance or the accuracy of the
information it supplied. A translation of this work into
French, with a preliminary discourse, by the Abbe Cour-
nand, appeared in Lisbon and Paris in 1781, small 8vo.,
but afforded no additional knowledge respecting its subject.

After that time, the glorious little kingdom which, by the
mere energy of its children, had in old times maintained
itself for more than a century in the first rank of European
Powers, until condemned by the disaster of Alcager-quivir
in 1580 to a paralysing condition of silence and inaction.

TREFAOE. IX

began anew to do itself honour in the field of literature, as of
old it had not failed to do in the same career as well as
on the perilous surface of the ocean. In 1779 the Royal
Academy of Sciences at Lisbon, which had been founded
in the beginning of the century, was reorganised by the care
of the Duke of Lafoens, and since then we have had brought
to light, from time to time, a series of valuable materials
for history, which the Archives of Portugal could alone be
expected to supply.

Amongst these, some of the most important were embo-
died in the Collec(jao de livros ineditos de Historia Portu-
gueza dos Reinados de Joao L, D. Duarte, D. Affonso V., and
D. Joao 11. , edited by Don Jose Correa da Serra, in three
volumes folio. Lisbon, 1790 — 1793.

But the most important of all the precious relics of the
fifteenth century thus exhumed, was discovered in 1837 in
the Royal Library at Paris by M. Ferdinand Denis, the
distinguished conservateur of the Library of St. Genevieve ;
and one cannot but feel that Fortune was unusually just in
allotting the glory of so noble a trouvaille to one who, out of
Portugal, stands second to none in intimate acquaintance
with the details of Portuguese history and literature. This
beautiful manuscript, which was drawn up in 1448, and
fairly completed in 1453, was published in Paris in 1841,
Svo., with a title of which the following is a translation* : —
" Chronicle of the discovery and conquest of Guinea, written
by command of King Affonso V., under the scientific direc-

* Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guine, escripla por mandadi) do
el Key D. Affonso V. sob a dii-ec^ao scicntifica e socundo as instruc^lcs do
illnstrc infante D. Henrique, pelo chronista Gomes Eannes do Azurara, fielnicnte
trasladada do manuscrito original contcmporaneo que so conserva ua Bibliothcia
Ileal de Pariz e dada pela primeira vcz a luz per diligencia do Viscondo da Car-
reira, prucedida dc uma introduc9ao e illustrada com alguuas notas pelo Viscoudr
dc Sautarcm. Pariz, Svo.

X PRKFACE.

tion, and in conformity with the instructions, of the ilhis-
trious Infant Don Henrique [the Prince Henry of the
present work] , by the Chronicler Gomes Eannes de Azurara,
faithfully copied from the original contemporaneous manu-
script in the Royal Library at Paris, and now first edited by
the Visconde da Carreira, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of His Most Faithful Majesty at the Court
of France ; preceded by an Introduction, and illustrated with
notes by the Visconde de Santarem,'' &c.

The title and period of this narrative will themselves con-
vey some idea of its importance. The original manuscript
is a magnificent specimen of the calligraphic skill required
by King Affonso V., the first King of Portugal who endowed
his country with a library. It is necessary, however, to state
that in that condition it was not an original emanation from
the hand of its recognised author Azurara. It was compiled
from the rough narrative of one of Prince Henry's sailors,
Affonso de Cerveira, who had himself been engaged in those
great discoveries which we have now to narrate, and had
given a description of them under the title of '• History
of the Conquest of the Portuguese along the coast of
Africa."*

This precious monument of the glory of Portugal sets
forth from cotemporary testimony the attempts of the brave
men who first penetrated the Sea of Darkness (as the Arabs
called the Atlantic beyond the Canaries) which till then
had baffled the ciforts of the most experienced navigators of
Europe. Although in the composition of the original
chronicle there is a display of pedantry common to the
period, a little reflection will show that such pedantry is
highly excusable in works })roduced before the invention of

* Ilistoria dii Counuistii clos I'oitu^iiczLS pclu Costa dWJiitu.

PKEFACE. xi

printing, when erudition could be acquired only tli rough the
medium of manuscripts which were naturally at the com-
mand of only a very few. Nay, it was more than excusable,
it was valuable, for it informed the reader of the sources
from which the author's information was derived. At the
same time it will be obvious that the pedantry and prolixity
which may be so justly excused in a writer of the first half
of the fifteenth century, would prove but a wearisome repast
except to the palate of an antiquary especially interested in
the subject. To such the original is within as easy access
as are most of the works which offer to an antiquary the
pabulum in which he delights ; but for the present purpose
it has been deemed sufficient to extract the facts with which
the author supplies us. In this respect his work is invalu-
able, for he not only lived with Prince Henry, but was
personally acquainted with most of his intrepid explorers,
more than fifty of whom were attached to the Prince's
household and received their nautical instruction under his
auspices. We may, therefore, feel sure that he supplied
much that was wanting in the original manuscrij)t of
Cerveira which formed the basis of his chronicle. So much
of the subject matter of the work as was subsequently
brought together by Barros in his "Asia", published at
Lisbon in 1552-53, fol., was derived by him from scattered,
torn, and mixed fragments of Azurara's original rough
drafts.

In the " Paleographie Universelle " of Silvestre, Paris,
1841, fol., is a facimile of the first page of the fair copy
of Azurara's manuscript, which is described as a small loh'o
volume written on parchment and consisting of three hun-
dred and nine pages with two columns in each page. At
the end it is stated to have been written by Joiio Gousalvez,

X PRF.FACE.

tion, and in conformity with the instructions, of the illus-
trious Infant Don Henrique [the Prince Henry of the
present work] , by the Chronicler Gomes Eannes de Azurara,
faithfully copied from the original contemporaneous manu-
script in the Royal Library at Paris, and now first edited by
the Visconde da Carreira, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of His Most Faithful Majesty at the Court
of France ; preceded by an Introduction, and illustrated with
notes by the Visconde de Santarem,'^ &c.

The title and period of this narrative will themselves con-
vey some idea of its importance. The original manuscript
is a magnificent specimen of the calligraphic skill required
by King Affonso V., the first King of Portugal who endowed
his country with a library. It is necessary, however, to state
that in that condition it was not an original emanation from
the hand of its recognised author Azurara. It was compiled
from the rough narrative of one of Priuce Henry's sailors,
Affonso de Cerveira, who had himself been engaged in those
great discoveries which we have now to narrate, and had
given a description of them under the title of '•' History
of the Conquest of the Portuguese along the coast of
Africa."*

This precious monument of the glory of Portugal sets
forth from cotemporary testimony the attempts of the brave
men who first penetrated the Sea of Darkness (as the Arabs
called the Atlantic beyond the Canaries) which till then
had baffled the elForts of the most experienced navigators of
Europe. Although in the composition of the original
chronicle tlierc is a display of pedantry common to the
period, a little reflection will show that such pedantry is
highly excusable in works produced before the invention of

* Jlialoriu (hi Cou(|ui.stii ilos l'urtu,i;in.'ZLS pcla Costa d'Alricu.

PREFACE. Xi

printing, when erudition could be acquired only through the
medium of manuscripts which were naturally at the com-
mand of only a very few. Nay, it was more than excusable,
it was valuable, for it informed the reader of the sources
from which the author's information was derived. At the
same time it will be obvious that the pedantry and prolixity
which may be so justly excused in a writer of the first half
of the fifteenth century, would prove but a wearisome repast
except to the palate of an antiquary especially interested in
the subject. To such the original is within as easy access
as are most of the works which offer to an antiquary the
pabulum in which he delights ; but for the present purpose
it has been deemed sufficient to extract the /acts with which
the author supplies us. In this respect his work is invalu-
able, for he not only lived w'ith Prince Henry, but was
personally acquainted with most of his intrepid explorers,
more than fifty of whom were attached to the Prince's
household and received their nautical instruction under his
auspices. We may, therefore, feel sure that he supplied
much that was wanting in the original manuscript of
Cerveira which formed the basis of his chronicle. So much
of the subject matter of the work as was subsequently
brought together by Barros m his "Asia", published at
Lisbon in 1552-53, fol., was derived by him from scattered,
torn, and mixed fragments of Azurara's original rough
drafts.

In the " Paleographie Universelle " of Silvestre, Paris,
1841, fol., is a facimile of the first page of the fair copy
of Azurara's manuscript, which is described as a small folio
volume written on parchment and consisting of three hun-
dred and nine pages with two columns in each page. At
the end it is stated to have been written by Joiio Gousalvez,

Xll PREFACE.

calligraplier to Aifonso V., and completed on the 18th of
February, 1453 ; and in a letter of the same date the author
dedicates his work to the same sovereign by whose orders it
had been composed.

Very soon after this date the work disappeared from
Portugal. Damiao Goes, the chronicler of the Life of King
Joao L, Prince Henry's father, knew nothing of the book
beyond the name of its author. It would seem to have been
presented by Prince Henry to a King of Naples, inasmuch
as it appears to tally with a book to which the celebrated
Fr. Luis de Souza makes the following allusion in his
Historia de S. Domingos, P. L, Liv. vi. cap. 15, p. 629,
edition of 1767. Referring to the Prince's motto, " Talant
de bien faire," and the oak leaves and acorns and pyramids
which formed his device {see frontispiece) ^ he says, that
they occur " in a book of the Prince's discoveries which
Prince Henry himself sent to a King of Naples, and which I
saw in Valencia amongst some choice curiosities belonging
to the Duke of Calabria, the last male descendant of those
princes, and who was there as Viceroy." The Vicomte de
Santarem propounds a very reasonable conjecture that King
Aifonso v., for whom, and not, as Souza states, for Prince
Henry, the work was compiled, presented it to his uncle
Alfonso King of Naples, surnamed the Magnanimous,
between the years 1453 and 1457, for in the year 1457 (see
Santarem's " Quadro Elementar," tom. i., p. 358) Martim
Mendcs de Barredo was sent as ambassador from Portuiral
to Naples, and Alfonso was a man who took great interest
in literature, especially in accounts of voyages of discovery,
and was well acquainted with tlie language in wliich this
book was written. However this may have been, the
manuscript was still in !S[)aiu at the beginning of the

PREFACE. Xlll

eighteenth century, for on one of the blank leaves at the
end is a note to the elFect that it belonged to the library of
the late Don Juan Lucas Cortes, Member of the Royal
Council of Castile, anno 1 702. No one knows how or when
it became the property of the Imperial Library in Paris.
The Vicomte de Santarem had reason to suspect that it was
long after the revolution, and that the acquisition had been
a rather recent one. Immediately after its discovery by
M. Ferdinand Denis, the Vicomte de Carreira, Envoy Extra-
ordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Portugal in France,
obtained permission to print it, and to secure accuracy,
copied the text with scrupulous fidelity with his own hand.
A learned Portuguese philologist, Senhor Jos^ Ignacio
Eoquete, revised the proofs and made a glossary of old and
obsolete words and phrases, which would have been other-
wise absolutely unintelligible to the general reader.

The miniature which forms the frontispiece of the present
volume is a chromolithograph from an exact facsimile of
that which is in the original manuscript, for procuring which
I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to the kind inter-
vention of M. Prosper Merimee. No greater proof could be
adduced of the excellence of the copyist's handiwork than
the perfection of the picture when exposed to the test of
photography, for no modification of tint in the faithfully
coloured copy produced the slightest deviation from perfect
drawing in the monochrome of the photograph, a result
greatly to the honour of M. Avril, the artist to whom this
copy is due. The original miniature in the manuscript
is the only authentic portrait of Prince Henry which the
Portuguese possess. The Prince is represented dressed in
mourning, his head covered with the large barret cap without
any insignia, and his hair cut short according to the custom

XIV PREFACE.

of the time on such occasions. As the chronicle was finished
in 1448, and as the Prince's "brother Dom Pedro lost his life
at AlfarroLeira on the 20th of May, 1449, it is most proba-
ble that the portrait was taken while the Prince was in
mourning for his iUustrious brother, for the fair copy of tlie
chronicle was not completed till 1453.

Azurara had intended, as he himself states in his last
chapter but one, to write a second volume, containing fur-
ther discoveries made during the life of Prince Henry ; but
this volume, if written, has not yet been discovered. Azu-
rara was also the author of the " Chronicle of the Conquest
of Ceuta " which has supj^lied the material of the chapter
headed " Ceuta •" in this volume, and also of the " Chroni-
cles of Dom Pedro, and Dom Duarte de Meneses," the first
governors of that place, which describe the warfare carried
on in Africa, and may be considered as a continuation of his
" Conquest of Ceuta.-"

The dates of the birth and death of Azurara are entirely
unknown ; but according to Mattheus de Pisano, the pre-
ceptor of Affbnso V. and translator into Latin of Azurara's
" Conquest of Ceuta", it was only in middle life that he
applied himself to study, having till then been entirely
ignorant of literature and solely occupied with warlike pur-
suits. This is the more remarkable as we find him held in
such high estimation by Affonso V., as to be nominated by
him (on the Cth June, 1454) keeper of the archives of the
Torre do Tombo, in succession to no less a person than the
venerable Fernam Lopez, the fiither of Portuguese history,
and, beyond all (picstion, the best chronicler of any age or
any nation. Azurara himself went to Africa and remained
there a long time to make himself acquainted with the
scenes and circumstances of the deeds which he had to de-

rKEFAC'R. XV

scribe. While at Alcac^cr ^cgucr he received the celebrated
letter from the King as to his merit as a chronicler, which is
printed at the beginning of his " Chronicle of l)om Duavtc
de Meneses", a letter which does even greater honour to the
King who wrote it than to the subject who received it, for
its affable and even affectionate expressions clearly show the
sovereign's consciousness that he was doing himself an
honour when he honoured the intellect of his subject with
the familiarity of friendship.

It is greatly to be regretted that a valuable MS. work in
the library at Evora entitled *'Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis,'^ by
Duarte Pacheco, a knight of the household of King Joao 11. ,
should still remain unprinted. It is a sort of historical and
geographical description of the discoveries of the Portuguese,
which, if we may judge by the titles of the chapter supplied
to us by Joaquim da llivera, the librarian at Evora, in his
excellent catalogue of the MSS. in that library, would throw
much light on the geographical details of these early dis-
coveries. Fortunately, however, we possess some iuiportant
extracts therefrom, which have been given us by Albano da
Silveira in his " Memoria chronologica acerca do descobri-
mento das terras do Preste Joilo das Indias e Embaixadas
que a elle enviaram os Portugueses."

Another manuscript, but recently given to the world in
print, is valuable more for the quality than the quantity of
the material which it supplies for the illustration of our
subject. This is the " Leal Conselheiro " or *' Faithful
Adviser," from the pen of King Duarte, Prince Henry's
elder brother. So simple, dignified, and loveablc a picture
of the home affections as existin": amon^: the members of a
regal family, is perhaps not to be found elsewhere. It is
the imaffected, nay almost unconscious, exposition of every

XVI PREFACE.

manly and gentle virtue that could dignify the character of
a prince as a Christian, a patriot, and a soldier. But more
conspicuous than all the other qualities which are therein
exhibited as characteristic of the members of this family, is
the strong and loving affection existing between all of them,
tempered by a lofty tone of mutual honour and respect which
finds its culmination in the profound reverence of all of
them for the sacred persons of the King and Queen. No
higher eulogium could be unconsciously paid to the training
bestowed upon their children by King Joiio and Queen Phi-
lippa than the tone as well as the words of this noble produc-
tion. When Alfonso V. first established a library in his
palace at Lisbon, one of his first cares was to exhibit this
beautiful and richly ornamented manuscript which had been
left him by the King his father. It is now in the Im2:)erial
Library in Paris. It was not till the year 1842 that it was
published in Paris by the Reverend J. I. Roquete.

In the absence of the second volume promised by Azurara,
it is not of little moment that we possess the accounts of the
Venetian Cadamosto's voyages occupying the interval between
the completion of Azurara's first volume and the death of
Prince Henry. But although these Venetian narratives,
which have been reprinted several times, have been highly
commended for their minuteness of detailed description, I
cannot very cordially join in the eulogium; for on poiuts
where Cadamosto's accuracy can be tested, as for example in
the matter of dates, I have almost invariably found him
wrong, and in such a case minuteness of detailed description
only enlarges the field for misgiving and distrust. Indeed,
as will be seen in the chapter on the Ca2)e Verde Islands,
I have shown that Cadamosto's description of his second
voyage abounds in inaccuracies and inconsistencies, and, what

rUEFACE. XVll

is "Worse, of mal-nppropri;ition of credit which did not ap-
pertain to him.

A remarkable instance of his jumbling two accounts to-
gether will be seen on pages 284 and 319, where the dis-
covery and naming of Cape Roxo and parts adjacent are at
first claimed by himself, as occurring in his second voyage,
and afterwards ascribed to Pedro de Cintra, of whose voyage
he is also the narrator.

But, happily, another document, never hitherto translated
into English, has been brought within my reach by the
recent researches of our learned fellow-antiquaries in Ba :
varia. In the year 1847, the Academy of Sciences of
Munich printed a memoir by Dr. Schmeller on a most in-
teresting collection of manuscript documents formed by a
German in Lisbon, in the year 1507. Although bearing the
Portuguese-sounding name of Valentim Fernandez, he was
a Moravian by birth, but, being of German descent, he styles
himself occasionally Valentim Aleman and sometimes
Valentim the Moravian.

Before referrins: to those documents in his collection which
have been of especial service in this work, I will state
briefly the history of the collection itself and of its collector.
Valentim Fernandez was a printer. At that time the art of
printing led many Germans into foreign countries, and he
wandered into Portugal. We find him in 1495 at Lisbon
engaged in conjunction with another German, Nicholas of
Saxony, in jjrinting the " Life of Christ," by the Carthusian
Monk Ludolph of Saxony, but which had been translated
into Portuguese in 1445, by Bernardo, a monk of the Cis-
tercian Monastery of Alcobaga. On account of his know-
ledge of the German language, he was appointed Notary f<'r
the Germans in Lisbon, that he might draw up all tlic

b

XVUl PREFACE.

agreements and written negociations which took place with
German merchants, and also authenticate translations from
the Latin. Soon after Valentim Fernandez appeared not as
a printer only, hut as an editor. Dom Pedro, Prince Henry's
brother, had in 1428, brought back from Venice a valuable
manuscript of Marco Polo, which had been presented to him
as a compliment by the Signoria of the Republic. From
this manuscript, and from the Latin text of the Dominican
Friar Pepino of Bologna, which had been sent from Rome
to King Joao IL, Valentim made a translation of the work
into Portuguese, together with the "Travels into Lidia" of
the Genoese Geronimo de Santo Stephano. He also trans-
lated the travels of the Venetian Niccolo de' Conti from the
Latin text of Poggio Bracciolini. The importance of these
works to the King Dom Manoel, by whose order they were
translated, may be judged by the fact of their containing de-
scriptions of journeys into India at that early period. Eng-
lish translations both of Conti and of Santo Stefano, the
former by John Winter Jones, Esq., the present Principal
Librarian of the British Museum, will be found in the volume
which I had the honour to edit in 1857, for the Hakluyt
Society, under the title of " India in the Fifteenth Century."
It was doubtless in connection with such studies as these
that Fernandez subsequently compiled the collective geo-
graphical work which is immediately under our notice, and
which wns intended to furnish an account of the countries
discovered by the Portuguese in Africa and India. Its con-
tents are as follows : —

1. Azurara's " Chronicle of Prince Henry's Discoveries
of Guinea," down to 1448.

2. Diogo Gomez' Narrative, down to 1163.

3. Narrative of Gonzalo Pirez, down to 1402.

PREFACE. Xix

4. Narrative of Joiio Rodriguez, down to 1493.

5. ''Journal of Hans Mayr," 1505-6.

6. Fernandez' " Description of Africa," 1507.

7. Fernandez' " Account of the Islands in the Atlantic,"
with Plans.

8. " Ships' Eoutes, or Instructions for Pilots."

Of these the narrative of Diogo Gomez has been given by
Dr. Schmeller in full ; but as the earlier portion is a recital of
voyages made under the auspices of Prince Henry, but with
which he himself had nothing to do, and which being derived
from hearsay, would not be regarded as absolutely trust-
worthy, while they are better narrated by Azurara, I have
extracted that portion only which describes his own ad-
ventures. . . '

The document is the work of a half-educated man, much
more of a sailor than a student, but it throws light upon a
subject — the discovery of the Caj^e Verde Islands — on which
I am able to demonstrate that Cadamosto had written with
the greatest inaccuracy.

Gomez' success as an explorer was remarkable, and his
power of conciliating even hostile native chiefs by dint of
sheer courage and tact was beyond all praise. Another but
minor point of interest in his narrative is, that it is the
only document that I have met with in which the slightest
detail has been preserved of the death and burial of Prince
Henry, whereas Gomez was, by especial order of the King,
placed in immediate guardianship over the remains of his
revered master until they were consigned to the tomb.

The other documents in Valentim Fernandez' work have
not been printed by Dr. Schmeller verbatim, but simply de-
scribed with a running commentary by himself. One of them,
however, entitled " Das ilhas do Mar Oceano," was of so mucji

b2

XX PREFACE.

importance to the early history of the discovery of Madeira,
that I procured from the library at Munich a verbatim copy,
for which I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Halm the
distinguished chief of that important library, and also to the
most obliging care of Professor Kunstmann who atforded me
the benefit of his learned supervision of the transcription from
the quaint and difficult Portuguese of the early manuscript.
The value of this freely rendered kindness was the greater
that no one was so competent as this eminent savant to deal
with the difficulties of this task, inasmuch as we have
already received from the hands of Professor Kunstmann a
variety of most valuable memoirs on the various documents
comprised in the collection of Valentim Fernandez,* and which
have been of much service to myself in the present work.

By means of the document on Madeira, combined with
other evidence, it has been my good fortune to establish the
truth of the story, hitherto much disputed, of the accidental
discovery of Madeira in the fourteenth century by the
Englishman Machin ; for this document is earlier than the
earliest yet produced in which that story was related^ and
being entirely independent of any other, is a proof of the
derivation of all the accounts from an earlier source.
Demonstrative evidence of the former existence and
fifcnuinencss of that original source is adduced in the
chapter on " Porto Santo and Madeira."

* Afrika vor den Entdeckungcn der Portugiesen. Jliinclien, lSo3.

Die Ilandclsvcrbiudiiiigcn der Portugiesen niit Timbuktu ini xv. Jaluliuu-
dcrte.

Valentin Ferdinand's Bcschreibung der Westkiistc Afrika's bis zuni Senegal
mit Einlt'itung und Annierkimgcn. Miinchen, 1856.

Valentin Ferdinand's Besehreibiing der "Westkiistc Afiika's voni Senegal bis
zur Serra Leoa. Miinchen, 1860.

Valentin Ferdinand's Bcsrhreibung der Serra Leoa niit ciner Einleitung iibcr
die Seefahrten nach der Westkiistc Afrika's iin vierxclinten Jabrluuulerte.
Miinchen, 1861.

PREFACE. XX i

History, for its own sake, is more zealously cultivated in
Germany than in England, and it is in Germany that of late
years the name of Prince Henry the Navigator, almost un-
known in England, has been found to engage the attention
of the learned. In 1842 a biography of the Prince was com-
menced by Professor J. E. Wapi)a3us of Gottingen, but was
unfortunately not proceeded with beyond the first volume,
which was entirely occupied with preliminary matter of the
most erudite and laboured character. It is probable that the
author, whose industry and zeal could lead him to devote
three hundred and sixty-five pages of close octavo print to
historical events anterior to the birth of the subject of his
biography, would not be satisfied without exhausting the
contents of the Torre do Tombo itself, when he came to con-
front in reality the task which he had proposed to himself.
But "non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum ;^' and
I, for my own part, with all the advantages already men-
tioned at my disposal, am quite prepared to suppose that
the biography of Prince Henry could only have full justice
done to it by one who had the opportunity, the talent, and
the industry to investigate the cotemporary treasures of the
Torre do Tombo. A labour so Herculean is more, perhaps,
than we may hope to see undertaken, unless possibly by the
greatest of modern Portuguese historians, Alexandre de
Herculano, who is perhaps more intimately ac(|uainted than
any other with the valuable contents of that great historical
treasure-house.

So recently as 1864, a life of Prince Henry in Germany
was published in Dantzick, 8vo., by a German clergyman,
named Gustav de Veer, of Dantzick. This gentleman had
resided two years in Madeira, and took a loving interest in
the life and deeds of the noble Prince whose name is idolized

XXU PREFACE.

in that country. The history of discovery was, moreover,
a subject for which Herr de Veer may be said to have an
inherited attachment, for he is the lineal descendant of that
famous Dutchman, Gerrit de Veer, who wrote the accounts
of three remarkable voyages made by the Dutch in 1594-
1596, with the view of finding the way to China by the
North-East, and in the last two of which he was himself
engaged. In the earlier of these two, Spitzbergen was dis-
covered and circumnavigated.

In the pages which precede the actual life of Prince Henry
himself, Herr de Veer has given an account of the doings of
the Portuguese navy before the Prince's time. This, in mj
humble judgment, does not appear to be of very great
moment, and in the present work I have thought it prefer-
able to relate what had been done, or said to have been done,
in previous times on the face of that vast ocean which was
to be the field of the Prince's fame. 1 have but one word of
objection to make to Herr de Veer's otherwise interesting
and able publication ; viz. , that he has inserted a fancy
portrait of Prince Henry, a portrait not only based on no
authority whatever, but a slander on the masculine character
of the Prince himself. A portrait, if faithful, will convey at
a glance more information than pages of written description :
it is manifest, therefore, tliat no process could more efi'ect-
ually neutralize the purpose of a biography, or show more
disregard for men's opinions of him who is depicted, than to
present a portrait Avithout even the pretence of a prototj'pe,
and which neither in f\ice nor figure contains one single
characteristic of the original. I feci sure that all the gravity
of this incontestable fiict did not suggest ivself to the mind
of Ilerr de Veer, when lie allowed himself to put forth the
delineation of the emasculated creature, which forms the

PREFACE. Xxiii

frontispiece to his book, as a portrait of that firm and laro-e-
minded man to whose genius and perseverance wc are in-
debted for our knowledge of one half of the world : I say
it deliberatelj'-, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge
of one half of the world ; and it is for this reason that this
work is entitled, " The Life of Prince Henry the Navigator,
and its Results."

The glory of Prince Henry consists in the conception and
persistent prosecution of a great idea, and in what followed
therefrom. This book, then, is rather a record of the glory
than of the mere life of Prince Henry. That glory is not
a matter of fancy or bombast, but of mighty and momen-
tous reality, a reality to which the Anglo-Saxon race, at
least, have no excuse for indifference.

The coasts of Africa visited ; — The Cape of Good Hope
rounded ; — The New World disclosed ; — The seaway to India,
the Moluccas, and China laid open ; — The glohe circumnavi-
gated, and Australia discovered: within one century of con-
tinuous and connected exploration. ** Such," as I have stated
in my closing chapter, *' were the stupendous results of a
great thought, and of indomitable perseverance in spite of
twelve years of costly failure and disheartening ridicule.
Had that failure and that ridicule produced on Prince Henry
the effect which they ordinarily produce on other men, it
is impossible to say what delays would have occurred before
these mighty events would have been realized, for it must be
borne in mind that the ardour not only of his own sailors
but of surrounding nations owed its impulse to this per-
tinacity of purpose in him.^'

In my remarks on the slave-trade I have been largely
indcljted to a paper on the subject in the " Ilevidta Litu-
raria," 13" Janeiro, 1839.

XX iv PREFACE.

The " Ensaio sobre a statistica das Possessoes Portn-
giiezas no iiltramar," by the careful Jose Joaqiiini Lopez de
Lima, has been of much service to me in the description
of discovery of the West Coast of Africa and the islands in
the Gulf of Guinea.

For the important voyage of Vasco da Gama I have
followed the " Roteiro/' edited, in 1861, by A. Herculano
and the Baron de Paiva.

The voyage of Magellan has been digested from Piga-
fetta's account, collated with Peter Martyr, Ilerrera, Gomara
and Navarrete.

Elsewhere I have given a list of the principal works
which have been resorted to in the construction of the
volume.

After that I had sent to the press my refutation of the claims
of the French to priority in discovery of the coast of Guinea —
claims till now uncorroborated by any documents — a new boolt
reached me, entitled " Les Navigations Frangaises, et la Revo-
lution Maritime du xiv^ au xvi'' siecle, d'apres les documens
inedits tires de France, d'Angleterre, d'Espagne, et d'ltalie,"
par Pierre Margry, Paris, 1867, 8vo., in which those claims
were re-asserted, with the following important addition.
The author stated that in the year 1852 a friend of his,
M. Lucien de Rosny, had occasion to visit the British
Museum for the purpose of making philological researches.
While there, a Mr. William Carter, drolly described as " un
hommc distingue d'Oxford Street," " seeing him seareh for
old French texts, phiced at his disposal a volume contain-
ing a series of detached pieces, copied probably towards the
middle of the 17th century. M. Lucien de Rosny having
found in this colksction some very curious things connected
with his studies in the l-'niifh hmguage, obtained [ler-

mission to copy them, and among them was a document
of which the following was the title : ' Briev Estoire del
navigaige Moimsire Jehan Prunaut Roenois en la tiure des
noirs homes et iles a nous incogneus avec les estranges
fagons de vivre des dits noirs et une colloque en lor lan-
guage.' " M. Margry then, not very mtelligihly, says," This
last part is wanting, as well as some lines of the narrative
effaced by time or damp."

The following is the text : —

" Ou mois de Septembre,M IIIc. soixanto et quatre dc I'liicar-
nacion nostre Signer, ceus de Diepe et Roan, apavillerent denx
naues et orent por amirax''-' Mesires Jehan li Roanois, home do
grant ronom en la tiere de Xormendie, et singlerent longemcnt en
mer, a la noel, au liu d'Ovideg,! ou one n'avoient este encoire
cil Normendie, et ancrerent par de la pour avencier lor afaires as
ung liu moult chaleureus, q'on apiele as jor cap Bugiador, qui siet
au reaume de la Guinoye. Li Gilofs (ainsi sont apieles les gents
eel partie, qui tot noir sont de visaige et de pel et tot nus, sinon la
o covient de mucer), one n'avoient vu horns blancs, si que ceus
qui went la nes furent espoventez, et tost retornerent de rechef
ensemble jouste la mer, a grant plante de lor compaignons, pour
veou- ceus Normans, mes point ne cuidoient entrer sor lor nes,
jusques ils furent asseurtez que cil Normans ne voloient mi les le
dangler o les na\Ter. Les boun naviors, qui tos estoient de
gi-ant cuer, lor dounnerent a fuson petits juiaus et presouns, et les
firent boire boun vin vermail, com que moult les esjouirent et les
affierent. Adoncques les gents noirs de ceans lor douerent morphi,
piaus de bestes sauvages et autres coses de lor pais fort estranges
a veoir. Quat lur not fut plcin d'aveirs precios ct autre belle rien
que ce estoit mervelle. Mesire Jehan, soun frtre Legier et kss
compaignons de sa navie, de joie resbaudis, fii-ent entendre eel
homes noirs qu'ils retomeroient enkoires la I'an ensuyvant et

* Amiral veut dire ici simplement commandant.

t Dans sa premiere decade de I'Asie, Barros dit qu' Ovidech est le nom que
les uaturcls donnaient dans lem- langue au fleuve que les Portugais ont depuia
appel^ Sanaga, du nom d'un des principaux du pays.

XXVI PREFACE.

qu'ils se approvisionasscnt dc eel inarchadises, c6 que il li asscnre-
rent. Adoncqs si drecierent les veiles et despleiereut a vent et
vers Normeudio retornerent et siglerent as mois

(Plusieurs lignes effacues par I'liumidite et illisibles.)

li dits naviors ct lor clief mosirc Jelian la Kocnois fircnt lor apareil
por quero aveir

(Lignes illisibles.)

orent iiij nans et s'en retornerent par illuee et il besoignerent avoec
ces homs noirs. Mes la lone ten ne porent estre porce que les
naus furent molt adomagies par les pluies et grant boraskes orrible
et tenebrosse avoecq biso qui vient d'Orient et qui lor estoient.
Adoncques mcssire Jelaan requerit gens d'illecq permission de
prenre ticre et bastir plusor masons por i mestre eels marcbandises
ct eus a savete. Co quo les seingnors volontiers li otroierent et les
aidicront a fere eels masons, adonqs eels de la nave traisterent lor
nes sur la costiere. Les seingnors eel partie moult desiroient
Talliance messire Jeban, et de cc terns comenga li fait de mar-
cliandise avoec li naviors dc Normandio ct oils homs noirs. Lors
fist asambler mcsiro Jelian les gens de sa navie et lor demanda sil
voloient illuee sejorner et ilz li dirent qil n'avoient aucun qui lo
eontredist et que s'il lui plesoit si cstablir, ils le tenroient a signor
ct avoez qui bien est digue lor — mes petit aprics sequerelcreut, si
quo CCS quo I'ung voloit, I'autro sc desdisait a tant que les naviors
s'en retornerent en Normendio.

" L'an M IIIo. scptcnto ctnocuf, lamirax Johan li Eocnois aparila
a son eoust uuo naut moult grande et biclo que il apiela Nostro
Dame de Boun Voiagc, parce quo cle cstoit riclicmout iniagice en
bosc et painto marvilicuscmeut. Mais il la mist dctri et sor caue,
solemcnt on Septcmbro, quar il savoit, commo dit est, quo les
pluies tcmpestoises qui efondoicnt sor ces eostes foraines, tres
mois paravaut, estoient moult porilousos ct q'il cstoit niort dc cclo
pestilence ct malagc grant plautc domes naa,s lor mason.s come sor

PREFACE. XXVll

I'aigUG et I'air en col eaison est molt punais et brulant par un
tonoii-e continuet. Adoucques morureut illuec (Dieu ait lors
aames), Legier frere mounske I'Amirax, Gervois, Sebille, Haibicrs,
Torcol, Tiebau, Doumare, Odon Cambers, los vaillant nots do
Normandie, sans qu'ilz poreut trover uug sol mire dans tot le pais.
Mes li boun sii'e Jehau I'Amirax rcvint apries Paske, en sa ncs
avoeucques li remainaut sa navie et grant plante d'or que li bonis
noirs li avoient doune.

" Li Koi, ki alors estoit a Diepe, envoia a messiro Jeban et as
compaignons li cuens de Poutiex et i ot message asses pour lor
dii'e qu'il voloit les voir incontinent. Adoncques messire Jeban et
eel sa navie s'en vinrent estament avecq le quens, et furent moult
bien receus du Rois, de ses barons et damoiseles, quar de lor
besoing estoient moult engries et cuidoient qu'ils estoient morts
illuec.

" ' Biaux sires Prunauts, Dieu vous maintiegne tos ! ' fist lo Rois
et moult debonairement les festoj'a deus jors et firent boine ciere et
ce fu joie, tant que nus poroit dire. Et li Rois requist messire
Jehan I'Amirax qu'il li raconta les novieles et miervelles de la pais
d'illuec ils s'en venoient. Quant li Rois ot oi ses grant proeces,
les dons li fist et li donna une belle tierre. Par deseur le fit
amirax sa navie, dont moult s'esjoit mounsire Jeban, qui pour tant
jugia honour as Rois comme a signour. Si vos dirai que dela avint
li non Prunaut a messire Jeban et que il le warda parce qu'il estoit
moult preu, fier et hardi en fait de navigaige et bomme de haut
sens. Ancois li Roi volsit que sa progenye et lignye fui'ent apielos
Preunauts, comme fius de vaillant, preu et gentil navior. E ces
dons confirma li Rois de son saiel sor cartes escrites, si que d'oir
en oir il le doient tenir.

" Adoncques apres que messire Jeban et tos ses compaignons
fm'eut molt festoies, ils trerent vers Roan et cbevaucoit mounsiro
Jeban le Pru navior avecques son escu pendu as cos, sor un pale-
froi, molt richement arnace et atorne et li autre come ilz pcurent.
L'arcevesque de Ruan et tote sa clergie, en oiant qu'il s'en vonoit
avoec tos eel sa navie ala encontre et lor fist moult honours, quar il
savoit ja que mounsire Jehan estoit retorne et q'il estoit moult

XXV 111 PREFACE.

aime de Dioix et ses sains, kar il avoit edifie illuec petite kapiole,
et ke il wardoit por pastour frai Piere li Normant moult bon cler
pour doctriner ces paiens et mescreans a aimer Dieu, bicn parler,
praiecier et por dcstruire la loi paienne. En eel kapiele qu'ou dist
Nostre Dame furent enfonis moult honorablement li naviors qui
departirent aluel (?) comme dist est, de la pestilence. Adoncq a
Eoan aveucq Tarcevesquo vint a Fencontre messire Jebau et com-
paignons grand cevaucie des signers et si ot gens et manans a ])'u'
asses, siergeans et borgois de Diepe, Kaan, Chieresborg, et de
totes les cites de Normendie, qu0 la estoient venu pour veoir li
gentil amirax et ses prus compaignons. Natent, la feme cest
amirax, dame belle et saige, e ele ert voirement la plus belle i-iens
qui fust oncques et estoit de grant lignaige en Saxonie avec Legier
son fiu et Erkenbous, frere a cestui, ambedui petits enfens, qui lor
boun pere acolurent et beserent, et iceus signers, borgeois et
manans eu grand lesse et tot ensemble li menerent jusques a son
ostel, car nul mot n'avoit dit de mounsire Legier et des autres qui
morts estoient en la tiere foraine.

"L'an ensuivant messire Jeban Prunaut resta empres Tost li
Koi, mes envoiia oultre mer sa ncs nostre Dame come pieca, cil de
Diepe et Roan lornaus Saint Nicolas et I'Esperance. Nostre Dame
ancra as liu qu'ils apelierent la Mine por la grant plante d'or qui
saportoit de par entor. lUoeuc est icele Kapiele de la Benoiste
mere Dieix que mounsire Jeban fonda, come dit est, aveucq un
petit castiaus fort et fortelesce et une mason quarree que i fit fere
Bor un borg qui s'apiele la terre des Pru-naus par remembrance
d'iccus et do lor amirax come aussi petit Diepe, petit Roan,
petit Germentruville et petit Paris, porce qu'il venus estoient de
Diepe, Roan et Paris. La aussi firent forz castiaux as lui q'on
dit Cormentin et Akra.

" L'an miiij et dis se departit gi'ant plante des Mariniers de Nor-
mandie et les mercbauts perdirent lors ricesses qui estoient
maugiecs par les gucres qui lors estoient et en onze ans deus naus
a tot solemeut aleront a la costiere d'or et un por le grand Siest et
petit apries les gucrres estant moult cstormes sur eaucs come sur
ticrro les bosoignos dos morcbandiscs furent dcstourbces et
destroites."

PREFACE. XXIX

TliG translation of tliis manuscript is as follows : —

"In the month of September, 13Gi of the Incarnation of onr
Lord, those of Dieppe and Kouen equipped two ships, and had for
admiral (or captain) Monsieur Jehan le Rouenois, a man of great
renown in the land of Normandy, and sailed a long time on the sea,
till Christmas, to a place called Ovidcg, where those of Normandy
had never as yet been, and anchored [par de la] to advance their
all'airs at a very hot place, which is called now-a-days Cape Bugiador,
which belongs to the kingdom of Guinea. The Gilofs (so the
people of these parts are called, who are quite black in their faces
and skins, and quite naked except where covering is necessary)
had never seen any white men, so that those who saw the ship
Avere frightened, and all turned back together to the sea with a
great number of their companions, to see these Normans, but did
not dare to get into their ships till they were assured that the
Normans did not wish to hurt or grieve them. The good sailors,
who were all generous, gave them a profusion of little toys and
presents, and made them drink good red wine, so that they rejoiced
and emboldened them much. Then the blacks in their turn gave
them ivory, skins of wild beasts, and other things of their country
very strange to see. When their ship was full of precious com-
modities, and other fair things marvellous to behold, Messire
Jehan, his brother Legier, and his shipmates, full of joy, made
the blacks understand that they would return again in the follow-
ing year, and that they would supply themselves with such
merchandises as they promised them. Then they hoisted their
sails, and spread them to the Avind, and returned towards Nor-
mandy, and sailed till the month

(Several lines effaced by damp and illegible.)
the said sailors and their chief, Mesirc Jehan le Rouenois, made

their preparations for seeking commodities (?)

(Illegible lines.)
had four ships, and returned by this way, and dealt with the black
men. But they could not long remain there, because the ships
were much damaged by the rains, and great and horrilde scjualls,
and darkness Avith an east Avind, w]iich caiiie u])on them. Then

XXX PREFACE.

Messiro Jelian asked permission of the people of those parts to
take land and build several houses wherein to put his merchandises
and his men [?] in safety. Which the chiefs willingly granted
him, and helped them to build these houses, and then those of the
ships drew up their vessels on the coast. The chiefs of those parts
much desired the alliance of Messire Jehan, and from this time
began the commerce between the sailors of Normandy and these
black men. Then Messire Jehan assembled together the people of
his ships and asked them if they would sojourn there, and they
replied that they had nothing to say against it, and that if it
pleased him to establish himself there, they would have him for
their lord, and acknowledge him worthy of them ; but a little
while after they quarrelled, so that what one wished the other
contradicted, and so the sailors returned to Normandy.

" In the year 1379, Captain Jehan le Kouenois equipped at his
own cost a very large and beautiful ship, which he called Notre
Dame de Bon Voijatjc, because it was richly carved in Avood and
marvellously painted . But he [la mist detri] and launched it only
in September, for he knew, as has been said, that the tempestuous
rains which poured down on these foreign coasts, three months
before, were very perilous, and that there had died of the pestilence
and illness a great number of men in their houses, as the water
and the air at this season have a bad smell and burn with con-
tinual thunder. There died there (may God rest their souls)
Lcgicr, brother to the captain, Gervois, Sebille, Haibiers, Torcol,
Tiebau, Doumare, Odon Cambers, all valiant sailors of Normandy,
without finding a single physician in all the country. But the
good sire, Jehan the Captain, returned after Easter in his ship,
with the fleet that remained to him, and a great quantity of gold
which the black men had given him.

" The King, who was then at Dieppe, sent the Count of Pontieux
to Messire Jehan and his companions, and charged him to tell them
that he wished to see them immediately. Then Messire Jehan and
those of his ships went instantly with the Count, and wore very
well received by the King, his barons and gentlemen, for the}- had
been very grieved on their account, and thought that they were
dead in those parts.

PREFACE. XXXI

" 'Fair sires Prunauts, God keep you alll ' Raid the Kinf,', and
kindly feasted them for two days, and they made good cheer, and
there was joy such as cannot be described. And the King prayed
Messire Jehan, the Captain, to relate to him the news and tho
marvels of the country whence they came. AVhen the lung had
heard of his great prowess, he gave him gifts, and bestowed on him
a fair estate in land. He also made him admiral of his navy,
which greatly rejoiced Messii'e Jehan, who rendered honour to tho
King as his seigneur.

'' So I will tell you that from this came the name of Prunaut to
Messire Jehan, and that he kept it because he was very valiant,
high-spirited, and bold in feats on the sea, and a man of great
sense. Also the King desired that his progeny and lineage should
be called Prunauts, as the sons of a valiant, gallant, and gentle
sailor. And these gifts the King confirmed with his seal on
charters, so that he might hold them from heir to heir.

" Then, after Messire Jehan and his companions were well feasted,
they turned towards Koueu ; and Messire Jehan, the bold sailor,
rode, ^vith his shield at his side, on a palfrey richly harnessed
and adorned, and the rest followed as they could. The Arch-
bishop of Pioueu and all his clergy hearing that he was coming
with all his ship's company, went out to meet him and did him
much honour ; for he knew already that Messire Jehan had
returned, and that he was beloved by God and His saints, for ho
had built in those parts a little chapel, and appointed as its priest
Friar Pierre, the Norman, a very worthy clerk, to teach the
Pagans and unbelievers the love of God, to speak well, to preach,
and to destroy the Pagan law. In this chapel, which was dedi-
cated to our Lady, were buried very honourably the sailors who
died* ... as has been said, of the pestilence. Then at
Piouen, with the Ai'chbishop, came to meet Messire Jehan and his
companions, a grand cavalcade of lords and such high folks, and
many peasants on foot, sergeants aud burghers of Dieppe, Caen,
Cherbom-g, and all the cities of Normandy, who had come
to see the gentle Captain and his bold companions. Natent,

* " Aluel," perhaps "^ la Noiil," at Christmas.

XXXH PREFACE.

the ^vife of the Captain, a wise and beautiful dame, and slie was
certainly the most beautiful there ever was [?] , and was of great
lineage in Saxony, with Legier, her son, and Erkenbous, his
brother — both little children — who embraced and kissed their
good father and these lords, burghers, and peasants in great
numbers, and all together brought him to his lodging : for no word
had been said of Mounsire Legier and the others who were dead
in the foreign land.

" The following year Messire Jehan Prunaut remained with the
King's army, but sent beyond sea his ship, Xotre Dame, as before;
those of Dieppe and Rouen their ships Saint Nicolas and VE^perance.
Notre Dame anchored in the place which they called La Mine,
because of the quantity of gold which was found round about.
Here is that chapel of the Blessed Mother of God which Messire
Jehan founded, as we have said, with a little strong castle and
fortalice, and a square house which he had made on a hill, which
was called the land of the Prunaus, in remembrance of them and
of their admiral, as also Petit Dieppe, Petit Rouen, Petit Germentru-
ville, and Petit Paris, because they had come from Dieppe, Rouen,
and Paris. There they built also forts [and] castles at the places
called Cormentin and Acra.

" In the year 1410 many of the Norman sailors went away, and
the merchants lost their wealth, Avhich was devoured by the wars
which then were, and in eleven years only two ships went to the
Gold Coast, and one to the Great Siest ; and a little while after, as
the wars raged at sea as well as on land, the mercantile aflairs
were disturbed and destroyed."

Some pages earlier in his book, M. Margry quotes an
expression of my late honoured friend, the Vicomte de
Santareui, that " it is not by documents that ma)j be discovered
that positive histonj ought to be put in doubt. Even if a
document should happen to be discovered which was opposed
to facts recognised as true, it would not be sufficient to
upset the unanimous testimony of cotcmporaries.'''' Now while

PREFACE. XXXlll

it would, clearly, be too much to say that light may not
be, and often is, thrown upon known history by the pro-
duction of newly-discovered documents, it is equally clear
that any single document not only not corroborated, but
contradicted and condemned by a flood of well-authenticated
historical facts, must require uncommonly strong authenti-
cation to save it from the gravest suspicion. In the present
case, however, I think I can produce sufficient reason to
lead the reader to coincide cntlrehj with the dictum of the
Vicomte de Santarem.

For this purpose I will here briefly state the princi])al
items of evidence which I had adduced to disprove the
claims of the French to priority of discovery on the coast
of Guinea, claims which as yet have never been authenti-
cated by any document.

1. It is asserted that the absence hitherto of documents
proving the conjoined explorations of the Rouenese and
Dieppese to the coast of Guinea in the fourteenth century
is explained by the destruction of the Dieppese archives
in the English bombardment in 1694. To this one replies
with the inquiry : How comes it that Rouen, which was
not so bombarded, supplies no testimony on the subject?
M. Margry now suggests that such documents may have
been used in lighting pipes or covering jam-pots. "Well,
be it granted. Almost inconceivable though it be, we
will suppose that jam-pots and a bombardment have ruth-
lessly denuded these two important cities of every shred of
testimony, whether cotemporary or retrospective, to their
having earned for themselves a distinction of which any
nation might be proud. Then let us look for farther
evidence.

2. A Swiss doctor in 1017 adduces the statement of

c

XXXIV PREFACE.

Guinea negroes, a hundred and tldrty years old, that the
French were there in the fourteenth century ; and a Dutch-
man, Olivier Dapper (a man whose testimony is shown to
be worthless by his own mis-statement of perfectly well-
known facts in the history of Portuguese discovery, as well
as by the acknowledgment of a learned Frenchman, M.
Eyries, that his assertions mislead those who do not examine
for themselves) stated in 1668 that in the Castle of La Mina
was a ruined battery named Batterie Fran9aise, in which
were the Urst two figures of the date 13 — , but the following
numbers could not be deciphered.

In answer to the latter statements, I have shown that the
French had really been on the Guinea coast in the beginning
of the last half of the sixteenth century, quite long enough
to allow of the existence of a ruined French battery, and
also to render possible the obliteration of a date (if date it
was) exposed to the annual corrosive action of three months
of rain. But there is nothing to prove that the figures were
part of a date. In op})osition to the assertions of the super-
annuated negroes I adduce the evidence of the Norman
narrators of the expedition of Jean de Betheneourt (whose
estate lay only twenty-five miles from Dieppe) to the Canaries
at the period when the asserted Dieppese intercourse with the
coast of Guinea was in its zenith, in which it is declared
that "it is M. Bethencourt's intention, with the hel]) of
God and that of Christian princes and people, to open the
way to the River of Gold. It cannot be doubted that much
remains to be done which might have succeeded in times

})ast if it had been undertahen and he n:iU spare no

pains to decide whether success is possible or impossible,^' &c.

3. I further adduce an indignant remonstrance of a
Dieppese Captain in 1539 against the arrogant extrusion of

PREFACE. XXX V

the French from Guinea by the Portuguese on the score of
the acknowledg-ed priority of discovery of that coast by the
latter, — a remonstrance so indignant, that if a claim cou/d
have been set up by the writer to priority of discovery by
his own people, it assuredly would not have been wanting,
whereas such a claim was not attempted by the Frencli till
a century and a half later.

4. I further show that one of the warmest advocates of
these claims acknowledges that no specimens of Dieppese
ivory carvings, which he asserts were made as early as the
close of the fourteenth century, could be found of an older
date than the close of the sixteenth century, a period at
which I have shown that the Dieppese did really traffic with
the Guinea Coast.

5. I further show that whereas the most beautiful and
elaborate maps we possess of the beginning of the sixteentli
century are Dieppese, not one of them exhibits the names of
" Petit Dieppe " and " Petit Paris," asserted to have been
given by their people to places on the Guinea Coast in the
fourteenth century; whereas in 1631, five years after the
Rouenese and Dieppese did redlly comhine (in 1626) to traffic
with that coast, we do, for the first time, find those names
laid down on the Dieppese maps of Jean Guerand.

In the presence of a mass of historic evidence such as this,
to which might be added an octavo volume full of proof,
both positive and negative, laboriously brought together by
the Vicomte de Santarem, assuredly a solitary document,
uncorroborated and unauthenticated, will scarcely pass
muster. It is unfortunate, doubtless, but unavoidalilo that
the recent expose of the spurious Newton and Pascal cor^
respondence should cause the unexpected production of
reputed early documents on important subjects to be treated

XXXVl PREFACE.

with the most rigid investigation that even suspicion can
suggest, and the reader will certainly demand such investi-
gation at our hands.

As will be presently seen I have spared no exertion to
trace the existence of this newly adduced document.

In the "search for old French texts" by M. de Eosny,
observed by Mr, William Carter (p. xxii.), there was appa-
rently a clue to this manuscript through the medium of
the reo-isters of the Readinor Room of the British Museum.
I there found that there were at that time two readers, and
only two, of that name, but neither of them residing in
Oxford Street. One, named simply William Carter, resided
then as now in Philpot Lane, and never had any knowledge
of M. Lucien de Rosny or of the MS. in question. The
other, Mr. William George Carter, lived then in the Temple,
and died in 1861 in Raymond's Buildings, Gray's Inn.
But after an elaborate and interesting search, in which I
traced and corresponded with all the surviving connections
of this Mr. Carter, with results at first somewhat hopeful, but
finally, as will be presently seen, almost conclusive against
bis being the person referred to, I applied to M. Margry
himself, and received an answer, of which the following is a
translation : —

" 11, Rue ihi Mont Thahor,

" Paris, November 20, 1867.

" Sir, — I have received the letter in wbich you ask me or M. de
Rosny Foucqueville to be so good as to point out to you the
means of finding Mr. AVilliam Carter, and the manuscript which
was in his possession, and which I have published in my book
on the French navigations from the fourteenth to the sixteenth
century.

"I regret excessively my inabilitj' to give you this information.

*' When M. Lucien de Rosny copied the document from the volume
confided to him by Mr. Carter, he unhappily attached to it no other

PREFACE. XXX VI 1

ftnportance than that which a philologist studying the old French
language would iind in it. Consequently, not. suspecting that ho
had in his possession a paper touching the honour of a nation, he
did not feel himself called upon to take, nor expect ever to have
to give, any pledge of his good faith against the remonstrances
of that nation or the criticisms of the learned. When, in com-
pliance with your request, I again questioned M. de llosny on the
origin of his document, he told me now, as before, that Mr. W.
Carter, in 1853, when he met him, was living in Oxford Street,
but as he did not go to his house, in which, as I believed and'
told him, he was in fault ; as they met only in the British Museum
in the Ethnological Room ; and, finally, as M. de Rosny is a man
full of reserve, he never learned from Mr. Carter either his number,
or whether he lived in London or was only passing through it.

" This reply. Sir, is doubtless not calculated to satisfy you, but I
can do no better. For you to have the same confidence as myself,
you should see and hear M. de Rosny himself relate how he entered
into conversation with Mr. Carter on the subject of botany ; how
the latter, learning by chance that M. de Rosny was specially
occupied in the study of the old French language, begged him to
acquaint him with the contents of an old manuscript in that
language which he was unable to decipher, and which he brought
with him the next day ; how, finally, M. de Rosny, authorised
by Mr. Carter to extract from it what he pleased, took from the
volume, which was a collection of from about sixty to seventy
leaves, bound in a sort of parchment of dark apple-green, the docu-
ment in question, and an old carol of the fifteenth century, of which
he has to-day brought me the copy.

"All this is said so simply, so honestly; M. de Rosny has always
taken to himself so little merit for this discovery, which he did
not appreciate till I had made him aware of its importance ; he
is 80 well known even to several persons in the Museum, among
others to Mr. Franks, for his philological studies, in which he
foUows the steps of his maternal grandfather, M. Hecart, of Valen-
ciennes, that really I feel almost ashamed of the sort of interroga-
tory to which your question obliges me to subject him.

" I am aware that in the country whence has proceeded the

XXXVlll PREFACE.

scientific mystification of the voyage of Bartolome Fuente, people
are not contented without seeing and touching, examining the
water-mark of the paper and the character of the wi-iting.

" On this point I have nothing to say, I have put forward
honestly what I believed, and still believe, to have been communi-
cated to me with equal honesty.

" Now Avhether Mr. Carter, who was a man of from fifty-five to
sixty years of age, with grizzled hair, and in feeble health, suffer-
ing in his legs, is dead, or compelled by his infirmities to remain
at home, or has left London, I do not know more than M. de
Rosny. This is no reason why his document may not one day be
found ; and if the difficulty which M. de Rosny encountered in
reading the collection whence he extracted the document which
interests us, should again have the efi"ect of making this collection
a dead letter in the hands of the heirs of Mr. W. Carter, as it
seems for a long time to have been in his own, allow me to say
that I shall congratulate myself on having, at the risk of being
attacked, taken advantage of a happy chance which has given me
occasion to publish a document which would only have appeared
to disappear again.

" In any case. Sir, I do not think I have given in my book the
last word which may be said on the subject which interests you.
I have heard that there is now in England a gentleman, a connois-
seur in documents on French discoveries in Africa anterior to those
which I have quoted. Where has he found them ? In the papers
brought from France by the English at the time of their expulsion ?
I know not. I only know the name of the gentleman, but this I am
not at liberty to publish, because he may perhaps himself intend to
win honour by these documents. Thus history now, as ever, is
remodelled piece by piece. Each one brings his portion to this
great piece of marqueterie. There are some which do not agree
with accepted historj^ but they are none the less true. In fact
Montaigne has observed that if he had in his possession the events
which are unknown, he could easily supplant the known ones in
every kind of example. I have already several times brought
examples to the support of this thought. But if, in the matter in

PREFA^K. XXXIX

question, I have not the happiness of seeing you accept my cou-
chisions, believe me. Sir, that I consitlDr myself fortunate, in one
respect, at least, in the circumstance which places me in com-
munication with a distinguished savant.

" I will conclude this letter with the assurance that you are at
liberty to publish it in extcnso, if you think it necessary, either
for the purpose of finding Mr. Carter, or any other reason unknown
to me, but which, judging by j-our procedure towards myself, can
only lead to a courteous discussion, aiming at the discover}' of Truth,
the supreme end of History. This permission will doubtless be,
at least in your^ eyes, a pledge of the good faith of those who have
advanced the fact which you Avish to dispute, and I think that you
will also see in it a mark of the sentiments of consideration with

which

" I have the honour to be. Sir,

'* Your very humble and very obedient servant,

"PIERRE MARGRY.
" R, Major, Esq."

11, JHue dn Mont Thahor,

Fares, ce 20, Kovembrg, 1867.
Monsieur,

J'ai re9u la lettre par laqiielle vous me demandez a moi ou a M. de Rosny
Foucqueville de •vouloir bien iudiquei' les moyens de rencontrer M. William
Carter et le manuscrit qui ^tait en sa possession, manuscrit que j'jjii public dans
mon livre sur les Navigations Frau^'aises du quatorzifeme au seizifeme sifecle.

Je regrette vivement de ne pouvoir vous donnei> ce moyen.

Lorsque M. Lueien de Rosny a copi^ ce document dans le volume que lui a
confix M. Carter, il n'y a mallieureusement attach^ d'autre importance que celle
qu'y peut trouver un philologue, dtudiant le vieux langage frangais. II en est
result^ que ne se doutant pas qu'il avait entre les mains un papier touchant ^
I'honneur d'une nation, il n'a pas cru devoir prendre ni avoir a donner un jour
aucune garantie de sa bonne foi contre les reclamations de cette nation ou contre
les critiques des ^rudits. Lorsqu'a votre demande, j'ai de nouveau interrog^
M. de Rosny sur I'origine de son document, il m'a dit aujoui'd'hui comme autre-
fois que M. W. Carter en 1853, lorsqu'il le voyait, demeiu-ait a, Oxford Street,
mais que comme il n'est pas all^ cbcz lui, aussi que je le croyais et I'ai dit litort,
comme ils se rencontraient seulement au British Museum flans 1' Ethnological
Room; comme enfin M. de Rosny est un homme plein de reserve, il n'a jamius
su de M. Carter ni son numero, ni s'il ^tait de Londres, ou s'U y etait seulement-
en passant.

Cette r^ponse, monsieur, n'est sans doute pas de nature a vous contcnter, mab
je ne puis rien de mieux. Pour vous donner la confiance que j'ai il faudrait

xl PREFACE.

voir et entencke M. de Eosny lui-meme racontant comment il est entre en rela-
tions avec M. Carter a propos de Botanique ; comment celui-ci apprenant par
hasard que M. de Eosny s'occupait surtout de I'^tude du vieux langage frangais
lui demanda de lui renseigner sur ce que contenait un vieux manuscrit en cette
langue ind^chiffrable pour lui et qu'il apporta le lendemain ; comment enfin M.
de Rosny autorisd par M. Carter a en extraire ce qu'il voudrait, a pris dans ce
volume compost d'un recueil de 60 a 70 feuillets environ, recouvert d'un espJjce
de parchemin vert pomme fonc^ le document dont il s'agit, plus un vieux noel
du quinzi^me siecle dont il m'a apporta aujourd'hui la copie.

Tout cela est dit si simplement, si honnetement ; M. de Eosny s'est fait tou-
joui's si peu un m^rite de cette d^couverte qu'il n'appreciait pas avant que je
lui en cusse fait voir I'importance ; il est si bien connu, meme de plusiexu's
personnes du Museum, M. Frauck entre autres, pour ses Etudes philologiques, ou
il suit les traces de son grand pfere maternel, M. H^cart, de Valenciennes, qu'en
\6Tit4 je me sens presque honteux de I'espbce d'interrogatoii'e que votre demande
m' oblige a lui faii-e subir.

Je comprends que dans le pays d'oil est partie la mystification scientifique du
voyage de Bartbdl^my Fonte on veuille voir et toucher, reconnaltre la marque
du papier et le caractfere des ^critures.

La dessus je n'ai rien a dii'e, j'ai livre loyalement ce que j'ai cru et ce que je
crois encore m'avoir ^t^ communique avec ime (5gale loyaute.

Maintenant si M. Carter qui ^tait un lionime d'entre 55 et 60 ans aux
cheveux grisonnans et d'une sante faible, souffi'ant des jambes, est mort, ou que
les infirmities I'obUgent a demeurer chez lui, ou qu'il ait quitt^ Londres, ce que
je ne sais pas plus que M. de Eosny, ce n'est pas une raison pour que son docu-
ment ne se retrouve pas un jour et si la difficult^ que M. de Eosny a rencontr^e
k lire le recueil dont il a extrait le document qui nous int^resse devoit avoir ime
fois encore pour effet de faire de ce recueil une lettre morte dans les mains des
heritiers de M. W. Carter comme il paralt 1' avoir 6t6 longtemps dans les siennes,
laissez moi vous dii-e que je me fi^liciterai d' avoir profit e, au risque d'etre
attaqu^, d'un heureux hasard qui m'a donn^ lieu de publier une pifece la quelle
n'aurait guferes apparu que pour disparaltre.

Quoiqu'il arrive, Monsieur, je ne crois pas avoir donn^ dans mon livre Ic
dernier mot a dire sur le sujet qui vous occupe ici. J'ai entendu dire qu'il y
avait en ce moment en Angleterre un gentleman connaissant des documents sur
des ddcouvertes en Afrique faites par les fran5ais ant^rieiu'ement a ceUes que
j'ai cit&s. Oil les a-t-il trouv^s? est ce dans les papicrs emport^s de France
par les Anglais lors de leur expulsion ? je I'ignore, tout ce que je connais c'est le
nom du monsieur, mais je ne suis pas autoris^ a le publier parceque ce gentle-
man a peut-etre lui-meme 1' intention de se faii'e honneui- de ces documens.
Ainsi I'histoire ici comme ailleurs se recompose pifece k pifece, chacun apporte un
morceau k cette grande marqudterie. II y en a qui ne s'arrangent pas avec
I'histoire convenue, mais ce ne sont pas toujours les moins vrais. En efFet
Montaigne a pu dire que " s'il avait en sa possession les ^vt^nemens incogneus,
il pourroit trtjs facilemcnt supplanter les cogncus en toute espfece d'exomples."
J'ai dt^ja plusieurs fois apporte des exemplcs k I'appui de cette pens^e. Mais si
dans le cas dont il s'agit aujourd'hui je u'nipas le bouhcur de vous voir accueillir

PREFACE. ' Xli

mcs conclusions, croyez, monsieur, que jc rcgarde comnie heurcusc au moius
par un cote uiie occasion qui me met en relation avec un savant distingue.

Je terminerai cette lettre en vous disant que vous pouvez la publier in extenso,
si vous le croyez n<5cessaii'e, soit pom- retrouvcr M. Carter, soit pour d'autrea
vues qui je ne connais pas, niais qui d'aprfes votre demarche aupres do moi nc
saui'aient etre que celle d'une discussion courtoise, ayant pour objet la decouvertc
de la v^rite, cette supreme fin de I'histoire. Cette autorisation sera sans douto
au moins h vos yeux un t^moignage de la bonne foi de ceux qui ont avanc^
le fait que yous voulez contester et je pense que vous y verrez aussi la marque
des sentiniens de consideration avec lesquels,
J'ai riionneur d'etre, monsieur,

Yotre trtss humble et tres ob^issant serviteur,

PIE HUE MARGRY.
A. M. R. Major.

This letter placed^ the transaction, if possible, in a still
more unsatisfactory position, and on the 26th of November
I addressed the following lines to M. Margry : —

" British 2hist'iuii, Xovniibcr 26, 1867.
" SiE, — I beg to offer you my best thanks for your obbging
letter of the 20th iust., but regret that it brings me no more
satisfactory account of the interesting manuscript lent to M. de
Rosny by Mr. Wihiam Carter. It might greatly assist me in my
endeavours to find it if M. de Rosny would kindly tell me how
and where he restored to Mr. Carter the volume which he had
boiTOwed of him.

" Trusting that both yourself and M. de Rosny will pardon the
trouble I am giving in consideration of my earnest desire to do full
justice to a very important subject,

" I have the honour to be, sir,

" Your very obedient humble servant,

"R. H. MAJOR."

On the 4th of December I received an undated letter from
M. Margry, enclosing another from M. Lucien de Rosny, of
which the foUovriug is a translation : —

" Levallois Ferret, Banlieue de Paris, Xore)iihcr 30, 1867.
" SiE, — By his letter, which has just reached me, M. Margry
has acfiuainted me with your desire to become acquainted with the

Xlii PREFACE.

MS. which Mr. W. Carter communicated to me when I resided
in London. During the long period since I have ceased to live
in England I have lost sight of that gentleman, whom I only knew
from meeting him sometimes at the British Museum, not in the
Eeading Room, but in the Ethnological Room, and in the different
collections of the Museum. When I became acquainted with this
MS., from which I have copied some passages (less than I had
wished, for the cursive writing of the 16th and 17th century is
very difficult to read), I was obliged to confine myself to some
extracts, among which was that in which you are concerned, and
to which I attached no other interest beyond what I felt generally
for all ancient documents in the old French language. I was.
ignorant at the time that this passage would make so much im-
pression on the minds of the readers of M. Margry, for, otherwise,
I would, as I have already stated, have taken every possible
precaution to guarantee the authenticity of my copy.

"I have lost sight of Mr. Carter. I only knew him as an
obliging and confiding man, for there was not established betAveen
us any relationship of a dm-able friendship. Accident brought us
together, and we separated in the same way. M. Margry tells me
that in the researches made in the register of persons authorised
to frequent the British Museum, the name of Mr. Carter is not
found inscribed. This does not astonish me, for he did not
frequent the Reading Room, and there is no occasion for any
authority to visit the collections of this establishment open to
the public.

" It was not in the Reading Room that Mr. Carter- communi-
cated his MS. to me, but u-hcn Icariiifi the British Miiscuiii [under-
lined by M. de Rosny] . He had it in his pocket, and I followed
some time in conversation with him. We separated in Oxford
Street, where he lived. It was then between four and five o clock.

•' I returned him his MS. in the British Museum, in the Gallery
of Antiquities, and he put it again in his pocket, if I re^member
well, for it is now fourteen years ago. This, sir, is all that I
know. From this MS. I copied not only the document of which
we speak, but an old carol, and some lines on a 2^ro)iostic acconi-

PREFACE. xliii

panjnng a sneeze, for this pmnostic interested me only bocauso
it entered into a monograph on the subject of sneezing which I
was wi'iting at the time.

"If it is in my power, sir, to give you satisfaction on other
questions upon w'hich you may be interested to make inquiries, I
am at youi* disposal. I avail myself of this opportunity to ask
you in my turn to do me the kindness to give the inclosed letter
to Mr. Franks, and to forward the other to the Superior of Trinity
College, with a word of recommendation.
" Pray accept, sir,

" The assurance of my devotedness,
(Signed) " L. DE ROSXY."

LevaUois Ferret, Banlieue de Paris,
MoxsiEUR, 30, Novembre, 1867.

Par sa lettre qui m' arrive, M. ilargry m'entretient du d^sir que vous auriez
de connaltre le Msc. que Al. W. Carter m'a communique lorsque je residais k
Londres. Depuis bien long temps que je n'habite plus I'Angleterre, j'ai perdu
de vue ce mousieur que je n'ai connu que pour I'avoir rencontre quelquefois au
British Museum, non point au Eeading Room, mais dans la Salle d'Ethnographie
et dans les diverges collections de ce mus^e. Quand j'ai eu communicatit)n de
ce manuscrit dans lequel j'ai copi^ quelques passages, moins que je ne I'eusse
voulu (car I'&riture cm-sive du seizifeme et du dix septifeme sifecle est fort p^nible
a lire), j'ai d(i me bomer a quelques extraits parmi lesquels existe celui qui vous
int^resse et auquel je ne donnais d'autre int^iet que celui que m'inspirent
g^n^ralement tons les anciens documents du vieux langage frangais. J'ignorais
alors que ce passage ddt faire tant d'impressions sur I'esprit des lecteiu's de M.
Margry, car j'aurais pris toutes les precautions possibles pour garantir I'authen-
ticite de ma copie comme je viens de vous le dire, monsieur.

J'ai perdu de vue il. Carter, je n'ai vu en lui qu'un homme obligeant et
confiant, mais il ne s'est point ^tabli entre nous des rapports durables et d'amiti^.
L'occasion nous a fait trouver ensemble ; nous nous sommes s^par^s de la meme
manifere. M. Margiy me dit que dans les recherches faites sur le registre des
personnes autoris^es a frequenter le British Museum, le nom de M. Carter ne s'y
trouve pas inscrit ; eela ne m'^tonne nullement, car il ne fr^queutait pas la Salle
de Lecture et il ne faut pas d'autorisation pour aUer visiter les collections de cet
etablissement ouvert (sic) au public. Ce n'est pas non plus dans la Salic de
Lecture que M. Carter m'a communique son manuscrit, mais en quittant le British
Museum. II Tavait dans sa poche et je le suivis quelque temps en causant avcc
lui. Nous nous s^parames a Oxford Street oil ce monsieur devait habiter. II etait
alors de 4 a 5 heures.

Je lui remis son manuscrit au British Museum dans la Salle des Antiques, ct
il le remit dans sa poche si je me le rappelle bien, car il y a bien 14 ans de ccla.

xliv PREFACE.

Voila, monsieur, le peu que je sais. J'ai copi^ dans ce manuscrit outre le docu-
ment dont il s'agit, un vieu noel, et quelques lignes sur un pronostic accom-
pagn^ d'un ^ternuement, car ce pronostic m'int^ressait par cela seul qu'il rentra
dans une monograpMe sui' le culte de I'^teruuement que j'^cris en ce moment.

Si je puis, monsiem-, vous etre agitable sur d'autres questions que vous pom-riez
avoir- int^ret a me faire je me tiens k votre disposition. Je profite de cette
occasion pour vous demander a mon tour un service, ce serait de remettre
la lettre ci indue a M. Franck, et de faii-e parvenir 1' autre au Sup^rieur de
Trinity College avec un mot de recommendation.

Veuillez agr^er,
Monsieur,
Tassiurance de mon d^vouement,

L. DE KOSNY.

Now it will be observed that M. Lucien de Rosny volun-
teers the observation that it was not m the Reading Room of
the British Museum, where the addresses of students are
kept, that he met jNIr. William Carter, and further, he par-
ticularly states that that gentleman had not a reading
ticket. This circumstance is to the last degree unfortunate,
and when combined with the remarkable fact that the volume
is lent to a perfect stranger by a perfect stranger, whose
address is neither given nor asked, and in a part of the
Museum where the chances of meeting again, or even of
finding each other at an indefinite period after the extracts
should have been made, were rendered the more uncertain
by the attendants taking no cognizance of visitors, reduces
the possibility of tracing the document to a minimum.

But it is fiu-ther remarkable that M. Margry states in
his book that the occurrence took place in consequence of
Mr. Carter's " seeing M. de Eosny searching for old French
texts.^' Now this search could only have taken place either
in the Reading Room or in the Manuscript Department, and
if in the latter, there would have been a twofold register of
the students' names, one in the Reading Room, where the
address would be also kept, and the other in the Manuscript

PREFACE. xlv

Room itself. Neither of the names occurs in the ]\rannscrii)t
Room register, whereas in the Reading Room I tind that
M. de Rosny received his reader's ticket on the 13th of
December, 1852, and that instead of tliere being, as M. do
Rosny states as the result of M. Margry's inquiry, no reader
at the time of the name of William Carter, there were the
two whom I have already mentioned. ]\Ir. AVilliam George
Carter was a man so imusnally reserved that as his executors,
his clerk, his housekeeper, and the legatee of his books, as
well as the purchaser of his books, Mr. Jones, the librarian of
the London Library, have of their own accord informed mo,
was the last man in the world to accost a stranger, or, in
fact, to fall into conversation with any one. He never in
all his life took any interest in botany. ]\Ir. Jones assures
me that there was no MS. among his books, and even if
there had been, I am informed by a letter from his clerk, Mr.
Tubb, written from Bishop's Sutton on the 2nd of November
last, only just in time, for he died the da}^ after, that he
" should not think it likely he would lend his book to any
Frenchman, as I don't think he was an admirer of the
French."* It is true that the negative poles of a magnet
will attract each other, but it would be strange indeed if two
men, both so " pleins de reserve " as M. de Rosny and Mr.
Carter, were to gravitate to each other, and respectively
make and accept a loan of a valuable and curious volume
without the slightest regard to the most ordinary rules of
precaution.

* I cannot refrain from mentioning hero a most extraordinary oconrrcnnc.
After a romantic and almost hopeless search of many weeks, I succeeded in
tracking the address of ]\Ir. Tubb, Mr. Carter's clerk. ,In reply to my
inquiries, he wrote me a most obliging letter, containing the above sontepce,
and informing me who was the purchaser of Mr. Carter's books, a point
which I had in vain endeavoured to ascertain elsewhere. Jfr. Tubb's letter
was written on Saturday the 2nd of Npvember, and on Sunday the 3rd .he
died, even before his letter reached my hands.

Xlvi PREFACE.

I mention all these facts, which have cost me much labour
in tracing, solely because in the Eeading Room or Manuscript
Room only could Mr. Carter have " seen M. de Rosny search-
ing for old French texts," and to show that I have spared
no pains to do justice to M. Margry's statements ; because
if I had failed in doing justice to him, I should thereby have
also failed in doing justice to my readers and to myself.
But, as we have seen, the Reading Room is now out of the
question. In a matter so important, this position of the
case is greatly to be regretted, for, on the one hand, M.
Margry's original statement of Mr. Carter's seeing M. de
Rosny searching for French texts would have involved a
meeting in the Reading Room, where there would have
been some sort of guarantee to the two strangers, not only
of respectability, but of the chance of meeting again ; while
now that M. Margry shifts his ground, the transaction is
based entirely on a quicksand, and one might as well hope
to recover a sunken ship from the Goodwin as to regain this
ignis fatmts of a manuscript.

Why should this cruel fate pursue all Dieppese documents ?
Why should this solitary seventeenth century copy of a
solitary document testifying to the fourteenth century glories
of the Dieppese have lain perdu for two centuries, only to
flicker for a few days before the eyes of a French savant and
again to hide itself in its beloved obscurity ? Wh}- also should
the vampire which has brooded over the fame of Dieppe so
remorselessly have clouded the intelligence of a French savant,
who has shown his interest in early voyages by publishing in
French the first letter of Columbus, as to blind him entirely
to the importance of a document which cost him great pains
to deci})her, when that document most intimately affected
the maritime glory, of his own country ? Yet it was not till

PREFACE. Xlvii

some seven years later that the document was shown to M.
Margry, by whom at length the film was removed from tlie
eyes of M. de Rosny. Of a truth, the whole story is a
curious and notable one.

Thus strangely are we left at sea respecting this Mr.
William Carter himself, while the document in his posses-
sion, reproduced by M. Margry, is but a copy by M. Lucien
de Rosny of a copy, supposed by M. Margry to have been
made in the seventeenth century. This is most unfortunate,
for it disarms all criticism on the construction of the lan-
guage, as being supposed of the fourteenth century. But
it is far more unfortunate on another account — t/ce?x is
nothing to prove the authenticity of the seventeenth century
copy, and, certes, such proof is eminently necessary to
countervail the accumulated arguments which have been
brought together in refutation of claims nihich were not
set up till just before the time when this reputed copy was
supposed to have been made.

But let us examine the document internally. Of two
things one, 1. Either it was written to describe a genuine
voyage in which we should look for consistency with
geographical facts. 2. Or it has been concocted at some
period or another with the view of establishing French
precedence' of the Portuguese in the discovery of the coast
of Guinea, and it will be interesting to see whether the
document betrays in any way such an intention. In both
these respects the language of the document is damaging
to its integrity. The text says, " In the month of Sep-
tember, 1364, those of Dieppe and Rouen equipped two
ships, and had for admiral [or commander] Monsieur Jean

Je Roanois and sailed a long time on the sea till

Christmas, to a place called Ovideg [the Senegal], where

Xlviii PREFACE.

tliose of Normandy had never as yet been, and anchored
par de Id to advance their affairs at a very hot place wliich
is now called Cape Bngiador, which belongs to the kingdom
of Guinea. The Giloffs (so the people of these parts are
called, who are black in face and skin, &c.) had never seen
white men, &c." Now this mention of Cape Boyador is
remarkably suspicious. To the sailors of the Peninsula
and the Mediterranean this cape had been the ne plus ultra
of exploration until the time of Prince Henry, for it was
difficult for small craft, hugging the coast, to round it.
For twelve years the Prince's sailors strove in vain to
accomplish this feat ; but when once, by putting well out
to sea, they had conquered the difficulty, it for ever dis-
appeared. Nevertheless the difficulty which liad existed
has rendered the name of Cape Boyador conspicuous as
the hone of contention in the endeavours of the French to
wrest the honour of priority from the Portuguese. But
this difficulty is not even professed to have been encoun-
tered by the ships of Jean le ^Rouennais. It is therefore,
I repeat, remarkably suspicious that the name of this cape
should occur in a document adduced for the substantiation
of the French priority, inasmuch as the above-mentioned
difficulty being eliminated, there remained nothing in the
locality itself to tempt a navigator to have anything to
do with it, or his historian to mention it, t^nless with con-
scious reference to the discussion. But the text tells us that
" they anchored there for advancing their affairs." For the
sake ,of brevity, I will refer the reader to page 131 of the
jirescnt volume, that he may judge whether ,Cape liOj'ador
was a place to anchor at, unless indeed at the very tip
of the long spit of sand of wliich the cape consists, where
there is an exce})tional little bit of anchor^ige, the exist-

PKEFACE. xlix

ence of which is so vahiable in the eyes of my friend
M. d'Avczac ;* but whether anchoring there woukl mnch
"advance their aftairs " is, I imagine, rather questionable.
But why shoukl 1 take all this pains when the precious
document now adduced transports Cape Boyador itself to
beyond the Senegal, a distance of some 700 miles from
its true position, which gave Prince Henry's mariners so
much trouble? We trace then in this passage a great
geographical error, throwing suspicion on the genuineness
of the voyage, and a very suspicious reference to a place,
conspicuous in a discussion of far more recent times, but to
the last degree unlikely, even if we overlook the geographical
displacement, to have been visited in the manner described,
and therefore equally unlikely to have been mentioned
except with a view to the more recent discussion. It
may legitimately be retorted that if they reached the
Senegal, the true Cape Boyador was ipso facto passed.
True, but the name embodied in itself a temj)tation to
triumph, and every item of assertion must be canvassed
in a document which is adduced at this late period in
contravention of all surrounding history.

To these points of evidence I will add that, in the docu-
ment just produced by M. Margry, occurs a repetition of an
old French assertion that the Fort de la Mina was first built
by the French in the fourteenth century. In reply, I
adduce the honest avowal of a learned Dieppese, M. Bruzen
de la Martiniere, who, in his " Grand Dictionnaire Geo-
graphique," Paris, 1708, ft)l., under the heading of " Saint
George de la Mine," uses the following words : —

" However, all the details related by the Portuguese,

* M. d'Avczac wi-otc a paper on the subject, for a notice of wLicli slc \)U'^o
131.

d

1 PREFACE.

circumstantially given in the ' Decades ' of Barros, tend
to show that the Portuguese found no traces of a previous
establishment. The difHculties which were thrown in their
way when they wished to dig- the ground fur the founda-
tions of their fortress are facts which do not correspond
with the story of those who phice there a fortress built
previously. No mention is made either of a fortress or
church except what they themselves built. This is not
easy to reconcile. No doubt is entertained of the correct-
ness of Barros, who has worked on excellent memoirs.
I could wish that Father Labat had at least pointed out
his authority for what he has stated, for Desmarchais,
whom he quotes, is not more to be trusted than he is on
such ancient facts, and they both need guarantees before
they can be believed on a matter of antiquity of several
centuries."

In all candour I contend, in corroboration of this most
just remark, that it is impossible to read the ndhcs and
simple descriptions by the Portuguese of their tirst dis-
coveries of these coasts and of the construction in 1482
of their Fort de la Mina, the stones of which were carried
out ready cut from Lisbon, and to believe that, had they
found traces of any predecessors on those virgin coasts, no
word of such a phenomenon should have escaped them ;
whereas, on the contrary, all is fresh and new, and cor-
roborated, as I have shown in the text, by French testimony
generations before a French claim had ever been brought
before the world.

It is further stated that the French, in 1380, built the
strong forts of Cormentin and Accra. Now it is perfectly
true that, long before the loyal Sir Nicholas Crispe
(whose heart lies inurned beneath the bust of his royal

PREFACE. 11

master in Hammersmith Church) had at liis own cost
erected the fair Castle of Cormentin, in consequence of
the concession to him luid others of the exchisive trade
to Guinea for thirty years by letters patent from King
Charles in 1629, that place had been the chief emporium
of the trade on that coast, but had lapsed into disuse.
Both there and at Accra there had doubtless been forts,
which were requisite for the security of the commerce first
carried on there by the Portuguese, and afterwards by
the French ; but I have written in vain the latter portion
of the chapter which in this volume bears the title of
the *' Sea of Darkness," if the question as to whether of
these two nations took precedence of the other is not defini-
tively established.

With respect then to the documents now produced by
M. Margry, the sum of the investigation yields a result
which, unless further explanations can be given, is unavoid-
able, that, as all the surrounding evidence is not only not
corroborative, but contradictory and condemnatory, an un-
authenticatcd document, with internal indications of not
being genuine, and represented by a copy of a copy which
is itself not forthcoming, nor its possessor traceable, is
worth absolutely nothing.

I close this Preface with the pleasant duty of tendering
my warm thanks to those from whom I have received the
kindest and most valuable assistance. To his Excellency
the Count de Lavradio for most generous help in books
beyond my reach, for a photograph of the statue of Prince
Henry at Belem, for a copy of the Prince's signature, as
well as for a variety of valuable information from his own

lii PREFACE.

well-stored mind, I beg to offer the respectful expression
of my sincere gratitude. For similar precious assistance
I owe my thanks to my valued friend the Count de Rilvas,
Chancellor of the Portuguese Legation in London, who
has spared no pains to help me with his researches in
Lisbon. To the spontaneous generosity of another most
kind friend in Portugal, the Marquis de Souza Holstein,
Chamberlain to His Most Faithful Majesty, I am indebted
for the busts of King Joao and Queen Philippa from their
effigies on their tomb in Batalha, and from which are
drawn the portraits here given, as well as for a photograph
of the tomb of Prince Henry. To His Excellency the
Marquis de Sa da Bandeira, I have to acknowledge my
great indebtedness for the plan of Sagres and of the
monument which, to his lasting honour, was at his behest
erected therein to the memory of the illustrious Prince
whose residence had immortalised that desolate spot.
Others, from among whom must not be omitted my friend the
Chevalier dos Santos, will be sure that I am not unmindful
of their ever-ready kindness and assistance to me in the
course of this work.

PEINCE HENRY TEE NAVIGATOR.

CHAPTER I.

T II E r u li r 0 s E .

The mystery which since creation had hung over the
Atlantic, and hidden from man's knowledge one-half of the
surface of the globe, had reserved a field of noble enterprise
for Prince Henry the Navigator. Until his day the pathways
of the human race had been the mountain, the river, and the
plain, the strait, the lake, and inland sea; but he it was
Avho first conceived the tliought of opening a road through
the unexplored ocean, a road rejDlete with danger but
abundant in promise. Although the son of a king, he
relinquished the pleasures of the court, and took np his
abode on the inhospitable promontory of Sagres at the
extreme south-western angle of Europe. It was a small
peninsula, the rocky surface of which showed no sign of
vegetation, except a few stunted juniper-trees, to relieve the
sadness of a waste of shifting sand. Another spot so cokl,
so l)arren, or so dreary, it were difficult to find on the warm
and genial soil of sunny Portugal. Landwards the north-
west winds were almost unceasing, while three-quarters ol"
the horizon were occupied by the mighty and mysterious
waters of the as yet unmeasured Atlantic.

i;

4 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

In days long past there had stood upon the sister Lead-
land of St. Vincent", at about a league's distance, a circular
Druidical temple, where, as Strabo tells us, the old Iberians
believed tbat the gods assembled at night, and from the
ancient name of Sacrum Promontorium, hence given to the
entire promontory by the Romans, Cape Sagres received its
modern appellation. As may be imagined, the motive for
the Prince's choice could not have been an ordinary one.
If, from the pinnacle of our present knowledge, we mark on
the world of waters those bright tracks which, during four
centuries and a half, have led to the discovery of mighty
continents, we shall find them all lead us back to that same
inhospitable point of Sagres, and to the motive which gave
to it a royal inhabitant. To find the sea-path to the
" Thesauris Arabum et divitis India3," till then known
only through faint echoes of almost forgotten tradition,
was the object to which Prince Henry devoted his life. The
goal which he thus set before himself was at an unknown
distance, and had to be attained through dangers supposed to
be unsurmountable and by means so inadequate as to demand
a proportionate excess of courage, study, and perseverance.

To be duly appreciated, this comprehensive thought must
be viewed in relation to the period in which it was conceived.
The fifteenth century has been rightly named the " last of
the dark ages," but the light which displaced its obscurity
had not yet begun to dawn when Prince Henry, with
prophetic instinct, traced mentally a pathway to India by an
anticipated Cape of Good Hope. No printing-press as yet
gave forth to the world the accumulated wisdom and ex-
perience of the past. The compass, though known and in
use, had not yet emboldened men to leave the shore and put
out with confidence into the open sea ; no sea-chart existed
to guide the mariner along those perilous African coasts :
no lighthouse reared its iViendly head to warn or welcome
him on his homeward track. The scieutilic and jjractical
ai)pliances which were to render ]>ossiblc the discovery of
half a. world had yet to be developed. But, with such objects

THE PURPOSR. 6

in view, the Prince collecfed the information supplied by
ancient geographers, unweariedly devoted hiinselt' to the
study of ma-thematics, navigation, and cartography, and
freely invited, with princely liberality of reward, the co-
operation of the boldest and most skilful navigators of
every countr}'.

We look back with astonishment and admiration at the
stupendous achievement effected a Avhole life-time later by
the immortal Columbus, an achievement which formed the
connecting link between the old world and the new ; yet the
explorations instituted by Prince Henry of Portugal, were
in truth the anvil upon which that link was forged ; and yet
how many are there in England, the land of sailors, who
even know the name of the illustrious man who was the
very initiator of continuous Atlantic exploration? If the
final success of a bold and comprehensive idea outstep
the life of its author, the world, which always prefers
success to merit, will forget the originator of the very result
which it applauds. This injustice is specially manifest in
the case of Prince Henry, for the vastness of his conception
on the one hand, and tlie imperfection of his appliances
on the other, made the probabilities of success during his
own life-time infinitely the more remote. It is in such
cases that Fame needs to be awakened to her task. Thus
slept for centuries the fame of Christopher Columbus ; thus
sleeps the fame of Richard Hakluyt, the pioneer of the
prosperity of his country.

If it be the glory of England that by means of her
maritime explorations the sun never sets on her dominions,
she may recall with satisfaction that he who opened the way
to that glory was the son of a royal English lady and of the
greatest king that ever sat on the throne of Portugal. The
importance of these personages is such, as to demand a
separate chapter.

k2

CHAPTER 11.

THE PRINCE'S PAEENTAGE.

The Infant Dom Henrique, better known in England as
Prince Henry the Navigator, was the fifth child and fourth
son of King Joao I., " of good memory" (also surnamed the
"Great," and "Father of his country"), and of Queen
Philippa, daughter of "old John of Gaunt, time-honoured
Lancaster." He was thus the nephevA of Henry IV. of
England, and great-grandson of Edward III. He was also
a descendant of the last kings of the line of Capet^, and
allied to the family of Valois.

Although in reality one of the oldest nations in Europe,
Portugal did not begin to assume a prominent position till
the accession of Prince Henry's father to the throne. It
had been the fate of that little country to struggle for six
centuries to throw oif the yoke of its powerful and im-
placable enemies, the jNIoors. Reduced in numbers, subdued
and despised, the Portuguese yet found, in their desperate
patriotism, the materials for the final exi)ulsion of their
o[>pre8sors. It was the realization of an impossibility.
But no sooner were the Moors ejected from the jjcninsula
than repeated efforts were made by Spain to effect the sub-
jugation of Portugal, with whom she had been previously
miited against the (common enemy. To King Joao, the
father of Prince Henry, it was reserved to viiulicate, under
frightful disadvantages, the honour of Portugal against
Spain — to establish the throne upon a solid basis, yet

THE i'UlNL'E S I'AUENTAGE. 0

more, to be the first to carry into tlie country of the ]\Ioors the
sword of the tivciiger, and to ])repare the way for those more
exi)ansivc movements whicli were to issue from the genius
of his son. 'With his accession to the throne commenced
the glorious dynasty known as that of iVviz, wliich histed
two hundred years and embodied the period of Portugal's
greatest dignity, prosperity, and renown. It is remarkable
that King Joao was the youngest, and an illegitimate son of
a sovereign who had three other sons legitimate, or accepted
as such, who attained maturity. Ilis father, Dom Pedro I. ,
surnamed the Severe, by his marriage with Constance,
daughter of Joiio Manoel, Duke of Penafiel, had two sons
and a daughter. Of the sons, Luiz, the elder, died in in-
fancy; the younger, Fernando, succeeded his father in 1367.
By the beautiful but unfortunate Inez de Castro, who, as
Calderon says, was not a queen till after her death, Dom
Pedro had three sons and a daughter. One of the sons,
Alfonso, died in infiincy ; the two others were Jo;to and
Diniz, of whom we shall hear more presently. Besides
these, he had by Theresa Lourenzo, a lady of noble birth, a
natural son named Joao, Prince Henry's father, who, at the
age of seven, received from his father the Grand Mastership
of the Order of Aviz. Two years after the death of Dom
Pedro, which took place on the 18th January, 1307, his
eldest son and successor, Fernando, became, as great-grand-
son of Sancho IV., the rightful heir to the crown of Castile,
on the death of Don Pedro the Cruel without legitimate
offspring. That crown, however, was in the hands of
Enrique of Trastamare, the illegitimate brother of the late
king, a man by no means inclined to give up the kingdom
he had usurped, unless under compulsion. Dom Fernando
therefore formed an alliance with Don Pedro of Aragon,
whose daughter Leonora he engaged to marry. Enrique the
Bastard forthwith invaded Portugal, and a contest ensued
which was only brought to a close through the intervention
of Pope Gregory XL by a treaty of peace signed at Evora,
at the close of 1371, one of the conditions being that Fer-

6 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

nando should marry Enrique's daughter Leonora. Fernando
was tlius betrothed to two Leonoras, the one of Aragon,
the other of Castile, and he now became passionately ena-
moured of a third Leonora, surnamed Telles de Meneses, the
wife of Joiio Louren^o da Cunha, Lord of Pombeiro. The
live months within which, according to the treaty, Leonora of
Castile was to pass into Portugal had nearly expired, when
the king annulled the marriage of Leonora Telles, sent her
husband into Spain, and publicly took her to wife. This insult
to the King of Castile was followed by another, if possible,
still more flagrant ; for, in defiance of the terms of the treaty,
King Fernando entered into an alliance with John of Caunt,
Duke of Lancaster, who, having in 1370 married the eldest
daughter of Pedro the Cruel, laid claim to the crown of
Castile. The war that ensued was one of the most cruel
and dei^lorable that Portugal ever had to sustain. King
Enrique having sworn that he would not return to Castile
till he had reduced Lisbon to ashes. Happily, however,
Gregory XL again became the mediator between the two
sovereigns, and a treaty of peace was signed in 1373, which
remained in force till after the death of Enrique in 1379.

Leonora Telles, who was as remarkable for her heartless-
ness and subtlety as for her marvellous beauty, had a sister,
Maria Telles, beautiful like herself, but, unlike her, endowed
with a pure, noble, and affectionate nature. To this lady the
king's half-brother, Joiio, eldest son of Llez de Castro, was
secretly married. Leonora, who hated them both, and feared
that they might one day succeed to the throne of Portugal,
took occasion first to intimate to the prince a wish for his
marriage with lier daughter, Brites, and, secondly, to insinuate
charges against the chastity of his wife. The prince, incapable
of suspecting such infamy on the part of the queen, believed
the fixlschood, and hastening to Coimbra, where the princess
was, killed her with his own hand. No sooner was the crime
accom})lishcd than Leonora derided the assassin, who fled
for safety to Castile. The other son of Ifie/v de Castro, Dom
Ditiiz, was drivLU into exile for refusing, at a formal au-

THE PRINCE S PARENTAGE. 7

dience, to kiss the hand of the adulterous queen, presented
to hhn by the king. Another object of the queen's mur-
derous designs was the king's illegitimate brother, the Grand
Master of Aviz, whose life she twice attempted by forging
the king's signature for his execution, and afterwards by
poison, but hap})ily he escaped her malice. She now added
to the number of her crimes infidelity to the king himself.
Her paramour was Don Fernando Andeiro, a Castilian
subject, but a special favourite of the king, who had em-
ployed him to negotiate a secret alliance with the Duke of
Lancaster for the subjugation of Castile. On his return
from this mission he was, for some time, concealed in the
Castle of Estremos, the residence of the king and queen,
with the latter of whom he thus had frequent opportunities
for private interviews.

King Juan of Castile, Enrique's successor, hearing that Fer-
nando was forming large armaments and expecting assistance
from England, lost no time in preparing for an encounter
with his perfidious ally, but after a few indecisive engage-
ments a treaty of peace was concluded, one condition of which
was that the second son of the King of Castile should marry
Brites, the daughter of Fernando and Leonora de Telles.

In the interval King Juan's wife died, an event which
suggested to Fernando a yet more advantageous marriage
for his daughter, who, after having been affianced to many
princes, became the wife of the king of Castde himself

The marriage treaty provided that if Fernando died with-
out legitimate male issue, Brites should wear the crown
until the birth of her first legitimate child, on whom it
should then devolve, and that until it should attain its
majority at the age of fourteen, Leonora should be regent.
If Brites were childless, and died before her husband, her
father having also died without heirs, the crown of Portugal
should then devolve upon King Juan of Castile and his heirs.
Corresponding stipulations were adopted with regard to the
crown of Castile. " No treaty," says Nunez de Leiio, " was
ever more solemnly sworn to, or surrounded with greater

8 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

precautions, and none was ever worse kept." King Fer-
nando's failing health prevented him from being present at
the brilliant marriage of his daughter. He had at length
become aware of the guilt of the infamous queen, but not
having the courage to remove her paramour from the court,
lie called to his aid his illegitimate brother Joao, the Grand
Master of A viz, with whom he resolved upon Andeiro's
death, but before this could be effected, the king fell
dangerously ill, and was conveyed to Lisbon, where he died
on the 22nd of October, 1383. As his daughter Brites was
childless, the throne of right belonged to Joao, Duke of
Viseu, the eldest surviving son of Inez de Castro, but
King Juan lost no time in seizing that unfortunate prince,
and placing him in safe custody at Toledo. Leonora forth-
with assumed the position of regent, but, on the demand of
the King of Castile, was compelled to proclaim her daughter
Brites as queen.

The Portuguese chafed at the thought that the Castilian
yoke should be imposed upon them through the marriage of
their princess with a king of Castile. Leonora and her
paramour were universally detested ; and not only the
nobility, but the whole kingdom, were prepared to hail as
their deliverer any one who should take the life of the latter.
The two sons of L'lez de Castro being kept in safe custody
by the King of Castile, the Grand Master of Aviz, who was
the only son of King Pedro I. now in Portugal, at once
saw in this favourable conjunction of circumstances a chance
of obtaining possession of the crown.

Leonora was not blind to the same possibility, and by way
of removing him, made him governor of the Alemtejo for
tlie defence of the frontier. This was a crisis in his life.
Andeiro's dealli had been secretly resolved ui)on by the
leading nol)les of the kingdom, and the hand of the Grand
Master was by a 1 1 regarded as the one to strike the blow.
Accordingly, at the close of an interview with the queen in
her palace, lie h-d vViideiro into an antechamber, as if lo speak
with him, aiul llicri.' tslcw Jutii. ilc then gave orders tluit ihc.

THE rillNCE's PARENTAGE. 9

gates of the palace slunild be closed ; and in pursnancc of a
preconcerted plan, his page, (roniez Freire, rode through the
streets of Lisbon, crying out that his master was shut uj) hi
the palace, and in imminent danger of his life. The peoi)le, by
whom he was much beloved, rushed in crowds towards the
palace gates, threatening to force an entrance unless they were
convinced with their own eyes of the Grand Master's safety.

AV^hen at length he made his appearance, and rode through
the streets, the shouts of joy with which he was received
told plainly how near he was to the realization of his most
sanguine hopes. The people were enthusiastic in his favour,
but many of the nobles who had sided with him while it was
a question of getting rid of Andeiro, returned to Leonora,
now that that favom'ite was removed. The queen had called
to her aid her son-in-law, the King of Castile, and when the
people of Lisbon reflected on the dangers to which they would
be exposed if their city were to be at the mercy of Leonora
and of the Castilians, the instinct of self-preservation drove
them the more anxiously to look for protection and safety in
the talents and energy of the G-rand Master. They there-
fore declared their wish to recognise him as their protector
and sovereign, and to place at his command the city and its
revennes.

The approach of the King of Castile to the frontiers of
Portugal left no alternative ; and even the nobles were at
length, though against their inclination, induced to give in
their adhesion, and accordingly, an act, which constituted
the Grand Master defender and regent of the kingdom, with
powers little less than royal, was formally signed on the IGth
of December, 1383.

In this new and difficult position, the Grand Master dis-
l)layed talents equal to his responsibilities. To invest that
})Osition with befitting dignity, he styled himself in all official
letters and ordinances, " Joao, by the grace of God, son of
the most noble King Pedro, Master of the Order of Chivalry
of Aviz, Kegent and Defender of the Kingdoms of Portugal
and the Algarves." lie placed the royal arms upon the

10 PRINCE HENKY THE NAVIGATOR.

cross of his order, so that only the extremities of the hitter
were visible, thus skilfully blending the insignia of the Grand
Master of the order with those of the Regent of the kingdom.

He was prudent in the selection of his ministers of state,
among whom the most remarkable were his High Chancellor
Joao das Regras, and Nuno Alvarez Pereira. To the legal
acumen of the former he subsequently owed his crown,
while the latter, who was his well-loved friend from boy-
hood, stands pre-eminent in Portuguese history for his
valour, his piety, and devotedness to the king's service.
The Regent, however, was not blind to the fact that his half-
brother, Prince Joao, who was still a prisoner in Castile,
had a claim to the throne which took precedence of any that
he himself could advance beyond such as might emanate from
the expressed will of the people. Accordingly, he declared
that he held his authority on behalf of his half-brother, and
caused banners to be painted representing the Prince in a
dungeon, loaded with irons. By this means he secured the
good-will of the j:)rince's partisans, and at the same time
intensified the people's hatred of the King of Castile, and
their attachment to his own family. The queen, who for greater
security had now withdrawn from Alemquer to Santarem,
perhaps the strongest fortress in the kingdom, issued letters
to the commanders of various strongholds, calling on them
to proclaim her daughter Brites queen, and urged on the
King of Castile the necessity of forthwith enforcing her
rights by the sword, thereby only the more exasperating
the popular fury.

The people's devotion to the Regent made him strong
within the frontiers of Portugal, but an enemy was approach-
ing who would have to be encountered and repulsed by force
of arms. The Regent addressed himself with energy to the
needful preparations, and appealed successfully to the dif-
ferent towns of Portugal for aid. He also sent an embassy
fo the King of England, reipiesting assistance and prtnnising
future reciprociition, and suggested to the Duke of Lan-
caster, who was then at the court in London, that if he

THE riilNCE's TAKENTAGE. 11

wished to obtain poysossioii ol" the crown of Castile, it was
now the fitting opportunit)^, when Portugal was ready to
assist him. The English were delighted with the proposal.
Money and men were forthcoming on the moment. Troo})8
were dispatched forthwith, and King Richard's reply was in
the highest degree encouraging.

The Regent's next anxiety was to provide for the security
of Lisbon, in the event of its having to sustain a siege.
This charge was assigned to Nuno Alvarez Pereira, who with
unfiiiling activity collected stores, and in spite of all opposi-
tion conveyed them into the city. The King and Queen of
Castile had already entered Portugal, and had received
from Leonora a formal renunciation of the crown in their
favour. This measure, which emanated from Leonora's
hatred of the Grand Master, brought over many of the
nobility to the side of the King of Castile, who thus found
himself in possession of numerous strongholds of the king-
dom. Before long, however, a disagreement arose between
Leonora and the king, as to the appointment of the chief
Rabbi of Portugal, and the Queen became so irritated, that
she attempted the assassination of her son-in-law. Her
designs being discovered, she was placed in a convent at
Tordesillas, near Valladolid, where she ended her days.

If by this removal of Leonora the king secured a positive
gain, he incurred at the same time a more than correspond-
ing loss in the withdrawal of the support of his adherents
in Portugal. Lisbon was now the focus both of his hope
and his anxiety, and with the view of effectually reducing
it, he blockaded it from the sea, while his forces ravaged the
Alemtejo and endeavoured to hem it in by land. It was
absolutely necessary to check at once the advance of the
land force, and the Grand Master entrusted this im-
portant charge to the gallant but youthful Nufio Alvarez
Pereira, who, in spite of his great inferiority in numbers,
resolved to give them battle. The undertaking was a critical
one, but the religious enthusiasm of Pereira gained for him
the day. After addre^ising his soldiers in fervent language,

l2 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

he dismounted and knelt in prayer. His men followed his
example, and when they arose from their knees and attacked
the enemy's cavalry, which constituted the main strength of
their army, the onslaught was so tremendous, that the Cas-
tilians fled in the utmost disorder. The effects of this victory?
known by the name of Atoleiros, from the field where it was
won, were immense. Many who had hesitated to attach
themselves to the cause of the Regent now readily gave in
their adhesion, nor did the indefatigable Pereira cease his
exertions till he had rendered futile all the efforts of the
Castilians to subjugate the Alemtejo.

King Juan now devoted all his thoughts to the siege of
Lisbon. He had received large reinforcements from Castile,
but delayed the attack till the arrival of his fleet from Seville.
The Grand Master meanwhile lost no time in refitting the
vessels which were lying in the harbour of Lisbon. The
hearts of all were in the cause. Lorenzo, Archbishop of
Braga, lance in hand, and with his episcopal costume over
his armour, rode from point to point, encouraging and
urging all to assist in the work. If a priest excused him-
self on account of his orders, he answered, that he also
was a priest, and an archbishop to boot. Lisbon was soon
invested both by land and by sea, but through the foresight
of the Grand Master, it was well supplied with provisions,
ifs walls repaired, and its seventy-three towers well stocked
with arms and projectiles. The people had full confidence
in their (;hief All took their part in the work of defence,
and the utmost order prevailed, though the city was crowded
Avith refugees. For five long months the king was foiled in
all his ellbrts to take it. The only hope now left was to
reduce it by famine, and it seemed most likely that this
dreadful scuurge would effect the king's object. Pallid faces
and the groans of those who were perishing of starvation told
a i)iteous story of the condition of those within the walls,
yet none thought of surrender. But amid the ranks of the
besiegers stalked a yet more deadly enemy, the plague, which
carried off almost two hundred Castilians dailv. hi this

THE PIUNCE's TARENTAGR. 13

direful position of afl'airs, each parly obstinately waited
to see which wouhl be the conqueror, the famine or the
phigue ; till at length, when symptoms of the malady began
to show themselves on Queen Brites, the king struck his
camp ; and on the 5th of September took his departure for
Torres Vedras, uttering bitter execrations on the city which
had thus successfully resisted him. On the 14th October he
crossed the frontier, not in triumph, but as it were with a
funeral procession ; for in the van of his army were carried
on biers the bodies of many noble victims of the plague,
whose remains had been preserved that they might be buried
in the tombs of their ancestors. The gloom inspired by
the black trappings of death was unrelieved either by the
gladness of success or by the consciousness of glory won.
Sadness and silence were the companions of that homeward
march. Meanwhile at Lisbon the joy was that of men
restored from death to life. The people were bent on
solemn acts of fervent thanksgiving to the Almighty, and
the bishop and clergy in their sacerdotal vestments, the
Regent, the nobility, and the j)opulace testified their united
and humble thankfulness by walking in reverent procession
with bare feet to the convent of the Holy Trinity to offer
to God the incense of their praise and gratitude. To none
were the glad tidings of this happy event more welcome
than to that truest of friends and patriots, Nuno Alvarez
Pereira. With his usual fearlessness, he sailed down the
Tagus from Palmella in a light skiff through the enemy's
fleet to offer his congratulations. At his instigation a re-
newal of the act of homage to the Grand Master by all the
nobles, knights, prelates, and municipal authorities, took
place on the Gth of October, in the royal palace, where the
Grand Master resided. Mortified at his failure, the King of
Castile now attempted the life of the Regent by the hand of
an assassin, but the plot was discovered.

Soon after this the Cortes were assembled at Coiml)ia.
The safety of the kingdom rendered necessary the appoint-
ment of a responsible chief, and it was evidently the wisli of

14 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR,

the peo|)le to proclaim the Grand Master King. Some of
the nobles, however, thought the only legitimate course was
that the Grrand Master should be Regent for his half-brother
Dom Joiio, or in case of his death for the Infant Dom Diniz,
who had been declared legitimate children of King Pedro.

At this juncture the Grand Master had the good fortune
to possess in the Chancellor Joao das Regras an advocate
who served him as well with his tongue as his faithful friend
Nuno Alvarez Pereira had already done with his sword. The
Chancellor's main purpose was to show that the throne was
without an heir, and that by the laws of Lam ego * the
choice lay with the people. He first asserted that Brites?
Fernando's daughter, was illegitimate, and further, that she
and her husband had, by making a violent entry into
Portugal, broken the treaty by which the terms of the suc-
cession had been settled. He then dwelt on the doubtful
legitimacy of the children of Inez de Castro, and further
declared that they had forfeited all right to the throne by
joining their country's enemies. In conclusion, he argued
that the Portuguese possessed the power of choosing their
own king, and that there was no one who by his birth,
abilities, and devotion to his country, so well deserved to be
raised to the throne as the Grand Master of Aviz. The
discussions which ensued were set at rest by the Chancellor
producing the written refusal of Pope Innocent VI. to
recognise the legitimacy of the children of Inez de Castro.
His success was complete, and on the 6th of April, 1385,
the Grand Master was })rociaimcd King to the joy of the
whole nation.

Amono- the individuals to whom the kino- held himself
most deeply in(U'l)ted, Nuno Alvarez Pereira stood pre-
eminent, and on him therefore, though but twenty-seven,
two years younger I ban himself, he conferred the highest
military rank in tin- rraim, that of (!*onstnble. Tlie rcmark-

* It, \v;is at: ]-nnu'p;o, in llic indvim'c ot' Boini, tlint tlio tiist Cortes i.f tlio
lvin<;(l<iiii were coMVolicd in 111:;, l.y thr Kin;;- AH'oiiso 1., and tlio InndanitMilal
laws ol'tlic (•nnslilni inn drawn np.

THE PRTNX'E S PARENTAGE. 15

able combination in him of coiirn,'^o and religions entlmsiasm
gained for him in after-years the title of the Holy Constable.
His invaluable qualities were soon to be brought into active
operation. Intelligence arrived of a fresh invasion by the
King of Castile. Pereira at once set out with all the troops
at his command for Santiago, and collecting men as he pro-
ceeded, made himself master of various places which held
allegiance to the King of Castile. When the King at length
joined his forces to those of the Constable, in the province
of Entre Douro e Minho, he obtained possession of the most
important places in that province, and the Castilian party
found itself daily more and more straitened.

The struggle now began to assume more alarming propor-
tions, and it became evident that the decisive hour was
approaching. The Castilians had crossed the frontier by
Almeida, and were advancing u})on Viseu. The Portuguese
marched to meet them with three hundred lances, a small
band of regular infiintry, and a number of peasants. They
were drawn up at half a league's distance from Trancnso, by
which place the Castilians would have to pass. The latter
had been pillaging for several days, and the large quantity
of booty made them anxious to avoid the enemy, but the
Portuguese intercepted them. A deadly engagement ensued,
which lasted from morning till afternoon. The Castilians
liad the superiority in numbers, and the humiliation of
defeat was not to be endured. The Portuguese were on
their own ground, and had the thought of hearth and home
to stimulate their antagonism to their ancient foes. It was
not till the four hundred chosen lances of Castile were laid
low in death that the obstinate engagement was brought to
a close.

The actual loss amongst the flower of the Castilian
nobility was great, but the blow to the morale of those who
remained was perhaps even more important. On the other
hand, this well-won victory of Trancoso encouraged tlie
Portuguese for those heroic efforts which were still to be
required of them. The King of Castile now determined to

16 rRIN'CE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

bring the whole of his forces into Portugal, and to engage
King Joiio in one decisive battle, a plan which was oi)posed
by his more prudent advisers for reasons among which the
king's health was by no means the lightest. King Jofio and
the Constable lost no time in collecting such forces as could
he mustered, and happily at this time three large ships
arrived at Lisbon from England with about five hundred
men-at-arms and archers. The greater part of them were
mere adventurers. There were no knights amongst them,
but they were led by three squires named Northberry,
Morberry, and Huguelin de Hartsel, whereas two thousand
French knights had joined the Castilian army. On the 14tli
of August the Portuguese army took up an advantageous
position in a plain at a league's distance from Porto de Mos.
When the first ranks of the Castilians came in sight, they
did not otfer battle to the Portuguese, but marched in the
direction of Aljubarrota, where they halted. The older
and more prudent officers of the Castilian army advised that
they should remain quietly where they were, as the soldiers
were fasting and fatigued with the march. This prudent
counsel was overruled by the impatience of the young
soldiers, who clamoured for an instant encounter.

Historians differ as to the respective strengtli of the two
armies in this important battle, but there can be no doubt
that the Castilians were very superior in numbers, in
experience, and in equipments. They had also the advantage
of possessing ten pieces of cannon called " trons,'' the first
ever seen in ^^pain. The movement of the Spaniards towards
Aljubarrota had necessitated a change in the position of the
PortugUL'se army. The ground occupied by King Joao was
a level i)lain cuvered Avith heather, and as his force was
small, it was divided into only two lines. In the vanguard
was the Constable with only six huucbed lances. In the
right wing was a goodly band of gentlemen who, as a point
of honour, had resolved to defend to the death the spot on
which they might be placed. This division bore the name of
tlie" l']iiaiiior;ulos." or '• \'Hliiiileers," and was distinguished

THE prince's parentage. 17

by a o-recn banner. The left wing consisted of Portuguese
and foreigners, among whom were some Englisli bowmen
and men-at-arms. Behind the men-at-arms in both winofs
were bowmen and inftmtrv, so placed as to give ready help
to the cavalry. The King, with seven hundred lances and
the royal standard with the guard appointed for its defence,
were in the rear -guard, behind wliicli was a strong barricade
formed with the baggage which was begirt by foot soldiers
and bowmen. It was evening, and the men had suffered
much from the necessity of remaining under arms all day
beneath the full blaze of an August sun, especially as, from
reverence for the vigil of the Assumi)tion, few of them ate or
drank. But the example of the King and the Constable
quite sustained the courage of all. On both sides the
trumpets sounded for the charge ; the war-cries of " Castile
and Santiago," and " St. George for Portugal," rang through
the air, and the tAvo armies met with a heavy shock.* The
Portuguese van-guard at first suftered terribly from the
arrows of the Castilian bowmen. The Castilian light horse
endeavoured, though in vain, to penetrate the baggage
waggons, but the force of the battle was soon concentrated
round the banner of the Constable, the Castilians directing
their principal efforts against the division of " Enamorados,"
who suffered the most. When the King perceived that the
foremost ranks were penetrated, and that the Constable was
hard beset, he pressed forward with the rear-guard and the
royal banner. The contest became fiercer and more deadly
ever}^ moment, King Joao himself kindling the courage and
valour of his troops by surprising proofs of his own strength

* In accordance with the Portuguese historians ^lanocl de Faria and Duaite
Nunjz de Leao, the armies are here made to meet in the open phiin. Froissart,
on the contrarj', says that, in pursuance of the advice of the English, the King
of Portugal made a stronghold of the church of Aljubarrota which was on a
small eminence beside the road, and surrounded by large trees, hedges, and bushes.
Trees were cut down and so laid that the cavalry could not pass them, leaving
one entry not too wide, on the wings of which they posted all the archers and
cross-bows. The men-at-arms were on foot, drawn up beside the church, wluve
the king was.

C

18 riUNCE IIENKY THK NAVIGATOR.

and intr('])idity. In the lieiglit of the coniLat the royal
standard of Castile was thrown down, and at the disappear-
ance of the banner which had served them as a rallying
point, some of the Castilians began to give way. When the
King of Castile saw his standard overthrown, and his soldiers
seizing any horses they could find to flee upon, he resolved
to look to his own safety before the battle was entirely lost.
His keeper of the household, Pedro Gonsalvez de Mendoza,
who had foreseen the result of a contest, entered upon
against his own advice and that of the most experienced
knights of the council, had steadily remained by his master's
side to help him in the moment of necessity. That moment
had now arrived. Setting the king upon a strong horse in
exchange for the mule which, after leaving his litter, he had
ridden on account of his illness, he led him from the field,
and then, in spite of the king's remonstrances, returned to
the fight. "Thew(mien of Cuadalaxara," said he, "shall
not reproach me with having led their husbands and sons to
death, while I return home safe and sound." Accordingly
he fought his way into the thick of the battle, where he fell
like a true-hearted soldier as he was, whilst his master rode
for his life, tearing his beard and cursing the day that he had
entered Portugal. Meanwhile the Portuouese bowmen and
the infimtry who protected the baggage, having been taken
in flank by the Castilian light horse, the King ordered the
Constable to hasten to their assistance. The Portuguese
were already successfully defending themselves, and on the
appearance of the Constable the Castilian cavalry ceased from
the attack. The wings were now able to bring all their
strength upon Ihe Castilinn van-guard, and complete its
overthrow. The Castilians, linding that their king had fled,
lost :dl ho])o, and favoured by the darkness, took to flight,
'io this d;iy \\\o\v is shown in Aljubari'ota a. baker's shop,
which tradition recoi-ds to have been at that rime a bake-
house, in which jirites d'Alnunda, the baker's wife, slew
willi lici' dvcn-pccl no less llimi seven Castilian soldiers.
This laiiioiis bat lie cf AliubaiTota w;is Ibniiht on the Mtli

THE prtxoe's parkntage. 10

of August, 1385. It was ;i day the })roiid memory of wliicli
is deathless in the annals of Portugal ; for, apart from its
incalculable importance to the permanent well-being* of that
country, the battle then fought was as remarkable for the
display of chivalrous courage as any that has been recorded
in the history of modern Europe. In accordance with the
custom of the period. King Joiio remained three days and
three nights upon the field, until the fetid exhalations from
the bodies of the slain obliged him to withdraw. The booty
taken from the Castilians was immense. The king's tent,
with all its furniture, the silver triptych belonging to the
portable altar of the Castilian army, which is still to be seen
in tlie sacristy at Guimaraens,* were taken as well as the
king's sceptre, which was long joreserved in the now extinct
('onvento do Carmo at Lisbon, built by the Constable Nufio
Alvarez de Pereira. It was near the site of this famous
battle that the king afterwards erected the beautiful convent
of Batalha, as a mausoleum for himself and his posterity,
and here are still preserved the helmet and sword worn by
him on that eventful day.

Meanwhile the King of Castile had fled, accompanied only
by a fe^v servants. At midnight he arrived sick and
exhausted at Santarem, about twelve leagues from Alju-
barrota, where, still alarmed for his safety, he took a boat
the same night, and descending the river, reached the port
of Lisbon on the loth of August. Thence he sailed in
safety to Seville, where he took the precaution of landing
during the night of the 22nd of August. In his despondency
at the great calamity which had befallen liim, he is said to
have worn mourning for seven years.

Taking advantage of the depressed condition of Castile,
the Constable now resolved to carry his arms into the
enemy's country, and thus afford the King an easier oppor-
tunity of reducing to subjection the north of Portugal, many

* In the same sacristy is shown the polote worn on this occasion by the Kini;-
of Portujjal, and a large Bible then taken was given to tlie Abbey nf Ab'i>l):i(;;i,
ami !>; now in the niblinthora Xacionnl a1 Lisbon.

20 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

towns in wliich were still in the hands of the Castilians. In
the month of September, 1385, he levied troo})s at Evora to
the number of 1,000 lances and 2,000 infantv}',* intending
to cross the frontier and attack Valverde. The Castilians,
in order to be in advance of the Portuguese, immediately
assembled a large force from the towns of Andalusia, part
of which they sent across the Guadiana, while part remained
behind in reserve.

By dint of hard fighting the Constable forced the passage
of the river, but only to find a second force of 10,000 await-
ing him on the other side. His position was now in the
highest degree perilous, but his exhaustless energy and
marvellous presence of mind again worked wonders. But
not to his own efforts only did he trust the result of so im-
portant an engagement. While the battle was at its height,
and all apparently depended on his presence, he for a while
disappeared from the field. Two messengers dispatched
successively in search of hira found him on his knees in
prayer. He paid no attention to their representations, but
at length, when his prayers were concluded, arose, his coun-
tenance bright with confidence, and returned to the fight.
Seeing the banners of the enemy on the summit of a neigh-
bouring eminence, surmounted by the standard of the Grand
Master of Santiago, he ordered his own standard-bearer to
plant his colours bj- the side of the other, he himself cleaving
his way through the masses which well-nigh smothered his
little band, till he encountered a worthy adversary in the
Grand Master himself. The combat was short ; the Grand
Master fell mortally wounded, and his fall and the overthrow
of his standard gave the siirnal for the fli"-ht of the Castilians.
The Constable ])ursued thorn till nightfall, and on tiie

* At (jarcic, ;i liuiiipeter prcsenti'd liiniselt' with a cliallongf fnnii tlic Castilian
noblus, aocoiiipanii-d hy a certain niiiiibor of scour<:;e.s on tlio part of cacli of tlieni.
The Constahlc iccciNcd tlicni witli liis lial)itiuil coniposuro, anil sent a jiTaci'lnl
messaj^o of thanks to llic Caslilian iminili'i's for tlio clialh-nj;o wliii'h they ha<l
Kent him, and more ispn i;illy fur tlic wliips, with whieli he promised himself tlie
ideasiire of cliaslisinji; thnii ;ill. To the herald he gave a hundred golden dubrus
(:ihoul x:m)).

THE I'JUNCE's I'AUENTAGE. 'J 1

morrow retraced his steps towards I'ortugal. The disaster
which Castile had experienced at Alju])arrota was thus
speedily followed by a scarcely less crushing hlow at
Valverde. Most of the Portuguese towns occupied by tlie
Castilians soon surrendered to the King, and, in order to
reduce the rest to submission, he was making preparations
for levying a considerable army when news arrived that the
Duke of Lancaster was on the point of proceeding to Spain
to prefer his claim to the crown of Castile, in right of his
marriage with the Princess Constance.

From early times an alliance, cemented by numerous
political and commercial treaties, had existed between Eng-
land and Portugal, and the elevation of the Grand Master of
Aviz to the throne and his victory over the King of Castile
had supplied his ambassadors with reasons for suggesting to
the Duke of Lancaster that the opportunity was favourable
for carrying out his own designs upon Castile.

Accordingly, on the 20th of July, 1386, the Duke arrived
at Corunna with 2,000 lances, 3,000 archers, and a fleet of
180 galleys, accompanied by the Duchess Constance, their
daughter Catherine, and Philippa, the duke's daughter by a
former marriage. Without delay an interview was arranged
between him and the king, at which the latter undertook to
assist him in the conquest of Castile, and bound himself to
supply and maintain 2,000 lances, 1,000 cross-bowmen, and
2,000 foot soldiers, for eight months, while the Duke, on his
part, pledged himself, in the event of success, to cede to the
King of Portugal several considerable places on the frontier,
and to repay the expenses of the campaign.

By way of sealing this new compact, it was agreed that
the King should receive one of the duke's daughters in
marriage. It was the wish of the Portuguese that the King
should choose Catherine, with a view to his thus becoming
the heir presumptive to the crown of Castile, but the King
himself, both from policy and from real preference, chose
the Princess Philippa. Having first obtained from the Po])e
the necessary dispensation from the vow of chastity which

J;: PRINCE iii:ni;v tiik xavi(;at(»i;.

he had t;ikt'ii as Grand Master of the Order ul' Aviz, he was
married to Philippa with <;reat pomp, and to tlie extreme
delight of the people, on the 2nd of February, 1387. The
young king had endeared himself to his subjects by his
well-proved heroism and wisdom, while Philip[)a, who was
one year his junior, was as remarkable for the modest
dignity of her bearing as for her beauty, both qualities
well befitting the grand-daughter of Philippa of Hainault.

On the 25th of March, the King, having levied a larger
contingent than be had engaged to furnish, brought theni
as a reinforcement to the Duke of Lancaster, whose force
sickness and frequent skirmishes bad already reduced to 600
lances and a small number of archers. He could not
conceal fi\)m himself, however, that the campaign offered
little prosj)ect either of glory or of ultimate success. The
Oastilians showed no disposition to recognise his father-in-
law as their sovereign, and his remaining force was dwin-
dling away from sickness and want of provisions, while the
resources of the King of Castile were comparatively great.
He therefore represented to the Duke of Lancaster that two
alternatives only remained, to levy more soldiers in England,
or to come to a compromise with the King of Castile. On
many grounds the duke preferred the latter course, to which,
moreover, other circumstances were leading him. When, on
iirst landing, he had summoned the King of Castile to
acknowledge his right to the crown, the king had proi)osed
a marriage between Catherine, the duke's daughter, and her
cousin the Prince Royal of Castile. This proposal, though
far from disi)leasing to him, the duke had set aside at the
time on account of his alliance with the King of Portugal,
but it still remained o})en.

Meanwhile it had become necessary to effect a retreat.
On the loth of ]\Iay the Allies re-entered Portugal by way
of Almeida, but on his way to Coimbra, to visit his daughter,
the Duke was nu>t at Trancoso by a deputation from ihe
King (»r C;istiK', oilei-ing (crms of peace, ajid again lU'c-
(losing Ihc marriage between (he Princess Calherine and the

TiiK I'IUNck's I'Ai;ia"ta(;f. 23

Prhico Koyal. The King engaged to grant to the prhicess
certain towns in Castile as a dowry, and to i)ay the duke
()()0,000 florins as indemnity for tlie expenses of the war, as
well as an annuity for life of 40,000 florins, if the Duke and
Duchess of Lancaster would renounce all claim to the crown
of Castile. The duke was invited to discuss these proposals
Avith the plenipotentiaries of the King of Castile at Bayonne,
which at that time belonged to England, and there, towards
the end of September, the compact was formally agreed
u[)on, the Princess Catherine being fourteen years of age,
and her affianced husband ten. On this occasion, the king
gave the Infant the title of Prince of Asturias, a title which
has ever since been borne by the heir presumptive to the
crown of Spain.

King Joiio, whose chief wish was to secure the independ-
ence and promote the internal well-being of Portugal, far
from desiring to set up any claims of his own to the throne
of Castile, saw in the proposed marriage that for which he
was so anxious, a prospect of j^eace, and his hopes in this
respect were soon realized. So rapid was his success in
1389, in recovering some of the Portuguese towns which
had given in their adhesion to Castile, that the King,
alarmed at his progress, proposed a truce of six years, which
was agreed to. On the 9th of October, 1390, the King of
Castile died from the eftects of a fall from his horse at a
tournament. During the following reign, Enrirpie, King
Juan's successor, persuaded Queen Brites to cede her right
to the crown of Portugal to the Infant Diniz, who had taken
refuge in Castile, and who now, with two thousand lances and
a number of Portuguese malcontents, entered the province of
Beira, calling himself King, and promising large rewards to
those who should render him obedience. No one declaring
for him, he soon found it prudent to withdraw again to
Castile. The King of Portugal continued to obtain im-
portant successes, and negotiations for peace were opened,
but failed, solely through the exorbitant demands of the
Castilians. At lenoth, mainlv throuuli the influence of his

24 I'UIXCE UENRY THE NAVlGATOli.

uit'c, (jiieeii Philippa's sister Catherine, King Enrique was
induced to agree to a cessation of hostilities for ten years.
At his death in December, 1407, Queen Catherine became
Regent during the minority of her son, and a definite treaty
of peace was concluded on the 30th October, 1411. Mean-
time the friendship between Portugal and England had
become most closely cemented. The riband of the newly-
established Order of the Garter had been conferred upon
King Joao, who was the first foreign sovereign to receive it,*
and the sovereigns of Portugal and England agreed, that in
any treaty between either of them and Castile, the other
should be included. Whilst Portugal was thus gaining
importance. King JoiTo and Queen Philippa became the
parents of a noble family of children, whose names and
order of birth are as follows : —

1st. Branca, who was born in Lisbon on the 13th July,
1388, but lived little more than eight months.

2nd. Alfonso, who was born in Santarem, on the 30th of
July, 1390, and who, according to Fernam Lopez, lived tw^o
years, though Cunha, in his history of Braga, where he "svas
buried, gives the 22nd of December, 1400, as the date of his
death.

3rd. Duarte, who was born in Viseu, on the 31st of October,
1391, and received his name of Duarto (or Edward) in
memory of his great-grandfather. King Edward HI. of
England, and who succeeded his father on the throne of
Portugal.

4th. Pedro, who was born in Lisbon, on the 9th of
December, 1392, and of whom much will be said in the
following pages.

otli. Henrique, the " Prince Henry," of the present,
biography, born in Ojxn-to on Ash Wednesday, the 4th of
March, 1394.

()lli. Isabel, liorn on the 21st of February, 1397, after-
wards married lo Philip le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, who

■ ilr i-iiru'CiU'il Sir Williiiiu Aiuiukl, wli" ilicil Au;;u.~l. 1 lltO.

THE PKIXCE S TAUENTAGE. 25

t'stabli.shed the order of the Toison d'Or, in honour of the
occasion.*

7th. Joao, born in Santarem, the 13th of January,
1400, afterwards Grand Master of the Order of Santiago.

8th. Fernando, born in Santarem on the 29th of Septem-
ber, 1402, whose patient endm'ance of suffering in Morocco
Avon for him the designation of " Tlie Constant Prince.''

King Joao had also two illegitimate children, Aftonso
Count of Barcellos, who married the daughter of the Con-
stable Nuno Alvares Pereira, from which nnion sprung the
royal house of Braganza, and Brites, who married on the
2Gth of November, 1405, Thomas Fitzallan, Earl of Arundel.

* It is almost certain that Jan van Eyck, the perfecter, if not the inventor, of
painting: in oil) '^vas attached to the embassy sent to Portugal to solicit the hand
of Isabel for the Duke of Burgundy. In 1836, when King Ferdinand, then Prince
of Saxe Coburg, was on his way to Portugal to marry Dona Maria da Gloria,
he made a short stay at Brussels, and, at a court fete given on the occasion, the
Queen of the Belgians appeared in a costume faithfully copied from a portrait in
which his ExccUeney the Count de Lavradio, who negotiated the man-iage,
thought that he recognised the portrait of the Princess Isabel by Yan Eyck.

CHAPTER III.

CEUTA.
A.D. 1415.

Now that Portugal was at peace with Castile, it began to
attain a high degree of prosperity, and King Joao, though
dreaded by his neighbours, was beloved by his people. The
glory identified with his name served as a stimulus to the
ambition cf his sons, the three eldest of whom, Duarte,
Pedro, and Henry, were now of age, and had been admi-
rably trained ly their father in every chivalrous accomplish-
ment. The princes were anxious to receive the honour of
knighthood ; but, as this was a distinction only to be gained
at the point of the sword, the King proposed to hold a
succession of tournaments during an entire year, to which
knights of all nations, and of the highest renown in feats
of arms, should be invited. His minister of finance, JoiTo
Afibnso de Alemquer, represented to him the useless ex-
penditure inseparable from such a plan, and suggested that an
invasion of the Moorish city of Ceuta would offer a fiir more
honourable and fitting opportunity for conferring the rank
of knighthood upon the princes, while it would be carrying
the sword of the avenger into the country of their former
conquerors, and opening a door to the advance of Christianity.
The King yielded to the rei)resentations of his minister and
the wishes of liis sons, to whom the idea of winning tlicir
s])urs at a tournament was most distasteful.

Desiring to obtain as much information as possible respect-
ing the strength and position of Ccuta, ho liad recourse

CEKTA. 27

to the following stratagein. He sent Aflbnso Furtiido cle
Mendoza and Alvaro Gousalves de Canielo, prior of tlic
hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, as envoys to Sicily, to
ask the hand of the Queen in marriage for Dom Pedro, and
as the vessels must necessarily pass near Ceuta, where ships
of ditiereut nations were in the habit of sto]i)ping, he desired
the envoys to make the most of the opportunity to examine
the place. Accordingly, under pretence of taking in pre-
visions, which, in their character of ambassadors, they were
permitted by the Governor to do, they remained four days
in the city, carefully noting everything about which the
King needed information.

They then proceeded to Sicily, and delivered their message
to the Queen, but with no successful result. On their return,
■when they had reported the issue of their mission to Sicily,
the Kins: desired Mendoza to state what he had ascertained
respecting Ceuta. His only answer was an assurance that
the King would be successful in the proposed enterprise,
and, when pressed for his reasons, instead of reporting his
observations, he told a story of a prophecy uttered to him
when a boy by an old Moor, and already jiartly verified, that
a king named Joiio, a natural son of the late king, should
be the first of his country to gain dominion in Africa.

The King then applied for information to the prior of St.
John, but it seemed that he was fated to be answered only
in enigmas, for this envoy declared his inability to aftbrd
any details unless he were supplied with two loads of sand
and two bushels of beans. When after some demur these
singular materials were produced, the prior formed the sand
into a representation of the seven hills from which Ceuta or
Septa takes its name, described the double wall on the
landward side, with its towers and curtains, and rej^resented
with the beans the apparent number and position of the
houses, and what was all important, indicated the most
convenient spot for the safe and expeditious landing of the
troops.

The King warmlv commended his zeal and sa^acilv. ;ind

28 riilNCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOK.

lifter consultation with the Queen and the Constable, at once
commenced his preparations for the expedition. The Kings
of Aragon and Glranada immediately took the alarm. To
the former, who sent messengers to him requesting a frank
avowal of his intentions, King Joiio replied that he had no
idea of attacking Aragon, hut that on the contrary, in case
of necessity, he was ready to protect it. The Moorish King
of Granada at first sought to allay his fears by asking the
intervention of the King of Aragon, but receiving a con-
temptuous answer, he sent envoys direct to King Joao
himself, begging an assurance of peace under the King's
seal, so that commercial intercourse between the two
countries might not be interrupted. The King replied that
he would take time for consideration. The envoys now had
recourse to Queen Philippa, and besought her, in the name
of Riccaforna, Queen of Granada, so to use her influence as
to induce the King to remain at peace, promising, in requital,
to send her choice and costly gifts for the nuptials of her
daughter. To this Queen Philippa, who, as the old chronicler
says, being English by birth, held both Jews and Moors in
detestation, gave the following dignified reply : — " I know
nothing of the methods which your queens may resort to in
dealings with their husbands, but with us it would be
regarded as an indecent thing for a wife to interfere in her
husband's aifairs, especially in such as have to be debated in
council. As regards the present which your queen has so
liberally offered me, I thank her and accept her good wishes,
but beg her to dispose of her gifts elsewhere as she may
please, for, when the time comes for my daughter to be
married, she will have no lack of costly ornaments."

The King at length informed the envoys that he had no
intention of invading Granada, but as he would not give
the assurance in writing, they took it for granted that
their worst fears were to be realized, and hastened back to
report their apprehensions, whereupon the King of Granada
garrisoned and }»rovision('d all the towns on the sea-coast.
Rumours of llicse pri'parationy reached King Joao, who very

CEUTA. 29

reasonably supposing that tliey might also reach Morocco,
gave out that he was about to dechire war against tlic Count
of Holland, to whom he sent an envoy with instructions
secretly to inform the Count of the truth, but openly to
threaten war. Important as it was to allay the suspicions
of the neighbouring powers, it now became necessary to
announce the truth to his own subjects. He first summoned
the peers to Torres Vedras, and declared to them the various
reasons for which he had determined to attaclc Ceuta. The
announcement being received with applause, the King issued
a proclamation representing that the fleet was prepared for
his sons, and that those who might desire to volunteer to go
out with them should declare in writing how many armed
men they would supply, and that stores would be taken on
board at Lisbon and Oporto. When the fleet was completed,
and while the soldiers were busily engaged in lading the
vessels, a pestilence broke out in both cities. The King by
no means relaxed his efforts on this account, but personally
superintended at Lisbon the preparations for the expedition.
At Oporto Prince Henry, armed with full authority from his
father, equipped seven triremes, six biremes, twenty-six
ships of burden, and a great number of pinnaces, with which
he set sail for Lisbon, where he joined Dom Pedro, who was
awaiting him in the roads with eight galleys. When on the
point of departing they met with an unexpected obstacle yet
greater than any they had hitherto encountered. The Queen
had been attacked with the pestilence, and a letter from
Dom Duarte summoned his brothers to Sacavem, where she
lay. It was evident, on their arrival, that her end was fast
approaching, but the sight of her sons revived her.

The old Italian chronicler, Mattco de Pisano, relates mi-
nutely the scenes which followed. The Queen had had three
swords made, richly set with precious stones, for the purpose
of presenting them to her three sons when they v/ere knighted.
On the day after their arrival the Queen solemnly addresscMl
them in the King's presence, giving each a portion of tlic
true cross with her blessing. In presenting the sword to

^0 rniXCE HENRY THE NAVfGATOR.

Dom Dnnrto, she impressed upon bini his duties as a king,
especially that of ruling justly. To Dom Pedro she gave, as
his knightly duty, the eharge of protecting the honour of
helpless maidens and widows, and to Prince Henry she
commended the care of the soldiery. On the thirteenth day
of her illness she suddenly inquired, " What wind blows so
strongly against the side of the chamber?" and when told
by her sons that it was the north wind, she said, " It is the
wind most favourable for your departure, which will doubt-
less take place on the feast of St. James." This proved a
true prophecy, though it seemed at the time scarcely possible,
for the feast of St. James would fall only six days after.
The Queen died on the 10th of July, 1415, to the sincere
grief of the people ; for while sharing for twenty-eight
years the throne of the most highly gifted of the kings of
Portugal, she had exhibited qualities which Avould have
])laced her amongst the most noble of her sex in any country
or in any age. To do good was with her a necessity of
existence, and her choicest pleasure was in stilling conten-
tions and reconciling disputants. The virtue of abstinence
she carried to an excess, for, from a deeply-seated sense of
devotion, she fasted so severely as to seriously undermine
her health. In the details of domestic economy she took as
much interest as the humblest among her subjects, and
encouraged similar habits in the ladies who were about her
person. Such an example was calculated to produce, as in
fact we find that it did produce, a notable effect on the
bearing, manners, and tone of the nobles of the court.
But of all the occupations of the Queen, that in which she
took the greatest delight was the training and instruction of
her children, in which she conmnmicated to them umch of
the lofty tone oi' her own exalted character. She also
possessed tlie faculty of developing their understandings in
a manner whicli was remarkable lor the period, and their
history shows how eminent ly qualified she was to he the
mother of princes and heroes.

The natniT of the (^hiccu's disease, togellier witli tlic lieat of

QUEEN PHILIPPA.

KKOJI THE RECIMBE.NT STATIE OVER IIEK TOJIB
AT BATALIIA.

cF.i'TA. :; 1

the weather, rendered it necessary to luvsten ilie interment of
her remains, and on the following day the funeral was cele-
hrated with great pomp in the monastery of Odivellas, hnt.
her body was nltimately removed, on the 14th Aiignst, 14;}4,
to the chapel erected by King Joiio at Batalha, for the joint
sepulture of himself and his beloved queen.

After the funeral Prince Henry joined the King at Restello,
whither the nobles had induced him to retire for safet-y from
the jiestilence. There was much discussion as to tlic time
for the departure of the expedition to Ceuta, but the King-
overruled the opinion of some v/ho thought that there ought
iirst to be a period of public mourning, by saying that an im-
mediate departure would best carry out the Queen's expressed
wishes. Accordingly, the expedition started with a favouring
wind on the 25th of July, that feast of St. James which
had been indicated by the dying Queen. Many distinguished
adventurers from England, France, and Germany took jiart
in the enterprise. A baron of the last-named country took
with him forty knights, and a wealthy Englishman, whose
name is difficult to recognise under the transmitted form of
Menendus, Mondo, or ]\Iongo, brought four vessels laden
with provisions. The armament was an unusually large one
for the period. Of the number of vessels and of fighting men ,
Azurara, the contemporary chronicler, says nothing; but Zu-
rita, in his "Annals of Aragon," informs us that the fleet con-
sisted of 33 galleys, 27 triremes, 32 biremes, and 120 smaller
vessels, with 50,000 men, of whom 20,000 would seem to
have been scldiers, and the remainder oarsmen and mariners.

The armada anchored in the Bay of Lagos at nightfall of
Saturday the 27th. On Sunday morning the King disem-
barked, with all the chiefs of the expedition, and heard mass
in the cathedral, after which Father Joao de Xira, tlie
Preacher- Royal, read the Bull of the Crusade granted by the
Pope in favour of those who should be present at the con-
quest of Ceuta. On the 30th the King departed for Faro,
where ho was detained by a calm until the 7th of August,
mid where Piince Henry had an opportunity of dis})laying

32 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

great presence of mind ; for the lantern of liis vessel havini]^
canglit fire during the night, and there being imminent
danger that the flames would spread to the ship, he, though
suddenly aroused from sleep, with much risk to himself,
seized the burning lantern and threw it into the sea. On
the afternoon of the 10th the armada anchored at Algeziras,
a place belonging to the King of Granada. Ceuta was to
have been attacked on the 12th, and the fleet was already in
full sail when a strong wind arose, which, combined with
tlie action of the current in the strait, carried the large
vessels nearly to ]Malaga, so that only the galleys and smaller
craft reached Ceuta, where many of them anchored.

This city, in old times called Septa, had been partly con-
structed and fortified by the Emperor Justinian. It was the
princijjal port of Morocco, being the centre of commerce
between Damascus, Alexandria, and other eastern places,
and the nations of Western Europe. Its position was one
of great importance, for in all the invasions of Spain and
Portugal, it had been the point of muster for the Moorish
armies and the rendezvous of the corsairs. It occupied
the western portion of a peninsula nearly three miles in
length, jutting out almost due east from the mainland. It
was divided into two unequal parts by a wall, the smaller
and westernmost part terminating in the citadel, which
covered the neck of land by which the peninsula was joined
to the continent. The portion of the peninsula eastward of
this wall was called Almina, and contained the outer and
larger division of the city, as well as the seven hills from
Avhich Ceuta derived its name, by far the highest of which
was at the easternmost extremity, and was surmounted by a
fortress called El Ilacho. On the north side of the jienin-
sula, from the citadel to the foot of this last-mentioned hill,
the city was protected by another lofty wall. Eastward of
this hill was a. small bay named Barbazote,* in which

* I do not find the harliour of Rarbazote laid down (Hi any ma]), not horn tin
di'scriptions I roiijcctiirc it to hv Di'snarigado T?av.

CEUTA. 33

tolerably large vessels could lie at anchor sheltered from the
west winds and but little exposed to missiles from the
northern wall. Here the King determined to await the
arrival of the vessels which had been driven out, intending to
effect a landing immediately on their return. After much
delay, Prince Henry succeeded in bringing them up, but a
violent tempest frustrated the King's plan by compelling
him to seek another anchorage, for while the large vessels
turned with difhculty the i)oint of Almina, the current
caught the smaller craft which moved more slowly and
carried them towards Malaga. This apparent disaster, which
in the minds of the superstitious awakened doubts as to the
success of the enterprise, actually contributed in no small
degree to that success.

The first appearance of the strangers had caused great
anxietj' to the Moors, who lost no time in preparing for
defence, and obtained help from the sovereign of Fez and
from other neisrhbourino- chiefs to the extent, it has been
said, of one hundred thousand men. When, however, the
Moors saw the fleet a second time dispersed, they imagined
that it would be impossible again to bring it together, and the
Governor of Ceuta, Zala ben Zala, accordingly dismissed the
auxiliaries, and contented himself with the ordinary garrison.

The Portuguese themselves were discouraged, and, but for
the determination of the King, the Princes, and the Constable,
would have abandoned the expedition. Prince Henry having
again collected the fleet, preparations were resumed for the
attack, which was at length ordered in the following manner.
Prince Henry was to anchor off Almina with all the vessels
he had brought from Oporto, and to be ready at daybreak
on a signal from the Kiug to land his men with all expedition.
Tlie King himself with the main body of the fleet was to
anchor opposite the castle. The Moors would naturally
flock to the point where the greater part of the fleet lay, and
Prince Henry would thus be able to land with comparatively
little hindrance, while, if the Moors should turn to oppose
him, he would be supported by the King's division.

D

34 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

These movements of the fleet greatly alarmed the Moors.
Zahi ben Zala was so convinced that the issue of the struggle
would be disastrous, that, but for the counsel of a few of
his confidential advisers, he would have fled. In order to
produce an impression that Ceuta was a very populous city,
he now gave instructions that the wall on the side where the
fleet lay should be crowded with men, and that lighted
candles should be placed in all the windows of the houses.
The elicct was brilliant, but, as might have been anticipated,
in no way alarmed the Portuguese. At daybreak the King,
in spite of a severe injury which he* sustained in descending
from his galley into a boat, visited the fleet, and gave his
instructions to each commander, encouraging all with the
certain hope of victory. In accordance with a request made
by Prince Henry at Lisbon, he forbade any one to set foot
on shore until the Prince himself should have landed.
Meanwhile Zala ben Zala was overcome with terror, from
which the younger Moors sought in vain to arouse him.
They therefore took matters into their own hands, and, while
Prince Henry and his men awaited the appointed signal,
issued from the city shouting their war-cry and defying the
enemy. Seeing this, Joiio Fogaza, comptroller of the house-
hold of the Count de Barcellos, could brook no further delay,
and disregarding the King's injunction, put ofi" with several
armed men for the shore. The first who touched the soil
was lluy Gonsalvez, a man renowned for his daring, who
attacked the Moors so desperately that they recoiled enough
to allow of others landing. This hastened the movements
of the Portuguese, and, after some opposition from the
Moors, Prince Henry and Dom Duarte effected a landing with,
about three hundred men. Two only accompanied Prince
Henry in his boat, namely, Estevao Soarez de Mello, and Mem
Rodriguez de Ilefoyos. The Moors poured out in great
numbers from the town, and a long and fierce contest
ensued, in which the latter were driven back to the Almina
Gate which opened on the landing-place, and through which
they entered and the Portuguese with them. The first

CEUTA. 35

who passed through was Vasco Eannes de Cortercal,
closely followed by Dom Duarte, and thus they con-
tinued charging the Moors till they reached the gates of
the city. Here Prince Henry offered to resign the command
to Dom Duarte, but the latter would not accept it. Prince
Henry therefore, having put his men in military order, pro-
posed to await the arrival of their father, as he had com-
manded, but Dom Duarte overruled this, suggesting the
advautao-e of their continuing to avail themselves of the
evident panic of the Moors. After retreating before the first
onset, however, the Moors made a stand, being protected by
the walls and encouraged by their champion, a gigantic
negro who fought naked and used no weapons but stones,
which he hurled with terrible force, and with one of which,
while the combat was at its height, he struck Vasco jMartinez
de Albergaria, a nobleman of Prince Henry^s household, full
on the helmet. The Portuguese staggered under the violence
of the blow and stood for a moment half stunned, but re-
covering himself, he broke his way through the ranks of the
enemy and thrust his spear into the side of the giant. When
the Moors saw their champion fall, they fled in confusion
into the city, the Portuguese entering with them. Prince
Henry's most anxious care now was to secure possession of
the city gates, not only for the sake of facilitating the entry
of his countrymen, but also in order to prevent those who
had already entered being hopelessly shut in by the enemy.
The two princes, with the Count de Barcellos, their illegiti-
mate brother, and about five hundred men occupied a mound
within the city, and there fixed Prince Henry's standard, the
spot being favourable for defence, should the Moors renew the
engagement. In consequence of the smallness of their force
they were not free from anxiety, lest, before fresh troops
arrived, the soldiers might be tempted to begin plundering,
which w^ould give the Moors an opportunity to collect in
sufiicient strength to shut the gates, and so render their
position in the highest degree perilous. But reinforcements
came in with great rapidity from that part of the fleet which

d2

36 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Prince Henry had commanded, and some of the Moors in
their alarm announced to Zala ben Zala in the citadel, that
the city was taken. Some took to flight with their wives
and children. Zala ben Zala, overwhelmed with dismay,
came from the citadel in the hope of checking, if possible,
the advance of the enemy through the narrow streets until
the citizens could pass the wall to the western, or inland,
side of the city, where^ if anywhere, they might receive help
from their neighbours.

Among the new comers was Vasco Fernandez de Ataide,
who, despising the easy entrance through the open gate by
which the Prince had entered, called together his men and
attacked another gate which was carefully kept by the Moors ;
but his attempt was fruitless, for while he was striving to
force the gate with axes, the Moors attacked him with stones
and darts, and he was compelled to return, himself mortally
wounded and eight of his men slain. When Prince Henry
perceived that the greater number of his men had arrived, he
thought it better to waste no more time on the spot where
he had waited with Dom Duarte, and gave orders to the
captains to occupy various parts of the city, so that no
opportunity might be afforded for the panic of the Moors
to subside, or for them to reorganize their forces. Dom
Duarte took possession of Cesto, the highest of the hills
overlooking the city, and Prince Henry of the main street.

Meanwhile the King, who had now inspected the fleet, gave
orders for a general landing, and receiving news of the rapid
victory of his sons, offered up thanks to God for their success.
He then advanced with his retinue towards the town, and,
supposing from the quantity of plunder which was being
carried on board the ships that nothing more remained to
be done, seated himself near the gate.

In the interim the Moors seeing: the Portuguese intent on
plunder and approaching in utter disorder very near to the
citadel, had attacked them with such fury that they fled in
confusion. The Moors thought this the moment for avenging
their injuries, and endeavoured to drive the enemy completely

CEUTA. 37

out of tlie cify and close the gates. Prince Homy allowed the
flying Portugnese to pass him, knowing that if he checked
the foremost, those in the rear would be exposed to great
danger. He himself was left with but a handful of men, but
seeing that the position of aftairs was critical, he opposed the
Moors with such vigour that he put them to flight with great
slaughter. Pursuing them however too eagerly, he found
himself alone with the enemy, and would certainly have been
cut off had not the narrowness of the road in a great degree
protected him. For a short time he had to sustain the con-
flict quite alone till, his soldiers coming to his assistance,
the Moors were again put to the rout. While his men pur-
sued them. Prince Henry rested in a house which the
Portuguese had converted into a store for the goods which
they had brought on shore, but the fugitives having received
reinforcements, the Portuguese were again driven back as
far as the house where the Prince was. In vain ho en-
deavoured to rally them, they were worn out with the heat
and thirst, and out of the many whom he addressed not more
than seventeen remained with him. With these few he
boldly met the on-coming enemy, and forced them to retreat
through the gate which led into the inner part of the city,
and which could be secured on both sides. After a long and
violent struggle Prince Henry succeeded in clearing this gate,
thereby securing his return to his troops.

But evening was now coming on and the Portuguese began
to seek their respective leaders, from whom they had been
separated in the turmoil of the day ; and many were the
anxious enquiries for Prince Henry, whose gallantry had won
all hearts ; and it was rumoured that at the head of a hand-
ful of men he had made his way to the above-mentioned gate,
and fighting to the last had there met his death. The King
hearing of this, said with a calm and unmoved countenance,
" Such is the end which soldiers must expect."

In another part of the town, Dom Duarte was deliberat-
ing with Dora Pedro and some other nobles as to the means
of storming the citadel, and sent a message to Prince Henry

38 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

desiring his presence. This Prince Henry at first refused,
for he waited to see if the Moors would return to the con-
flict, but when a second messenger urged on him that it
was now evening, and that if the citadel were stormed no
further work would remain to be done, he joined the council.

Meantime the Moors, who feared that they would be unable
to defend the fortress, after consultation with Zahi ben Zala,
determined on flight. Each man loaded himself with as much
as he could carry, and having constructed a testudo at the
western gate, which opened landward, they silently retired
with their wives and children to the neighbouring towns and
villages.

It was now sunset, and the Portuguese, having resolved
to attack the citadel at daybreak, sent out a reconnoitering
party, who, finding no sentinels on guard, suspected that the
Moors had deserted. On hearing this, the King, who now
had entered the city, sent a knight, named Joao Vaz de
Almada, to attempt an entrance into the inner part of the
city, and if he found the citadel abandoned, to place the
standard of St. Vincent, the patron saint of Lisbon, upon
the highest tower of the fortress.

When Almada reached the gate in the wall which divided
the city into two parts, he found it shut, and ordered his
men to hew it down. "While they were so doing, two
Moors, who had waited to see the end, told them in Spanish
to spare themselves the trouble, for that they would o])en
the gate. Almada then entered the citadel and placed the
standard on the highest tower.

Meanwhile the King, hearing that Prince Henry was alive
and present at the council, sent to summon him to liis pre-
sence. The King's face grew briglit with joy as his son
approached, and he welcomed him with tlie proposal that as
he had borne himself so gloriously that day in the midst of
so many well-tried veterans he should receive the honour of
Knighthood in precedence of liis brothers. Prince Henry,
however, besought the King, that as his brothers Dom Duarte
and Dom Pedro took precedence of liim in age, they might

CEUTA. 39

also do so in lionour. The King commended tlie wisdom of his
son's reply, and gave orders that at daybreak all the bishoi)s
and priests who were present with the army should assemble
in the great Mosque, and consecrate it as the site of the
Cathedral of the city. On the following day this was done,
and the three Princes presented themselves before the King,
in full armour, each bearing unsheathed the sword which the
Queen had given him, and with all due solemnity they were
invested with knighthood, each in the order of his birth.

The night had been passed in the greatest watchfulness.
When in the morning the Portuguese entered the city, it
lay before them in unbroken stillness. They encountered
nothing but the dead bodies of the slain, and some few old
men, women, and children, who still lingered near the
homes which they loved, even at the risk of becoming slaves
to the victorious Christians. The spoil was most abundant
in gold and silver, and jewels of great price, with stuffs and
drugs in great quantity, but the destruction and waste were
immense. The morning was stormy, with rain and hail,
and such was the recklessness of the troops that, mingled
with the streams of water which flowed down the streets,
were oil, honey, spices, preserves, and butter, with fragments
of the great jars which had hitherto contained them. This
waste was afterwards the subject of much vain regret, when
it was found that the provisions in the city were enough
to have maintained for a considerable time the garrison
necessary to hold it in subjection. The spoil which fell to
the share of the nobles was very rich. Dom Afibnzo,
Count de Barcellos, with princely taste took for his plunder
more than six hundred columns of alabaster and marble from
the gates and windows of the palace of Zala ben Zala and the
other chief buildings of the city. From one square was taken
an entire vaulted roof of elaborate gilt work, which together
with the columns was afterwards used in the construc-
tion of the count's palace at Barcellos.

The Moors were now seen ascending the mountains carrying
their wives and children, whom after awhile they left in charge

40 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

of the old men that were unable to bear arms, whilst they
themselves returned to the walls of the city, challenging its
present occupants to fight, rather with a passionate desire of
vengeance than with any hope of recovering what they had lost.
Dom Duarte rode forth with a large company and speedily
repulsed them, and as, when they again returned, they found
the gates shut, they withdrew, uttering such wild sad wail-
ings of anguish and despair as moved even the hearts of
their enemies to pity.

On the Sunday after this important victory, the principal
mosque having been purified, the King with his sons and
the Grandees proceeded thither to the sound of martial
music to hear the first mass. They were met at the entrance
by a large number of priests in rich vestments, and the
sound of the instruments was answered by two bells which
were found in the highest tower of the mosque. How came
they there ? was the natural question of those who knew that
the Mahometans were not in the habit of using bells. The
answer was not without its interest. Some years before,
the Moors had attacked and pillaged the city of Lagos, and
carried oif these bells, which had been carefully but vainly
concealed, and which now again spread far and wide the
summons to attend a Christian service. Many Moors of
both sexes were witnesses from a distance of this sudden
and for them heart-rending transformation of a structure
which but two days before had been the scene of that exclu-
sive devotion which regarded the approach of a Christian
foot as a desecration meriting death. When the hated
sound of those bells reached their ears they stood aghast,
as if under the influence of a hideous and unnatural dream.

While the most solemn services of the church were beins:
celebrated in the newly consecrated cathedral, messengers
from the King were hastening in different directions with
the news of tlio victory, the fame of which rajjidly spread
throughout Knropc, for it was felt to be one tliat promised
in)))ortant consequences.

The conquerors were naturally desirous not to prolong

CEUTA. 4 1

their stay upon the coast of Barbary, and the King, though
by no means inclined to resign into the hands of the floors
so important a conquest, was anxious to resume the govern-
ment of his country. The majority of the Portuguese
doubted the possibility of holding the place, and one Grandee,
Martin Atfonso de Mello, whom the King had selected as com-
mander, declined the honour, though it was a greater than
had been offered by the King to any subject in any of his
enterprizes. While it was uncertain who was to accept the
charge of the place, Dom Pedro de Meneses, Count de
Viana, of the noble house of Villareal, happening to have.,in
his hand a stick of Zamboa wood,* uttered the exclamation,
" By my faith, with this stick alone, I feel myself man
enough to defend these walls against every Morisco of them
all." What then appeared an empty boast became after-
wards a valuable reality. The King took him at his word,
and this stout-hearted knight remained the first commander
of Ceuta, and had the honour of being told by the King that
lie should require of him no other pledge than that which was
afforded by his high character and noble birth. Faria y
Sousa, who wrote two centuries later, records that this staff
was still, in his time, preserved at Ceuta, and placed in the
hands of every governor on the occasion of his taking the
command of the place. The valiant Dom Pedro held the
governorship for nearly two and twenty years. He was
engaged in frequent contests with the Moors, but proved
himself well able to maintain with honour that dignified but
responsible position. From that day to this, the Moors have
never recovered possession of the city.

The King left Ceuta with the fleet on the second of Septem-
ber, 1415, and a few days afterwards, anchored amidst the
exultant welcomes of his people in the port of Tavira, on the
coast of Algarve. At Tavira the King summoned his sons
to him, and declared his wish to reward them for the great
service which they had rendered him. To Dom Duarte, who

* A varietj^ of the orange true. Faria uses the words — Azebuche, Azcbo, aud
Azambugeyro.

42 PRINCE BENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

was to succeed him on the throne, he had nothing greater
to offer, but upon Dom Pedro he conferred the titles of
Duke of Coimbra and Lord of Montemoro Velho, Aveiro,
and other territories which thence, as forming the aj^panage
of his rank, took the name of the Infantado, a designation
which still remains. The title of Duke had not previously
existed in Portugal. Prince Henry was made Duke of
Viseu and Lord of Covilham.

In Tavira the King discharged with many thanks and
ample presents those who had volunteered their assistance,
and dismissed with liberal payment the foreign vessels
which had been employed in his service. Among these
were twenty-seven English ships, which, touching at the port
of Lisbon on their way to the Holy Land, had at the King's
request joined him in his expedition against the Moors.

This enterprize, which had in the first instance been
undertaken mainly with the view of affording a worthy
opportunity for the young Princes to earn knighthood,
proved in many ways of great importance. It was a severe
reprisal upon the Moors, who had for so many centuries
inflicted their hated dominion on the Peninsula, and it
transmuted Ceuta, from being the chief emporium and key
of the Mahometan states, into the very bulwark of
Christendom against them. But further, and this is espe-
cially note-worthy, as a successful naval enterprize it was the
parent of those grand achievements which made the close of
the fifteenth century memorable in the history of the workl.

For three years the Count do Viana was able to hold the
Moors in check with the forces which had been left in his
command, but in 1418 it api)eared necessary for him to
seek aid from the mother country. Ceuta was surrounded
inland by a large army of Moors, and was attacked from the
sea by the forces of the King of Granada, who had sent a fleet
of seventy-four sail, and numerous troops, under the command
of his nei)hew Muley Said, to attack the city from the sea.
Fortunately the munitions in the arsenals of Lisbon were
abundant, so that the King was able to despatch a strong

CEUTA. 43

force under the command of Prince Henry, who took with him
his brother Dom Jofio. At the same time, Dom Duarte and
Dom Pedro proceeded to Algarve, in order that they might
be ready to reinforce Prince Henry in case of necessity. As
the latter was entering the mouth of the strait, he was met
by a pinnace, bringing him written information from the
Count de Viana that Muley Said had ah'eady taken posses-
sion of the eastern part of the Ahnina, in combination with
the army ah-eady hi situ, while the galleys blockaded the
port. The glory of destroying the navy of Granada did not
however fall to the lot of Prince Henry, for, before he
could reach Ceuta, the Count de Viana had sallied forth at
the head of his small but stout-hearted garrison against the
position which Muley Said had taken up on Mount Hacho.
The brave Moor met the Count with a desperate resistance,
which though it was sufficient to secure his honour, could
not win for him success. At the commencement of the
engagement, his gallej's, which had sailed out of the bay,
came in sight of the Portuguese fleet, of the approach of
"which the Moors had given repeated signals from both sides
of the strait. The whole of the fleet of Granada took the
alarm and fled, only one galley remaining to aid the escape
of Muley Said with a small handful of men. By the time
the Princes landed the action was at an end.

The Princes remained two months in Ceuta hoping that
the Moors would make an efibrt to regain their lost city, but
they waited in vain. During this time Prince Henry, who
chafed at the thought of returning to the presence of his
father without having achieved a single act of distinction,
conceived the bold idea of taking Gibraltar by storm.
Although he was opposed by the almost unanimous opinion
of the council, yet he determined to make the attempt, and
set sail accordingly. Fortune however did not favour the
undertaking. A storm arose which drove the fleet towards
Cape de Gat, where it remained fifteen days, and on their
return to Ceuta the Princes received a letter from their
father with positive orders for their return to Lisbon.

CHAPTER IV.

TALENT DE BIEN FAIRE.

"Talent de bien faire" was Prince Henry^s adopted motto,
and human wit perhaps coukl scarcely suggest a better. In
his time the word " talent" conveyed not, as now, the idea
of "power" or "faculty," but of "desire," and the ap-
propriateness of the motto to Prince Henry himself has in
it something remarkable. Its principal characteristic is
aspiration, and when the exertions of the Prince's life have
been depicted they will be found to have been great indeed
in effort, but great only in ultimate, not in immediate, result,
the most indisputable evidence of a life devoted to the
" Talent de bien faire."

Azurara states (page 40) that the renown of the Prince
became so high in Europe that he was invited severally by
the Pope, the Emperor of Germany, and the Kings of Castile
and of England to undertake the command of their respec-
tive armies. These offers will most probably have been
made after the taking of Ceuta, where the Prince had so
greatly distinguished liimself as a soldier. In all jjrobability
it was in 1420 or 1421 that he received this invitation irom the
Pope (Martin V.), after the embassy sent to him by the
Greek Emperor Manuel l*akx?ologus asking for his assistance
against the Turks. The Emperor of Germany spoken of
was Sigismund, whose close relations with the court of Lisbon
and with the ambassadors of Portugal in the Council of
Constance would enal)le him to fi)rm a correct opinion of

TALENT DE BIEN FAIRE. 45

the eminent qualities of the Prince. The Kings of Castile
and of England of whom Azurara speaks are John II. and
Henry Y. (See Santarem's note to Azurara, p. 40.) When
Prince Henry, after the capture of Ceuta, set his mind upon
the conquest of Guinea he sent every year two or three
vessels to examine the coasts beyond Cape Non, the limit of
Spanish exploration, yet none of his ships for many years
had the hardihood to round Cape Bojador. It is recorded
by Barros, the great historian of the Portuguese, when
describing the eiiect of a storm which assailed one of the
earliest of these expeditions, that " the Portuguese mariners
of that time were not accustomed thus to venture on the
open sea, all their nautical knowledge being limited to
coasting in sight of land." Hercules was yet in his
cradle. The little nation had but just succeeded in strang-
ling the snakes of Moorish and of Spanish oppression. So far
it had done bravely. It had thrown off the yoke and was
able to draw breath. What wonder if having achieved such
victories it felt its pulse beat strong for greater and yet
nobler efforts. True, the ocean was a new and formidable
antagonist. Other nations mightier than they had tempted
the same danger but had withdrawn disheartened from the
contest, and their unavailing efforts, so far from diminish-
ing, enhance the glory due to that persistent bravery which
yielded neither to difficulty nor danger. But the inspiration
and encouragement to this perseverance emanated from
Prince Henry himself.

It was not however to the exploration of the West Coast of
Africa only that the thoughts of the Prince were directed.
The hope of reaching India by the south point of Africa
was a yet higher object of ambition. The political decay
of the Roman Empire had not been accompanied by any
decrease in that love of luxury and profusion which necessi-
tated commerce and navigation. The civilization and trade
of the world had simply fallen into the hands of new
masters. The vast dominion acquired by the followers of
Mahomet gave them the control of a gigantic commerce.

46 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Not indeed that maritime communication possessed for
them any charms : the contrary was the case, and the
timidity of their navigation was ])eculiarly remarkable, but
their overland caravans were the means of carrying on a
traffic which extended from the Mediterranean to India, and
from the heart of Africa to Astrakhan and the countries of
the north. One of the most important of these caravan
routes was that which traversed the great African desert,
and introduced into the Mediterranean the slaves and gold
dust, the ivory, and malaguette pepper that were procured
from the negroes.

In the middle ages a variety of causes conspired to
direct the attention of European nations to the East. The
Crusades, mischievous as they were in their primary effects
on the nations from which they emanated, not only made
them acquainted with distant countries but also with that
oriental luxury which supplied a stimulus to the cultivation
of mercantile relations with those countries. Another event
which had great influence in inciting the western states of
Europe to maritime discovery was the war between the
Moors and the inhabitants of the Peninsula. The vast
mercantile operations of the Arabs had filled Spain with
the rich productions of the East, and the luxurious habits of
the Moorish courts of Seville and Granada were imitated
by the Catholic princes of Aragon and Castile. But as
hostilities between the conquerors and the conquered daily
became more obstinate and implacable, the lack of these
objects of luxury began to be felt by the latter, to whom, at
least amongst the wealthy, they had become necessities.
So that it may be fairly inferred that the expulsion of the
Moors from the Peninsula was one of the great stimulants
to the search for a passage to India by the sea. In this ex-
pulsion the Portuguese took the lead, and were consequently
the first to feel the effect of the incentive. The conquest
of Ceuta was the first step towards the desired object,
and Prince Henry with his love of study, his chivalrous
courage, and zealous nature, was exactly the man to

TALENT DE BIEN FAIRE, 47

pursue that object with the perseverance of a fixed de-
termination.

The geographical position of Portugal was eminently
suggestive and encouraging. The large revenues of the
Order of Christ, of which the Prince was the Grand Master,
provided him with resources for which he could imagine no
more worthy employment than the conquest and conversion
of the heathen, and tlie general extension of the knowledge of
the human race, with its concomitant commercial advan-
tages. During his stay in Africa he gathered important in-
formation from the Moors respecting the populous nations of
the interior and of the coast of Guinea. We have evidence
of the nature of the enquiries instituted by Prince Henry in
the cotemporary accounts of Azurara and Diogo Gomez.
From the latter we learn that the Prince gained information
of the passage of large caravans from Tunis to Timbuctoo
and to Cantor, on the Gambia, which instigated him to seek
those countries by the way of the sea. From Azurara we
learn, as will be seen hereafter, that he gathered from
Azanegue prisoners information of the position of certain
palms growing at the northern mouth of the Senegal, or so-
called Nile, by which he was enabled to give instructions to
his navigators for the finding of that river.

But while Prince Henry was thus anxious to inform him-
self respecting the geography of Africa, he was no less
anxious as Grand Master of the Order of Christ to further
the cause of Christianity in that country. After the de-
struction of Carthage the chair of the Primate of Africa
remained vacant for centuries, although individual bishoprics
contrived to secure for themselves a continuance of existence
even under the dominion of Mohammedanism. When St.
Francis first' established his order in 1208, with a view to
the revival of the Christian faith, it was with him a subject
of ardent desire to send missionaries to Marocco, and it
was not long before a bishopric was there established, the
bishops of which belonged to his order. Agnellus was
consecrated the first Bishop of Marocco and Fez in 1233.

48 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

From that time Christianity was propagated with inde-
fatigable energy throughout the north of Africa. Churches
were erected and the right of free celebration of Christian
worship was a frequent item in commercial compacts, but
until the taking of Ceuta, Marocco remained the only
bishopric of the Catholic Churcli in Africa.

As regards the West Coast of Africa, very little indeed
had up to this time become known to explorers. Ibn Khal-
doun in the preceding century had placed the limit at Caj)e
Non, but Ibn Said had related the chance arrival of some
Arabs at the Glittering Cape (Cape Branco) two centuries
before, and it is certain that Cape Bojador was known as
early as 1375, for it is laid down under the form of Bugeder
in the Catalan map of that date. But here was in very
truth the limit of known coast. We have not sufficient
evidence to show the exact extent of the information which
the Prince was enabled to gather respecting the interior
of the country, but we are not entirely deprived of the
means of forming what may probably be an approximately
correct judgment on that point. The seaports on the North
Coast of Africa had long been the medium of conveying to
Europe the valuable commodities brought from Nigritia,
but as these were brought over by land, and not by sea, it is
manifest that much had to be learned by enquiry respecting
the nations and the countries from which they were supplied.
To become acquainted not only with the Moors and their
immediate neighbours to the south, but also with the lands
both on the Eastern and the Western Coasts beyond the
Great Desert, was the object of the Prince's desire. And it
must be acknowledged that the chances of gaining approxi-
mately accurate local knowledge from the Arabs was greater
than could be looked for from Europeans, for while the
former took diligent notice of individual narratives of travel,
and industriously availed themselves of the geographical in-
formation which they acquired, the latter made a secret of
many of their commercial connections, and even treated with
mistrust Ihe details of explorations whii'li were openly made

TALENT DE BIEN FAIRE. 49

known, whether by Arabs or by Christians. The one great
source and even limit of the knowledge of African geogra-
phy was commerce, and the kingdoms in the interior with
which this commerce took place wore Melli, Gana, Teknir,
Takedda, Biirnu, and Kanem. The most important of
these was Melli, comprising the cities of Kabra, Timbuctoo,
and Kuku on the Joliba. Of Timbuctoo some knowledge
was already possessed in the Spanish peninsula, inasmuch as
there appear to have been frequent commuiucations between
it and the kingdom of Granaila. Leo Africanus, himself a
native of Granada, who was born at the close of the century
which witnessed Prince Henry's explorations, speaks of the
Stone Mosque and Royal Palace of Timbuctoo, the only two
remarkable buildings in the city, as having been the work
of an experienced architect of Granada; and Ibn Batuta,
writing in the century in which Prince Henry was born,
mentions as one of the curiosities of Timbuctoo the tomb
of Abu-Ishac-es-Sahili, a famous poet of Granada, who died
at Timbuctoo in 134G. The old accounts leave us in much
doubt in respect of the geography of the several kingdoms
we have referred to, though many points have been settled
in more recent times. The kingdom of Melli extended east-
ward as far as the city of Muli in Lemlem, and westward to
the oasis of Waleta. An important map which at the close
of last century came into the possession of Cardinal Borgia,
and which is supposed to have been of Arab workmanship of
about the year 1410, consequently just before Prince Henry
was making his researches, contains the indications of three
stations of a caravan track in the interior, viz., Teget
(Teigent), Tagost (Audagost), and Tagaza, as well as the
towns of Gana, Tocoror (Tekriir), and Melli. It will be
seen in a subsequent chapter that indications of the forma-
tion of the Western Coast, but with no local names proving
actual intercourse with places thereon, had been derived
from merchants reaching the ports of the Mediterranean
from the interior as early as the first half of the fourteenth
century. The most southern point to which a name was

E

60 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

given along the Western Coast was Ulil, where was a
natural deposit of salt which was carried thence inland to
Gana and other cities of the Blacks. Mr. Cooley, who has
devoted so much learned labour to enquiries respecting the
geography of these countries, has no hesitation in assigning
this position to the Ba}'' of Arguin, where, he says, " the
natural deposits of salt, the little island or peninsula, and
the abundance of large tortoises," which form the descrip-
tion of Ulil, " are all found together." The learned Dr.
Friedrich Kunstmann, however, who has also carefully exa-
mined the subject,* carries the position of Ulil down as far
south as the island of Bissao, at the mouth of the Rio
Grande, in which he finds the requisite characteristics, with
the additional fact that in the neighbouring island of
Bulama is found abundance of amber, which is a concomitant
item in the description given by Ibn Said. There is a piece
of collateral evidence which seems very strongly to corrobo-
rate this conclusion of Dr. Kunstmann's, for whereas in the
eleventh century Ulil is described as the common boundary of
commerce and of creed., we learn from Valentin Fernandez,
within half a century after Prince Henry's time, that " the
negroes of the Rio Grande towards Cape Verde are for the
most part Mahometans, with some idolaters amongst them,
but on the other side of the river all are idolaters."

With respect to the immediate inducements which actuated
the Prince in exploring the land of Guinea we have five reasons
supplied to us by Azurara. The first was the desire to know
the country beyond Cape Bojador, of which till then neither
from writing nor tradition had any certain knowledge been
gained. The second was that, if any Christian nations and safe
harbours should be found in those lands, mercantile relations
advantageous both to Portugal and to the natives might be
established, as no other European people were as yet known
to have commercial intercourse with them. The third reason
was that he had been led to suppose that the Moors were in
greater strength in that part of Africa than had been generally

* In his work entitled " Afiikii vorclen Eiitdcckungon der Portuf^'icson," p. 11.

TALENT DE BIEN FAIRE. 51

believed, and that there were no Christians there. The Prince
was therefore naturally anxious to learn the extent of the
power of his enemies. The fourth reason was that in all liis
contests with the Moors he never found a Christian King or
potentate come forward from that country to help him. He
was therefore anxious to learn whether there were in those
parts any Christian princes, who for the love of Christ would
help him against the enemies of the Faith. The fifth reason
was the great desire which he had for the extension of that
Faith and the salvation of the souls of such vast numbers
then lying in a state of ])erdition. To these live Azurara
adds a sixth from which he believed that the other five pro-
ceeded. This reason was an astrological one, " for as," he says,
'•' his ascendant was Aries, which is the house of Mars and is
the exaltation of the Sun, and his lord is in the eleventh house
accompanied by the Sun, and inasmuch as the said Mars is
in Aquarius, which is the house of Saturn and in the house
of hope, it signified that he should be engaged in mighty
conquests, and especially in the search for things hidden from
other men in conformity with the craftiness of Saturn in
whose house he is. And his being accompanied by the Sun
and the Sun being in the house of Jupiter, showed that all
his acts and conquests should be loyally done and to the
satisfaction of the King his sovereign.'^

The more entirely to enable himself to carry out his objects
without embarrassment, he took up his abode, with the King's
permission, on the Promontory of Sagres in Algarve, of which
kingdom he was made Governor in perpetuity after his return
from the succour of Ceuta in 1419. From a passage in the
cotemporaneous MS. of Azurara it has been inferred that
he did not betake himself to that secluded and barren pro-
montory until after his return from Tangier in the year
1437,* but it is to be remarked that in that passage " bis

* Despois da viinda de Tanjer, o Iffante comunalinente sempre estava no regno
do Algarve, per rezom de sua villa, que tntom mandava fazer. " After the return
from Tangier the Infant commonlj' remained in the kingdom of Algai've, on
account of his town which he then was having built." — Azurara, p. lOo.

e2

52 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

town" is spoken of, whereas from another cotemporaneous
manuscript, now lost, but the genuineness of which I hope
hereafter to establish, we are informed that he originally
named it Terga Nabal; quasi, Tercena Nabal or Naval
Arsenal ; and it was only subsequently, when, as at the time
of Azurara's writing (see Azurara, page 34), it came to have
strong walls, and houses were being continually added to it,
that it received the name of " Villa do Infante," or the " Town
of the Infant/^ From these facts, combined with the im-
portance of the proximity of the port of Lagos for the dispatch
of the Prince's vessels, it would seem reasonable to conclude
that the belief of the majority of Portuguese historians that
the Prince established himself at Sagies after his return from
Ceuta in December, 1418, is correct. In fact, if the genuine-
ness of the missing manuscript just alluded to be, as it is
hoped, successfully established, the fact is certain, inasmuch as
it is there distinctly stated by a living witness. This remark-
able position had not been without its occupants in yet older
times. M. Ferdinand Denis informs me that at the period
of the terrible earthquake of 1755, which covered both Sagres
and Lagos with ruins, there were buildings on the promontory
of Sagres as old as the eleventh century. When its occupa-
tion by Prince Henry brought it into notice the Genoese
offered a large sum for the site for the establishment of a
colony, which the Portuguese government prudently re-
fused.

By the great kindness of His Excellency the Marquis de
Sa da Bandeira, late Minister of Marine, I have been
fevoured with a drawn copy of an official survey of this
interesting promontory, of which the accompanying plate is
a reduction.

In this secluded spot, with the vast Atlantic stretching
measureless and mysterious before him, Prince Henry de-
voted himself to the study of astronomy and mathematics,
and to the disj)atch of vessels on adventurous exploration.

I have heai-d it whispered that the greatest Portuguese
historian of tlie day has expressed a doubt whether it can

PLAN OFTHE FORT AND PROMONTORY OF SACRES.

'laken by" Captain Louren^ Gtrmack Possollo on the occasion of Liie rrooljon of a
Monument to IVince Henry in July 184-0, under the auspices of his Kxct-llciiev the
Viscount (nowMai-quis) de Sa da Majideira. then Minister of Marine, by whum tiie
Copy from i^ich the present reduction is made was kmdiy-communii^ated totheAuthtu

Copied, in t^e Archive Mihtar" by J C.Bou de Souza ux 1863.

REFERENCES.
3L 'J(Twer nci\- ser^iTig as a ha^-Z<>^, beja\*-
-which, (s the entrance to tPu Tarts and. m
f^hzch. ajbcne ths (tcanvay inside is placed.
th£ MoTtujnent to Che Ihuice.
b Old -naUs brought into the ConstJiLctum, of

Che riew reeidertces
C Ji^majne tyC ^u ari^nal Mather- Church.
d H^tftams of th^Barraeks destrcyed i/v 17S3.
e Stoubies.

F Pawdef^iaga'xinjR (miit tm the ruins of a,

circtd/zi' edi/ux prohabfy- die Ohser-^tztpry bu*^

fyjhince Senry-

^ ^ Traces of waUs entirely ra^ed to the ground.

jX A/t^ excessi^efy deep Oit^em camTnunicatujg

-^ah the Sea-.
i 1 Batieri.es cU die edge of the P/XFmmtjtary.
Jl a Pedestal aa -which fbrmerfy stood aGy>ss

It is here that the PromarOcrTy ccTTunertees .
1 B<»y of BeU^ve
m Bay of Sagres

Scale of Half an Eaglisli Mile.

Fii'^''»i«r. lufic lUi Um St^M,

TALENT DK BIEN FAIUE. 53

be proved that Prince Henry established at Sagres a school
for the cultivation of cartography and the science of naviga-
tion. There can however be no doubt that Barros distinctly
asserts that " in his anxiety to secure a prosperous result to his
eftbrts at discovery on the West Coast of Africa the Prince
devoted great industry and thought to that object, and at a
large ex{)ense procured the services of one Mestre Jacorne
from Majorca, a man very skilful in the art of navigation and
in the making ot" maps and instruments, whom he sent for
to instruct the Portuguese officers in that science." This
distinct assertion, combined with the fact that the Prince
erected an observatory at Sagres, the first set up in Portugal,
would seem to leave but little doubt upon the subject, even
if the well-known love of mathematical study which the
Prince shared with his brothers Dom Duarte and Dom Pedro
were not enough to lead to the conviction that such a pursuit
would naturally occupy the active attention of one who had
located himself on that desert promontory for the very pur-
pose of prosecuting the exploration of unknown coasts.

At the same time I am anxious in this chapter to vindicate
the honour of Prince Henry from the aspersion of falsely
attributed praise. The picture of a worthy life can only be
marred in its beauty and fall short in its teaching if it be
not exhibited in the light of truth. In a subsecpient chapter
I shall endeavour to show that the detraction from the glory
of Prince Henry on the ground of prior discoveries along the
West Coast of Africa are utterly untenable. In another
chapter I shall show that the Prince's navigators had
really been preceded in the mere fact of discovery, though
not of colonization, of the Atlantic islands. I now proceed
to show that the honour of originality in the invention or
introduction of more than one important appliance in the
art of navigation has been incorrectly assigned to him. It
has been honourably and justly said by M. d'Avezac that
" the historical glory of Portugal is based on enough of real
merits to render it needless for her to dispute the legitimate
share of other nations. Once aoain let me sav : the

54 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Portuguese were certainly not tlie first to undertake the
enterprize of finding the great maritime route to India, but
they were the first to persevere in it, and they were the first
to attain that object. That is their share of honour. It is
a fair one enough to render it needless for them to claim
what belongs to others." This most true and graceful verdict
is worthy of the distinguished savant who pronounced it,
and no one can have traced his learned and ingenious argu-
ments in confutation of what he believed to be false praise
of Prince Henry without feeling convinced of the good
faith in which every word was written. It has been a
pleasure when our convictions have, as in the case of
which we are about to speak, been in accordance with his
own.

Pimentel first, and Montucla after him, declared that the
invention of hydrographic plane charts was due to Prince
Henry. A greater mistake could not have been committed.
The very first charts that were constructed upon the base of
a geonomic graduation were in a certain sense of this kind.
As 'far as we know, Eratosthenes (two centuries B.C.) was
the first who constructed such. Hipparchus, perhaps a
century later, reconstructed the maps of Eratosthenes with
meridians convergent at the poles, and Marinus of Tyre
(second century a.d.) reverted to the plane chart. But not to
dwell on maps of high antiquity, there can be no question
that there existed sailing charts on the cylindrical projection,
in which for convenience in navigation the meridians were
made parallel to each other, before Prince Henry was born.
Garcao-Stockler in his " Ensaio historico sobre a origem e
progresses das Mathematicas en Portugal " recognizes tlie
existence of a map of the kind bearing the date of 1413,
which is mentioned by Don Joaquin Lorenzo Villauueva in his
" Viage literario a las Iglesias de Espana," tomo 4, carta 28,
p. 24, as existing in the year 1802 in the Carthusian Monastery
of Val de Christo, near Segorbe, in Valencia. But while recog-
nizing the existence of the map, he disputes the correctness
(if tlie date because the map contains the Atlantic islands

TALENT DE BIEN FAIHE. 55

which, as ho believed, were not discovered till afterwards by
Prince Henry's navigators. The reader will be prepared to
set aside this argument when he has read what I shall have to
say respecting the discovery of these islands in the chapter
of " Glimpses of Light." Had the distinguished Portu-
guese mathematician been aware of the facts there stated he
woukl doubtless have avoided resorting to so eccentric and
improbable an alternative. In short, to set the matter
at rest, the Catalan map of 1375, on which those discoveries
are repeated, is of the class of nautical maps of which we
are now speaking, and although the map discovered by the
P. Villanueva bears the inscription " Mecia de Vila Destes
me fecit in ano mccccxiii,," Senor de Navarrete asserts in
his '' Historia de la Nautica" (Madrid, 184G, 80.) that it is but
a repetition of the third sheet of the aforesaid Catalan map.
At the same time it should be remembered that to have
introduced on fresh tracks in the Atlantic those nautical
appliances which had already been employed in the Mediter-
ranean, and by careful study and perseverance in recording
new observations to have led the way to subsequent im-
provement of those appliances, is a merit which needs no
superfluity of praise to commend it to the admiration of the
thoughtful. The celebrated Portuguese mathematician,
Pedro Nunes, in a work in defence of the sailing chart,
which I have not seen, but which is quoted by Garc^ao-
Stockler, makes the following interesting statement respect-
ing the early navigations of his countrymen. He says,
" Now it is evident that these discoveries of coasts, ishmds,
and mainland were not made without nautical intelligence, but
oiu" sailors went out very well taught and provided with
instruments and rules of astrology (sic) and geometry,
which, as Ptolemy says in the first book of his geography, are
things with which cosmogra pliers ought to be acquainted."

There is no doubt that old travellers delineated geometri-
cally on maps the places which they had visited, and that,
as discoveries and observations increased, improvements
were made in mai)-making. Amongst these improvements

56 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

was the delineation of the sphericity of the earth, but this
very improvement, while valuable for the student of geogra-
phy, offered many embarrassments to sailors who had pro-
blems to solve and courses to calculate. Thus, the meri-
dians had of course to be represented by straight lines or
by curved lines meeting at the pole, and the course of a
vessel not sailing directly under the equator nor under a
given meridian would also be represented by a curved line.
It became therefore necessary to devise a form of chart for
nautical purposes on which, the meridians being parallel, the
lines of the rhumbs or points of the compass could be drawn
straight. The necessity produced the desired result, and the
sea charts so made were known as plaiie charts, and, though
they naturally involved a geometrical inaccuracy, the devia-
tion from correctness was almost imperceptible in the short
voyages of the period. It was not till the close of the six-
teenth century, when extensive oceanic voyages had become
frequent, that Gerard Mercator proposed to remedy the
inconvenience by elongating the degrees of latitude towards
the poles in the same proportion as the degrees of longitude
decrease on the globes. He was however unable to deter-
mine the law of this prolongation, which was discovered
about 1590 by Edward Wright, an Englishman, and pub-
licly made known by him in 1599.

Very few details are left to us of the astronomical instru-
ments used in the time of Prince Henry. The altitude of a
star was taken by the astrolabe and the quadrant by means
of an alidade, or ruled index, having two holes pierced in its
extremities, through which the ray passed. The quadrant
hung vertically from a ring which was held in the hand.
We do not know how these instruments were graduated, but
it is to be presumed very rouglily. The astrolabe, the com-
pass, timepieces, and charts were employed by sailors in the
Mediterranean at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The learned Count Libri in his great work on the Histor}' of
the Mathematical Sciences in Italy, Paris, 1838, ton). 2,
page 220, quotes in corroboration of thi^ statemeni the

TALENT BE BIEN FAIRE. 57

Gncrino Meschino, said to have been written at the begin-
ning- of the fourteenth century.*

The earliest alhision to the use of the compass in the
middle ages yet discovered occurs in a treatise De Utensili-
tus by Alexander Neckam, a native of St. Albans, who as
early as 1180, when he was but twenty-three years of age,
had become famous as a Professor in the University of Paris.
For the treatise in question we are indel)ted to the learned
researches of our distinguished and indefatigable antiquary,
Mr. Thomas Wright. It is given in a privately-printed
" Volume of Vocabularies," illustrating the manners of our
forefathers from the tenth century to the fifteenth, in the
rather obscure language given at foot.f The earliest account
of the mariner's compass previously known was contained in
some often-repeated lines of a satirical poem, entitled the
" Bible," by Guyot de Provins, in which he wishes the
Pope were as safe a point to look to as the North Star is to
mariners, who can steer towards it without seeing it by the
direction of a needle floating in a straw on a basin of water,
after being touched by the magnet. Nothing can more
clearly prove than these two passages that the compass was
in use in the West at the close of the twelfth century. But
to show how limited that use must have been, even more
than half a century later, it is only necessary to refer to a
passage in the description of a visit paid by Brunetto Latini,
the tutor of the immortal Dante, to Roger Bacon at Oxford,

* Pero li naviganti vanno con la calamita, securi per lo marc, e con la stella
e con lo partii-e della carta et de li bossoli de la calamita.

t " Qui ergo munitam vulthabere navem, albestum habeat, ne desit ei bene-
ficium ignis. Habeat etiam acum jacnlo suppositam, rotabitnr enim et circum-
volvetiu- acus donee euspis acus respiciat orientem, sicque comprebendunt quo
tendere debeant naute cum cinossura latet in aeris turbacione, quamvis ad
occasum nunquam tendat propter circuli brevitatem." But a fuller description
of the compass is given in another of Neckam's books, the treatise De JSaturis
Rerum, lib. 2, cap. 18, (MS. Reg. 12. G. xi. fol. 53 verso). "NautiE etiam mare
legentes cum beneficium claritatis soUs in tempore nubilo non sentiunt, aut
etiam ciun caligine noctiu'nanim tenebranim mundus obvolvitur, et ignorant in
quern mundi cardineni prora tendat, acum super magnatem ponunt quae cir-
culariter circumvolvitur usque dum, ejus motu cessante, euspis ipsius scptentri-
onalcm plagam respiciat."

58 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

apparently in the year 1258. When driven out of Florence
by the Ghibeline faction, Latini had sought an asylum with
the Earl of Provence, brother-in-law to King Henry the Third.
He came over to England with the King's brother, Richard,
Earl of Cornwall, then newly elected King of the Romans,
in the quality of preceptor to Henry d'Almaine, Richard's
eldest son. From England he addressed descriptions of what
he saw to the poet Guido Cavalcanti, who also had been one
of his pupils. These interesting letters, written in the French
patois of the Romansch language, were translated by a cor-
respondent of the Monthly Magazine in 1802, under the
title of "Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters."*
He says : —

" The Parliament being summoned to assemble at Oxford
(probably the Mad Parliament in 1258), I did not fail to see
Friar Bacon as soon as I arrived, and [among other things]
he shewed me a black ugly stone, called a magnet, which
has the surprising property of drawing iron to it ; and upon
which if a needle be rubbed, and afterwards fastened to a
straw, so that it shall swim upon water, the needle will in-
stantly turn towards the Pole-star : therefore, be the night
ever so dark, so that neither moon nor star be visible, yet
shall the mariner be able, by the help of this needle, to steer
his vessel aright. [La magneto piere laide et noire. Ob ete
fer volenters se joint. Lon touchet ob une aguilet. Et en
festue lon fischie. Puis lon mette en laigue et se tient
desus. Et la point se torne centre lestoille. Qiiant la nuit
feit tenebrous et lon ne voie estoile ni lune, poet li mariner
tenir droite voie.]

" This discovery, which appears useful in so great a degree
to all who travel by sea, must remain concealed until other
times ; because no master-mariner dares to use it lest he
should fall under a supposition of his being a magician ; nor
would even the sailors venture themselves out to sea under
his command, if he took with him an instrument wliich

* The Monthly Magazine, or, British Register. Vol. xiii. I'art 1, p. 419.
London, 1802.

TALENT DE BIEN FAIRE. 50

carries so great an appearance of being- constrncteil ini(U>r
the influence of some infernal spirit. A time may come
when these prejudices, wliich ave of such great hindrance to
researches into the secrets of nature, will probal)ly be no
more ; and it will be then that mankind shall reap the
benefit of the labours of such learned men as Friar Bacon,
and do justice to that industry and intelligence for which he
and they now meet with no other return than obloquy and
reproach."

Thus far we find the mariner possessed of a contrivance
which, without the moral hindrance to its use referred to by
Brunetto Latini, might possibly be used at sea, but certainly
only under favourable conditions. It is clear that as yet it
was known as an article of curiosity rather than one of prac-
tical utility. At what time it became effectively serviceable by
being fitted into a box and connected with the compass-card,
we have as yet no historical data to show, but we are told
by Antonio Beccadelli, surnamed II Panormita from his
birth-place Palermo, and who was a cotemporary of Prince
Henry, that sailors were first indebted to Amalfi for the use
of the magnet. " Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amal-
phis " ; and, " Inventrix praiclara fuit magnetis Amalphis."*
The former line was better calculated than the latter to win
honour for the Amalfitan, Flavio Gioja, who is therein re-
ferred to. We have already seen that the invention of the
magnet was certainly not due to him, for by common con-
sent the period at which he flourished was the beginning of
the fourteenth century, but if the honour described in the
former line of having given sailors the use of the magnet might
be taken in its severest meaning, we might gather that he
supplied what was hitherto wanting, viz., the box and fittings
which made the compass available. Be this as it may, we
have certain evidence of the practical use of the needle at sea

* The former of these lines is quoted from II Panormita by Henricus Brenc-
mannus in his Dissertatio de Republica Amalfitana, and Klaproth has addi'd
the latter. We must therefore presume that they are genuine, but I have sciuglit
for them in vain thi-ough the verses of that elegant Latiuist, but most impure
poet, to whom they are ascribed. — R.H.M.

60 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

before Prince Henry's time, not only from the above lines
of Antonio Beccadelli, but from the words of Prince Henry
himself, as will be hereafter seen when he is nrging on one
of his navigators to the rounding of Cape Bojador.

It was in the reign of Alfonso the Fourth that the sciences
of mathematics and astronomy first began to be studied in
Portugal, the Moors and Jews being the most eager students,
and they principally in judicial astrology. It is not how-
ever till the time of Prince Henry that we meet with the
names of individual cultivators of those sciences. His
brother the King Dom Duarte himself gave proof of the
interest he took in meteorology by the following observa-
tions of the aspects of the moon made by him and preserved
amongst his writings in the Carthusian Convent at Evora.*
He says that " when the new moon is entirely red, it signifies
much wind. If its topmost point be darlf, it means rain.
If it sparkle like water raised by oars, it shows that there
will soon be a storm. If dark in the middle, it shows that
there will be fine weather when the moon reaches the full."

It seems highly probable that the chair of mathematics in
Lisbon was established by Prince Henry himself, since by a
deed dated 12th October, 1431, he conferred on the Univer-
sity of that city, which had no house 2jroperty, some houses
which he purchased of Joao Annes, the king's armourer, for
four hundred coroas velhas, while it is known that in 1485
that chair did exist, and that the subject was one in which he
took especial interest.

A most valuable coadjutor of the Prince in the prosecution
of these studies was his elder brother the Infant Dom Pedro.
Excellently educated, as indeed were all the children of Queen
Philippa, he was an accomplished student of the ancient
languages and mathematics. In 1410 f, the year after the
taking of Ceuta, this Prince was seized with the desire to

*See Sousa. Provas. Tom. 1, p. oIO.

t The old chroniclers assign the date of 142-1 to the Prince's departure ou his
travels, hut his modern hiographcr, the Ahhadc de Castro, has found reason to
place tliat event in 11 16.

TALENT DE BIKN FAIRE. 61

gain enlightenment by travel through the principal countries
of Europe and Western Asia. And accordingly on the first
Sunday after Easter, with the King's permission, he set forth
with that object attended by a small suite of only twelve
persons. He first visited his uncle the King of Castile at
Valladolid, who not only welcomed him with a present of five
thousand gold pieces, but escorted him in person a league forth
of the city. The King also gave him for a comjoanion an
interpreter named Garcia Eamires, who had travelled in many
countries and was a notably able linguist. His first desti-
nation was to Palestine, whence, after visiting the Holy
Places, he proceeded to the Court of the Grand Turk and to
that of the Grand Sultan of Babylonia, where he met with a
magnificent reception. He thence passed to the Court of
Eome, where Pope Martin V. welcomed him with the highest
distinction and at his request conceded to the Kings of
Portugal the important prerogative, afterwards confirmed by
a bull dated June 16th, 1428, of receiving the rite of
coronation by unction in the same manner as observed in
the crowning of the Kings of England and France. This
grace was subsequently confirmed to King Duarte, King
Joao's successor, by Pope Eugenius in the year 1436.
The Prince also visited the Courts of the Kings of Hun-
gary and Denmark, and Sousa states, on the authority of
the History of Bohemia by Mneas Sylvius, afterwards
Pope Pius II., that in company with Eric X., King of
Denmark, he served the Emperor Sigismund to such
good purpose in the war against the Turks, and also in
the war against the Venetians, that he granted him in
reward the Marca Trevisana.* After peace was established
between Sigismund and the Venetians the Prince went to
Venice, and there received from the Republic, in compliment
to him as a traveller and a learned Royal Prince, the priceless
gift of a copy of the travels of Marco Polo, which had been
preserved by the Venetians in their treasury as a work of

* I do not find tljc passage, but the deed of endowment was seen hy Duarte
Nuues in the arehives of the Torre do Tombo.

62 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

great value,* together with a map which had been supposed
to have been either an original or the copy of one by the
hand of the same illustrious explorer. The Priuce then
proceeded to England, which he much desired to see on
account of its being the country of the Queen his mother.
His reception by Henry the Sixth was marked by every
demonstration of honour and regard that could be shown
by a powerful monarch to so near a relative. On the 22nd
of April, 1427, the Prince was elected a Knight of the
Garter in place of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, who
had died on the 27th December, 1426.

At the end of twelve years' travel Dom Pedro returned in
1428 to Portugal, where his safe arrival after so many wander-
ings caused the liveliest joy not only to the King his father
and his brothers, but to the whole population, by whom he
was henceforth spoken of as the Prince " that had travelled
over the seven parts of the world. ' ' Unfortunately we possess
only a fabulous narrative of this most genuine peregrination
drawn up by one of Dom Pedro's own companions, named
Gomez de Santo Estevan. This is the more to be regretted
as journeys of such length through distant countries were
seldom in those days made by Royal personages. On his
return Dom Pedro devoted himself like his brother Prince
Henry to scientific studies, among which the art of carto-
graphy took a leading place, and there is little doubt that to
the genius and attainments of his elder brother Dom Pedro,
Prince Henry ow^ed much of encouragement and enlighten-
ment in his pursuit of geographical investigation. The
Marco Polo MS. and the map brought from Venice would
doubtless act as a potent stimulus to these investigations.
We are unfortunately much in the dark as to the character
of this map, but according to Antonio Galvam it "had all
the parts of the world and earth described. The Streight
of JMagellan was called in it the Dragons taile : the Cape
of Bona Speran^a, the forefront of Afrike (and so foorth of

* A rorluiriinsc trnnslalioii of fliis work was inado and edited at Lisbon in
1-302 by the same ^'aleIltin Fcinaiidez ol' w lioni iiieniioii has been alit'udv made.

TALENT 1)E BIEN FAIRE. G3

other places :) by which map Don Henry the King's thii-d
Sonne was much helped and furthered in his discoveries."
Galvam further states that he was told by Francisco de Sousa
Tavares that, in the year 1528, Dom Fernando, the son and
heir of King Manoel, showed him a map* which was found
in the Cartorio, or study, of the Royal Monastery of Alcobaoa,
which had been made more than a hundred and twenty years
before, on which was laid down all the navigation of India, with
the Cape of Good Hope as it was now known. '' If it be «o.'
he proceeds to say, " there was as much or more discovered i^j
times past than now." This Francisco de Sousa Tavares was
the executor of Antonio Galvam, and the editor of his " History
of the Discoveries of the World," so that if any mistake had
been made by Galvam in first writing down this fact, the editor
would have been able to correct it. By not doing so he has
made the assertion his own. And such being the case the
closing remark of Galvam respecting the evidence of these
two maps* seems prima facie not only reasonable but in the
highest degree damaging to that claim which it is the object
of this work to assert on behalf of the Portuguese, and par
excellence of Prince Henry, to the glory of having opened
the way to India by the Cape of Good Hope. This difficulty
has been ably met by a learned Portuguese writer, Antonio
Ribeiro dos Santos, f not by any endeavour to escape from, but
by enlarging the field of, the apparent danger. He shows
that similar indications occur upon maps yet earlier, as for

* If one may be giiided by what is said in the first paragraph of Book 4 of
Cordeyro's Historia Insulana, p. 97, the map brought back by Dom Pedi'o
and the one which was formerly in the Cartorio of Alcobaga are identical ; for
though, after speaking of the one brought by Dom Pedro, he says that in 1528
Dom Fernando showed Antonio Galvao another map found at Alcoba§a, he two
lines later says that the latter must have been the one brought back by Dom
Pedro. By this it is clear that the word " another " simply implies " also." This
conclusion is (;onfii-med by the fact that in this very paragraph, which con-
sists of only one sentence, what the word " another " would make to mean two
maps, is thus spoken of as only one, " and of such map our discoverer I'rince
Heniy must have availed himself together with the information received from
the Venetians for gi-ving instructions for the discovery of these new islands."

t See Memorias de Littcratura Portugueza. Tom. 8, pp. 27o et seq.

64 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

example on that of Marino Sanuto of about the date of 1320,
on a famous map still preserved in the Camaldolese Monastery
of S. Miguel de Murano near Venice, of about the date of
1380, supposed to be a copy of one brought from China by
Marco Polo. To these he adds two of a later period, though
anterior to those recognized discoveries of the Cape which
resulted from tiie expeditions of Prince Henry, viz., that of
the Venetian Andrea Bianco of 1436 and of the renowned
geographer Fra Mauro of the above-mentioned Camaldolese
Monastery of the date of 1459. But of these maps and how
far they were indicative of actual exploration I shall have
occasion to speak fully in a subsequent chapter.

Much doubt has been entertained as to the year in which the
Prince first dispatched a vessel on an exploratory expedition.
Some have even made it as early as 1412, but there appears
no sure foundation for such a supposition. From an ex-
pression which occurs in a bull of Pope Nicholas V. of the
date of 1455, it would be inferred that he commenced his
enterprize, when about coming of age (ab ejus ineunte
SBtate), which would be in the year 1415. All seem to agree
in acknowledging the fact that when in Ceuta in that year
the Prince gathered important information from the Moors
of Fez and Marocco respecting the Arabs who lived on the
borders of the desert, as well as respecting the kingdom of
the Jaloffs near Guinea. He knew that the countries on
the North of Africa were enriched by commerce with that
country, and derived therefrom a considerable quantity of
gold. In this, as a step to yet greater purposes of advance-
ment, he saw a source of prosperity for his own country,
which in itself was worthy of new efforts at exploration.
The earliest date assigned by any authority of the same
century to an expedition fitted out by him is that of this
selfsame year of 1415. It occurs in a narrative recounted
many years after the Prince's deatli to the celebrated German
knight, Martin von Behaiin, by Diogo Gomez, almoxarife
or superintendent of the palace of Cintra, who had himself
been an explorer uikKt Ihi' ordci's of Prince TTeniT, and liad

TALENT DE BIEN FAIRE. 66

been much about his person. He states, that, in 1415, a
certain noble Portuguese gentleman, named Joiio de Trasto,
was captain of an expedition, fitted out by the Prince, lie
was driven by stress of weather upon that part of the isUind
of Great Canary, which was named Telli, the fruitful. In
endeavouring to return, he encountered strong currents
between the islands, so that it was with great difficulty
that he made his way home. There is however so much
that is manifestly inaccurate in other statements of Diego
Gromez respecting the early voyages which he narrates from
hearsay, that we cannot be perfectly sure that the date here
applied to the earliest expedition is correct, . Be this as it
may, it is certain that after his return from Ceuta, the
Prince made a practice of sending out an expedition every
year as far as was possible along the coast of Africa. Some
have attributed to his sailors the credit of first passing Cape
Non, which as its name imports had in old times been
regarded as the limit of safe or even possible navigation ; *
but this is plainly wrong, for Cape Boyador, which really did
form that limit, is distinctly laid down on maps of the
fourteenth century, before Prince Henry was born. These
various expeditions which resulted in no immediate ad-
vantage called down upon the Prince much obloquy from
the nobles, who complained of an amount of useless
expenditure, from which meanwhile they were in no sense
the losers. But vituperations fell harmless upon one who
was consciously influenced by a noble purpose which could
only be effected by perseverance. At length an event took
place which silenced clamour for a while, and greatly en-
couraged the hopes of the Prince, but this must form the
subject of a separate chapter.

* The proverb ran " Quem passar o Cabo de Nao, ou voltara ou Nao :"
" Wboever passes Cape Non will return or «o<."

CHAPTER V.

PORTO SANTO AND MADEIRA.
1418—20,

The discovery of the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira in
1418 — 20 was the first fruit of Prince Henry's esi)lorations,
and until the year 1827 the belief had prevailed for nearly
three hundred years, that those islands were then discovered
for the first time and then also received their respective
names. True, a vague rumour obtained in some quarters,
especially in the islands themselves, that the discovery had
been made fortuitously by an Englishman named Machin at the
close of the previous century, but great discredit was thrown
upon this story by many, and none knew for a certainty what
to believe. Happily the means have fallen within my power
to establish the truth of this latter story, but in a subse-
quent chapter it will be shown that even earlier still,
namely, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, the
discovery was made in which the present names of the
different islands of the group originated. It is to the great
Portuguese historian De Barros that we owe the diffusion of
the erroneous belief that the group first received those names
and was for the first time discovered by the Portuguese in
Prince Henry's time in 1418 — 20, and in making that
statement he exceeded the authority of the ancient chronicler
Azurara from whom he, by his own acknowledgment, derived
his materials. He tells us that " two squires of Prince
Henry's household named Joao Gonsalvez Zarco and Tristam
Vaz, anxious for fame and desirous of serving their master,

PORTO SANTO AND MADEIRA. 67

bad set out on an exploring expedition to the coast of
Guinea, but were taken by a storm oif Cape St. Vincent and
driven to the island of Porto Santo, which name was then
given hy them to the island on account of its saving them
from the dangers of the tempest." The favourable report of
the newly found island of Porto Santo induced Prince
Henry forthwith to send out to colonize it, and after a while
a dark spot was descried on the horizon by the colonists,
which on examination proved to be what is now called the
island of Madeira. In speaking of this De Barros, in like
manner, says " they gave it that name which means ' wood,'
on account of the thick forests with which it was covered,"
a statement equally incorrect with that already noticed.
The real origin of these names will be described in another
chapter. At present we have to speak of Machin's expe-
dition and the process by which Zarco himself was led to his
reputed accidental discovery. The story is one of the most
romantic that has ever been dignified with the name of
history, and has been told a hundred times in as many
different shapes ; but the following is a digest of it as related
by the possessor of the original manuscript account.

In the reign of Edward III., a young man of good
family named Robert Machin had the misfortune to become
enamoured of a young lady, the wealth and rank of whose
parents were so far superior to his own that they treated his
pretensions with disdain. To avoid his importunities they
obtained from the King an order for his imprisonment, and
in the interval united their daughter to a nobleman whose
station was more suited to maintain the dignity of their
family. As the lady whose name was Anne d'Arfet or
Dorset reciprocated Machin's affection, he was no sooner
released from prison than he determined on carrying her off.
By the aid of a friend who contrived to gain admittance as
gi'oom into the lady's family, which was established at
Bristol, this plan was finally effected, and from Bristol they
set sail together in a vessel which Machin had already
provided and manned for the purpose.

f2

68 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

The intention was to sail for France, but a north-east
wind carried them off that coast and, after thirteen days'
driving before a tempest, they canght sight of an ishmd on
which they landed. They found it uninhabited, but well
wooded and watered and eminently suited for habitation.
For three days they enjoyed the peacefulness of security, and
while some explored the interior, others in the ship examined
the contour of the coast, but on the third night were over-
taken by a storm and driven on the coast of Africa. The
anxiety and suffering which the unhappy lady had undergone
found their culmination in this disaster, and after three days
of total mental prostration she expired. She was buried
at the foot of the altar which had been erected in gratitude
on their arrival, and, on the fifth day after her death,
Machiu also was found dead on the grave of his mistress.
The survivors buried him, and then embarked in the ship's
boat and, on reaching the coast of Africa, were carried before
the King of Marocco, by whom they were thrown into cap-
tivity. In the same unfortunate circumstances they encoun-
tered their missing companions who had previously been
carried away in the ship.

Among their fellow-captives was one Juan de Morales, a
native of Seville, a good seaman and originally a pilot, to
whom they gave a description of the land they had dis-
covered. Now on the 5th March, 1416, died Don Sancho,
the youngest son of King Ferdinand of Aragon, and by his
will he left a large sum for the ransom of Christian captives
from Marocco. Amongst those who were redeemed was this
Juan de Morales, but the vessel which brought him over was
captured by the Portuguese navigator Joao Gonsalvez Zarco.
From pity however the latter liberated the unfortunate cap-
tives, reserving only Morales, whose experience in nautical
matters he thought might be of service to his master. Prince
Henry. This Zarco had, as we have already seen from
Barros, gone out in company with Tristam Vaz Teixeyra, to
explore the west coast of Africa, and had been driven by a
storm on the ishmd of Porto Santo. This appears to have

PORTO SANTO AND MADEIRA. GO

occurred at the close of 1418 or at tlie beginning of 1419.
From Morales he heard tlie account of Machines discovery ,
and, with the permission of the Prince and under the guid-
ance of Morales, he set sail and made the important discovery
of the island of Madeira, to one half of which he gave the
name of Funchal and to the other that of Machico.

This story was first given to the world in full detail by the
graceful Portuguese writer, Francisco Manoel de Mello, in
his " Epanaphoras de Varia historia Portugueza," published
at Lisbon in 10(30. He declares it to have been founded
on an original narrative by Francisco Alcaforado, a squire of
Prince Henry, who was with Zarco in this famous voyage,
and which narrative De Mello states that he preserved as a
precious jewel, and which had come into his possession by an
extraordinary channel. As much suspicion has been thrown
upon its truth I have been at great pains to investigate its
history. Although the library of Manoel de Mello is pre-
served in the Bibliotheca Nacional at Lisbon, the manuscript
of Alcaforado, which has been diligently searched for by my
own request at the instance of a distinguished Portuguese
nobleman, the Count de Rilvas, has never been found. The
suspicion occasioned by this circumstance was increased by
my finding that in De Mello' s library was a copy of Antonio
Galvao's " Treatise on the Discoveries of the World,"
written about the year 1555, and in which this story of
Machin had been for the first time told in print, although
in a far less detailed manner. This book had become so
extremely scarce in the course of half a century that Hakluyt,
who possessed an anonymous translation of it made by some
" honest English merchant," strove for twelve years to find
a copy of the original, sending to Lisbon for it, but in vain.*
The suspicion excited by the absence of the Alcaforado
manuscript from, and the presence of Galvao in, De Mello's

* What Hakluyt failed to do I had the good fortune to succeed in for the benefit
of the Society which bears his name. Mr. John Carter Bro-wTi of Providence,
Rhode Island, lent me a copy which was edited for the Hakluyt Society in
1862 bv Admiral Drinkwater Bethune.

70 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

library, induced me to seek further, and at length I succeeded
in obtaining from Munich an extract from an unpublished
Portuguese manuscript, containing this story, which having
been written in 1508 was earlier even than Galvao by half
a century. It is the production of a German printer and
compiler resident at Lisbon, the Portuguese form of whose
name was Valentin Fernandez.* A comparison of the two
narratives of De Mello and Fernandez presents the following
differences. De Mello takes Machin to Madeira at once,
while Fernandez takes him first to Porto Santo and then to
Madeira. De Mello makes Machin die at Madeira ; Fer-
nandez makes him spend six months in cutting a canoe out
of a large tree, in which he lands on the coast of Marocco,
whence he is sent by the King of Fez to King Juan of
Castile. The Spanish sovereign, however, was so closely
encraffed in a war with Portugal that the matter was neglected,

"o"o

and meanwhile Machin died.

Tliat such differences should exist is intelligible, when we
consider that De Mello's story is his own embellished com-
pilation from Alcaforado, and that of Fernandez is also
his own account drawn up from a source of which we are
io-norant. The question is whether the story can, from
them, be shown to be true in the main. This can be done
in two ways, first by establishing De Mello's truthful-
ness as to the Alcaforado manuscript from internal evi-
dence ; and secondly, by showing that, even if that manu-
script were a myth, the story nevertheless existed in a
record earlier than any to which De Mello had access.
First, there are certain facts which, when brought side
by side, confirm the truth of De Mello's statement that
he really possessed the now missing Alcaforado manu-
script. De Mello's narrative based upon that manuscript
gives not only the story of Machin, but a detailed account
of Zarco's subsequent discovery, in which Alcaforado is said
to have been ])resent. Now Barros, writing a century before

* IIo also appears aa Valcutinus de Moravia in a Lilo of Cluist whicli liC
published in H'JO in at-sociation witli Nicolas de Saxonia.

PORTO SANTO AND MADKIllA. 71

De Mello's time, distinctly declared that in his day Zarco's
descendants possessed a detailed account of his voyage, and
De Mello himself ' informs us that by marriage he had
become the representative of the Zarco f iniily. Should this
combination of facts presenting such strong presumptive
evidence be held to fall short of positive proof, and if it be
assumed that De Mello drew his information not from any
manuscript by Alcaforado, but from Galvao, there yet
remains the fact that the earlier manuscript of Valentin
Fernandez was out of the reach both of G-alvao and of Mello ;
and the truth of the story is thus distinctly established
by its appearance in an earlier document derived from
totally independent sources. Soon after the compilation of
that document in 1508, it passed into the hands of the cele-
brated Conrad Peutinger (the fortunate possessor of the
famous Tabula Peutingeriana), and remained in his posses-
sion till he died in 1547. During the whole of this period
the noble but unfortunate Antonio Galvao, whose account,
drawn up in 1555, was the earliest hitherto printed, was en-
gaged in the East, either sword in hand or sufi'ering in a
prison, so that his account is shown to have been derived from
independent sources, and the two separate documents point
to the existence of another of a yet earlier date testifying to
the truth of Machin's discovery. But further, Fernandez'
account has remained in Germany ever since, so that when
Francisco Manoel de Mello drew up his narrative in 1660,
though he possessed a copy of Galvao's then rare book,
he could have had no cognizance of the earlier statement of
Fernandez, but, as he relates much more than either one or
the other, it follows that he derives his additional matter
from an ampler source, or that that source was a myth, and the
additions a forgery. But if we bear in mind his own state-
ment that he did possess such an original manuscript, which
he says came to him by an extraordinary channel, an ex-
pression explained by his becoming the representative of rhc
Zarco family through matrimonial alliances, and the dis-
tinct assertion by Barros about a century before, that that

72 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

family possessed a detailed account of Zarco's voyage which
is comprised in De Mello's story, suspicion of De Mello's
truthfulness, never otherwise impugned, becomes more in-
defensible than credulity.

So much for external evidence. The internal evidence is
no less conclusive. Although Azurara and Barros are silent
on the subject, the accounts of Fernandez, Galvao, and De
Mello, which I have shown to be independent of each other,
concur in deriving the local name of Machico from the name
of the Englishman Machin. Now none of Machin's crew
were left behind, and the importance attached to Zarco's
re-discovery in 1419-20 proves that the Portuguese had not
colonized the island when, some seventy or a hundred years
before, it was discovered, as I shall presently have to show,
by their own vessels under the command of Genoese cap-
tains. It follows therefore, although it has been nowhere
distinctly so stated, that the names of Machico and Funchal
must have been newly given by Zarco and Vaz at the time
of the partition of the island between them. The etymology
of the word Funchal is exclusively Portuguese. It signi-
fies a place where fennel (in Portuguese, funcho) grows, and
the name is distinctly declared to have been given from that
plant having been found there in great quantities. The
entirely different Spanish form of the word " hinojo,^' and
the Italian form " finocchio," prove that the name could not
have survived from any previous Spanish or Italian dis-
covery. And since no Englishman remained on the island
to preserve the name of Machin, the conclusion seems in-
evitable that, at the time of the partition, the Portuguese
showed their recognition of Machin's previous discovery,
communicated to them by the Spaniard Juan de Morales, by
themselves giving the name of Machico to the place where
they found the grave and cross, and other indications of Ma-
chin's tragic adventure. Further, it is past belief, that Manoel
de Mello, himself a Portuguese, should gratuitously detract
from the glory not only of his own country but of his own
family, by setting forth that his ancestor hud been preceded

PORTO SANTO AND MADEIRA. 73

in a grand discovery by an Englishman, and, even more, had
been guided to that discovery by a Spaniard, if it had not
been true. I think, therefore, that henceforth the story of
the accidental discovery of Madeira by Machin must be
accepted as a reality, but the question arises as to the date.
By the misreading of a passage in Galviio, the date of 1344
has been erroneously assigned to the event and repeated by
many. That year is mentioned in connection with an
entirely different occurrence which Galvao states was in the
reign of King Peter IV., of Aragon [1336 to 1387], and
then adds, "in the midst of this time also the island of
Madeira was discovered by an Englishman named Macham,
who was driven out of his course by a tempest, and anchored
in the harbour now called Machico after his name." De
Mello states that the adventure occurred during the reign of
Edward III., ending 1377. It is clear, however, from their
own statements, that neither of these writers was very
precise in his chronology.

But to return to Zarco, who, although his discovery was
not original, had accomplished a feat of very great im-
portance and added honour to a name which he had already
greatly distinguished. He had won his spurs' at Ceuta, and
had continued to serve bravely in the other African expe-
ditions. He is also supposed to have been the first who
introduced artillery on board' the Portuguese vessels. In
the June of 1420 he set sail for Porto Santo with two vessels,
accompanied by Joao Lourengo, Euy Paes, Alvaro AfFonso,
Gonzalo Ayres Ferreira,* and Francisco Alcaforado, the
author of the narrative. On arriving he had his attention
called to a dark line which was visible on the horizon towards

* We learn from Cordeiro's Historia Insulana, liv. 3, cap. 15, that in a
chaiier of Prince Ilenrj^'s dated 1430, this Ferreira is mentioned as a companion
of Zarco. He was the first who had children horn in Madeira. The eldest he
called Adam and the second Eve. From him descended the nohle family of
Casta Grande of Madeira and the Ferreiras of San Miguel, who also derive fiom
the Drummonds and the Royal Stuarts. It may here be observed that Prince
Henry, as I am informed by the Count dc llilvas, was careful to institute family
registers at that early period in the island of ^ladeira.

74 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

the south-west, an appearance which had astonished those
whom he had left in the island. The pilot Juan de Morales
conjectured that this would be the island they were in search
of, and suggested that the thick fog was occasioned by the
action of the sun on a soil covered with forests. After a
stay of eight days, Zarco sailed in the direction of the fog,
and as he approached it found that it diminished in extent
and intensity towards the east ; and, steering in this du'ec-
tion, he reached a point of low land to which he gave the
name of Ponta de San Louren90. Doubling this he coasted
along the southern shore, and came to high land covered
with thick wood from the shore to the top of the mountains,
where the fog still rested.

The next day Ruy Paes was sent with a sloop to explore
the coast. He found it answer to the description given of
it from memory by Morales, and at length discovered the
tomb with the epitaph and wooden cross which had been left
by Machin's party, but no human being did he encounter.
Zarco took formal possession of the island in the name of
the King of Portugal, Prince Henry, and the order of
Christ.

He then went on board his sloop, and accompanied by
Alvaro Afifonso in command of the other vessel, made an
exploration of the coast. He soon fell in with four fine
rivers of very pure water, to one of which he gave the name
of Rio do Seyxo or river of the flint, which name still
remains. From a valley further on, which was full of trees,
he collected several samples of the difierent woods, and at
the point of the river which flowed through it he set up a
great wooden cross, which gave the name of Santa Cruz to
the town afterwards built on the spot. Further on there
arose from a point of land a great number of jackdaws,
which caused him to name it " Ponta dos Gralhos " (Jack-
daw Point). The name survives in the form of Cabo do
Garajiio. Two leagues further was another point, which
with the first formed a spacious and commodious gulf, into
which several valleys opened ; the first was clothed with

PORTO SANTO AND MADEIRA. 75

majestic cedars, and down the second flowed a broad river,
which offered a convenient place for landing. Gon9alo
Ayres was sent with some soldiers to explore the interior.
He brought back word that from the top of the mountains
he could see the outline of the whole island. The river has
borne the name of that explorer ever since. On the west
of the valley, the beach, which was broad and unsheltered,
was one vast field of fennel, whence they called it " Funchal,"
the name which it has ever since retained. It is observable
that the Portuguese instead of seeking grand names for
their colonies contented themselves with preserving those
which existed already, or adopting those which nature sup-
plied. Some islets, opposite this " Funchal," offered an
excellent roadstead where Zarco anchored to take in wood
and water, and summoned the crews on board for the night.

Next day the sloops set sail with the view of doubling
the westward point of the bay of Funchal. On that point
they planted a cross and gave it its present name of Ponta
da Cruz, or Point of the Cross. Beyond it extended a
beautiful beach, to which they accordingly gave the name of
'^ Praya Formosa." This ended in a considerable torrent,
the beauty of which tempted the curiosity of two soldiers
from Lagos ; they went to reconnoitre it, and imprudently
attempted to swim across it, but would certainly have been
drowned, had they not received prompt assistance. This
circumstance caused the torrent to be named, as at present,
the " Eibeira dos Socorridos."

Continuing still to advance, Zarco came to a little creek
sheltered by a rock, and entered it with the sloops ; his
arrival disturbed the repose of a troop of sea wolves or
phocas, which fled into a cavern at the foot of the rock,
which was their dwelling-place. This " Camara dos Lobos "
(Chamber of the Wolves) was the terminus of Zarco's
exploration of the coast. After taking in a good supply of
water, wood, plants, and birds at Funchal, he returned to
Portugal, where he arrived at the end of August.

The King received him with great distinction, bestowed

76 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

on him the title of Count of Camara dos Lobos, and gave
him the hereditary command of his new discovery. He
returned in the May following with his wife, his son, and
all his family, and landed at the port of Machico, the name
of which, given in remembrance of Machin, still survives.
On the spot where the unfortunate Englishman was buried,
he founded a chapel dedicated to the Saviour. He then
went to Funchal, where the bay offered a better anchorage,
and there founded a city, which rapidly increased in size, and
in which his wife founded the Church of St. Catherine.

The entire island was divided between Zarco and Tristam
Vaz, so as to form two Captaincies of about equal extent.
The northern half, with Machico for its capital, was given to
Tristam, and the southern, with Funchal for its capital, and
the three Dcsertas, to Zarco.

Soon after Zarco had established himself at Funchal he
erected a church, which from the great quantity of flint found
on the coast he named Nossa Senhora do Calhao, or our Lady
of the Flints, but as, inland from thence, the forests were so
thick that they could not open a road, he had it set fire to,
and it is stated by Caspar Fructuoso that for the incredible
period of seven years the fire was unextinguished. However
this may have been, it seems clear from a formal act signed
by Prince Henry on the 18th of September, 1460, a few
months before his death, by which he endowed the order of
Christ with the spiritualities of these islands, that it was not
till he was thirty-five years of age that he began to colonize
the island of Madeira and Porto Santo, which would be in
the year 1425.

The province of Machico was richly wooded, and we learn
from Azurara how, twenty years later, this wood was im-
ported into Portugal by Prince Henry in such quantity that
a great change took place in the architecture of the country,
lofty houses being substituted for those which had previously
been built in the Roman or Arabic style. The north of the
island produced large quantities of corn and honey. The
sugar cane was introduced from Sicily, and the first sugar

rORTO SANTO AND MADEIRA. 77

grown in the whole island was in Machico. Prince Henry
imported from Candia the Malvasiaor Malvoisie* grape, and
in Machico the best wine was produced. Hence nnder the
corrupted form of the name we have our Malmsey Madeira.
It will be seen in a subsequent chapter how this grape had
thriven in the island in the course of thirty years.

On the return of Zarco and Vaz from their first discovery
of Porto Santo, they suggested to the Prince the desirable-
ness of colonizing the island. The Prince greatly approved
of the idea, and provided them with the requisites for the
colonization, and among those who offered to accompany
them, was a gentleman of the household of Prince Joao,
named Bartollomeu Perestrello. He had in a cage a pregnant
rabbit, which had been given him by a friend. She littered
during the passage, and with her young ones was taken to
the island. Unfortunately the race increased so rapidly that
they consumed everything that was planted by the colonists.
On returning the following year after a short absence from
the iBland, the colonists found the rabbits increased to such
an extent that in spite of all their efforts to destroy them,
they produced no sensible diminution of their numbers.
Perestrello then returned greatly discouraged to Portugal, ■
Zarco and Vaz having by this time discovered Madeira, and
received from Prince Henry that island in partition between
them. The Prince however subsequently caused Perestrello
to return to Porto Santo, of which he gave him the governor-
ship, and although the multitude of rabbits entirely prevented
all vegetable cultivation, yet the island nourished a con-
siderable number of goats, and the dragon-tree grew in
abundance, so that they were able to export dragon's blood
to Portugal and many other places. We shall meet with
the family of Perestrello established in Porto Santo at the
close of the century, when we come to speak of Christopher
Columbus.

* Originally from Monemvasia or Napoli di Malvasia in the Morca.

CHAPTER VI.

CAPE BOYADOE.

1434_1436.

The last years of the reign of King Joao, after the taking of
Ceuta, were employed in the peaceful pursuit of the internal
prosperity of his kingdom, . and the dynasty of Aviz was
now firmly established. Even the warlike constable, Nuno
Alvarez Pereira, who had never known defeat, had retired
in 1423 to his magnificent Convent do Carmo, and, adopting
the habit of a monk, laid aside all his titles, and, by his own
desire, was addressed by the simple name of Nufio. Had he
followed his own inclinations, he would have existed on the
alms of the charitable and have made a pilgrimage as a
mendicant to Jerusalem.

For ten years more the kingdom enjoyed profound peace,
when in 1433 the King's health began to fail, and he went by
direction of his physicians toAlcochete,a village on the banks
of the Tagus, the air of which was considered more suitable for
him than that of Lisbon. But as his weakness increased
and he became convinced that his end was approaching, he
desired his sons to take him to Lisbon, for he did not think
it befitting that he should remain to die in an obscure place,
and in the house of a private individual, as he was so near
to the capital of his dominions. He was therefore removed
to the palace of Alcacova, where he breathed his last on the
14th of August, 1433, — being the eve of the assunii)tion of
the Blessed Virgin, and the anniversary of the battle of
Aljubarrota, — in the 77th year of his age and the 49tli of his

CA.PE BOYADOR. 79

reign. His subjects mourned for him as for a father. Nor
is this difficult to understand. For him they had suftercd
much, and willingly sacrificed life and substance, while on
his part the wisdom, skill, and courage which had made
these sacrifices only the offerings of a willing loyalty, had
procured for them a condition of prosperity and dignity which
they had never before enjoyed.

The King had directed by his will that he should be
buried in the convent of Batalha, in the noble tomb which
had been already coDstructed for himself and Queen
Philippa.*

King Joao was a man of a firm and resolute countenance,
of large and well-proportioned frame, and of great strength,
as shown by some pieces of his armour still existing, such as
his helmet and battle-axe, which latter only a man of great
power could have wielded. He was a man of remarkable
self-control, and never allowed his features to betray emotion
even in the extremes of joy or sorrow. His magnanimity
was remarkably shown in the readiness with which he
pardoned and restored to his favour those who offended him
or who had conspired against his life. In his gifts he was
always open-handed, and those v/ho served him well either in
peace or in war he rewarded almost always beyond their
expectation. He was the founder of a great number of the
buildings in Portugal, most remarkable for beauty and
magnificence ; as for example, the splendid palaces of Cintra,
of Lisbon, of Santarem, and of Almeirim ; the sumptuous
church of our Lady of Batalha, not far from the site of the
, battle of Aljubarrota ; the church of Peralonga of the order
of St. Jerome, the first of that order founded in the kingdom,
and the monastery of Carnota, of the order of St. Francis,
near Alemquer.

He was a man of great piety, and was the first sovereign

* The portraits of King John and Quoen Philippa given in this volume are
drawn from casts from the statues on their tomb, expressly made for the author
by order of his kind and valued friend His Excellency the Marquis de Souza
Holstein.

80 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

who ordered the Hours of the Blessed Virgin to be trans-
lated into the Portuguese language, that all might make
use of them in prayer. He also had the Gospels and the
life of Christ and other spiritual books translated into the
mother tongue. As Grand Master of the order of Aviz,
he had the Eoyal escutcheon placed upon the green cross of
the order, as a memorial of the care which as Grand Master
he maintained over the kingdom. This is seen in the coins
of his reign and those of his successors, until altered by
King Joao II. Being also Knight of the Garter, to which
order he was the first foreign sovereign admitted, from
devotion to St. George, its patron saint, whose name was at
all times his battle cry, he bore for his crest the dragon,
the saint's well-known symbol. He was a man intel-
lectually in advance of his age. One of the latest acts of
his life, was a requirement that all public ordinances should
be dated from the Christian era, instead of from the era of
Ca3sar, as had until that time been the j)ractice ; the altera-
tion involved a difference of thirty-eight years, the era of
1460 corresponding with the year of our Lord 1422.

During the later years of his life the military ardour of
his earlier days was allowed to give place to purposes of
usefulness, and while he cultivated the chivalry that he
loved, in the character and habits of the youthful nobility,
he devoted himself to the internal improvement of his
kingdom. With so many claims upon their reverence and
their love, well might the Portuguese in after years speak
of him as the " Father of his country" and " El Key de boa
memoria," "the King of happy memory."

The court of King Jofio adopted for the most part English
habits and usages, and the intercommunication between the
two countries was much more extensive than it had previously
been. The adoption of the French language as it was used
at the English court and the devices and mottoes adopted
by the King's sons attest this influence. The King himself
was an exceedingly accomplished Latin scholar, and wrote in
that language with remarkable skill and good taste. Many

KING JOAO I.,

OF GOOD MEMOKV.

FROM THE REf'IMBENT STATIE OVER IHS TOMB

AT HATALIIA.

CAPE BOYADOR. 81

passages of the " Leal Conselheiro " of his successor King-
Duartc show that the princes had conversations with the
King their father and other well-instructed persons on
various literary subjects, and discussed the rules and in-
structions for making good translations of classical works.
We find also that King Joao I., in his address to those wlio
remained behind atCeuta in 1415, quoted the"Regimcnto dos
Principes" of Fr. Gil de Eoma, and reminded them that he
had often read it in his chamber. And so in that age of
discoveries the reading of the "Wonders of the World" and
the " Voj'ages of Marco Polo," brought from Venice by Dom
Pedro, would doubtless give the greatest delight to the dis-
tinguished men who were trained in the households of Prince
Henry and his ilkistrious ftither and brothers. It has been
generally believed that the King on his death-bed exhorted
Prince Henry to persevere in his laudable purpose of pro-
secuting the extension of the Christian faith amongst their
hereditary enemies in the as yet unexplored regions of
Africa. Such an injunction would fall with redoubled force
upon a mind whose views, religious, patriotic and scientific,
were already so strongly directed to that object. For a long
series of years the Prince had with untiring perseverance
continued to send out annually two or three caravels along
the West Coast of Africa. Cape Non was passed, but the
increasing violence of the waves that broke upon the dan-
gerous northern bank of Cape Boyador had till now prevented
his sailors from rounding its formidable point. As yet they
feared to venture out of sight of land and risk their lives
upon the unknown waters of the Sea of Darkness.

One of the earliest acts of King Duarte after ascend in f>- the
throne was to testify his satisfaction with Prince Henry's
efforts in the progress of discovery by making him a donation
of the islands of Madeira,'^Porto Santo, and the Desertas, by
a charter given from Cintra on the 26th of September, 143:3,
and in the following year, by a charter dated from Santarem
on the 26th of October, he granted the spirituality of these to
the Order of Christ, of which the Prince was the Grand ^faster.

82 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Each time that the Prince sent out a fresh expedition he
stimulated his explorers with promises of increased reward,
to aim at excelling their predecessors in throwing light on
this dark sulyect. Accordingly, in 1433, the year of his
father's death, undismayed by so many years of disappoint-
ment, he again sent out a squire of his, Gil Eannes, a
native of Lagos, but with the usual bad success, for he
reached no further than the Canary Islands, where he took
some captives and returned home. In the following year
the Prince strongly urged him to make another effort, at any
rate to pass Cape Boyador, which if he could do, it would
suffice for that voyage.

It is manifest that fanciful alarms suggested by sailors
from other countries were superadded to the real dangers of
the ocean to deter the Prince's mariners, for in his injunc-
tions to Gil Eannes we find him thus remonstrating with
him for giving heed to such fables :

" If," he says, " there were the slightest authority for
these stories that they tell, I would not blame you, but you
come to me with the statements of four seamen who have
been accustomed to the voyage to Flanders, or some other
well known route, and beyond that have no knowledge of
the needle or the sailing chart. Go out then again and
give no heed to their opinions, for, by the grace of God,
you cannot fail to derive from }-our voyage both honour and
profit."

The Prince was a man of commanding presence, and his
injunctions had great weight with Gil Eannes, who now
firmly resolved that he would not appear again before his
master without bringing a good account of his erranil.
Accordingly, disregarding all danger, he put well out to sea,
and succeeded in doubling the Cape. Although the exploit
was in truth but a small one in the eyes of those who after-
wards had gained greater experience, yet the hardihood of it
was thought much of at the time, for if tlu' first who readied
that Cape had done as much, he would lu'ither liave been

aisednor Ihankctl, but the greater the sense of danger that

pr:

CAPE BOYADOR. 83

others had attached to it, the groaf^er was the honour that
accrued to hmi who overcame it.

The Prince was as good as his word, and Gil Eannes on
his return was handsomely rewarded. He informed the
Prince that he had landed, but had found no human beings
or signs of habitation, but as he thought he ought to bring
back some evidence of his having been on shore, he pre-
sented to the Prince some plants that he had gathered,
which were such as were called in Portugal St. Mary's
Roses.

The Prince in consequence fitted out in the following
year, 1435, a larger vessel than he had yet dispatched, called
a varinel, or vessel with oars, in which he sent out Affonso
Gonsalves Baldaya, his cup-bearer, together with Gil
Eannes in his barque, and they passed fifty leagues beyond
the Cape. They found no habitations, but only some traces
of men and camels. Either in obedience to their orders or
from necessity they returned with this report, but did
nothing further. They named the place which they had
reached Angra dos Ruivos, or Gurnard Bay, on account of
the great number of those fish which they caught there.

These traces of men and camels satisfied the Prince either
that there was a population at no great distance, or that
there were travellers who came to the coast. Accordingly,
he again sent out Baldaya in the same varinel, and recom-
mended him to proceed as far as he could, and to do his best
to capture one of the people, so as to gather some informa-
tion respecting the natives. Baldaya passed seventy leagues
beyond the point previously reached, making a hundred and
twenty from the Cape, and here found what might be the
mouth of a large river with many good anchorages, and
the entrance of which extended eight leagues along the
shore. This was what has ever since been known as the
Rio d'Ouro, but it is only an estuary.

Here they cast anchor, and as Affonso Gonsalves had
brought with him two horses, given him by the Prince for
the purpose, he sent out two young men to reconnoitre and

G 2

84 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

see whether they could discover any signs of villages or
travellers. To make this task the easier they wore no
armour, but simply took their lances and swords Ly way of
defence, for in the event of their meeting any people in
numbers, their best chance of safety would be in their
horses' heels. The lads -were but about seventeen years of
age, but although they had no notion what sort of people or
wild beasts they might encounter, they boldly set out and
followed the course of the river for seven leagues.

They came at last upon a group of nineteen men, neither
wearing armour nor carrying any weapons but azagays.
When the lads saw them they rode up to them, but the
men, although so many, had not the courage to meet them
in the open field, but for safety collected near a heap of
stones, and there withstood the onset of the youths. They
fouo'ht till evenino^ warned the latter to make their retreat
and return to the vessel.

It is difficult to imagine what those men must have
thought of this sudden appearance of two boys, of com-
plexion and features so different from their own, mounted
on horsel)ack, and armed with weapons which they had
never seen before, and withal so courageously attacking a
great number of men.

The two Portuguese lads wounded several of their antago-
nists, and one of them was himself injured in the foot. " I
afterwards knew one of these boys," says the old chronicler,
" when he was a noble gentleman of good renown in arms.
His name was Hector Homem, and you will find him in the
chronicles of the kingdom well proved in great deeds. The
other was named Diego Lopez Dalmeida, a nobleman of
good presence, as I have heard from those who know him."
They readied the ship towards morning, and took some rest.

At daybreak xiffonso Gonsalves took some of his people
with him in his boat, and ascended the river accompanied
by the boys on horseback. They came to the place where
the natives had been on the day before, hoping to fight with
them and ca})turo one of them, but after the boys had left

CAPE BOYADOR. 85

tliem, they had decamped, leaving the greater portion of
their poor property behind them. This Alfonso Gonsalves
took and put on board his boat, as an evidence of what had
been done, and, judging that it would be of no use to
continue the pursuit, returned to his ship. They named the
bay Angra dos Cavallos, or Bay of the Horses. Near the
mouth of the river they found an immense number of
phocas, amounting, as some reckoned, to five thousand.
They killed as many as they could, and loaded the ship with
their skins.

Nevertheless Gonsalves was not contented, because he
had not taken one of the natives. He therefore proceeded
fifty leagues further to see if he could not capture some man
or woman or child in order to gratify the Prince's wish.
Accordingly he continued his voyage till he came to a head-
land where was a rock which looked like a galley, for which
reason they called that port ever after the port of Gallee.
Here they landed and found some nets which they took on
board. These nets were a novelty, for they were made of
the bark of a tree of such a texture that without any tan-
ning or admixture of flax it could be woven excellently
well, and made into nets or any other cordage.

Hence Affonso Gonsalves returned to Portugal, but with-
out having been able to gain any certain knowledge whether
those people were Moors or heathen, nor what was their
manner of life. This took place in the year 1436.

The result may at first sight appear but insignificant.
Such was, however, far from being the case, for it must be
borne in mind that now for the first time within the
Christian era Cape Boyador, which had hitherto presented
an impassable barrier to Europeans into the Sea of Dark-
ness, had at length been rounded. True, claims have been
set up for the honour of a prior achievement of that exploit
on behalf of Genoese, and Catalans and Frenchmen, but it
will be showm in the following chapter that so far as historical
evidence has been adduced in support of these claims, not
one of them is tenable.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SEA OF DARKNESS.

Although all the parts of the Infinite are finite, they will
still remain infinite to a man's fancy until in some sense
brought within the grasj) of his intelligence, and that which,
because unmeasured, is supposed to be boundless, will become
endued with the awe which is inseparable from darkness
and mystery. It was thus that, in the olden times, before
the maritime explorations instituted by Prince Henry had
led to the magnificent achievements of Columbus and Da
Gama, the vast and mysterious, because as yet unexplored,
Atlantic, was known by the designation of " The Sea of
Darkness." Even amongst the ancients this idea was so
prevalent, that we find a friend of the poet Ovid, Albinova-
nus, himself also a poet, putting into the mouth of German-
icus, as he came upon the ocean, the following expression
of dismay, —

" Quo ferimur ? ruit ipsa dies, orbemque relictum
Ultima pei-petiiis claudit natura toiicbris."

The Arabs adopted the idea of the ancients, and hence we
find one of their authors, Ibn Khaldun, who Avrote at the
close of the 14th century, immediately before the period of
Prince Henry's expeditions, describing the Atlantic as " a
vast and boundless ocean, on which ships dare not venture
out of siglit of land, for even if the sailors knew the direction
of the winds, they would not know whither those winds would
carry them, and, as there is no inhabited country beyond,
they would run great risk of being lost in mist and vapour.

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 87

The limit of the West is the Athmtic Ocean." Sucli was
the state of man's knowledge respecting that trackless wil-
derness of waters only five centuries ago.

Nevertheless we have traditions of voyages into the
Atlantic earlier than Prince Henry by three thousand years,
and of importance, no doubt, for the geographical history of
the ancient world, but otherwise practically useless. The
value of any exploration must be looked for, not only in the
traces it has left behind it in the history of human know-
ledge, but in its influence on human action. Had any such
influence for the general welfare of mankind resulted from
the explorations which preceded Prince Henry^s time, the
Atlantic would not have been called the " Sea of Darkness."

The oldest story respecting this mysterious sea is related
by Theopompus, who lived in the fourth century before the
Christian era. In a fragment of his works preserved by
^lian is a conversation between Silenus and Midas, King
of Phrygia, in which the former says that Europe, Asia, and
Africa were surrounded by the sea, but that beyond this
known world was an island of immense extent, containing
huge animals, and men of twice our stature, and long-lived
in proportion. There were in it many great cities whose in-
habitants had laws and customs entirely difierent from ours.
Fabulous as the story is as a whole, we cannot escape from
the thought that it suggests, though vaguely, a notion of
the real existence of a great Western Country. This idea is
strengthened by the remarkable story related to Solon by a
priest of Sais from the sacred inscriptions in the temples,
and presented to us by Plato in his Tima3us and Critias,
wherein he speaks of an island called Atlantis, opposite the
Pillars of Hercules, larger than Africa and Asia united, but
which in one day and night was swallowed up by an earth-
quake and disappeared beneath the waters. The result was
that no one had since been able to navigate or explore that
sea on account of the slime which the submerged island had
produced.

Many as have lieen the doubts and conjectures u> which

88 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

this narrative has been subjected by the learned in ancient
and modern times, it is a remarkable fact that Grantor, in a
commentary on Plato quoted by Proclus, declares that he
found this same account retained by the priests of Sais three
hundred years after the period of Solon, and that he was
shown the inscriptions in which it was embodied. It is also
deserving of notice that precisely in that part of the ocean
described in the legend we find the island groups of the
Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, and a host of other rocks and
sand-banks, while the great bank of varec or floating sea-
weed occupying the middle portion of the basin of the North
Atlantic and covering, according to Humboldt, an area
about six times as large as Germany, has been reasonably
regarded as explanatory of the obstacle to navigation to
which the tradition refers.

It is to the jealous secrecy of the Phoenicians, who were
the first, so far as we know, to brave the perils of the Atlan-
tic, that we owe much of the darkness with which their
explorations are surrounded. When Homer first sang of
those " blissful plains of utmost earth " * to which he gave
the name of Elysium, it was probably from Phoenician enter-
prise that he derived his inspiration. Civilisation in her
westward course had already passed through the portals of
the great Inland Sea and seated herself on the confines of
the Atlantic Ocean. On the shores of Andalusia, at a point
so convenient for trade that it has ever since remained the
principal port of Spain, the men of Tyre established a colony
whose Phoenician name of Gadir has survived three thousand
years in the modern name of Cadiz. The delicious climate,
the luxuriant fertility of the soil, the rich variety of products
and abundance of mineral wealth, so great that even ordi-
nary utensils were made of the precious metals, were sources
ample for that "joy" or "exultation" (Alizuth) which
has been sui)posed to have engendered " Elysium " in the
fancy of the poet. Yet still it lived but as a poet's dream, for
the Phauiician was jealous of his geographical knowledge,

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 89

and the delights which gladdened the fields of Fjlysinra were
to the Greek as mythical as the Elysian fields themselves.

Centuries had to elapse before the eye of a Greek should
rest upon the waters of the Atlantic, and then not under the
guidance of Phoenician mariners, nor by the light of Phoeni-
cian experience. It was in the middle of the seventh cen-
tury before Christ that a trader of the island of Samos,
named Cola3US, availed himself of the privilege of trading
with Egypt, then first granted to the Greeks by Psammiticus,
the Phoenicians having been as yet the only foreigners per-
mitted to land upon the Egyptian shore. On his way to
Egypt Coloeus encountered a gale of wind from the coast
which lasted long enough to carry him through the Straits
into the Atlantic, where he lighted upon the Phoenician colony
of Gadir. In this rich and unexpectedly discovered empo-
rium he made purchases of goods which had never before
been imj^orted directly into his own country, and by securing
the profits which had hitherto been divided between the
Greeks and Phoenicians, realised an extraordinary fortune.
But here the results of his accidental discovery terminated,
for the Greeks took no pains to continue the trade which
thus favourably invited their attention.

In the reign of Pharaoh Necho, the son of Psammiticus —
supposed to have lasted from 617 to 601 B.C. — a voynge of
quite another character is recorded to have taken place.
This king, like his father, devoted himself to the develop-
ment of commerce, and being disappointed in an attempt to
unite the Mediterranean with the Red Sea by a canal, estab-
lished ports and built a fleet of ships on each of them.
Conceiving the probability of Africa being surrounded by
water, he projected an exploration for the purpose of ascer-
taining the truth. The aversion of his own subjects to the
sea made him enofa^fe Phoenician sailors, who starting from
the Red Sea made the first authenticated circumnavigation
of Africa, and reached Egypt by the Mediterranean in the
third year from their departure.

During their voyage it had been the practice of these

90 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Phoenician sailors every year, as seed-time came, to land at
whatever part of Africa they might hajipen to be near, sow
a crop, wait for the harvest, and then again set sail. It was
reported by them as a matter of astonishment that during a
considerable part of their voyage they had the sun on their
right hand. This im2)ortant fact, the most confirmatory of
the reality of the expedition, was even discredited by Hero-
dotus to whom we are indebted for the narrative, and the
voyage itself was so unproductive of impressions on the
minds of men that no trace of it could be found in the
Alexandrian library either by Eratosthenes in the third, or
by Murinus of Tja^e in the second, century before Christ,
although both of them were diligent examiners of ancient
records.

Meanwhile it would seem that even before the foundation
of Carthage in the ninth century B.C. the Phoenicians had
colonies on the West Coasts of Africa. Eratosthenes indeed
speaks of them as being exceedingly numerous, but Arte-
midorus, who lived about a hundred years before Christ,
contradicted the assertion and declared that not a vestige
of them was apparent. In any case it is scarcely probable
that such colonies existed in great numbers till after the
famous expedition of Hanno the Carthaginian.

The date of this gigantic undertaking has been the subject
of much investigation and discussion. The latest writer
on the subject, the learned and laborious geographer, M.
Vivien de St. Martin, adopts the date of 570 B.C., which
after deep research had been accepted by Bougainville. In
his elaborate work entitled " Le Nord de I'Afriquc dans
TAntiquite,'' which in 18G0 won a prize offered in 1858 by
the " Academic des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres," I
observe that M. Vivien de St. Martin accepts in the main,
bat, as I venture to think, with some improvements, the
conclusions of the learned Carl Miiller. I shall here quote
these amended conclusions for the reader's enlightenment in
following the course of the ancient navigator.

The narrative is as follows : — Ilainio having received

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 91

orders from the Senate to found Liby-Phocnician cities
beyond the Pilhirs of Hercules, set sail with a fleet of sixty
ships of fifty oars each, carrying thirt}'' thousand people, men
and women, with every necessary. The first city that he
founded was distant two days' sail from the Pillars, and was
named " Thyniiaterion," near Salee, at the mouth of the
Bouragray. Proceeding westward they raised an altar to
Neptune on the })romontory of Solceis, the present Cape
Cantin, which they found covered with a thick wood. Half
a day's sail towards the east brought them to a marshy
coast full of large reeds, probably near Safifi, where a multi-
tude of elephants and other wild beasts were feeding. A
day's sailing carried them past this, and between the termina-
tion of this marshy country and the mouth of a river named
the Lixus, i.e., the Sous, they founded the following cities
on the sea-coast : — Caricum Teichos or the Carian Wall
(Mogadore?), Gytta (Kouleikat?), Acra, Melitta (Wad Beni
Tamer ? ), and Arambys (Aghader ?).

On the banks of the Lixus they sojourned some time, and
made a treaty of peace with its natives, who were a pastoral
people. Beyond these lived Ethiopian barbarians, whose
country was full of wild beasts and intersected with high
mountains, in which the Lixus had its rise. They took inter-
preters with them from among the Lixites, and coasted along
the desert southwards for two days. They then sailed east-
wards one day and found a small island of five or more,
(probably fifteen) stadia, or about two miles in circumference,
which they named Cerne (Heme, within the estuary mis-
named Rio d'Ouro). Here they established a colony. At
Cerne they made a reckoning of their voyage, and found
that the distance from Carthage to the Pillars had taken
the same time as that from the Pillars to Cerne.

After leaving Cerne they ascended the mouth of a great
river named " Chretes," or rather " Chremetes," and reached
a lake in which were three islands, larger than Cerne. A
day's sailing brought them to the extremity of the lake,
which was skirted with lofty mountains, inhabited by

92 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

savages clothed in skins, who attacked them with stones and
prevented their landing. This river was the northern branch
of the Senegal, and the lake Panie-Foul or Lake Ngaier,
which corresponds correctly with the description. After
this, they came to another river, wide and large, full of
crocodiles and hippopotami. This was the large branch of
the Senegal. Here they put back and returned to Cerne. *

Recommencing their voyage southward they sailed twelve
days along the coast and found it entirely peopled by Ethio-
pians who fled at their approach. Their language was not
und(3rstood by the Lixite interpreters. On the twelfth day
they came near some lofty mountains thickly wooded with
sweet-scented trees of different kinds. It took them two
days to sail round these mountains, when they found the
coast line present an immense opening, on the opposite side
of which was plain country. At night they saw fires rising
at intervals in every direction, sometimes more, sometimes
less. These wooded mountains clearly represent Cape Verde,
which in the time of Prince Henry received the designation
from this very peculiarity. The inability of the interpreters
to understand the language of the natives accords with the
fact that at the Senegal commences the country of the
blacks. The immense opening was the estuary of the
Gambia.

Five days' sail along the coast southward brought them
to a large gulf called by the interpreters the " Western
Horn." In this gulf was a large island, and in this island
a lake of salt water, which itself contained another island.
Here they landed, and during the day saw nothing but
forests ; but, as night came on, a great number of fires were
lighted amidst fi-ightful cries and the clang of a variety of in-
struments. They were greatly terrified, and the soothsayers

* Tliis is pcihiips tlio most iiTcconcilahle point in tlio -whok' of M. Vivien
de St. Martin's able analysis. From Ilornoto the Senegal is some eight degrees,
and it is difficult to sujiposc that Ilanno should have retraced his course for so
great a distance without any assignable motive. It wimld involve sixteen
degrees traverscil uselessly, u serious awkwarilness in the otherwise commendable
churacter of this analysis.

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 93

charged tliem forthwith to leave the island. This description
tallies with the real character of the coast. The Western Horn
corresponds with the great gulf into which the River Jeba
debouches a little to the north of the Rio Grande. The
south side of the gulf is as it were formed by the chain of
the Bissagos Islands, the last of which, the Island of Harang,
presents the exact configuration described by Hanno.

Departing in haste they sailed along a country abounding
in fragrant exhalations, but with streams of fire running
down into the sea, so that it was inaccessible on account of
the heat. In great alarm they hastened onwards, and four
days' fast sailing brought them at night to a country which
seemed full of fires, in the midst of which arose one much
larger and higher than the rest, which seemed to touch the
sky. When day came they found that it was a very high
mountain which they named " Theun Ochema," the Chariot
of the Gods.

In the whole range of coast from the time that the mari-
ner loses sight of Mount Atlas he will see nothing, with the
exception of the headland of Cape Verde, that could be in
any way dignified by the name of mountain. Near Cape
Verga, in 10|- latitude, the country begins to show some
elevation, and so continues till the neighbourhood of the Isles
de Los, in 9| degrees, where, near a broad creek which
receives the waters of the Sangaria, rises a conical shaped
mountain conspicuously distinguished by its height and
form from the rest of the chain. To this the Portuguese
subsequently gave the name of Sagres, in honour of the
headland of the same name in Algarve, where Prince Henry
had taken up his abode. It was known by the name of
Souzou. This, both from its physical character and position,
and from a calculation of the distances, is presumed to be
identical with the Chariot of the Gods. It may require
some ingenuity perhaps to explain the occurrence of fires
which Pliny and Pomponius Mela have since described as
perpetual. The very fact that these fires were seen at night
and not by day disproves the assertion and makes it reason-

94 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

able that what Hanno saw was pnre],y incidental. A story
told by Bruce of the Shangalla of Abyssinia has a sugges-
tive value which commends it for quotation : "As soon "
he says, " as the rain subsides, the high grass which it has
brought into existence becomes suddenly dry, brown, and
parched ; and being inconvenient to the Shangalla, they set
fire to it. Flame rapidly extends over the country and fire
actually flows down ravines and gullies in which, but a few
weeks before, another element was seen rushing on its
course."

Three days' sail beyond this mountain brought them to a
£rulf named the Southern Horn, at the bottom of which was an
island like that before described, containing a lake, in which
was another island peopled with savages. The females,
more numerous than the males, had hairy bodies, and the
interpreters called them " Gorillas." They were not able
to seize any of the males, for they fled across the precipices,
and defended themselves with stones ; but they took three
females who broke their bands, and bit and tore their cap-
tors with fury ; they therefore killed them. Hanno brought
back two of their skins and deposited them in the temple of
Juno at Carthage. Beyond this they could not venture on
account of their provisions beginning to run short.

There can be little doubt that the " savages " here des-
cribed are the chimpanzees. As to the position of the gulf
and island the distance traversed shows it to be a gulf
resembling a large estuary formed on one side by the conti-
nent and on the other by Sherborough Island, in which the
peculiarities of the description may be easily recognised.

In the examination of aperiplus, the details of which have
for centuries been canvassed by the learned with ever varying
results, much has been gained when the positions of two or
three salient points of the coast at important intervals have
l)cen fixed with some degree of certainty. This happy re-
sult seems here to have been attained. The careful measure-
ment of the distance from the Island of Heme to the Straits,
and its approximate coincidence witli tlie distance fr<nn the

THE SEA OF DAKKNESS. 95

Straits to Cnrtliag'e, is a strong point made in deciding the
position of Cerno in accordance with the narrative. Another
most remarkable fact is that the River Chretes is, as shown
by Bochart, spoken of by several ancient writers under the
name of Chremetes, and that the Chremetes is described by
Aristotle as ''one of the most remarkable rivers of Africa,
having its source in the same mountain as the Nile, whence
it flows to empty itself into the Outward Sea." We have
here distinctly indicated that ancient notion of the common
origin of the Nile of Egypt and the Nile of the Blacks which
was maintained by geographers dowm to the time of Prince
Henry, and which assigned the latter title to the River
Senegal. When in addition to this some minute items of
local description are found to correspond with the real
geographical formation of the mouth of that river, another
point of certainty seems to be authoritatively established.
Starting from such conclusions the recognition of Ca})e
Verde as identical with the large mottntain covered with
trees round which they sailed seems unavoidable. When
therefore M. Vivien de St. Martin shows as the result of his
analysis that Hanno sailed further to the South in a few
months than the Portuguese did in a great many years, the
claim will probably be conceded by many, and the shade of
the Carthaginian chief be allowed to enjoy in its plenitude
the glory which, if M. St. Martin's deductions be correct^
would so justly attach to his name. But when the distin-
guished geographer accepts upon trust, and adds the weight
of his authority to, the assertion that * " a very long time be-
fore the Portuguese discovered the Rio d'Ouro and its island,
that locality had been frequented by Catalan navigators,"
we are bound in the most emphatic manner to take exception
to the statement, and, for reasons which will hereafter be
adduced at length, to declare that that statement is utterly
without foundation.

This remarkable voyage of Hanno, which for centuries
formed the principal source of Greek and Roman inlurma-

* See page 383.

96 PRINCE HE>fRY THE NAVIGATOR.

tion on the African coasts of the Atlantic, was described in
an inscription in the Punic language in one of the tcmi)]e8
of Cartilage. Long afterwards, probably about the middle
of the fourth century B.C., it was translated into Greek by
some one whose name is not known, and thus this very
precious document has survived to our times.

In about the year 470 B.C., another expedition was at-
tempted under the following circumstances. Sataspes, a
nephew of Darius, had been sentenced by Xerxes to be
impaled for violating the maiden daughter of Zopyrus, the
devoted friend of Darius, whose fidelity had secured
Babylon to his master after a siege of twenty months. The
mother of Sataspes, a sister of Darius, besought from the
King a commutation of the sentence, engaging that her son
should, if spared, circumnavigate Africa and return by the
Red Sea. Her request was granted, and in an Egyptian
vessel manned by Carthaginians Sataspes sailed through
the Straits, doubled Cape Soloeis (Cape Cantin), and after
many months' voyage southward became disheartened and
returned. On presenting himself before Xerxes he related
that at the farthest point of his voyage he had lighted on a
shore inhabited by a people of diminutive stature, clothed
with garments made of the palm-tree. He assigned as
a reason for his turning back that his ship was stopped
[query by weed], and that it was impossible to go any
further. Xerxes, believing that he lied, had him impaled
in accordance with the original sentence, because he had
not completed the task imposed. Now as this voyage,
which doubtless was subsequent to and suggested by that
of Hanno, preceded the journey of Herodotus into Egypt
in the year 448 B.C., in which he derived through Car-
thaginians that information respecting the mode of com-
merce on the West Coast of Africa which they first had
gathered from Hauno's voyage, it might have been expected
that greater impressions would have been left behind as to
the desirableness of continuing explorations along that
coast.

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 97

Another presumed exploration, or rather circumnaviga-
tion of Africa, is that attributed to the geographer Eudoxus
of Cyzicus in Mysia, who lived towards the end of the
second century B.C. Having left his native place for Egypt
he entered the service of Ptolemy Evergetes the Second and
his wife Cleopatra, by whom he was employed in making
voyages to India. We have two contradictory accounts of
his voyages. One, taken from the writings of Cornelius
Nepos as related by Pomponius Mela, supposes that
Eudoxus, starting from the Arabian Gulf, arrived at Cadiz
after circumnavigating Africa, but the description given of
the natives beyond the desert is so full of extravagant fables
that it is utterly unworthy of any consideration. The other
account of the adventures of Eudoxus is by Posidonius
as preserved by Strabo, which relates only a series of un-
successful attempts, whence we may come to the conclusion
that Eudoxus did not circumnavigate Africa, and that his
voyages taught nothing that was not known before his time.

So barren of influence on Atlantic exploration in after
times was the expedition of Hanno, that since it there has
been but one admissible intimation transmitted to us of a
passage by sea to the southward of Cape Boyador before the
fifteenth century, and that was made by Africans of the
west coast, on their own coast line and by the mere chance
action of the winds, and was as fruitless in impression on
the minds either of explorers or of Arab geographers as any
that had preceded it. It was first brought to light in 1848,
since when it has been triumphantly adduced in derogation
of the glory of Prince Henry. In that year the learned
French orientalist M. Eeinaud published with a French
translation the Geography of the Arab Abu Al-Fida,
embodying therein the "Geography" of Ibn Said, of the
middle of the thirteenth century. In the latter is recorded
how a Moor named Ibn Fiitimah being once at Noul-Laratha
(Wad-Nun, a little north of Cape Non, see Hartmann's
Edrisi), took ship and was wrecked in the midst of some
shoals. The sailors lost their bearings, and had no notion

H

98 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

where they were. They therefore deserted the ship, and
put out in a sloop to reconnoitre. Sometimes the sloop got
entangled amongst marine plants, but was raised olf them
by dint of rowing. When they reached the middle of the
gulf the sailors were astonished at the great quantity of
tunny fish they saw ; they also observed some white birds.
Before they reached the shore their provisions were entirely
exhausted. Just as they came under the Griittering Moun-
tain (Aldjebel-allamas), Cape Blanco, so named from its
being of a glittering white, " some Berbers of the tribe of
Godala made signs to them not to approach the mountain.
The sailors did not comprehend the intention of this warning,
but nevertheless they turned northwards and managed to
pass the Cape. A man then came forward who knew both
the Arabic and Berber languages, and asked them how they
had missed their way. The sailors related what had
occurred, and asked the reason of their having been warned
off the mountain. The man replied ' the whole of that
mountain is one mass of deadly serpents. Strangers take
it for a rock of glittering colour, and deceived thereby, come
near and are devoured by the serpents.' The man took
])ains to reassure the sailors, and some of the latter bought
some camels and rode to Tegazza, the capital of the tribe of
Godala, described as in 11° of longitude and twenty of
latitude. They remained some time with the Berbers of
that tribe, drinking camel's milk and eating dried camel's
flesh. They then returned to Noul, accompanied by some of
that tribe." The correctness of the description as to the
seaweed and the tunny fish leaves little room to doubt the
soundness of the learned editor's conclusion that the cape to
which these Moorish sailors were driven was really Cape
Blanco. But such an occurrence can scarcely be accepted
as in any way diminishing the honour earned by the pre-
determined and persistent explorations instituted by Prince
Henry. If it were possible at this late period to learn that,
some centuries before the discovery of the West Indies by
Columbus, a native of Haiti had been carried by accident

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 99

to the shores of (Aiba, woiihl the g'lory of the immortal
Genoese be diminished one iota by such a discovery ? Surely
not, not even had the Haitian discovered that Cuba was an
island, a fact of which Columbus was ignorant to his dying
day, whereas it is not pretended that Ibn Futimah made
any discovery that was not effected by the mariners of
Prince Henry. The cosmographers and cartographers who
followed Ibn Said derived not the least addition to their
store of funded information from the romantic adventure of
Ibn Fiitimah. "Whatever may have been effected in ancient
times, this is the only instance within our knowledge in
which it can be said with certainty that Cape Boyador was,
in the middle ages, passed before the time of Prince Henry,
although that honour has been claimed on behalf of G-enoese
and Catalans and Frenchmen, and finally for the Norman
Jean de Bethencourt. The high reputation of the dis-
tinguished French geographer, M. d'Avezac, who has most
prominently advanced these claims, demands the most
attentive consideration to the arguments he adduces ; but
after a careful investigation I feel bound in conscience, but
with the sincerest respect for him, to give in every instance
the Scotch verdict of " uon proven." But the reader must
judge for himself.

The earliest claim is set up for a Genoese expedition in
1291.

For the fullest account of this expedition we are indebted
to the learned labours of Dr. Pertz,* Principal Librarian of
the Royal Library of Berlin, and editor of the Monumenta
Germania3 Historica. It was discovered by him among the
public annals of the city of Genoa, which form a continua-
tion of the Chronicles of Caffaro, printed, but only in
extract, by Muratori. It is as follows: "In the year 121)1
Tedisio Doria and Ugolino de Yivaldo, with his brother
and certain other citizens of Genoa, commenced a voyage

♦ In a memoir printed in Beriin entitled " Der ^Iteste Versuch zur Entdcc-
kimg des Seewegcs nach Ostindien," presented to the Eoyal Academy of Sciences
of Munich on March 28th, 1859, the centenaiy of its foundation.

h2

100 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

wliich none has ever in any way attempted till now. They
equipped in the best manner two galleys supplied with pro-
visions, water, and other necessaries, and despatched them
in the month of May towards the strait of Ceuta, that they
might go by sea to the ports of India, and bring back useful
articles of merchandise. The two said brothers Vivaldo
went in person, as also two friars minor. It was an un-
dertaking that astonished not only those who witnessed it,
but those who heard of it. Since they passed a place called
Gozora no certain news has been received of them, but may
God preserve them and bring them back safe and sound to
their own homes." This account was in the handwriting of
Jacopo Doria, a near relative of Tedisio Doria, one of the
originators of, though not a participator in, the expedition.
In it we have an undeniable statement not only of the
reality of this noble undertaking, but of the purpose for
which it was set on foot, and of the farthest point from
which news had at that time been received of it. The story
is confirmed by the great astrologer and physician Pietro
d'Abano, who wrote that portion of his important work
" Conciliator Differentiarum" which contains the reference to
this event about the year 1312. This narrative is eminently
interesting as showing the geographical notions which led
to the expedition, and the courage required for so dangerous
an exploit. In a chapter treating of the possibility of living
within the tropics, he says, " According to Ptolemy persons
have reached us from the equinoctial regions, for the same
man is capable of enduring, at different times, opposite
extremes of temperature, and it is said that the Indian city
Arin* lies in those regions. Others assert that all passage

* The sacred citj' of Ocljcin or Ougcin, in Mahva, whence tlic Indians reckoned,
their first meridian. The change of the name to Aiin in Arahic is thus explained
by M. lleinaiid in his Memoire sur I'lnde, p. 373. The dj of the Indians ■was
sometimes rendered z by the Arabs, and thus the Arab transhitors -wrote the
word Ozcin ; but as in manuscripts the vowels were often omitted, the mass of
readers to whom the name of Odjein was indifferent would pronounce it Azin,
and as the copyist would somotimes forget to insert the point which distinguished
a 2 from an r, Azin woaild be road Arin.

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 101

between here and there is prevented by certain mountains
which attract men to them as the loadstone attracts iron,
and that men hiugh while being attracted, and at last are
held fast. It is also reported that Cfesar sent two
centm-ions to seek the head of the Nile, who related that
by the help of the King- of Ethiopia and his recommenda-
tions to neighbom-ing kings, they reached some immense
lakes whose outlet the inhabitants themselves did not
know, nor could any one separate the grass, which was so
entangled in the water that neither on foot or in a boat
was there any contending against it. They further stated
that they saw two stones from which the vast body of the
river fell forth, but whether that was the head of tlie Kile
or only an affluent, or whether it then first springs out on
the land or only returns diverted from a previous course is
unknown. Some assert that the desert is so vast and sandy,
so full of serpents and venomous animals, and so deficient
in fresh water, that no one can easily make the passage
from thence. Wherefore some time since the Genoese fitted
out two galleys provided with every necessary, and passed
through the Pillars of Hercules at the end of Spain, but
ovkat became of them remains now nearly thirty years unknown.
The passage, however, is now open by going northward
through Gi-reat Tartary, and so winding round to the east
and then to the south." The purpose of this voyage is thus
set forth, vaguely it is true, but in immediate connection
with the indefinite geographical knowledge of the period.

It would be difficult to speak in terms too laudatory of
this noble undertaking, the result of private enterprise. It
wanted but success, or, in case of failure, to be followed up
with the invincible perseverance of a Prince Henry, to have
neutralised by anticipation the glory of Prince Henry
himself. The narrative of Jacopo Doria mentions Gozora
as the last place from which tidings had been received
respecting it. The map of the Venetian brothers Pizzigani,
of 13G7 shows us the position of this place under the name
of Caput Finis Gozole, which is very clearly Cape Non.

102 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Another cotemporaneous writer is stated by Griustiniani *
to have written of this expedition ; viz., Francesco Stabili,
better known as Cecco d'Ascoli, in his Commentary on the
treatise De Sph^era Mundi of Sacrobosco.f Eepeated ex-
aminations of the various editions of that commentary have
however failed in verifying the reference. It was not till a
hundred and sixty-four years later that any allusion was
made to the expedition. A Genoese gentleman of noble
family named Antonio de Nolli, of whom we shall here-
after hear more, being overwhelmed with debt and in
desperate circumstances, had sought to mend his fortune
in explorations on the west coast of Africa, under the
auspices of Prince Henry. In 1802 a letter apparently
by his hand addressed to his creditors under date of the
12th of December, 1455, and signed Antonius Ususmaris
(the Latinized form of his adopted pseudonym " Uso di
Mare" J), was discovered in Genoa by M. Griiberg de
Hemso, a learned Swedish merchant resident in that city,
among a collection of papers which had been presented to
the archives of Genoa by M. Federico Federici in 1660.
In the immediate neighbourhood of the letter were some
geographical legends in an unknown hand, apparently
prepared for inscription on a globe or mappe-monde, as
was not unusual in those times. One of the legends in
all its rude Latinity is as below, § and translated is as

* See Giiistiniani, Castigatissimi Annali di Gcnova. Genova, 1537 (Lib. 3.
fol. iii. verso).

t The Ijatinized form of the name of John Holywood, who flourished at the
beginning of the thirteenth century, and whose learned treatise De Sjilia-ra.
IMundi, the most famous book of the middle ages, was for centiu'ies the subject
o f a host of connnentarics. He was named from Ilolywood, in Yorkshii-e, the
place of his birth.

j I observe that in tlie old chronicle of Jacopo Doria, a Genoese sea-captain
named Antonius Ususmaris is mentioned under date of 1284. It is not impro-
bable that he may have been known in Genoa to have accompanied this famous
expedition in 1:291, and that hence Antonio de Nolli adopted this significant
name of his compatriot in undertaking a similar exploration.

y^ "Anno 1281 recesserunt de civitate Janua) d\i;r galea^ ])atronisata> per D.
Vndinum et Guidnm de Vivuklis fraties vuleutes iie in levante ad i)artes Indiarum,
<iuic duLC galctc luullum nuvigavciuul. Sid nuuudo fiKruut dielai duie galea;

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 103

follows : " In the year 1281 two galleys left the city of
Genoa, under the command of the brothers Vadinus and
Guido Vivaldi, with the view of going to the East to the
parts of the Indies ; which two galleys sailed a great way,
hut when they came to this sea of Ghinoia one of them
stranded, and could not proceed further, but the other sailed
on and passed through that sea until they reached a city of
Ethiopia named Menam. They were captured and detained
by the people of that city, who are Christians of Ethiopia,
subjects of Prester John. That city is on the sea-coast near
the river Gihon. The aforesaid were kept in such close con-
finement that not one of them ever returned from those
parts." As quoted by M. d'Avezac the date is altered from
1281 to 1285, and the following sentence is added, "The
aforesaid was related by a Genoese nobleman named Anto-
niotus Ususmaris." Here we have a statement of the
locality to which the expedition attained, while it should be
mentioned that in the letter of Antonio de Xolli, alias Uso
di Mare, we are actually brought into contact with an indivi-
dual descended from the explorers. I propose to show that
both the letter and the legend, which have been adduced to

in hoc mari de Ghinoia una eanim se repcrit in fimdo sicco per niodum quod
uon poterat ire nee ante navigare, alia vero narigavit et transivit per istud mare
usque duni venirent ad civitatem imam Ethiopian nomine Menam, capti I'uerunt
et dctempti ab illis de dicta ci\'itate, qui sunt cristiani de Ethiopia submissis
presbitero Joanni ut supra. Civitas ipsa est ad maiinam prope tinmen Gion
pninlicti fuerunt taliter detempti, quod nemo iLlonim a partibus iLlis umquam
redivit, qui pra^dicta narraverat." (Ajinali di Geografia e di Statistica, torn. 2.
pp. 290, 291.) But quoted by M. d'Avezac (Nouvelles Annales dcs Voyages,
torn. 108, p. 47) in the follo-«-ing altered and enlarged form : " Anno Domini
M.C.C.LXXXV recesseriint de ci\-itate Janusc duse galleic patronisatre per D.
Ugolinum et Guidiim de Vivaldis fratres volentes ire in Levantem, ad partes
Indiarum. Quae galleaj multum navigaverunt ; sed quando fuerunt dict;u
duiu galleaB in hoc mari de Ghinoia, xma earum se reperit in fimdo sicco
per modum quod non poterat ire nee ante navigare, alia vero navigavit et
.ansivit per istud mare usquedum venirent ad civitatem unam Ethiopia^, nnniine
IMcnani ; capti fuenint et detenti ab iUis de dicta civitate, qui sunt chiistiani do
Ethinpia submissi prcsbytero Joaiuii, ut supra. Civitas ipsa est ad marinam,
pi-o]K' flumcn Gion. Prscdicti fuerunt taliter detenti quod nemo illorum a
partibus illis unquam redivit. Qurc prtdicta naiTavcrat Antoniotus Ususmaris,
nobilis Jauucnsis. (Annali di Geogratica c di Statistica, i-'Ui. i. pp. 290, 291)."

104 PKENCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

prove that Prince Henry's navigators were anticipated by the
Genoese in actual African exploration, bear internal evidence
of being a farrago of nonsense and untruth. The legend is
anonymous, and consequently without intrinsic authority, but
it quotes as its authority ''Antoniotus Ususmaris nobilis
Januensis," who is also the writer of the letter. The
original of the letter is given at foot,* and, as the reader

* (The Letter) — 1455, die 12 Decembris. Honorandi Fratres, quantum sciatis
de me male sciipti, bene illud judicare possum, qui non sufficit vestrum vobis tenere,
sed de vestris male vos visitare contingit, vere non possendo vobis scribere rem
de ullo bono, et habendo in veritate animum ad vos esse, et me ponere in mauibus
vestrorum, et alionim creditorum, voluit ista mea fortuna me transmisisse in
una caravella ad partes Giunoie et essendo in ista verecundia, qua jam dis-
posui citius mortem sumere, quam vivere ; et transivi ubi umquam aliquis
cristianus fuerat ultra miliaria octingenta, et reperto rivo de Gamba, maximo
in extremitate in eo intravi sciens qiiod in ipsa regione aurum et meregeta
colligitur. Illi piscatores me insultaverimt cum archibus scive sagittis avene-
natis putantes esseremus inimici, et videndo nos recipere noluerunt, fui coactus
redire, et inde prope legas septuaginta quidam nobUis Dominus niger dedit niibi
capita tringinta una et certos dentes elefantorum, papagajos cum certo pauco
zebetto, pro certa rauba sibi preseutata, et intellecta voluntate mea mecum
misit ad S. Eegem Portugalliae secretarium suum cum certis clavibus, qui quidam
secretarius se obligat pacem tractare cum Ulo Kege de Gamba. Et sic viso S.
Eex istius Secretarii fuit contentus vadam simul tantum ad illas partes. Ideo
in Dei nomine compello aduch unam caravellam, in qua vado, et habebo cariciun
de Ulis infantis, et me expediani per totum venturum, et infra dies decern
expcdiam istum ambasciatorem in ima caravella, ut vadat pacem tractandam ;
ipse mihi dimittit totiun sum, ut ipsum implicare velim cum mea. Quare Domine
me expedit, ad hoc videre ista vice quid faccre vult ista mea fortuna, qua3 nisi
esset mihi tantum adversa vivere sub magna audiendo quid mihi narrat ipse
Secretarius, qua; si vobis scriberem, vana vobis viderentur. 'N'erum ex toto
firmaj non restabant leghaj trecentos ad terram presbyteri Joannis, non dice
persona sua, imo incdpit ejus territorium, ct si mc potuisscm detinere vidissem
capitancum regis mei, qui prope nos erat jornatas sex, cum hominibus
C. et cum eo cristiani de presb. Joannis V. et looutus fui cum illis illius
exerciti ; repcrui ibidem anum de natinne nostra, ex illis galeis credo Vivaldaj,
qui se amiscrit sunt anni 170. qui mihi dixit, et sic mo affirmat iste secre-
tarius, non restabat ex ipso semine salvo ipso, et alius qui mihi dixit de elefan-
tibus, uiiicornibus, et aliis strauissimis, et hominibus habcntibus caiidas, et
commedentcs filios, impossibile vobis videretur, credatis quod si navigassem
aduch diem unum amisisscm tramontanam. Et causa quia mo detinere non potui
fuit quia victualia mihi deficiebant, ct de suis -vdctualibus ullo modo homines
blanchi uti non possunt nisi infirmcnter, ct moriantur, salvo illi nigri, qiii in eis
nascuntur. Aer vero optimus et pulcrior terra qua^ sub I'irlo sit, et quasi cqui-
vocum videlicet in mcnse Julii dies de horis duodecim ct nox do horis undecim.
Rccito vobis hcTc omnia et sum ccrtus dicerctur citius vcltictis vestrum ct aliorum

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 105

will see, is a most ungrammatical and incoherent docu-
ment. It states that Uso di Mare, being in the neighbour-
hood of the River Gambia, spoke with the last living descen-
dant of those who in the legend were said to have reached
the Ethiopian city named Menam, which was on the sea-
coast, and inhabited by Christian subjects of Prester
John. The allusion to the River Gihon, which the early
Arabian geographers connected with the Nile in Eastern
Africa, would lead us to infer that this Ethiopian city was
on the east coast, — to have reached which would have been
the glory of the expedition of 1291, — in which case we
have to imagine a navigation over four thousand miles of
most perilous African ground, with no professed object, and
not even spoken of as a wonder when accomplished, which
is incredible. The only alternative is that this Christian
city, subject to Prester John, lay on the west coast ; but the
letter states that the westernmost inland boundary of Prester
John's country was " three hundred leagues off," which in-
volves an absurdity. Then an incoherent and inconceivable
story is told of there being, at a distance of only six days'
journey from the point of coast where Uso di Mare was, a
captain of Uso di Mare's king, who we must suppose to be
the King of Portugal, having with him an army of a hun-
dred men and five of Prester John's Christians, whom, if the
writer could have stayed, he would have seen. Then although
he was unable to stop for want of victuals, this space of six
days' journey is annihilated in a breath, and Uso di Mare not
only does see, but speaks with, some men of that army, and
just there he found one of this nation whom he believed to be from
those galleys of Vivaldi which had been lost one hundred and
seventyyears before. The person thus found told him that he

quam ista varia audire, expedit habeatis patientiam sex menses, et eo post quia
faeeo me assegurare, quod certe opus non esset, essendo ilia maria sicut darcina
nostra de ibi.

Ista littera sit omnibus creditoribus qui credunt, et vos cum cis si habuisscm
pro posse eos contentarem de pagis de 60. non posuissem me in tali ventura cum
una caravella, tantum erit forsitan per meUora, Ideo patientiam habeant amore
Dei.

Vk. ANTONirs UsrsMARis.

106 PKINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

or she was the last of the stock, and this was confirmed by the
black secretary of a neighbouring chieftain, and by another
man who told him of men with tails who ate their own
children, and other matters which Uso di Mare feared his
readers would think impossible. But after he had in this
miraculous manner lighted ujoon the last living remnant of
the famous Genoese expedition, is it conceivable that this
man, himself a keen explorer, should fail to ascertain and
declare distinctly in his letter on what jiart of the coast of
Africa this city of Mena or Menam, the terminus of the ex-
pedition, lay ? Moreover, neither Antonio de NoUi himself,
who was of a noble familj^, nor his own explorations, were so
insignificant that a communication of the kind from him
upon a matter so intimately connected with the glory of Grcnoa
should be entirely disregarded by his fellow citizens, if such
a communication had been reputed valid. Yet, subsequent
historians of the republic, even to one hundred and thirty
years later, distinctly declare that no news whatever of the
expedition of which they were so justly proud had ever
reached their times.* In presence of such facts, can the
reader accept this preposterous letter as evidence that Prince
Henry was anticipated by the Genoese in rounding Cape
Boyador ? I think not.

But further, the testimony of maps has been adduced
in evidence of the high probability of the Cape of Good
Hope having been rounded in the middle ages before the
time of Prince Henry ; as for example, that of the date of
l;]0(j, by the Venetian Marino Sanuto, an earnest advocate
of a new crusade for the recovery of the Holy Places, f on
which map the South of Africa is surrounded by the sea.
The geography of Sanuto's map itself is derived from the
early middle age cosmographers, and no greater proof can
be given of his real ignorance of the true form of Africa

* Sec Giustiniiiiii, Castigatissimi Annali di (lenova, 1537 (Lib. 3. t'ol. Ill
verso); and Foglieta, Ilistoria' Genuensium Libri xii., 1.585 (Lib. 5. I'ol. 110
verso).

f See his "Liber .-<i'cri'l(iruiii lidiliaiii irueis," i)utilisht'd by liongars.
Hanau, IGll, being part of the seeoud \oluiue of the " Uesta Dei per Francos."

105 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

or she was the hist of the stock, and this was confirmed by the
black secretary of a neighbouring chieftain, and by another
man who told him of men with tails who ate their own
children, and other matters which Uso di Mare feared his
readers would think impossible. But after he had in this
miraculous manner lighted upon the last living remnant of
the famous Genoese exjoedition, is it conceivable that this
man, himself a keen explorer, should fail to ascertain and
declare distinctly in his letter on what part of the coast of
Africa this city of Mena or Mcnam, the terminus of the ex-
pedition, lay? Moreover, neither Antonio de NoUi himself,
who was of a noble family, nor his own explorations, were so
insiffnificant that a communication of the kind from him
upon a matter so intimately connected with the glory of Genoa
should be entirely disregarded by his fellow citizens, if such
a communication had been reputed valid. Yet, subsequent
historians of the republic, even to one hundred and thirty
years later, distinctly declare that no news whatever of the
expedition of which they were so justly i)roud had ever
reached their times.* In presence of such facts, can the
reader accept this preposterous letter as evidence that Prince
Henry was anticipated by the Genoese in rounding Cape
Boyador ? I think not.

But further, the testimony of maps has been adduced
in evidence of the high probability of the Cape of Good
Hope having been rounded in the middle ages before the
time of Prince Henry ; as for example, that of the date of
loOO, by the Venetian Marino Sanuto, an earnest advocate
of a new crusade for the recovery of the Holy Places, | on
which map the South of Africa is surrounded by the sea.
The geograi)hy of Sanuto's map itself is derived from the
early middle age cosmographers, and no greater proof can
be given of his real ignorance of the true form of Africa

* See fJiustiniimi, Castigatissimi Annali di Cronova, l.'J37 (Lil). 3. I'ol. Ill
verso); and Foglieta, IIistori;v Genuonsiuiu Libii xii., l.')85 (Lib. 5. ful. 110
verso).

f Sec his "liiher tieci-c(oniiii lidi'iiuin ( iiicis," puldislu'd liy lloiiRars.
Hanau, Kill, being part of the seLnud \oluiiir ol" the " Uesta I>ci per Traneos."

A F R I C A

FROM THE

LAURENTIAN PORTULANO
1351 .

}/eh'\. ^racia pma luna T3e 0° ecc l"\, feoi Rue mit tvoua;
at" "&ies.VT vii mens ianuarij. a'S i 7*. ipouta'Dcccc.ut miito .
canletaw -paret. xa"o tiieig •7<^febTuary,lui\abuxtT)Les>Jv,\xa1)e \t\ tabula ifta,,
in aumero ?iv fub meius vanuaru iuetite^. cancer- un iti came eu luna.z i^r3"Dib7 74 v.

Jnfiilt rie, cahri

tlfltXtt. tloXttL Co.'vtcL V.

-\

'^^ J. deih-te

. ffO J, Ji Uparjfie ^ fj tit, f,

nil Equuloriu!;

=^,mti^'

.■' \¥^i:,,- l«»?

AFRICA

FROM THE

LAURENTIAN PORTULANO
1351 .

htc i'ia dcftA

maumcro ■>t\_

k

^idw-* W^ll^r Luho

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. M'/

than the followiug note below the Regio 7 montium, " llegio
inhabitabilis propter ealoreiii." In short, a shigle glance at
the map is sufficient to show tliat nothing could well be
further from a delineation of Africa based on actual know-
ledge.

Far more startling than the map of Marino Sanuto is a
map in a Fortulano of the date of 1351, in the Laurentian
Library at Florence, of which the Count ]i)aldelli Boni gave a
facsimile to accompany his valuable edition of Marco Folo,
published at Florence, 1827, 4*^. On this map not only
is a southern extremity given to Africa, but the coast-line
of Guinea is drawn with so much greater an approxima-
tion to correctness than would be expected from the period,
that the Count inferred that both these delineations were
the result of actual discovery. (See map.) This conclusion
however is rendered untenable by a further examination of
the map, for while there is not a single name of river, cape,
or bay, or any other local indication of actual discovery on
the whole line of coast com2)rising the remarkable indenta-
tion supposed to rejiresent the Gulf of Guinea and onwards
round the southern extremity of the continent, the map
does contain, and for the first time as far as we know, names
indicaimg entirely new discoveries amongst the African
islands. These will be spoken of more fully in their appro-
priate place hereafter. For the present it will be sufficient
to speak of such indications as have been referred to on the
west coast of the continent itself. We there find no sign of
local geographical knowledge beyond two rivers corresponding
with the Wad-om-er-Biyeh of modern maps, and the River
Palolus, or River of Gold, as delineated on the Fizzigani map
sixteen years later. And as if to supply one with the oppor-
tunity of rendering this argument the more valid. Count
Baldelli Boni has inserted at the corner of the map a fac-
simile of the fifth map in the Fortulano, and on it are
entered the names of the places already known on the northern
portion of the west coast as far as Cape Boyador, exactly in
accordance with the information supplied by the later Fizzi-

108 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

gani map of 1367. These realities, combined with the fact
that the later Pizzigani map of 1367 and the Catalan map
of 1375 make no pretensions to exhibit such astoiindins: dis-
coveries as those of the Gnlf of Guinea and the roundins: of
the Cape, lead to the reasonable conclusion that the Medicean
map was not, as Count Baldelli Boni infers, intended to
describe any such actual exjDlorations, but merely to pro-
pound a geographical theory based upon traditions and
inferences for which we shall presently be able to show that
authority existed. The only alternative is to suppose that
the successful navigator who had rounded the Cape of Good
Hope, had recorded his stupendous achievement simply in
outline on a carefully executed map, but that his country was
so insensible to the importance and honour of such a discovery
that it left the name of the explorer to sink into oblivion.
This is past belief, and therefore it only remains to show
how the remarkable outline in question can be accounted for.
There were two opinions entertained by the geographers of
antiquity respecting the conformation of the Atlantic Ocean.
Hipparchus the Bithynian, who lived a century and a half
before our era, maintained that it had no connection with
other seas, but formed one great lake. On the other hand
Herodotus, Crates of Malles, Posidonius, Cleomedes, Arrian,
in the Periplus attributed to him, and Strabo, admitted the
possibility of the circumnavigation of Africa. Pomponius
Mela, in the first centurj^, maintained the same belief, and
Julius Solinus, in the third century, distinctly states in the
sixtieth chapter of his " Collectanea rerum Memorabilium,"
speaking on the authority of King Juba, that " all that sea
from India to Gades (Cadiz) was navigable before the north-
west wind." * St. Isidore of Seville, at the beginning of the
seventh century, partook the same opinion ; and in the middle
ages his native country, Spain, which was greatly influenced
by his opinions as well as those of Mela and Solinus, was
the focus of the geographical literature of the Arabs. We

* "Omiio illucl mare ab India us([ue ad Gudes voluit Juba iutelligi uavigabile,
Cori tautiim flatibus."

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 109

have a summary of the two opposing creeds in the words of
the Alexandrian philosopher, Joannes Philoponus, who
also lived in the seventh century; in his work "Do Mundi
Creatione," liber 4. cap. 5, p. 153, he says : "• Some persons
have suspected, following an absurd tradition, that the
Atlantic is united on the south with the Erythrean Sea.
They pretend that several navigators have been carried
by accident from that ocean to the Erythrean Sea, M'hich
is evidently false, for it would require that the ocean
should extend quite across Libya and even under the torrid
zone. Now it is impossible for men to navigate them
on account of the burning heat that prevails." In the map
of Marino Sanuto, already referred to, the southern termi-
nation of the African continent is made to turn greatly to
the east, in conformity with an idea suggested by the author
of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea ; but in the Laurentian
map, of which we now treat, the outline is distinctly ditferent
from any which preceded it or have followed it.

Let us now examine under what influences that outline
may have been laid down, simply as a theoretical exponent
of old ideas confirmed by more recent observations. During
many centuries the Arabs were exclusive masters of the
commerce of the eastern coast of Africa, and had establish-
ments in all the ports and principal islands as far as Sofala.
Further south than Cape Corrientes, however, they did not
venture, because, as Barros tells us (Dec. 1, liv. 8, cap. 4),
their vessels, being sewn with cocoa fibre and not fastened
with nails, " could not stand the shock of the rough seas off
the Cape of Good Hope," — and "several losses of vessels had
occurred in the direction of the Western Ocean. '^ Now the
westward^ trending of the coast south of Cape Corrientes,
suddenly first and continuously afterwards, would naturally
lead to the conclusion that the termination of the African
continent there commenced. There is no difficulty in un-
derstanding__how these notions of the Arabs were communi-
cated to Europeans, for as the former were the purveyors of
the commerce of India and the east coast of Africa bv the

no PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Red Sea, to Alexandria, they would not fail to be questioned
by the merchants of the Mediterranean respecting the
countries whence they came. Moreover, Marco Polo, who
returned from his eastern journey in 1295, speaks distinctly
(book 3, chap. 36) of the prodigious velocity of that south-
ward current which led to this belief, and which was so
strong off the Cape alluded to as to cause it to be afterwards
named by the Portuguese " El Cabo dos Corrientes." In
addition to these facts, the very singularity of the map
affords presumptive proof that it was not the result of a
distinct exploration of so eminently notable a character.

But Count Baldelli Boni wished also to show the high
probability of the Gulf of Gruinea having been already dis-
covered, and if truth always floated on the surface instead
of lying at the bottom of the well, I for one should forth-
with subscribe to his opinion. But let us look a little deeper.
The map is an extract from the first of eight sheets, and the
Count naturally adduced all the evidence which the Portulano
afforded of new and original discovery. Accordingly, on the
corner of this map he has inserted an extract from another,
the fifth in the series, really exhibiting, for the first time
within our knowledge, the unmistakable proof of new
discoveries in the African islands. But, together with
these island novelties, this extract from sheet 5 contains
the corresponding part of North Africa, and there, as Avell
as on sheet 1, we find laid down the erroneous geographical
information derived from ancient authorities and repeated
on later maps, but southward thereof no local information
whatever. Under such circumstances a mere outline,
however striking in its form, cannot, whether applying
to the Gulf of Guinea or the Cape of Good Hope,
be accepted as the result of actual exploration.

Incidental allusion has been already made to the Catalan
map of 1375. We have now to speak of it in a more special
manner, for on the third sheet of that map is the repre-
sentation of a boat-load of explorers off the coast to the
south of Cape Boyador, accompanied by the following legend

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. Ill

in Catalan : " Partich Inxer clfi Jac. Ferer, per anar al riu de
Tor, al goru de Sen Lorens qui es a X de Agost, y fo en
Tan MCccxLVi :" " The ship of Jaime Ferrer started to go
to the River of Gold on St. Lawrence's day, the 10th of
August, 1346." The event here recorded is corroborated by
the following legend, which occurs amongst those already
described on page 102 as having been discovered in the
Genoese archives by M, Griiberg de Hemso. The original
is at foot.* "On St. Lawrence's day, viz., the lOth of
August, 1346, a galley belonging to the Catalan, John Feme,
left the city of the Majorcans with the purpose of going to
Rujaura [the River of Gold], but of said galley no news has
since been received. On account of its length that river is
called Yedamel. It is also called Ruiauri, because the gold
of Pajola is collected in it. You must also know that the
majority of the inhabitants of these parts are employed in
collecting gold in this river, which is a league wide, and deep
enough for the largest shij) in the world."

" This is the Cape Finisterre of West Africa."
It has been inferred by M. d'Avezac from these two
legends that this voyage must have been preceded by many
others, " because," he argues, " one does not fit out an
armament with a fixed destination without knowing ap-
proximately at least the point one has to arrive at."

I now propose to show that the contrary was the case, and
that the expedition was fitted out for the express purpose of
finding the unhnoKn mouth of a river in which gold was
collected, and the existence of which had become known to
the mercantile populations in the Mediterranean through
the medium of commercial intercourse with the Arabs. The

* Eecessit de cu-itate majorisarum Galeatia una Joannis Feme Catalani in
festo Sancti Lavu-entii, quod est in decima die mensis Augusti, anno Domini
1346, causa eundi ad Rujaura, et de ipsa Galeatia nunquam postea aliquid
novum habucnint. Istud liumcn de longitudine vocatur Vedamel et similiter
vocatur Ruiauri, quia in eo reeoUigitur aumm de pajola. Et scire debealis quod
major pars gentium in partibus istis habitantium sunt electi ad colligendum
aurum in ipso flumine, qui habet latitudinem unius legue et fondum pro majori
nave mundi.

Istud est caput finis Terrarum Afirica; occidentalis, etc.

112 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

fact of the voyage having been recorded not only in the
archives of Genoa, but also on the face of a remarkably
handsome map prepared with extreme carefulness and
labour, is a proof that the expedition was one of unusual
importance and anxiety, such as the purpose I have
suggested would involve. Had it been merely an un-
successful venture to a point already known even approxi-
mately, we should not expect to find the expedition recorded
on the face of a map at all, but we should reasonably hope to
find that point laid down with an approximation at least to
accuracy on charts of the period, and especially on the one
on which this individual expedition was recorded. For-
tunately, there are maps existing on which the river in-
dicated by the legends is laid down, and by their help, and
in conjunction with the wording of the legends themselves,
we have an opportunity of testing how far the geographical
information they convey is, either a})proximately or at all,
in accordance with the knowledge which would be derived
from even one antecedent maritime exploration.

The two legends manifestly refer to the same event : they
both record an expedition which started on the same day^br
the purpose of going (in the Catalan per anar, and in the
Latin causa eundi) to the same river. This river, the Ruiauri
or Eiver of Grold, was so called because gold of Pnjola was
collected in it, and from its length it was called Ycdamel.
Now in the Venetian map of the brothers Pizzigani, made in
1367, twenty-one years after the expedition of Jaime Ferrer,
we find laid down in a latitude a, little south of the Canaries
the river Palolus, rising in a large lake, on which is the follow-
ing legend in Latin, " This lake proceeds from the Mountain
of the Moon, and passes through sandy deserts." In the
middle of its course the river bifurcates, and again joins,
forming an island, on which in Latin is the inscription,
"The island Palola; here gold is gatliered." Lito the
opposite or eastern extremity of the lake fiows the Nile, the
eastern branch of which takes its northward course towards
the Mediterranean, in its well-known position. We thus

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 113

find a river exactly corresponcliug with the description of
that for which Jaime Ferrer started on St. Lawrence's da}',
in the year 134(3. Three of the four specialities indicated in
the Genoese document are here substantiated by Venetians
who, like the Genoese, had commercial relations with the
Arabs ; and that on a map bearing no reference whatever
to the voyage of Jaime Ferrer. We have a river on which
gold is collected, and it is the gold of Palola or Paiola, and
we also have an explanation of the expression that from its
length it is called Vedamel. That length may be judged
when it is made to extend from the Nile, delineated in its
true position as falling into the Mediterranean, to another
outlet into the Atlantic a little south of the Canaries. The
fourth speciality of the river as given in the Genoese
document is the name Vedamel itself, which I think I
can show to mean River of Nile in conformity with the
old idea of the Nile having a western outlet into the
Atlantic.

The Genoese document in which the name Vedamel
occurs is so carelessly spelt that the name of "Jay me
Ferrer,*' a well recognisable Catalan name (see " Ferrer," in
Torres Amat's " Escritores Catalanes "), is misspelt "Joannes
Feme;" and the Genoese form for the Rio d'Oro is in the
course of two or three lines spelt both "Rujaura" and
"Ruiauri." It is not difficult therefore to suppose that
"Vedamel" is a misspelling for " Vedanill," in which we
recognisu the Arabic words " Ved" or " Wadi," a river, and
" Nill," the " Nile." Pliny had long ago declared that a
branch of the Nile debouched on the west coast of
Africa, and an ample description of it is given by the
Arab geographer Edrisi in the middle of the twelfth
century, who, after speaking of the sources of the eastern
Nile, says, " The other arm of the Nile (the Nile of the
Blacks) flows into the western districts, and, reaching from
the east to the extreme west, empties itself into the sea not
far from the island of Ulil, which is a day's sail from its
mouth ; and on that Nile of the Negroes, or on another river

I

114 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

which mixes its waters with it, are situated the abodes of
the people of Nigritia."

A reference to the map of Abul- Hassan Ali Ben Omar
(1230) shows us this Western Nile, under the name of Nil
Gana, falling into the Atlantic in about the latitude of the
Gambia. The map of Ibn Said (1274) has it, under the
name of Os Nili Ganah, a little more northward. That of
Abulfeda (1331) with the same name, yet a little more
northward. The retention of the belief in this river as a
branch of the Nile by the Arab geographers is shown by an
Arabic map, preserved to us by M. Jomard in his " Monuments
de la Geographie," by a Moor named Mohammed Ebn-Aly
Ebn- Ahmed al Charfy of Sfax, and bearing date 1009 of the
Hegira, which corresponds with a.d. 1600. That the river
itself was the Senegal is shown by Azurara, the chronicler of
the conquest of Guinea in the time of Prince Henry, who
speaks of it as the Eyo do Nillo, which they call the ^anega.
Both in the Pizzigani map and in the Catalan map which
records the voyage of Ferrer, this river, whose existence was
thus learned from Arab sources, is called the Piver of Gold.

But while this notion of a river of gold, debouching on
the west coast of Africa, was thus handed down geographi-
cally from ancient times, the mercantile cities of Italy
would have the impression more immediately brought home
to them by the gold brought across the desert from Guinea
into the Mediterranean. We find in the treatise " Delia
Decima" of Balducci Pegolotti, who was a factor in the
great Florentine house of the Bardi, and who wrote in the
first half of the fourteenth century, that the malaguette
pepper, which was the product of the Guinea coast, was
then among the articles imported into Nismes and Mont-
pellier ; and De Barros expressly states (Dec. I, fol. 33) that
the malaguette im})orted into Italy before Prince Henry's
time was brought from Guinea by the Moors, who, crossing
the vast empire of Mandingo and the deserts of Libya,
reached the Mediterranean at a port named Mundi Barca,
corrupted into Monte da Barca, and as the Italians were not

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 115

acquainted with tlie locality whence it came, they called it
"grains of Paradise." It would be uureasonahle to doubt
that, with the uialaguette from Guinea, gold was also trans-
ported by these merchants across the desert to their port in
the Mediterranean, and though the Italians were ignorant of
the country whence it came, they would not fail to learn that
it lay somewhere on the western coast of Africa. AVe have
therefore but to repeat the poet's apostrophe to the " auri
sacra fames, '^ to perceive the motive which would induce an
enterprising party of men to encounter extreme danger for the
sake of discovering a sea-path to the mouth of such a river.

But these very maps themselves prove how utterly igno-
rant the i^old Majorcan adventurer was of the position of
that mouth. The Pizzigani map places it north of Cape
Boyador, the Catalan map itself oilers a su(/gcstion onhj of
where that mouth mlgld be^ some short distance south of that
cape. But both these indications resolve themselves simply
into conjectures, inasmuch as neither north nor south of Cape
Boyador is there any riuer at all nhich could by any pretence
he made to correspond nnth the Vedamel or Eujauri till n:e
come to the Serwyal, which is at least seren hundred miles
south of Cape Boyador. Whether Ferrer himself passed
Cape Boyador or not it is impossible to state and futile to
conjecture, for the legend itself tells us that nothing more
was heard of the expedition. That which was subsequently
named the Rio d'Ouro by the Portuguese could by no possi-
bihty have anything to do with the Rio d'Oro which Ferrer
went to seek, for the simple reason that the former is no
river at all, but only an arm of the sea, the appearanca of
which deceived the Portuguese, and to which they gave the
name of the Rio d'Ouro because there they first received
gold in ransom for captives.

For precisely the same reason it is clear that the Rio
d'Ouro of the Portuguese can in no sense be identical with
the Fleuve d'Or referred to in the chronicle of Jean de
Bethencourt's voyage of 1402, and in an extract tlierein
given from the book of a Spanish mendicant friar, who

116 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

asserted that lie had accompanied some Moors in a galley
to that river. It is expedient here to introduce and refute
the extract from this fable, which has also been adduced
to show that Prince Henry's explorers were anticipated on
the west coast of Africa. The words of the mendicant
friar who relates that notable expedition run thus : " They
put to sea, and steered for Cape Non, Cape Saubrun, and
Cape Boyador, and followed the whole coast southward to
the Fleuve de I'Or ; " and according to the said friar, "when
there they found on the river's bank very large ants, which
drew up the grains of gold * from under the ground. The
merchants made considerable gains in this voyage. They
then departed and proceeded along the bank, and found a
very good and very rich island named Gulpis, where they
made great profit and where the people were idolaters.
They then proceeded further and found another island named
Caable, which they left on the right hand, and then they
found on the mainland a very lofty mountain abounding in
all sorts of good things and named Alboc, from which
sprung a very great river. The mountains there are
said to be the loftiest in the world. Some call them
in their language the Mountains of tlie Moon, others the
Mountains of Gold. There are six, from which spring six
rivers, which all fall into the Fleuve de I'Or. There they
form a great lake, and in this lake is an ishaud called Pft//<9?/6',
which is peopled with negroes. Thence the friar proceeded
further till he came to a river named Euphrates, which
comes from the terrestrial Paradise, He crossed it, and
passed through many countries until he came to the city of
Melle, wliere dwelt Prester John. He remained there many
days, for he saw there a considerable number of marvellous
things, of which at present we make no mention in this book
that we may proceed t]\c more rapidly, and for fear the reader
should take them for lies." The possibility of an European
thus crossing tlio continent of Africa and escajMug to tell the

* This is but tho old story from Herodotus of the Indian aiits which were
smaller than a dog hut larger than a fox, and which in nuking their siibtcrruueous
dwellings pushed uj) sand charged wilii gold.

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 117

telle might well be doubted ; but the reader has ordy to recog-
nise iu this language a rcchmijjc of the confused geogra|)hy of
Edrisi, not losing sight of the good friar's stumble over the
reference to the Euphrates,* to judge whether the fear of the
narrator as to his credit for veracity is a reasonable one. What
then becomes of the voyage of the Moors to the Fleuve de I'Or ?
Thus far it has been shown that all the claims of
Genoese and Catalans to the honour of having passed
Cape Boyador before the Portuguese are untenable. We
have now to deal with a claim on behalf of the Dieppese,
which was not set up till the seventeenth century, but
which has since been repeatedly asserted. It was first
put forth in a work entitled " Eelation des Costes d'Afrique
appellees Guinee," &c., par Villaut, escuyer, Sieur de
Bellefond, Paris, 16G9. For the sake of brevity, but in
order that at the same time the account may be given in the
words of a Frenchman, I have selected the summary of the
narrative as extracted from Villaut de Bellefond's work by
M. Estancelin, in his " Recherches sur les voyages et de-
couvertes des navigateurs Normands en Afrique," &c.,
Paris, 1832, 8°. M. Estancelin has also made extracts
from another work which followed that of M. Villaut de
Bellefond half a century later, entitled ''Nouvelle relation
de I'Afrique occidentale," 5 torn. Paris, 1728, 12^, by the
Pere Labat. His summary is as follows : —

'* France, so long and so cruelly the victim of the folly of her
masters, began to breathe again under Charles the Fifth. This
monarch knew how to appreciate the advantages of commerce,
and saw the interest of encouraging that of a province which had
formed his own appanage. The Dieppcse took advantage of these
favourable inclinations. In the month of November, 13G4, they
fitted out two vessels of a hundred tons each, which set sail for
the Canaries. About Christmas they reached Cape Verde, and

* la speaking of a famous and veiy large city of the negroes named ivucu,
Edrisi says, "Some negroes think that this city lies on the Nile itself, others on
a river flowing into the Nile; but in truth the Nile passes through the city Kucu,
and then diffuses itself through sandy plains into the desert, and thence merges
into lakes, just as the Euphrates does in Mesopotamia."

118 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

anchoi'ed before Rio Fresco, in the bay that still in 1669 bore the
name of Bale de France. Passing the coast of Sierra Leone they
stopped at a place, named afterwards by the Portuguese Rio
Sestos. Struck with the resemblance which this place bore to
their native city, they named it Petit Dieppe. Their trade with
the natives procured them, for objects of little value, gold, ivory,
and pepper, from which on their return, in 1365, they gained
immense profit. Encouraged by this first success, in September
in the same year, the merchants of Rouen joined those of Dieppe,
and the company fitted out four ships, of which two were to trade
from Cape Verde to Petit Dieppe, and the other two were to go
further to explore the coast. These instructions were subject to
modifications, which proved fortunate for the owners. One of
the ships destined to pass on further, stopped at the Grand Sestre,
on the coast of Malaguette, for, finding a great quantity of pepper
in this place, it took in a cargo. The other ship traded at the
Cote des Dents, and w^ent on as far as the Grold Coast. It returned
with a large quantity of ivory and a little gold. The people of
this coast not having welcomed the sailors so hospitably as those
of the coast of Malaguette, the company resolved thenceforth to
fix their depots at Petit Dieppe and the Grand Sestre, which the
sailors had then named Petit Paris, in honour" and memory of the
capital of their country.

" These expeditions were all made during the reign of Charles the
Fifth. Factories, which they then called ' loges,' were estab-
lished to facilitate their intercourse with the natives. The ships
thus found their cargoes prepared, and on arriving had only to
unload and reload. As they were too weak to attempt to govern
the natives and to reduce them to submission, the colonists and
sailors felt the necessity of gaining their affection and confidence.
In this they succeeded without trouble ; it needed only to be
humane and just, and above all not to use the scourge of religious
proselytism, the odious and fatal pretext, of which the Spaniards
and Portuguese have made such cruel use to legitimatise the
atrocities which their thirst of gold caused them to commit in the
countries which they conquered. It docs not appear that the
kindly relations which united the Africans with their guests ever
altered. They were, on the contrary, deeply rooted in the
memory of the people, who even preserved for a long time, in
their language, a number of French expressions, which Yillaut de
Bellefond, from whom these details are borrowed, found in his in-

THE SEA OK DARKNESS. 119

terconrse with them. 'The little of the language,' says he, 'that
oue ouu uutlerstaud (in IGGG) is French ; the)' do not call pepper,
as in Portuguese, sextos, but malaguette, and when one lands, if
they have any, the}' crj', "malaguette tout plcin, tout a force de
malaguette," which is the little of our language which they retain.'

" The abundance of spices which the Normans brought back in
their annual voyages, produced a diminution of their value. This
branch of commerce no longer oftering such great profits, the
company sent out, in 1380, a ship of a hundred and fifty tons,
called the ' Notre Dame de Bon Voyage,' which sailed from
Rouen in the month of September, to trade at the Gold Coast, and
if possible to form a settlement there. This ship arrived, towards
the end of December, at the same landing where, fifteen years
before, the second expedition had traded so advantageously. This
expedition was very successful ; the ' Notre Dame ' returned to
Dieppe, nine months after, very richly laden. ' Thus commenced,'
says Bellefond, 'the prosperity of the commerce of Rouen.'

"The year following (1382) three vessels, 'La Vierge,' ' le
Saint Nicholas' and ' I'Esperance,' set sail on the 28th of
September. La Vierge stopped at the first place which had been
discovered on the Gold Coast, which had been named La Mine,
because of the quantity of gold found there. Le Saint Nicholas
traded at Cape Corse and at Moure below la Mine, and I'Esperance
went as far as Akara, having traded at Fautin, Sabou and Cor-
mentin. Ten mouths after the expedition returned safe and
sound with rich cargoes. Their reports fixed the attention of the
company, which thenceforward conceived the idea of directing all
their speculations exclusively to that point. For this purpose
three vessels, two large and one small were sent out in 1383.
The small one was to go to Akara to discover the southern coasts.
The two large ones were ballasted with building materials which
were employed in constructing a station at La Mine. There they
left ten or a dozen men and returned after an absence of ten
months. The small vessel was retarded by the currents which in
those parts present the remarkable phenomenon of two parallel
streams in contact with each other, running with great velocity in
opposite directions. It was only partially successful in its object,
and returned with an incomplete cargo three months before the
two others. When they arrived it was again sent out to carry
provisions to the new colony, which soon afterwards became of
sufficient importance to build a church, 'which,' says Bellefond,

120 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

the Dutch now make use of, and in which may still be seen the
arms of France.' The development of this prosperity was
checked by the frightful calamities which burst upon France
shortly after the accession of Charles the Sixth. The decay of
commerce followed that of the state, and when its sovereign had
lost his reason, France, delivered over to party contentions,
became the prey of Englaiid. At this unhappy period the African
trade began to decrease from year to year, and finally disappeared.
The station of La Mine was abandoned before 1410, and from that
time till after 1450 there is reason to suppose that the Normans
did not attempt any maritime expedition whatever."

The work containing this astonisliing pretension, thus
made for the first time in 1669, without any documentary
corroboration whatsoever, was addressed to Colbert by its
author on his return from a voyage which he had himself
made to Guinea. Its supporters assert that " there is reason
to think that the elements of the accounts were derived from
the registers of the Admiralty at Dieppe, subsequently
destroyed in the bombardment of 1694." The claim was
reasserted in 1728 by the Pore Jean Baptiste Labat, who says
that " the date and other circumstances which he relates are
taken from the MS. annals of Dieppe, which can be seen in

the cabinet of Monsieur , the king's advocate, in the

same city," and, thus unauthenticated, the story has been
over and over again repeated up to the present time. As
therefore, in the one case, the presumable elements of the
account were destroyed, and in the other, have never been
forthcoming from the cabinet of their nameless possessor,
we naturally look for some evidence, either external or inter-
nal, of the trustworthiness of such a pretension. An octavo
book full of daniaging analysis was published by the late
learned Vicomte de Santarem in 1842, * but a few conclusive
facts will render a host of minor ones needless.

And first as to internal evidence. The credibility of IM.
Villaut as an liistorian may be judged irom the fact that he

* Ecclicrclu's sur la prioritc' do la dccouverte dcs pays situes sur la cote
occidcntale d'Al'ritiue au-dcla du Cap Bojailor, par le Vicomte de Santai'em.
Taris, 1842. 8^

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 121

makes the Island of St. Thomas, in tlie Oulf of Guinea, which
Avas not discovered till 1471, when Prince Henry had been
dead eleven years, to have been discovered l)y the Portuguese
on the 23rd of December, 1405, when that Prince was eleven
years old. An author capable of such circumstantial mis-
representation is surely not to be trusted.

Secondly : In the original of Villaut de Bellefond, he says
(page 160) that the word Malaguette, the name of the si)ice
imported from the west coast of Africa, was French, and
uses this fact thus asserted as an argument in confirmation
of his claim. But this assertion is entirely disproved by
the fact already stated at page 114, that in the "Delia
Decima " of Giovanni Balducci Pegolotti (Vol. iii. p. 229),
which was written about 1340,* a quarter of a century before
the date of the earliest j^'^'eteiided intercourse of the Diejypese
with Guinea, malaguette is mentioned as being imported into
Nismes and Montpellier.

But again, if, as is here stated, the merchants of Ptouen
fitted out vessels in conjunction with those of Dieppe,
and continued these exj)editions to the coast of Guinea
every year, whence comes it that the archives of Rouen,
which were not destroyed by a bombardment like those
of Dieppe, should not contain the slightest record of any
such fact? Now it happens that such an association had
really been formed, not in the fourteenth century, but in the
year 1626, and this fact has an interesting connection with
the evidence of maps in reference to the point in dispute.
The Dieppese have indeed much to boast of without resorting
to nnauthenticated assertions to secure to themselves yet
greater honour than they deserve. The finest charts that we
possess of the first half of the sixteenth century are the pro-
ductions of a school of hydrography established at Arqnes, near
Dieppe, by Pierre Deschelier in the beginning of that six-
teenth century. There can be no doubt that this school was
the offspring of the many daring maritime explorations by

* Sco p. 279 of Colonel Yulu's " Cathay and the Koad tliilher," printL-d for
the Hakluyt Society, Lond. 18GG.

122 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

which the Dieppese had for many years distinguished them-
selves. But, as we shall presently have occasion to show,
the watchful jealousy of the Portuguese over their African
possessions kept for a long series of years even Dieppese
daring in check. The result of this was, that although at
the close of the century Dieppese perseverance conquered,
3^et up to the date of 1626, the beautiful maps of the Diejipese
contain no mention of either Petit Dieppe or Petit Paris,
whereas in 1631, five years after the establishment of the
Rouen and Dieppe Company, we do for tlic first time, find
the name of Petit Dieppe laid down on the MS. map of
Jean Guerand of Dieppe.

In such a position of things we naturally look around
for any corroborative evidence whatsoever of this extra-
ordinary claim. Nor has such been wanting. M. Estancelin
has brought to light two i)ieces of testimony by way of
confirmation, which it is a duty to lay before the reader
in full. The first of these is a statement made by Samuel
Braun, a surgeon of Basle, who went out in a Dutcn
vessel to the Gold Coast, and resided at Fort Nassau from
1617 to 1620. His account is printed in the "Appendix
Regni Congo," in De Bry's collection of Petits Voyages,
published in Frankfort, 1625. In it he says, " In this Fort
(Fort Nassau), as well as at Accra, I saw some people above
a hundred and thirty years old, who told me that the Fort
Mina had begun to be built many years before by French
merchants who came to trafiic there. As every year for
three months there were constant rains with strono- whirl-
winds wliich the sailors call Travada, so that the goods were
damaged, the French begged permission of the inhabitants
to build a magazine or warehouse, which, as they were on
very friendly terms, tlie blacks willingly conceded. Accord-
ingly they built a tolerably large warehouse and brought
their goods to land. This was a great furtherance to trafiic,
as the natives who had neither coin or weights exchanged
their gold for merchandise without any measurement but
that of the eye. AVhen the Portuguese learned that the

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 123

French carried on this prolitahle trade with the negroes
tliey fell on them unawares, took possession of the maga-
zine, gave the merchandise to the inhabitants, and assured
them that they would deal with them on better terms than
the French. These poor people readily believed them and
assisted in murdering those who came there afterwards.
Finally the magazine was converted into a castle [misprinted
' chapel '], which is now very strong, and only serves to the
great injury of the natives."

The second quotation is from Doctor Olivier Dapper's
description of Africa, published in Dutch at Amsterdam in
1668 : " The Castle of La Mine " he says, " is a very old
buildmg, as is shown by difl'erent dates in various places.
In a ruined battery restored by our people, some years ago,
and named the Batterie Franc^aise (because it was of French
construction, and because the French, according to the
natives, were established in this place before the Portuguese),
our people found the hrst two tigures of the date 13 — , but
the following numbers could not be deciphered. In the
small inner court there also exists an inscription cut in the
stone, between two old pilasters, but almost entirely effaced
by exposure to the weather, and consequently illegible ;
while at the provision magazine one sees at once that it
was built in 1484, under John II., King of Portugal, as is
shown by the date placed on the door, which is still as clear
and as entire as if it dated only from a few years ago, whence
we must conclude that the other before-mentioned date
must be very ancient."

M. d'Avezac, adverting to these quotations, comments on
them as follows : " This tradition of the natives, thus re-
peated in 1617 to Braun by men one hundred and thirty years
old, that is to say, by men born in the first years of the esta-
blishment of the Portuguese, and whose fiithers had witnessed
the facts recounted in the narrative, is a fact of importance not
to be annulled by sinq)le contradiction. * It is moreover con-

* Hee Ecchcrches sur la priorite, etc., pp. 32, 33, and Bulletin de la Soci^te
de Geographique, cahier de Janvier, 1846, pp. 18 — 19.

124 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

firmed by material indications which are not without their
value. The old inscriptions defticed by time, especially that
which was found by the Dutch in the rains of the old
Batterie Frangaise, show that the first constructions of Fort
La Mine date from the fourteenth century. Besides which
this French warehouse, transformed into a chapel by the
Portuguese, retained even in 1667 the traces of its former
masters. Villaut de Bellefond, who then visited those
coasts, attests this in the most exact manner. ' The Dutch,'
he says, ' now use for their preaching the same chapel
which we built there, in which are still to be seen the arms
of France.' " It is not often that M. d'Avezac makes a
mistake, but here he has chanced to fall into two errors at
once, and between the two M, Villaut makes a fortunate
escape. Had he, as M. d'Avezac supposes, alluded in the
quoted sentence to the " French warehouse transformed into
a chapel by the Portuguese," he would have been in the
ludicrous position of making Dutchmen preach in 1669 in a
chapel which had been built in a moment by a printer's devil
in 1625. A reference to the original of Braun's " Fiinff
Schiffarten," three lines beyond M. d'Avezac's extract, will
show by the words " dieses Castell " that the printer had
misprinted " Capell " for " Castell;" but M. Villaut, it will
be seen, had stated that the French built their own church,
and therefore he derives no confirmation from the extract on
that head.

But all this time the reader will naturally infer that
these several statements could not possibly have been made
unless the French had really been in those parts some
considerable time before ; and so in truth they had been.
The only question is as to the period. The French them-
selves are very indistinct, or rather they seem entirely at
fault, at to the date of what they would call the resumption,
we the commencement, of their intercourse with the coast of
Guinea. That the Portuguese fenced them oil" with jealous
perseverance during tlie early part of I he sixteenth century
is demonstrated by the words of a Diep})e,so caplain in 1531),

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 125

which for a more comprehensive purpose we shall presently
have to quote in full from Ramusio. l>ut that in the latter
half of that century the French did succeed in establishing
themselves on that coast is shown by an expression which
occurs in the third volume of Ramusio, pul)lished in 1565,
page 417 verso, in the editor's " Discorso sopra la Nuova
Francia," where, in speaking of " Guinea and the Malaguette
coast of Africa," he says, " which the French constantly fre-
quent with their shii)s : " and that they carried on an immense
trade in Gruinea grains and ivory is shown by a letter in the
British Museum (Lansdowne xxv. art. 72), addressed to Lord
Burleigh under date of the 9th of March, 1577, by Doctor
David Lewis, Judge of the Admiralty, concerning a cargo
of Guinea grains and elephants' teeth taken by one Batts
from a ship called the Petit Margaux, coming from the river
of Cestos, and belonging to one Thomas de Verins of Diep})e.
We there find the words " by the reporte of suche as be best
acquainted with them of Roan, Deepe, and other places in
Normandye, it should seame that they have an ordinary trade
to the sayd ryver of Ccsto." From the documents which
accompany this letter we learn the amount of this capture,
which consisted of twenty-four tons or butts of Guinea grains,
and seven hundred elephants' teeth. If the cargo of one out
of many vessels ''having an ordinary trade ^' to the Guinea
coast was so rich as this, we can form some notion of the
footing which the French had gained on that coast even for
some years previous to this period.

And this leads us to another incidental proof, though
of a different nature, that it was about the beginning
of the last half of the sixteenth century that the French
established these relations with that coast. M. Vitet, one
of the most zealous advocates of the prior claims of the
Dieppese to African discovery, in his " Anciennes Villes
de France," Paris, 1833, page 244, after having, without
any evidence whatever, simply asserted that the ivoiy
carvings of the Dieppese were as old as the close of the
fourteenth century, lets slip the following confession : —

126 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

" Unfortunately their works of this period are only known
to us by reputation; no trace of them has reached us.
These delicate bijoux with difficulty escape destruction. The
churches only had it in their power to procure some of them,
but the pillage of the altars in the sixteenth century caused
the disappearance of the paxes and crucifixes of ivory, to-
gether with the shrines and gold-embroidered chasubles.
The oldest works of the kind that can be found at Dieppe
were made in the seventeenth century, and they are extremely
rare." Then in a note he says : — " M. Flammand, ivory
dealer in the Grande Rue, is said to possess two small bas-
reliefs of an earlier date than 1600, one representing the
self-sacrifice of Curtius, the other Mutius ;^ca3Vola before
the King of Etruria, but not having seen them I cannot
answer for their style or their antiquity." Bombardments
and pillage seem to have been more effectual in exter-
minating material testimony on important historical questions
during a few centuries in Dieppe, than all the accidents of
thousands of years have effected in Assyria. We have
Assyrian ivories of three thousand years old, as delicate
bijoux as any ever made at Dieppe, and others of inter-
mediate periods from various countries in abundance. No
antiquary, assuredly, will admit so vapid an argument as that
adduced by M. Yitet for the disappearance of his fourteenth
and fifteenth century ivories.

Meanwhile it has been shown that the French had been
connected with the Gold Coast quite long enough to admit
of the existence, in Villaut de Bellefond's time, of a church
then occupied by the Dutch, but containing the arms of
France. And although Dapper's character for trustworthi-
ness seems to be not much better tlian that of M. Villaut,
for the late learned French geographer, M. Eyries, snys of
him (Biographic Universelle de Michaud), that "he was
sometimes so undiscriminating in selectin<r his materials,
that he has misled authors who have trusted him without
making a critical examination of his statements," never-
theless a wliole century was long enough to render possible.

THE SEA or DARKNESS. ' 127

in his time, the existence of a French Lattery as well as
the obliteration of a date (if date it was), exposed to the
animal corrosive action of three months of rain. At the
same time it is clear that the date of 1484 if less exposed or
cut in harder material would, even if older, survive com-
paratively intact. That such was either its position or the
texture of the material, or both, is made quite certain by
Dapper's OAvn words ; for, as the annual rains were an un-
failing reality and the one hundred and eighty years between
1484 and Dapper's time were realities equally inexorable, and
yet the inscription was as sharp and unimpaired as if it had
been only made a few years before, it follows that either its
position must have been sheltered or the material uncommonly
hard. We have thus, it is hoped, cleared the field of all the
witnesses except the superannuated negroes whose memories
at the age of one hundred and thirty enabled them to supply
M. Samuel Braun with intelligence as to what had happened
two hundred years before. These shall be answered presently.
Such is the nature of the evidence adduced in corroboration
of this extraordinary claim ; and M. d'Avezac, by far the most
learned of its advocates, leaves the question with the following
judicial verdict : — " The contemporary documents which
proved the authenticity of these explorations have perished,
and modern criticism takes advantage of this loss to dispute
the genuineness of the narratives which show the establish-
ment of the French on the coast of Guinea, as far as the Gold
Coast, before the end of the fourteenth century. She is in her
right ' dans son droit,' and she avails herself of it. It would
be discourtesy in us to disregard it." JS'oblesse oblige, and if
the evidence closed here, no duty could be more imperative
or more grateful, in the presence of such language, than to
refrain from pressing a case in which an eminently distin-
guished savant finds his arguments weakened solely by an
accident. But we are not left to rest on so loose a foothold
as this. In contravention of the enlightened testimony of
the venerable negroes we are able to adduce Xorman evidence,
before the Portuguese time, and of the very period when the
asserted prior discoveries of the Normans were at their height,

128 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

to show that the Normans knew nothins: of the coast south
of Cape Boyador ; and we have further the evidence of a
Dieppese captain, after the Portuguese discoveries, and earlier
than the earliest statement of any kind in favour of the
Dieppese, showing that the Portuguese were the first dis-
coverers of that coast. The asserted period of Norman
exploration ranges, as we have just seen, from 1364 to 1410,
and we have the unquestioned Norman narrative of the
voyages of Bethencourt in 1402-5, written by the chaplains
who accompanied him. Referring to the Spanish friar's
book already spoken of at page 110, they say: —

" The mendicant friar says in his book that the distance from
Cape Bugeder to the River of Gold is only a hundred and fifty
French leagues as the map shows."

The reader will remember that I have shown (page 1 1 5) that
the indications on the maps were assumptions, not demon-
strated facts. But to continue : —

" This would take three days' sailing in ships or barks, but
longer in the galleys, which can only sail along the coast, so that
it is not in om* power to go there. If things be as the Spanish
friar's book says, and as those say who have visited these countries
[see the disproof of this on page 117] , it is M. Bethencourt's
intention, with the help of God and that of Christian princes and
people, to open the way to the River of Gold. If he succeeded it
would be a great honour and a great profit for the kingdom of
France and all Christian kingdoms, seeing that we should get
near to the country of Prcster John, from which so many good
things and so much wealth are derived. It cannot bo doubted
that much remains to be done which niiiht have succeeded in
times past, ;/' it li'nl been Hiidcrtakcni. He does not boast that he
will succeed, but he will so demean himself that, if ho do not
succeed, both he and his crew shall be held blameless, for he will
spare no pains to decide whether success is possible or absolutely
impossible. But with the help of God he will conquer and
convert to the Christian faith a host of men now in a state of
perdition for want of enlightenment. It is a great pity, for go in
any part of the world you will, you will not find handsomer or
better made men and women than in these islands (the Canaries).
They have great intelligence, and only want teaching. And as the
said Lord do Bethenct)urt lias a great desire to know the con-

THE SEA Ob' DARKNESS. 121)

dition of other neighbouring parts of this country both ishinds and
mainland, ho will spare no paius to got exact information respect-
ing all these countries."

Such was the state of kuowleclg-e and such were the inten-
tions with reference to the west coast of Africa beyond Cape
Boyador entertained by a Norman gentleman of seafaring
tendencies, whose estate of Grainville la Teinturiere hiy only
five-and-twenty miles from Dieppe at the very time when
the pretended Dieppese relations with Gruinea were at their
height. Surely the secrecy of those wealth-producing ex-
peditions must have stood unexampled in the history of the
world.

But to proceed. After Bethencourt's time follow the well-
recognised voyages under Prince Henry. From the rounding
of Cape Boyador to that of the Cape of Grood Hope occupied
from 1434 to 1497; and in 1531) we have a document by a
Dieppese captain^ preserved to us by Eamusio (torn, iii., p.
426 b., 1565 edition), in which occurs a passage, of which
the following is a translation :- -

" This land of Brazil was first discovered in part by the Portu-
guese about five and thirty years ago and as I might

be asked w^hy the Portuguese prevent the French from going to
Brazil and the other places whither they have navigated, such as
Guinea and Taprobana, I could give no other reason than their
insatiable avarice, and although thej^ are the smallest nation in the
world, even this does not seem enough to satisfy their cupidity.
I think they must have drunk of the dust of the heart of King
Alexander to have brought about in them such unlimited greediness,
and they afiect to hold in their closed fists more than they could
enclose in both their hands. I think it is their belief that God
made the sea and the land for them alone, and that other nations
are not worthy to navigate, and if it had been in their power to
put limits and shut up the sea from Cape Fiuisterre to Ireland,
the passage would have been closed long ago ; and there is just
as much reason why the French should not go to those lands, in
which they (the Portuguese) have not planted the Christian religion
and where they are neither loved nor obeyed, as we should have
reason to prevent them from going to Scotland, Denmark, or
Norway, if we luul been there before them."

K

130 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

If words mean anything this is an acknowledgment on
the part of a Dieppese captain * of Portuguese priority in
tlie discovery of the coast of Guinea; and be it observed
that this acknowledgment is made unguardedly in the midst
of a bitter expression of rivalry and complaint against the
latter apropos of their possessions by right of discovery, in
which the power of claiming priority, had the complainant
possessed it, would have been bej'ond all price.

But lest these more splendid pretensions should be met
with an obdurate incredulity, a minor claim has been set up
on behalf of Jean de Bethencourt himself, for the honour of
having at least passed southward of Cape Boyador in anti-
cipation of the Portuguese. The claim is made in respect of
the following occurrence. M. de Bethencourt being in the
island of Fuerteventura, set sail on the 6th October, 1405,
with three galleys for the Great Canary, and the words of
the chronicler are : —

" The vessels were separated at sea, and all three came near
the lands of the Saracens very near to the i^ort of Bugeder, ' bien
pivs du port de Bugeder.' M. de Bethencom-t and his people
lauded and went a good eight leagues into the country. They
took some men and women whom they carried away with them,
and more than three thousand camels. But thej' could not take
all on hoard ; they killed some and hamstrung (or potted) some,
and then returned to the Great Canary."

On the strength of the word " port," in the foregoing
narrative of de Bethcncourt's adventure, it has been reasoned
that henceforth no one can deny to M. de Bethencourt the
lionour of having passed Cape Boyador thirty years before the
Portuguese, wdio boast of having been the first to double it,
inasmuch as it is pointed out that the Port of Boyador is
south of the Cape. Cape Boyador had been for ages the ne
plus ultra of navigation along this coast. "When Gil Eannes
leally doubled this Cape in 1434, it was, as Azurara tells us,

* Now known to bo Jean Parmonticr, who made a voj-agc to Sumatra in
1.529, the first made to the South Seashy a Frenehiiuin. The aecount was in all
probability written by his friend and eulof^ist the poet Pierre Crignon, who
aeeonipanicd him in the voyage.

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 131

" by avoiding certain slioals and rocks which are on certain
reefs exactly laid down on the charts that have been drawn
by the orders of Prince Plenry." The French Admiral Baron
Eoussiu in his " Menioire sur la navigation anx cotes oceiden-
tales d'Afrique," Paris, 1827, 8"^, tells us that Cape Boyador
** when seen from the northward shows a strand of red sand
with a gradual descent towards the sea," and the " African
Pilot," published by our own Admiralty, says that " the
surf is exceedingly heavy all along this shore." Hence we
can understand the difficulties in the way of doubling this
Cape which would be offered to small craft making their
way southward along the African coast. These difficulties
were such as to baffle the efforts of Prince Henry's sailors
for a long series of years. But now for the position of the
bay. In the old editions of the " African Pilot," now very
scarce, is a passage extracted by M, d'Avezac, who has written
an article on the subject,* to the following effect : " Cape
Boyador is surrounded by a reef which extends above a
league into the sea ; to the soutlmard of it you may anchor in
a little bay in four or five fathoms water, but coming from
the northward you must not approach it nearer than twenty
fathoms." The position of this little bay is very minutely
described by Admiral Roussin. He says that " the western
extremity of the Cape, which is very low, forms a small bay with
the cliff which immediately followsy So that the claim set up
for Bethencourt is that he anchored in a bay south of the
very tip of the nose of Cape Boyador. In early maps and
narratives of travels the words port, cape, river, &c., are
used with marvellous recklessness, and if, as is almost cer-
tain, Bethencourt lauded a little north of Cape Boyador,
then famous as the limit of exploration, nothing would be
more natural than the expression that " they came very
near to the Port of Bugeder." The editor of Bethencourt's
voyage himself took this view of the case, for in his preface

* Entitled " Sur la veritable situation du mouillage marque au sud du Cap de
Bugeder dans toutcs les cartes nautiques." Lue a la Societe de Geographic de
Paris dans la seance du 20 Mars, ISiG. Paris, 1843, 80.

K 2

132 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

he says that Bethencoiirt was " thrown by a storm on the
Coast of Africa, vers le Cap de Bogeador," and the French
word " vers " can by no process be made to mean " beyond."
The authors of the narrative also, who elsewhere show them-
selves quite alive to the importance of the subject, make
no claim for the honour of such an achievement on behalf of
their hero. It was not till four centuries and a-half had
transpired that a fellow countryman of Bethencourt's,
my good friend M. d'Avezac, discovered for him a claim
to glory of which neither himself nor his companions
were in any way conscious. But let it for a moment be
assumed that the ships had indeed arrived at the port in
question, it will be seen that neither by skill or knowledge
or courage, but under the unwelcome action of the winds,
they were driven thither from a point in the open sea, which
entailed not one tittle of the sjjecial danger or difficulty
which constituted the glory of " doubling " the redoubted
Cape. Gil Eannes, in 1434, by dint of sheer courage and
perseverance rounded Cape Boyador, which de Bethencourt
never did. The argument seems scarcely deserving the
learned labour of a distinguished writer, for it proves neither
merit nor usefulness in the feat assumed to have been
accomplished, and I should not have thought it desirable
to lay it before the reader were it not that its author regards
it as so great a triumph over Prince Henry's navigators
that he uses the following words, " Thus twenty-nine years
before the so much vaunted enterprise of Gil Eannes we see
the French make a Ghazyah of eight days" [it should have
been leagues] " on the African lands beyond Cape Bugeder.
In the presence of this fact simply enunciated, of what
value are the resounding noise and pompous eclat of a blind
renown?" To our view the honour that attaches to that
fact resolves itself into the very quintessence of a bagatelle,
but by all means let the invited comparison be duly made.
Let the bandage be withdrawn fioni the eyes of Fimie,
that the goddess may hie her lieyond C;q)e Boyador to cull a
garland for the brows of Jean de Bethencourt. It is to be

THE SEA OF DARKNESS. I ','3

feared she u'ill return but empty handed. Yet there are
flowers beycnul that stormy cape, but they grow for those
only who shall win them by predetermined purpose and
unflaiTirinfr exertion. Fame leaves untouched the roses of
St. Mary till they shall be gathered by the weather-beaten
hands of Gil Eannes, that in her name he may offer them at
the feet of his princely master. The value of the meritorious
rounding of Cape Boyador by Gil Eannes in 1434 was that
it led to the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by
Bartholomew Dias in 1487, to the discovery of America by
Columbus in 1492, to the unfolding of the sea way to India
by Vasco da Gama in 1497, to the maritime discovery of
China in 1517, to the discovery of the Straits of Magalhaens
in 1520, and the circumnavigation of the globe in the same
voyage, and to the discovery of Australia by the Portuguese
some ten years later. In the celebration of such mighty
results what ''bruit" could well be too " retentissant,"
what "eclat" could well be too "pompeux?" And now
let us turn aside to do fall justice to the transaction which
precluded the merit of the Portuguese by a priority of
nine and twenty years. Driven by stress of weather, Jean
de Bethencourt, as is supposed but by no means proved,
lights upon a little bay, looking south west, on the extreme
western point of the Cape which was not rounded till nine
and twenty years later. He lands, and thirty years in
advance of the Portuguese, sets an example of that for
which the latter were afterwards reproached. He captures
men and women. In so doing he j^roceeds eight leagues
into the country, but whether his steps were turned north-
ward or southward is not recorded, and, if it were, the fact
could not by any possibility have the worth of a straw. In
short, to put the value of this fortuitous expedition to the
most unequivocal test, it could not enable any cartographer
to add one iota of information to the chart of the west coast
of Africa. That the sea of darkness was visited by some
glimpses of light before the time of Prince Henry is true,
but these must be treated of in another chapter.

CHAPTER VIIL

GLIMPSES OF LIGHT.

There has been a belief prevailing in every religion from
the oldest times that the souls of the departed cannot enter
into bliss without first crossing a river. The doctrine
originated apparently in India, whence it passed into Assyria
and Chaldea, and so into Persia. From Asia it extended
into Greece and Egypt, thence through Ethiopia to the
country of the Gallas, and at length we find it, as Bowdich
tells us, among the natives neighbouring on the country of
the Ashantees. Even to the mythic Jordan of the Christian
the idea has still obtained. In the poems of Homer the
ocean is treated as a river beyond which, at the earth's con-
fines, were the Elysian fields, which Hesiod and Pindar
made to be surrounded by water, so that the habitations of
the blest were transformed into islands, and hence, as it has
been supposed, originated the name of the Insular Fortunata?
or Fortunate Islands.* These remained, hoAvever, no better
than islands of fable, lying remote wherever fancy suggested,
till solidity was given them by the discovery of the Canaries
in tlie outlying ocean, and at length the land of spirits had
assigned to it in men's minds a somewhat more definite
geographical position. It is in the highest degree probable

♦ I am indebted for this deduetion to the learned treatise by the venerable
Joaquim da Costa de Maeedo, entitled : " IMenioria em que se pertende de provar
que OS Arabes uiio conheceriio aa Canarias autes dos Portuguezes." Lisboa
1844. fol.

GLIMPSES OF IJGHT. 135

tliat the PliOBnicians had been the original discoverers of the
Canaries. Strabo tells us, lib. 3, "The poets make mention
of the Islands of the Blest, and we know that even now they
are to be seen not fiir from the extremity of INIauritania,
opposite Gades (Cadiz). Now I say that those who jjointed
out these things were the Phoenicians, who before the time of
Homer had possession of the best part of Africa and Sjjain."
It may therefore be reasonably presumed that the Canary
Islands were known to the Carthaginians established at
Gadir or Cadiz, but that the monopolizing policy of that
nation referred to by Diodorus induced them to conceal from
other countries the extent of their commercial relations.

After the third Punic war the attention of the world was
directed to other conquests, and it was not till about
eighty-two years before our era that we find the Fortunate
Islands brought afresh under notice. The Roman armies
were in Spain. Sertorius fleeing from the ships of Annius
had passed through the Straits and turning to the right had
landed a little above the mouth of the Guadalquivir, then
called the Ba^tis, when he fell in with some Lusitanian
sea captains who had just returned from the Fortunate
Islands, and their description of them is given us by
Plutarch in his Life of Sertorius. It is as follows : " They
are two islands separated only by a narrow strait, and
distant from Africa ten thousand stadia [or five hundred
leagues]. They are called the Fortunate Islands. It rains
there but seldom and then softly. The winds are generally-
agreeable and bring with them refreshing showers which
fertilise the earth, and make it not only produce anything
that is planted, but supply spontaneously excellent fruits
for the abundant nourishment of a happy people who pass
their lives in the most delicious idleness. The changes of
the season are always gentle and the air is pure and whole-
some. The north and east winds which blow from our
continent in traversing so great a space expend their force
before they reach those islands. The winds from the west
and south sometimes bring gentle rains, but for the must

136 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

part only refreshing vapours sufficient to make the ground
fertile. All these advantages have established even amongst
the barbarians the generally received opinion that these
islands contain the Elysian fields, the abode of happy souls
celebrated by Homer.-" M. Bory de St. Vincent fancied
that he recognised in these islands Madeira and Porto
Santo, but the fact of the latter not being inhabited
precludes that idea. It is more probable, judging by their
distance from each other and from the continent, that
Lancer ote and Fuerteventura are referred to. This glowing
account inspired Sertorius with the most ardent desire to
retire from the toils of life and seek repose in these blissful
islands, but circumstances forbade the realization of his wish.

Twenty years after the death of Sertorius we have five
islands specified by distinct names in a vague itinerary
drawn up by one Statins Sebosus from the accounts of
navigators of his time and preserved to us by Pliny. He
represents the group to which he gives the name of Hespe-
rides as one day's sail from the western promontory (Cape
Non). He names them (1) Junonia, at 750 miles from
Grades (Cadiz), (2) Pluvialia and (3) Capraria, 750 miles
west of Junonia, and 250 miles beyond to the left of
Mauritania and towards the ninth hour of the sun were the
great Fortunate Islands, one called (4) Convallis and the
other (5) Planaria on account of their form ; but all these
indications are too indistinct to supply us with any informa-
tion beyond the fact that in the time of Sebosus five islands
of the Canary group had received individual names.

Happily we are supplied also by Pliny with information of
a far more distinct character respecting these islands. When
King Juba the Second was reinstated by Augustus on the
throne which his father had lost, on his return to j\Iauri-
tania he turned to account the geographical knowledge
which he had acquired through his education in Italy, and
sent out an expedition for the express purpose of exploring
the Fortunate Islands. On the return of the navigators he
wrote a narrative of the voyage from their report, and sent it

GLIMPSES OF LIGHT. 137

to the emperor. A fragment only of that narrative survives,
and has been transmitted to us by Pliny in the following
shape: "The Fortunate Islands lie to the south-west, at
625 miles fi-om the Purpurarias. To reach them from the
latter they first sailed 250 miles westwards and then 875
miles to the east.* The first is called Ombrios, and contains
no traces of buildings. There is in it a pool in the midst of
mountains, and trees like ferules, from which water may be
pressed, which is bitter from the black kinds, but from the
lighter ones pleasant to drink (sugar cane). The second is
called Junonia, and contains a small temple built entirely of
stone. Near it is another smaller island having the same name.
Then comes Capraria, which is full of large lizards. Within
sight of these islands is Nivaria, so called from the snow
and fogs with which it is constantly covered. Not far from
Navaria is Canaria, so called on account of the great number
of large dogs therein, two of which were brought to King
Juba. There were traces of buildings in this island. All
the islands abound in apples and in birds of every kind, and
in palms covered wdth dates, and in the pine nut. There is
also plenty of honey. The papyrus grows there, and the
Silurus fish is found in the rivers. (See Pliny, Nat. Hist.,
lib. 6, cap. 37.) In Ombrios we recognise the Pluvialia of
Sebosus, the words being synonymous. Convallis becomes
Nivaria, and Planaria is replaced by Canaria, which name is
still borne by the large central island, and has now been
given to the whole Archipelago. There is no difiiculty in
fixing the island named Nivaria, a name which clearly in-
dicates the snowy peak of Teneriffe, almost constantly capped
with clouds. In Ombrios or Pluvialia, with its pool in the
midst of mountains, we recognise the island of Palma, with
its famous Caldera or cauldron, the crater of an old volcano.

* The " three hundi-ed " is omitted in some editions of Pliny, but that they
are necessary is evident from the account of Pliny himself. It is clear that the
625 miles is reckoned in making the periplus of the whole group, the 2-50 tully-
ing with the distance from Fuertevcntura, one of the PurpurariiT>, to Onihrios or
Palma. The 375 would he the length of the eastern return track from raliua
round the group.

138 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

The distance also of this island from Fuerteventura agrees
witli that of the 250 miles indicated by Jiiba's navigators
as existing between Ombrios . and the Purpurarife. It has
been already seen that the latter agree with Lancerote and
Fuerteventura in respect of their distance from the continent
and from each other, as described by Plutarch. That the
Purpurarite are not, as M. Bory de St. Vincent supposed,
the Madeira group, is not only shown by the want of in-
habitants in the latter, but by the orchil, which supplies the
purple dye, being derived from and sought for specially from
the Canaries and not the Madeira group, although it is to be
found there. Junonia, the nearest to Ombrios, will be Gro-
mera. It may be presumed that the temple found therein
was, like the island, dedicated to Juno. Capraria, which
implies the island of goats, agrees correctly with the island
of Ferro, which occurs next in the orcler of the itinerary, for
these animals were found there in large numbers when the
island was invaded by Jean de Bethencourt in 1402. But a
yet more striking proof of the identity of this island with
Capraria is the account of the great number of large lizards
found therein. Bethencourt's chaplains, describing their visit
to the island in 1402, state : — " There are lizards in it as big as
cats, but they are harmless although very hideous to look at."

It was probably the desire to bring these mysterious
islands within the grasp of history that induced King Juba
to send out this expedition, and although the blessedness that
was looked for formed no part of the discovery, yet as these
were the only islands that were lighted upon in the ocean where
they were sought for, they were assumed to be the genuine
Insula3 Fortunat{\?, and accordingly retained the name.

For thirteen centuries from the time of which we have
been speaking, the Fortunate Islands were destined again
to be almost buried in oblivion. The destruction of the
Roman Empire re-plunged Europe into ignorance, and
although the Fortunate Islands were vaguely known to the
Moors of Spain under the designation of the Islands of
Khaledat, it has been elaboraLcly shown by the eminent

GLIMPSES OF LIGHT. 139

Portuguese savant, now venerable in years, Senhor Joaquira
Jose da Costa cle Macedo, that the Arabs had no practical
knowledge of the Canaries before the times of the Portu-
guese discoveries. He maintains that the only notions they
had respecting them, were such as they derived from Greek
and Latin authors, and he seems satisfactorily to have proved
his point.

It was not till the beginning of the fifteenth century, when
the Norman Jean de Bethencourt established himself in
the Canaries, that something like substantial information
respecting those islands was made accessible to Europeans.
Much earlier expeditions it is true had been attempted, but
of the navigators who visited those islands before the
fifteenth century, some only landed accidentally, and others
went for the purpose of taking slaves, or goats' flesh, or else
to gather orchil for dyeing, and dragons' blood or other
products that might be useful in commerce. That the
Canaries were visited, but visited only, by the Portuguese,
even earlier than the year 1345 is proved by a passage in a
letter from Alphonso fourth King of Portugal to Pope
Clement Vl. which was written under the following circum-
stances. When Alphonso the eldest son of the Infant Don
Ferdinand, and grandson of King Alfonso the Wise, was
deprived by his uncle Dom Sancho of the succession 1;o the
Crown of Castile, he retired in indignation to France to the
Court of his uncle Philippe le Bel. He there married
Marhaut or Mafalda daughter of Amery VI., Viscount of
Narbonne, by whom he had Luis of Spain, called by almost
aU the Spanish historians, Luis de la Cerda, Count of
Talmond, and Admiral of France. On the death of John
III., Duke of Britany, a civil war divided the country into
two parties. England took the part of the Count de Mont-
fort, the Duke's brother, while the King of France main-
tained that of his nephew the Count de Blois, who had been
called to the succession by the Duke himself. In this
contest, Don Luis commanded in several engagements
against England, till at length Pope Clement VI. obtained

140 PRINCE DENRY TEE NAVIGATOR.

a truce, signed at Malestroit on the 19th January, 1343,
which was to last three years, so that terms of peace might
in the interval be negociated in the Pope's presence at
Avignon, One of the plenipotentiaries was Luis of Spain,
and as the negociations were greatly protracted by repeated
delays on the part of the King of England, he remained
there till the beginning of the year 1345.

During his stay at Avignon, Don Luis represented to the
Pope that there were islands in the ocean, named the
Fortunate Islands, some of which were inhabited and others
not, and that he wished to obtain possession of these for
the exaltation of the Faith and the sjjread of Christianity,
and for this purpose he prayed his Holiness to grant him
the necessary authority and the title of King of these
islands. The Pope granted his request, and by a Bull
dated from Avignon, November 15th, 133-1-, bestowed on
him the lordship of the Fortunate Islands with the title
of Prince of Fortune, to remain in perpetual fief to the
Apostolic See, to which it should pay annually 400 florins
of good and pure gold of Florentine coinage ; and Don Luis
gave an acknowledgment of the fief on the 28th of November
of the same year. At the same time the Pope wrote letters
to the Kings of France, of Sicily, of Aragon, of Castile, and
Portugal, as well as to the Dauphin, and to the Doge of
Genoa, desiring them to help the new king in this enter-
prise. The reply of the King of Portugal contains the
l)assage to which allusion has been made. While submit-
ting, from habitual reverence, to the desire of his Holiness,
he reminded him that he had already sent out expeditions to
those islands, and was only i)rcvented from sending out a
large armada by the wars in which he became involved, first
with the King of Castile, and afterwards with the Saracens.
The letter finished with the King's excusing himself on
account of the exhausted condition of his treasury from
supplying Don Luis with ships and soldiers, but expressing
his willingness to furnish him to the extent of his power
with provisions, and other supplies. This letter was dated

GLIMPSKS OF LIGHT. 141

from Monte ^Mor, 12th of February, 1345. The war with
Spain, to which the king referred, broke out at the close of
133(>, whence it follows that his assertion that he had
thereby been prevented from sending out a large armada to
those islands, either means that previously to that year the
Portuguese had sent out expeditions to the Canaries or that
expeditions which he had sent out during the war would, but
for the war, have been equipped on a grander scale. Mean-
while we have evidence to show that in 1341 a voyage was
made to the Canaries, under the auspices of the King of
Portugal, in a narrative for which we are indebted to the poet
Boccaccio, and which has been rescued from oblivion so
recently as 1827 by the learned Sebastiano Ciampi. It was
derived from letters written to Florence by certain Florentine
merchants established at Seville, under date of the 1 7 kalend
of December, 1341.

The narrative records that ^' On the 1st of July of that same
year, two vessels furnished by the King of Portugal with all
the necessary provisions, and accompanied by a smaller
vessel, well armed and manned by Florentines, Genoese,
Castilians, and other Spaniards, among whom were naturally
included Portuguese, for the word Hispani included all in-
habitants of the Peninsula, set sail from Lisbon, and put out
into the open sea.* They took with them horses, arms, and
warlike engines for storming towns and castles, in search of
those islands commonly called the ' Eediscovered.' The
wind was favourable, and on the 5th day they found land.
They did not return till the month of November, when they
brought back with them four of the natives, a large quantity
of goat skins, the fat and oil of fish, and seal skins ; red
wood which dyed almost as well as the verzino (Brazil
wood), although connoisseurs pronounced it not to be the
same ; the barks of trees to stain with a red colour ; red
earth and other such things. Nicoloso de Recco, a Genoese,

* " The Florentine who went with these ships M'as Angclino del Tcgghia dei
Corbizzi, a cousin of the sons of Gherardino Gianni," according to what we leai-n
from a marginal note by Boccaccio.

142 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

tliG pilot of this expedition, stated that this archipelago was
nearly nine hundred miles from the city of Seville ; but that
reckoning from what is now called Cape St. Vincent, the
islands were much nearer to the continent, and that the first
of those which they discovered [most probably Fuerteventura]
was a hundred and fifty miles in circumference ; it was one
mass of uncultivated stony land, but full of goats and other
beasts, and inhabited by naked men and women, who were like
savages in their appearance and demeanour. He added that
he and his companions obtained in this island the greater part
of their cargo of skins and fat, but they did not dare to
j)enetrate far into the country. Passing thence into another
island [Great Canary], somewhat larger than the first, a
great number of natives of both sexes, all nearly naked, came
down to the shore to meet them. Some of them, who seemed
superior to the rest, were covered with goats' skins coloured
yellow and red, and, as far as could be seen from a distance,
the skins were fine and soft, and tolerably well sewn
together with the intestines of animals. To judge from
their gestures, they seemed to have a prince, to whom they
showed much respect and obedience. The islanders showed
a wish to communicate with the people in the ship, but
when the boats drew near the shore, the sailors who did not
understand a word that they said did not dare to land.
Their language however was soft, and their pronunciation
rapid and animated like Italian. Some of the islanders then
swam to the boats, and four of them were taken on board
and afterwards carried away. On the northern coasts of the
island, which were much better cultivated than the southern,
there were a great number of little houses, fig trees and
other trees, palm trees which bore no fruit, and gardens
with cabbages and other vegetables. Here twenty-five of
the sailors landed, and found nearly thirty men quite naked,
who took to flight when they saw their arms. The build-
ings were made with much skill of S(piarc stones, covered
with large and handsome pieces of wood. Finding several
of them closed the sailors broke open the doors with stones.

GLIMPSES OF LIGHT. 143

which enraged the fugitives, who filled the air with their
cries. The houses were found to contain nothing beyond
some excellent dried figs, preserved in palm baskets, like
those made at Cesena, corn of a much finer quality than the
Italian, not only in the length and thickness of its grain but
its extreme whiteness, some barley and other grains. The
houses were all very handsome and covered with very fine
wood, and as clean inside as if they had been whitewashed.
The sailors also came upon a chapel or temple, in which
there were no pictures or ornament, but only a stone statue
representing a man with a ball in his hand. This idol, other-
wise naked, wore an apron of palm-leaves. They took it
away and carried it to Lisbon. The island seemed to be
thickly peopled and well cultivated ; producing not only
corn and other grain, but fruits, principally figs. The
natives either ate the grain like birds, or else made it into
flour, and ate it with water without kneading. On leaving
this island they saw several others, at the distance of five, ten,
twenty, or forty miles, and made for a third, in which they
remarked nothing but an immense number of beautiful trees
shooting straight up to the skies [most probably Ferro,
remarkable for its magnificent pines]. Thence to another,
which abounded in streams of excellent water and wood
[Gomera]. They found also many wild pigeons, which they
killed with sticks and stones. They were larger and of better
flavour than those in Italy. Falcons and birds of i)rey were
numerous. The sailors ventured but a very little way into
the country. At length they discovered another island, the
rocky mountains of which were of immense height and
almost always covered with clouds, but what they could see
during the clear weather seemed very agreeable, and it
appeared to be inhabited [Palma]. They afterwards saw
other islands, making in all thirteen, some of them inhabited
and some not, and the further they went the more they saw.
They remarked the smoothness of the sea which separates
these islands, and found good anchorage, although there were
but few harbours, but all the islands were well provided

14 i PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

with water. Of the thirteen islands five were inhabited,
but some were much more populous than others.* The
languages of these people were said to be so different, that
those of one island did not understand those of another, and
they had no means of communication except by swimming.
A phenomenon which they witnessed on one of these islands
[Teneriffe] deterred them from lauding. On the summits
of a mountain which they reckoned to be more than thirty
thousand feet high they observed what from its whiteness
looked like a fortress. It was however nothing but a sharp
point of rock, on the top of which was a mast, as large
as a ship's mast, with a yard and a lateen sail set upon it.
This sail when blown out by the wind took the form of a
shield, and soon afterwards it would seem to be lowered,
together with the mast, as if on board a vessel, then again
it was raised and again would sink, and so alternately.

" They sailed round the island, but on all sides they saw
the same phenomenon, and thinking it the effect of some
enchantment, they did not dare to land. They saw many
other things also, which Niccoloso refused to relate. At any
rate the islands do not seem to have been very rich, for the
sailors hardly covered the expense of the voyage.

" The four men whom they carried away were young and
beardless, and had handsome faces. They wore nothing
but a sort of apron made of cord, from which they hung a
number of palm or reed fibres of a hair's-breadth and a half
or two hairs'-breadth, which formed an effectual covering.
They were uncircumcised. Their long light hair veiled their
bodies down to the waist, and they went barefooted. The
island whence they were taken was called Canary, and was
more populous than the others. These men were spoken to
in several languages, but they understood none of them.
They did not exceed their captors in stature, but they were
robust of limb, courageous, and very intelligent. When

* Thirteoa is correct if the desert islands be added to the seven inhabited
ones. Those inhabited are here counted live instead of seven, doubtless from
defective exploration.

GLIMPSES OF LIGHT. 145

spoken to by signs, they replied in the same manner, like
mutes. There were marks of deference shown from one to
another; but one of them appeared more honoured than the
rest. The apron of this chief was of palm leaves, while
the others wore reeds painted in yellow and red. They sang
very sweetly, and danced almost as well as Frenchmen.
They were gay and merry, and much more civilised than
many Spaniards. When they were brought on board, they
atCj some bread and tigs, and seemed to like the bread,
though they had never tasted it before. They absolutely
refused wine, and only drank water. Wheat and barley
they ate in plenty, as well as cheese and meat, which was
abundant in the islands, and of good quality, for although
there were no oxen, camels, or asses, there were plenty of
goats, sheep, and wild hogs. They were shown some gold
and silver money, but they were quite ignorant ol the use
of it ; and they knew as little of any kind of spice. Rings
of gold, and vases of carved work, swords and sabres were
shown to them ; but they seemed never to have seen such
things, and did not know how to use them. They showed
remarkable faithfulness and honesty, for if one of them
received anything good to eat, before tasting it, he divided
it into portions which he shared with the rest. Marriage
was observed among them, and the married women wore
aprons like the men, but the maidens went quite naked,
without consciousness of shame."

Meanwhile the Prince of Fortune made but little progress
towards the acquirement of the royal domain with which the
Pope had endowed him. In short, the whole project proved
a mere abortion, and neither the treasury of the Pope, the
property of Don Luis, nor the knowledge of the geography
of the Canaries, were advanced one iota thereby.

The enterprise of the Norman Jean de Bethencourt, a
century and a half later, was of a far more persistent and
effectual character. Having conceived the project of con-
quering the Canaries, which were then only frequented by
merchants or Spanish pirates, he assembled a body of adveu-

L

146 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

turers, among whom was a knight named Gadifer de la Salle,
who joined him at Rochelle. He first made a descent
on the island of Lanccrote, established himself there, and
undertook the conquest of the other islands ; but not having
enough people to effect this enterprise, he went to ask help
of the King of Castile, to whom he made homage of the
islands. The King conceded to him the sovereignty of
the Canaries, with the right of coining money. He also
gave him twenty thousand maravedos for present expenses,
and a well-found ship with eighty men. By means of these
reinforcements he subjugated the island of Fuerteventura.
He then revisited France, and there collected a new troop
of peojjle of all classes, with their wives and children, whom
he brought to his new states, and succeeded in conquering
the island of Ferro. Resolving now to finish his days in
France, he distributed his lands to those who had helped in
his conquest, and named his nephew Maciot de Bethencourt
governor-general, as his representative ; enjoining him to do
justice according to the customs of France and Normand3^
He set out on the loth December, 1405, first for Spain,
where he renewed his homage, and obtained a bishop for the
Canaries. Thence he went to Rome, where he received from
the Pope the bull of installation for the Spanish bishop.
He returned in 1406 to his lands in Normandy, and died in
1425.

It will have been seen in a previous chapter that on the
authority of the great Portuguese historian, De Barros, the
names of Porto Santo and Madeira were for three centuries
accepted as having been, for the first time, given to those
islands on their assumed first discovery by Zarco and Vaz, in
1418-20. But while it is to the Portuguese, under the
auspices of I'rince Henry, that we owe the colonization of
tlie lovely island of Madeira, and the development of its
valuable resources, there can be no doubt that its discovery,
although neglected, had already been made at an earlier
period. From Lisbon, nevertheless, it would seem, if an
ingenious inference by the learned M. d'Avezac be correct,

GLIMPSES OF LIGHT. 147

the first expedition took place which was to remove, tliougli
but with a shadowy hand, some portion of tlie mist which
held that island enveloped in Atlantic obscurity.

In that deluge of Mahometan invasion which, so soon
after the rise of the false prophet, overswept the surface of
civilized humanity with a force unexampled in the history of
ancient Rome, the Iberian peninsula at length became a
victim. After the death of Don Roderic and the extinction
of the kingdom of the G-oths at the beginning of the eighth
century the Moslems with wonderful rapidity compelled
nearly the whole of Spain as well as Portugal to yield to
their victorious arms. Cordova and Granada became the
two principal seats of government, and Lisbon also became
essentially a Mussulman city. " From Lisbon," then,
according to Edrisi, who was the first to write an account of
the voyage, '' the Maghrurins, or ' strayed ones,' set sail
with the object of learning what was on the ocean, and what
were its boundaries. They were eight in number, and all
related to each other. Having built a transport boat, they
took on board water and provisions for many months, and
started with the first east wind. After a sail of eleven days
or thereabouts, they reached a sea whose thick waters ex-
haled a foetid odour, concealed numerous reefs, and were but
faintly lighted. Fearing for their lives, they changed their
course and steered southwards for twelve daj^s and reached
the island of El Ghanam, so named from the numerous
flocks of sheep which pastured thereon without a shepherd
or any one to tend them. On landing the}^ found a spring
of running water and some wild figs. They also killed some
of the sheep, but the flesh was so bitter that they could not eat
it, and they were obliged to content themselves with taking
the skins. For twelve days more they sailed southwards, and
discovered an island in which were habitations and cultivated
fields. As they approached it they were surrounded by boats,
made prisoners, and carried in their own boats to a city on
the sea-shore. They reached a house in which were men of
tall stature, dark-skinned, with short but straight hair, and

l2

148 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

women of uncommon beauty. In this house they were con-
fined for three days, and on the fourth there came to them
a man who spoke Arabic, and who asked them who they
were, what they sought, and where they came from. They
related to him their adventures, and he gave them good
encouragement and told them that he was the king's inter-
preter. Two days afterwards they were presented to the
King, wlio put similar questions to them; to which they
replied that they had ventured out to sea for the purpose of
making themselves acquainted with its wonders and curiosi-
ties, and of ascertaining its limits. When the King heard
them talk in this fashion he laughed heartily, and told the
interj)reter to explain to them that in former times his
father had ordered some of his slaves to venture out on
that sea, and that after sailing across the breadth of it for a
whole month they found themselves dejirived of the light
of the sun, and returned without having either gained or
learned anything. The King furthermore desired the inter-
preter to assure the adventurers of his friendly disposition.
They returned to their prison and there remained until a west
wind arose, when they were blindfolded and put on board a
boat and taken out to sea. When they had been out three
days and three nights they reached land, and the wanderers
were put on shore with their hands tied behind them, and
there left. They remained there till sunrise in a miserable
condition from the tightness of the cords with which they
were bound, but hearing some laughter and human voices
near them they began to shout. Some of the inliabitants of
the country came to them, and seeing their wretched plight,
unfastened them and questioned them as to tlieir adventure.
They were Berbers, and one of them asked the wanderers if
they knev; how far they were fi'om their own country. On their
answering in the negative, he told them that it was two
months' sail. The person who seemed to be of most con-
sideration amongst them said repeatedly Wasafi (alas), and
accordingly they took that to be the name of the locality,
and ever since it continues to bear the name of Asafi. Tliev

GLIMPSES OF LIGHT. 149

reached Lisbon in considerable confusion at their disappoint-
ment, and from that received the name of the Mag-ln-urins,
or ' strayed ones,' and from these adventurers a street at the
foot of the hot bath in Lisbon took the name of the street
of the Maghrurins." On this story M. d'Avezac makes the
following- ingenious observations : — " Eleven days west of
Lisbon and then twelve days to the sontli would bring them
to Madeira, which would be the island of El Ghanam or El
Aghnam, the latter being the plural of the former word,
which means, ' small cattle.' The name El Aghnam has a
remarkable resemblance in sound to the Italian name of the
island Legname, which occurs, as will be presently seen, on
maps anterior to the Portuguese discovery, and of which
name Madeira was simply a translation. It should be ob-
served, however, that the word Ghanam or Aghnam, which
generally implies flocks of sheep, would here rather mean
herds of goats, whose flesh is rendered bitter, according to
M. Berthelot, the author of the ' Natural History of the
Canaries,^ by a plant, le coquerel, which they sometimes
browze upon." Whether M. d'Avezac's ingenious derivation
be correct or not, it is certain that the Madeira group was
discovered in the early part of the fourteenth century, and
I now propose to prove that that discovery was made in
Portuguese ships commanded by Genoese captains.

In the Portulano Mediceo of the date of 1351 in the Library
at Florence, an extract from which the reader has already seen,
the Madeira group is distinctly represented, bearing names,
in the two instances of Porto Santo and the Desertas, identi-
cal with those which they at present bear, while the island of
Madeira is called " Isola dello Legname " or " Island of Wood,"
of which the name " Madeira" is simply a translation. The
Portulano is anonymous, but Count Baldelli Boni in his
valuable edition of the "Milione of Marco Polo," published
in Florence in 1827, adduced admirable proofs to show that
it was of Genoese construction. Against the island of
Lan9arote in the Canaries is inserted the shield of Genoa,
distinctly claiming the priority of discovery in favour of

150 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

that republic, and Count Baldelli with reason remarks that
no Venetian or Pisan or Catalan would be the first to lay
down, on a map so important, a fact in favour of their rivals
the Genoese. It is right however to observe that on the
later Venetian map by the brothers Pizzigani of 1367, and
in the Catalan map of 1375 this remarkable indication is
inserted. Perhaps a stronger argument is derived from the
use of the Genoese dialect in the names in preference to
that of Venice or Pisa. Now if upon a Genoese map we
find both the Madeira group and the Canary gTOup laid
down for the first time within our knowledge, but with the
arms of Genoa inserted against the latter, but not against
the former, the legitimate inference is that in the one case
a claim was reserved for Genoa to which in the other they
could make no pretensions. It is this theory which I now
propound as a new one, and which I propose to corroborate
by well authenticated historical facts. M. d'Avezac, with
his usual untiring research, has bestowed great labour upon
the inquiry into the discovery and naming of the Island of
Lan^arote. He has shown that the discoverer was of the
ancient, but now extinct, Genoese family of Malocello. In
the visit of the Norman knight Jean de Bethencourt to that
island in 1402, it is said that they stored their grain in an
old castle reputed to be built by Lancelot Maloisel. In a
Genoese map of the date of 1455, made by Bartolommeo
Pareto, are inserted against the same island the words
" Lansaroto Maroxello Januensis," and further we are led to
believe that the discovery was made as early as the thirteenth
century from a ))assage in Petrarch which declares that
a patrum metnoria, i.e. a generation back, an armed fleet of
Genoese had penetrated as for as the Fortunate Islands.
Now as Petrarch was born in lo04, if, as is highly probable,
LancL'lote Malocello's voyage was the one alluded to, it
will have taken place at the latest in the close of the
thirteenth century. We thus find a reason for the reserva-
tion by Genoese map makers of the claim of their country
to the Island of Lanrarote ; but it may be asked, if the

GLIMPSES OF LIGHT. 151

Genoese were the first, as it appears, to delineate the Madeira
group upon a map, and thereby to show that they were the
discoverers of that group, how comes it that they did not
claim it for tlieir own by the same process adopted with
reference to Lani^arote ? There can be no doubt that, if they
could have set up such a claim, they would, but meanwhile
we are provided by history with what appears to be a very
satisfactory answer. By a treaty concluded in 1317, Denis
the Labourer, Kins: of Portuo-al, secured the services of the
Genoese Emmanuele Pezagno as hereditary admiral of his
fleet, with a distinct understanding that he and his successors
should make unfailing provision of twenty Genoese captains
experienced in navigation to command the king's' galleys.

In the year 1326 we find this same Emmanuele Pezagno
sent by Alfonso IV. as ambassador to our own King Edward
III., who regarded him with such favour, that on July 24,
1332, he addressed a letter to Alfonso, recommending both
Emmanuele and his son Carlo to his especial patronage.
Further, the document in the handwriting of Boccaccio, dis-
covered in 1827 by Sebastian© Ciampi, informs us that
in the year 1341 two Portuguese vessels commanded by
Genoese captains, but manned with Italians, Spaniards
of Castile, and other Spaniards, comprising doubtless Portu-
guese, for the word " Hispani " included both nations, made
a re-discovery of the Canaries. Even so late as 1373, we
find the rank of admiral of the Portuguese fleet remaining
in the hands of Lancelot, son of Emmanuele Pezagno, who
received it from Peter I. by letters patent dated 26th June,
1357. Thus from 1317 to 1351 we have a range of thirty-
four years for the discovery of the islands laid down on this
important Genoese map. The exact year of this discovery
is not known, but enough has been said to demonstrate that
the Genoese map of 1351 indicates the discovery of the
Madeira group by Genoese navigators in a foreign service,
while we have the evidence that such service was rendered
by Emmanuele Pezagno to the King of Portugal. Politically
the (jut'stion is without importance, for if any doubt could be

152 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

thrown on the claim of Portugal to these islands on the
ground of Genoese commanding Portuguese ships in this
earlier actual discovery, nevertheless the accidental re-dis-
covery of the group by the Portuguese in 1418-20 led to the
first colonization and fertilization of the islands, and it would
be as futile to dispute such a claim as it would be to negative
the English claims to the colonization of Australia on the
ground of those early authenticated discoveries in that vast
island by the Portuguese, which it has already been my good
fortune historically to establish. This engagement of Genoese
navigators by the Kings of Portugal in the fourteenth century
cannot diminish by one iota the transcendent glory of that
heroic little nation, to whom in truth we owe the knowledge
of one-half of the globe that we possess. My late honoured
friend the Vicomte de Santarem, in his patriotic ardour,
endeavoured to carry back the claim of the Portuguese to
comparative maritime distinction to an earlier period than
was either just or reasonable. It was not reasonable to ex-
pect that a people seated on the open Atlantic, that dreadful
and unmeasured ocean whose mysterious immensity had
gained for it the name of the Sea of Darkness, should so early
gain experience in navigation as the comparatively protected
occupants of an inland sea, allured by the wealth of seaports
within easy reach, and encouraged by antecedents which filled
the history of centuries.

CHAPTER IX.

TANGIER.

1437.

The personal qualities of King Joao's successor, Dom Duarte,
promised most favourably for the maintenance of that pros-
perity which had been bequeathed to the kingdom by the
energy and wisdom of his father, yet was his reign destined to
misfortune from its beginning to its close. On the morrow of
his father's death as he was about to be proclaimed king at
Lisbon, his physician Mestre Guadalha, who was held in high
consideration as an astrologer, counselled him to postpone the
ceremony on the ground that the stars at that time foreboded
him misfortune. The king gave no heed to the superstitious
words of the soothsayer, who forthwith, in the presence of a
great concourse of people, jDrognosticated that the years of
the king's reign would be few and full of troubles. The
prediction and its accurate fulfilment have been consolidated
in the records of history. The ceremony nevertheless took
place in conformity with the usual custom.

From Lisbon the king went to Cintra, where his wife and
children were, and here a noticeable novelty was introduced,
for when the Princes of the royal household did homage and
took the oath of allegiance, the eldest son of the King,
afterwards Aflfonso V., but then little more than a year and
a half old, received the style and title of " Prince of
Portugal " instead of that of '' Infant." This change had been
lately adopted in the Peninsula, in imitation of the title of

154 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

" Prince of Wales/' given to the eldest son of the kings of
England, and of that of "Dauphin," given to the eldest son
of the King of France. Thus the eldest son of the King of
Castile was called " Prince of Asturias," while the eldest son
of the King of Aragon received the title of " Prince of
Gerona,^' and so from that time forward the heir to the
crown of Portugal was styled " Prince of Portugal."

The trouble with which the king had been threatened
began to show itself betimes. The king's youngest brother
Dom Fernando was especially desirous of emulating the
prowess of his brothers in Africa. In this desire he was
greatly encouraged by Prince Henry, the aim and object of
whose life was to make discoveries and conquests in that
direction, and together they decided on attempting an
attack upon Tangier. Accordingly they besought the king
their brother to fit out an expedition for them against the
Moors. The king at first affectionately but firmly refused,
for the exchequer had been seriously reduced by many
causes, but at last their arguments and the influence of the
queen prevailed, and against his judgment he reluctantly
gave his consent.

His first measure was to meet the Cortes at Evora, and
demand of them the necessary funds for the expedition.
These were readily granted, but the grant called forth much
discontent and many complaints from the people. Dom
Pedro, Dom Joao, and the Count of Barcellos also remon-
strated with the king on the course he was })ursuiug, and, as
in his heart he acquiesced in all their arguments, he resolved
to rid himself of the resj)onsibility by a})plying to the Pope.

The question having been laid before the consistory, and
duly considered, the following answers were returned : That
if the infidels in question occupied Christian territor}' antl
turned churches into mosques, or if, though occupying their
own lands, they did injury to Christians, or even if, while
doing none of these things, they were idolaters or sinned
jigainst nature, the princes would be justified in making war
upon them. Nevertheless they ^^liould do so with luety and

TANGIER. 155

discretion, lest the people of Christ sliould suffer death or
losses. Concerning- the levying of imposts for the prosecu-
tion of the war, it was decided that war might justly be
made against the infidels in two ways : 1st. Of necessity, in
defence of territory ; 2nd. Voluntarily, for the purpose of
conquering land from the heathen. In the first case taxes
might be imposed, but the voluntary war could only be
carried on at the personal expense of the king. Before this
decision arrived, however, the king, influenced by the queen
or by the promise he made to his brothers, had brought his
preparations for the enterprise to such a point as to render
the answer futile.

Prince Henry has not been held entirely free from blame
in the matter. True it is that the advancement of Chris-
tianity and civilization, the good of his country, the dictates
of chivalry, the furtherance of his brother's wishes, and his
own love of glory, all conspired to set before him in the
light of duty, the enterprise which he thus warmly advo-
cated. True it is, also, that the original invasion of Ceuta
had been attended with an unlooked for success in the
highest degree encouraging to the aspirations of a courageous
and ardent mind, and that in that invasion his judgment, no
less than his valour, had given him so high a standing in
the estimation of his illustrious father, as to gain him the
chief command in preference to his elder brothers, yet there
can be no doubt that in this instance, as on the occasion of
his proposed attack on Gibraltar, his zeal was allowed to
outrun his discretion. The dictum of the consistory respect-
ing the indiscreet sacrifice of Cliristian life in waging war
against the infidels might, had it arrived in time, have been
accepted by him as a wholesome warning, but it did not
arrive in time ; and it may be further urged in his extenua-
tion, that if a hesitating cautiousness had always been
allowed to repress enthusiasm, history would now be want-
ing in the records of full many an heroic achievement.

At length the preparations were completed, and on the
26th of August, 1437, the princes landed at Ceuta, of which

156 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Count Pedro de Menezes was still the commander. Their
arrival soon became known in all the surrounding districts,
and the tribe of Ben Hamed sent messages to Prince
Henry praying for peace, and offering him tribute of gold,
silver, cattle, and wood, and the Prince accepted them as
vassals of the king. The Prince then reviewed the force
which he had brought with him, and found it to consist only
of two thousand cavalry, one thousand cross-bowmen,
three thousand infantry, so that of fourteen thousand which
had been promised him, eight thousand were missing.
This shortcoming was caused by the reluctance of the
people to risk their lives and property in what they con-
sidered a rash adventure, and also by the lack of ships to
convey a greater number of men to the African shore. In
consequence a serious question arose among Prince Henry's
counsellors as to whether Dom Duarte should not be applied
to for a sufficient force before further steps were taken, but
the Prince, fearing lest any delay might be fatal to the
expedition, overruled their doubts, and promised them the
greater honour if they conquered with so small a force.

Finding that the shortest road to Tangier across the Sierra
Ximera was strongly guarded, they decided to go by the
Monte Negrona through Tetuan and the valley of Angela.
Dom Fernando, being ill and unequal to the journey by land,
went by sea. After two days' march they came before
Tetuan, which surrendered without resistance. On the 13th
of September Prince Henry arrived with his army before
Old Tangier, which was already deserted, and there found
Dom Fernando awaiting him. He then made arrangements
to encamp along the sea-coast, and while the troops were
thus engaged, a report was spread that the inhabitants of
Tangier had opened their gates with the intention of aban-
doning the place. This news proved to bo so far from the
truth that tbe Portuf'-uese were engaged till nightfall in
endeavouring to force the gates, and then withdrew, carrying
off the Count de Arrayolos and Alvai-o Vaz de Alinada
wounded. There were in the citv aliuut seven thousand

TANGIER. 157

fio'litin*^ men, including many cross-bowmen from Granada.
They were commanded by Zala ben Zala, the same who had
twenty-two years before lost Ceiita.

On Saturday, the 14th September, Prince Henry had
completed his encampments, and from that time till the
following Thursday was occupied in landing the artillery and
munitions. On the morning of Friday, the 20th of Sep-
tember, Prince Henry ordered the trumpets to sound to battle.
Dom Fernando, the Count Array olos, and the Bishop of Evora
were to scale the walls at different points, and Prince Henry
took upon himself the attack on the gate of the fortress,
where the greatest resistance would be made. For tliis pur-
pose he took with him only two mantas or mantelets,*
without any scaling-ladder.

The engagement commenced in the morning and lasted
till six o'clock, when the Portuguese were obliged to retire
with loss. All attempts to force the gates had been utterly
useless, for they had been very strongly walled up by the
Moors, with stone and mortar. The contemplated attack
with the scaling-ladders proved abortive, for the ladders were
too short to reach the top of the wall. Prince Henry was
therefore compelled to withdraw, and on mustering his peo-
ple found that he had five hundred wounded and twenty
killed. He ordered that the artillery should remain in charge
of the Marshal, and the Captain Alvaro Vaz de Almada, who
being left close under the walls, and at a distance from the
camp, received much injury from the Moors, but nevertheless
valiantly stood their ground. Prince Henry now sent to
Ceuta for longer scaling-ladders and also for two large
pieces of cannon, together with powder and shot, for the
guns which he had were too small and ineffective. During
ten days there were repeated skirmishes, in which several
Portuguese noblemen were slain.

At length, on the 30th of September, a body of ten thou-
sand Moorish horsemen and ninety thousand foot came to tlie

* Mantelets -^rere temporarj^ and movable defences formed of plank:^, under
cover of which the assailants advanced to the attack of fortified places.

158 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

assistance of the city, and took their stand on a hill within
sight of the camp. But when Prince Henry went out to
meet them with fifteen thousand cavalry, eight hundred
cross-bowmen, and two thousand infantry, they were seized
with a panic and took to flight. The next day the same
mana3uvre was repeated, and on Thursday, the 3rd of
October, the Moors advanced in yet greater numbers and
drew near to the camp. The Prince again went out to
meet them, and drove them from their position with con-
siderable loss. Meanwhile another attack was made upon
the camp by the Moors, but they also were repulsed by
Diogo Lopez de Souza, who had been left to defend it. This
engagement was of the highest importance, for had either of
the attacks proved successful, the Portuguese army must
inevitably have been destroyed.

On the 5th of October the scaling-ladders were replaced,
and a wooden tower moving on wheels, and containing
men supplied with missiles, was provided for the purpose of
being brought up to the level of the walls, to facilitate the
escalade by driving from the parapets those who were sta-
tioned there. The Prince then ordered a second assault to
be made upon the town, at a spot where the batteries had
made a breach in the wall. This attack was led by himself
in person, the remainder of the troops under arms being
entrusted to Dom Fernando, the Count de Arrayolos and the
Bishop of Evora, to make a stand against the Moorish army,
in the event of their attacking the lines during the action.

This assault was as unsuccessful as the former, for only one
scaling-ladder was brought to rest against the wall, and that
was burnt by the Moors, and those who were upon it were
killed. Not one of the others, nor even the wooden tower
could be brought up to the wall, for as no other attack,
either feigned or real, was made elsewhere, the whole garrison
was able to repair to the point assailed, and with firearms
and other missiles compelled the Portuguese to withdraw
with great loss.

On the 0th the Moors appeared in great multitudes, accom-

TANGIER. 159

pfiniod by the Kings of Fez and lilarocco and the other
neighbouring princes. They forthwith attacked the advanced
posts of the Portuguese array, and opened communication
with the fortress, at the same time taking possession of the
Portuguese batteries with all the artillery and munitions for
the siege. Prince Henry had his horse killed under him,
and fovmd himself fighting on foot in the midst of the enemy,
from which peril he escaped at the sacrifice of the life of his
chief engineer, Ferdinand Alvarez Cabral, who with devoted
gallantry came to his rescue. An additional act of devotion
on the part of a page of Dom Fernando provided him with
another horse, mounted on which he cleft his way in safety
through the enemy.

When the Prince reached the camp he found the Portu-
guese overwhelmed with the great odds against which they
had to contend, and to add to his dismay he found that about
a thousand of his men had fled to the ships. Happily Dom
Pedro de Castro, who was in command of the fleet, came to
his aid with reinforcements. Oj^pressed as he was with toil
and anxiety, the Prince showed no sign of shrinking from
the high requirements of his responsible position. Though
surrounded by danger the most imminent, he encouraged his
men by an appearance of confidence and cheerfulness, which
he was far from feeling in his heart.

On the following day the Moors again attacked the
trenches, but they were now more strongly fortified, and
after four hours of hard fighting the Moors were repulsed
with immense loss.

At length when their provisions were well-nigh all con-
sumed, Prince Henry came to the resolution to force a
passage in the night-time to the shore and withdraw with
the fleet. In this plan however he was frustrated by the
treachery of his chaplain, Martin Vieyra, who deserted to the
Moors and informed them of the Prince's resolution. The
Moors now suspended their attacks and deliberated as to the
best course to pursue in the probable event of the Portuguese
falling into their hands. Some were for exterminating them

160 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

without mercy, others with greater wisdom suggested that
such a massacre would only provoke the Christians to revenge,
and that therefore the most prudent course would be to let
them freely depart, upon condition that they surrendered
Ceuta, and delivered up their artillery and arms and baggage,
with all the Moors that had been taken prisoners. This pro-
posal was made, and after a short deliberation accepted by
the Portuguese, who in fact had no alternative. Prince
Henry accordingly sent Ruy Gromez da Sylva, chief constable
of the camp, a man of great prudence and courage, and Payo
Rodriguez the secretary of dispatches, to conclude the treaty
with the King of Fez and the other Princes of Marocco.

Meanwhile a great number of Moors, who either were
ignorant of the importance of Ceuta or were very doubtful of
its being surrendered, were determined to make another
vigorous onset upon the Portuguese camp. They principally
directed their attack upon the side which was defended by
Dom Fernando, and their numbers and the ferocity of the
onslaught placed the Prince in considerable danger. But
the Portuguese fought with desperation, and the neighbour-
hood of the intrenchments was soon covered with the bodies
of the dead and wounded Moors. They then endeavoured to
set fire to the palisades, but the indefatigable energy of
Prince Henry averted this danger also. At his side fought
the Bishop of Ceuta, whose intrepidity encouraged the soldiers
with a fervour of pious zeal which worked wonders in the
unequal contest. The struggle having lasted for seven hours
without any decisive result on either side, the Prince deter-
mined on reducing the area of the camp and bringing it
nearer to the sea, a task which, in spite of the fatigues of the
preceding day, was elfected in one night. The Moors oftered
no opposition, but contented themselves with occupying the
ground between the camp and the shore, and guarding the
neighbouring passes.

Meanwhile the Portuguese were obliged to kill their horses
for food, and to use their saddles for fuel to cook them. In
addition they were tormented with tliirst, for within the lines

TANGIER. ini

there was but one well, which was not sufficient to su]->])ly a
hundred men with water, so that if some rain had not i'allen,
they must all have perished. Many of these disasters would
have been averted, had Prince Henry in the first instance
kept his camp near to the sea-shore, in accordance with the
wise instructions which had been given him by the King, his
elder brother. Before leaving Lisbon he had received an
autograph dispatch from the King, containing a special in-
junction so to fix his camp before Tangier that he should
touch the shore at two points, and if, from a deficiency of
numbers, that could not be efiected, he was by no means to
neglect retaining a communication with the sea at least at
one point.* This recommendation was accompanied with an
urgent request that it might often be read and never in-
fringed, and Prince Henry had promised to observe it to the
fullest possible extent. Nor docs there appear to have been
reason for deviating from these precautionary instructions,
and men of calm judgment attributed much of the disas-
trous result of the expedition to this want of implicit attention
to the King's instructions. To establish a communication
with the fleet had now become a matter of great difficulty
and danger, if not of impossibility.

Fortunately for the Portuguese the enormous losses suf-
fered by the Moors gave them an inclination to subscribe to
terms of peace. Hence happily it followed that on the 15th
of October a treaty was concluded, by virtue of which the
Portuguese were at liberty to embark, but simply in their
clothes as they stood, delivering up their arms, their horses,
and their baggage. Ceuta, with all the prisoners therein,
was to be surrendered, and a pleclge given by the King of
Portugal, on behalf of his country, that peace should be
maintained with all Barbary for a hundred years, both by
sea and land. Dom Fernando, with twelve other nobles,
was given over as an hostage until the surrender of Ceuta
and the prisoners, while on the side of the ]\Ioors the eldest

* Sousa, Provas, torn. i. p. 533, et seq. Pina, cap. xxi. p. 138.
M

162 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

son of ZaKi ben Zala, the Lord of Tivngior and Arzilla, and
one of the most powerful vassals of the King of Fez, was
delivered as a pledge of their security.

When the delegates returned to the Prince, they informed
him that the Moors had conceived the treacherous plan of
taking all the Portuguese prisoners, if they availed them-
selves of the conditions of the capitulation to enter the town
with the view of embarking. Prince Henry consequently
gave orders for every preparation to be made for embarking
as quickly as possible. In the attempt, however, to reach
the boats, about sixty men of the rear-guard were slain.

On Sunday, the 20th of October, the fleet set sail. Out
of thirty-seven days that they had been under the walls of
Tangier, twenty-five had been occupied in besieging the
Moors, but during the remaining twelve they had been them-
selves besieged. Their losses, however, they reckoned at
only five hundred men, while the Moors must have counted
at least four thousand slain and many thousands wounded.
To the latter this loss was insignificant when compared with
the extent of their population, whereas Portugal, with its
limited range of territory, had no superfluity of men to
spare; but, worst of all, the Portuguese had failed in their
object.

Such was the disastrous termination of this imprudent
enterprise, and however much we may admire the distin-
guished heroism of Prince Henry, or honour the nobility of
the motives which overruled his judgment, it must be con-
fessed that to him the blame of the disaster must be mainly
attributed. The foresight and wisdom Avliichlie had so often
exhibited in matters of detail were wanting in his con-
sideration of the requisites for an enterprise which was dic-
tated to his feelings and his fancy by the prevailing instinct
of his nature, viz., a chivalrous devotion to what he con-
ceived to be religious duty to God and to his country. It
was, in the first place, unjustifiable to imperil on a foreign
shore the lives of a courageous little army so inadequate in
their numbers to the work set before them, and, in the

TANGIER. 163

second place, it was an imperative duty to secure, as far as
possible, the safety of such coura£:eous followers by every
prudent precaution ; and proportionately culpable was the
dereliction from that duty when enforced by the most em-
phatic injunctions, e\^n in the handwriting of the sovereign.
Of the indomitable energy and valour of the Prince we have
already witnessed proofs of an extraordinary kind, 3^et even
these, supported by efforts to which they proved a most en-
couraging example, were insufficient to avert the melancholy
result which we have had to describe. But this was not the
end of the tragedy. We have now to recount the sad story
of the sufferings and death of the devoted but hapless Dom
Fernando, who was left behind as a hostage in Barbary.

After the departure of the army, the prince and his com-
panions were conducted by Zala ben Zala, on the 22nd of
October, 1437, to Arzilla. On their road they were treated
with every insult by the Moors, who were still smarting from
the losses they had suffered from the Portuguese. Mean-
while Prince Henry, having dispatched the Bishop of Evora
and the Count of Arrayolos to Portugal, retired to Ceuta to
await his brother's release, but on his arrival there his
fatigues and grief induced an illness which entirely pros-
trated him. About this time he was joined by his brother,
D. Joao, who agreed to negociate with Zala ben Zala the
exchange of the Moorish prince, his son, for Dom Fernando,
and if the terms were rejected to release his brother by force
of arms. He set sail on the 20th October, but his project
was frustrated by a violent tempest, which forced him, after
many perils, to take refuge in the Algarves.

The King, in great grief at the sad fate of his brother, and
desiring to save him, even at the cost of Ceuta, convoked the
Cortes in the beginning of 1438, that he might have tlieir
consent and counsel on the subject. The members were desired
to give their votes separately and by writing, and after much
deliberation they finally resolved that Ceuta should not be
abandoned, but that every other possible step should be taken
for the release of the prince. King Duarte, in despair at

m2

164 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

this decision, applied to the Pope, the King of France, and
other friendly powers, for active assistance, and received
from them nothing but condolence and words of consolation.
His attempt to ransom his brother was also fruitless.

After seven months of suffering and illness Dom Fernando
and his followers were transferred by Zala ben Zala to the
King of Fez, May 25th, 1438. The journey to Fez lasted
six days, and was accompanied by even greater insults than
had been offered on the road to Arzilla. Arrived at their
destination, they were confined in the Darsena^ a species of
castle, in rooms from which every ray of light had been
carefully excluded.

The unhappy prince and his companions were now in the
power of the ferocious Lazurac, an unscrupulous monster,
who, in the name of Abdallah the young King of Fez,
exercised unlimited authority over the State.

After three months' captivity, during which they owed
the very food they ate to a Majorcau merchant, they were
set to work loaded with chains in the royal gardens. The
only food the prisoners were allowed was two loaves daily
without meat or wine. Their bed was composed of two
sheepskins, their pillow a bundle of hay, and they had no
covering but an old cloak. The prince slept with eleven
persons in a room only large enough for eight, and they
suffered much from tilth, vermin, and hunger. Dom Fer-
nando, however, suffered greater grief at the news of the
King's death, than had been caused by any of his own
misfortunes.

In the May of 1439, the King of Portugal offered Ceuta
in exchange for the Infant, but Lazurac, hoping for a large
ransom, contrived to protract the negociations. Meanwhile
the unliappy Prince was treated with even greater cruelty, to
which Lazurac was excited by the ulemas or holy men of the
country. On one occasion letters directed to him from
Portugal were intercepted, and the unhappy Moor who was
the bearer of them was scourged and stoned. Some of Dom
Fernando's companions narrowly escaped the same fate, and

TANGIER. ] 05

lie was separafed from them and placed in a more wretched
dungeon than before. In this miserable hole he languished
during the remaining fifteen months of his existence.

At length he was attacked with dysentery, and his
enfeebled frame being unable to struggle against Ihe
malady, the Constant Prince, for such was the title which
his pious resignation has won for him, breathed his last on
the evening of the 5th of June, 1443.

Even the ferocious Lazurac was forced to offer tardy
homage to his virtues, and to declare that, had he been a
Mahometan, he would have been a saint, and that the
Christians were much to blame in leaving him thus to die.

The doctor and chaplain watched over the remains till the
next evening, when they were conveyed into the common
prison, that his followers might remove his chains. But so
overwhelmed were they by their grief that they were unable
to perform this office. Lazurac had the body embalmed,
that it might be preserved till he saw what the Portuguese
would do to regain the body of their Prince. But his com-
panions carefully preserved the heart, and kept it in a secret
place till an opportunity should occur of conveying it in
safety to Portugal. The corpse was hung up at the gate of
the city head downwards, and exposed to the brutal insults
and mockeries of the people for four days. It was then
placed in a wooden coffin fixed in the same place on two
stakes fastened into the wall ; where it remained for a long
time.

His faithful servants, with the exception of five who died
soon after him, returned to Portugal on the death of Lazurac,
and brought with them the heart of their dear master on the
ist June, 1451. By order of the King it was conveyed with.
great solemnity to Batalha, and placed in the tomb destined
for the prince by his father. The melancholy procession
was met at Thomar by prince Henry, who was about to
undertake a journey. When he saw them he dismissed his
equipages and joined with them in rendering the last tribute
of love and respect to his devoted brother. Two-and-twenty

166 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

years afterwards, the corpse of tlie Prince was recovered from
the Moors, and brought with much pomp to Batalha, and
laid in the tomb which already contained his heart.

The thought of the hapless condition of his unfortunate
brother had weighed so heavily on the mind of Dom Dnarte
that it shortened his life. The recollection that, in spite of
his own convictions and the counsels of Dom Pedro and the
wisest of his grandees, he had sanctioned the attempt on
Tangier, was an unceasing torment to him. Nor Avas his
brotherly affection, wounded as it was by the pitiable suffer-
ings to which Dom Fernando was exposed, the only cause of
his distress, for he was contravened in his desires to rescue
his brother from captivity by the expressed wish of the Pope,
the clergy, and his ministers of state. A weak and sickly
prince was by them regarded as of little worth in comparison
with the retention of Ceuta, the key to the extension of
Portuguese conquest on the continent of Africa, the portal,
already in their possession, to the introduction of Christi-
anity amongst the infidels, and the brightest jewel in the
crown of Portugal. To him these considerations, while not
without their w^eight, were ineffectual in removing remorse
for what he regarded as an unpardonable weakness in him-
self, and he would thankfully have resigned his crown if he
could thereby have secured the restitution of his unfortunate
brother. Prince Henry, when appealed to for advice, brought
no relief to the mind of the embarrassed King, for with that
firm adherence to the course of duty which marked liis
character, great as was his love for his brother, he set aside
every personal consideration when weighed in tlie balance
with the advancement of Cln-istianity and the welfare of his
country. The surrender of Ceuta therelbre was not to be
thought of as the means of delivering Dom Fernando.

Two courses alone remained open for accomplishing that
object ; ransom, or a crusade against the Moors. The former
was impracticable, and the latter by no means promised
success. The deep cliagi'in experienced by the King at
length completely undermined his health. It has been

TANGIER. 107

g"enerally believed that lie was struck with the plairue by
means of an infected letter, and that his frame, enfeebled by
mental trouble, was unable to contend against the attacks of
so serious a malady.* In his last will, however, he left
injunctions to his successor that the freedom of Dom
Fernando should be secured at all costs, and, if every other
means failed, even by the surrender of Ceuta.f

This o-ood but unfortunate King died on the 9th of Sep-
tember, 1438, after a reign of five years, a reign remarkable
for well-intentioned efibrt, and as remarkable for unvarying
misfortune and disappointment. Active and powerful of
frame, he was unsurpassed by any of his day in feats of arms
and horsemanship, yet kindliness and grace were far more
noticeable in his appearance than the power and energy
which he really possessed. This effect may have been in
some degree increased by his habit of wearing his hair long
and floating', and by his round and almost beardless face.
His love of justice and of truthfulness was so great that
" the King's w^ord " became a proverbial expression for that
which could be implicitly relied upon. The love of study
had been inculcated and cultivated in him betimes by his
excellent mother. AVith a mind well stored with information
and manners graceful in the extreme, the keenness of his
intelligence and correctness of his judgment gave to him a
power of expression which won all hearts, and thus he ob-
tained the cognomen of " the Eloquent." Nor did he con-
tent himself with communicating pleasure and instruction
to his cotemporaries ; as an author he has left a valuable
legacy to posterity in a variety of treatises on ethics and
philosophy, not so much distinguished by any profoundly
scientific investigation into the principles and bases of these
sciences as the expression of a warm and noble nature whose
instincts were directed by integrity and clearness of judgment.
They embody views upon the right conduct of life and maxims
for good government, derived not only from his own thoughts

* Euy de Tina, cap. 43, p. 187.
t lb., cap. 44, p. 189.

168 PRINCE HENKY THE NAVIGATOR.

and experience, but from maxims and opinions received from
his father, King Joeio I.*

One great anxiety of King Duarte was to replace the
royal revenues iu the same position that they had been in
before reduced by the excessive liberality of his father King
Joao. This was an undertaking of the greatest difficulty.
Donations made by his father had to be revoked, and it was
not an easy matter to manage this with any appearance of
equity. King Joao, being illegitimate, had been compelled
when Eegent to buy the influence of the grandees, whose
votes were indispensable, by large concessions of land, which
were held to be irrevocable. In this dilemma Don Joao das
Regras, whose subtle intellect had turned the scale when it
was a question of raising King Joao to the throne, lighted
on an expedient for saving the honour of the late king as
well as that of his successor. He counselled the latter to
make known the declaration, made by King Joao on his
death-bed, that it was his intention when he alienated such
large estates from the Crown that they should descend to the
male heirs only, born in the direct line from the original
grantees, but that, such male line failing, the estates were to
revert to the Crown. But in order the more fully to make
known this intention of King Joao, which he had always
kept secret, and had only declared immediately before his
death, JoJIo das Eegras recommended the king to proclaim
a new law which should be named the Lei Mental or Mental
Law.

This celebrated law became established in Portugal, and
by the plan tlienceforth adopted life donations made to indi-
viduals for si)ecial services would from time to time fall back
into the possession of the Crown. Joao das llegras was the
first to feel the effect of this law. lie had but one child,
and that a daughter, and all his fortune had been derived

* Among these tlie obligations of a monarch are thus compactly expressed :
"The fear of ruling amiss; justice combined with love and moderation; the
reconciliation of divided affections ; the achievement of great deeds with small
means," &c. " Temor de mal reger ; justi9a com amor e temperancja ; eoutentar
cora9oes desvairados ; acabar grandes feitos com pouca riqueza," &c.

TANGIER. 109

from the King's liberality, so that he was compelled to ask
for a dispensation to insure to his daughter her right of suc-
cession. He appears to have been the only one however who
sued for this favour, which was conceded, and the lav/ was
accepted without remonstrance.

After the disastrous affair of Tangier, the Prince retired
to Sagres, and continued there until September of 1438,
when the King Dom Duarte fell ill at Thomar. So soon as
Prince Henry heard of his brother's illness, he hastened to
his side, and after the King's death was charged by the
Queen, his widow, to consult with Dom Pedro and the
grandees of the kingdom as to the best means of meeting
the difficulties into which the state was thrown by this un-
happy event. This was done, and it was resolved that the
Cortes should be convened to take such measm-es as should
he deemed convenient.

It was Prince Henry's opinion that the letters convoking
the Cortes should be signed by Dom Pedro, but as the latter
refused to do this, all the papers were signed by the Queen,
but with an intimation that she would continue to sign, until
the assembly of the States General should adopt a regulation
on the subject. Meanwhile, Prince Henry, on account of
his habitual prudence, was selected as interlocutor between
the Queen and Dom Pedro. It accordingly resulted, from
the propositions made by Prince Henry and discussed at
different conferences, that the Queen' was charged with the
education of her children and the management of their pro-
perty, and that Dom Pedro was to undertake the adminis-
tration of the government of the kingdom, with the title of
" Defender of the Kingdom for the King." As, however,
there was a considerable party who would not consent to
this arrangement, and much discord arose. Prince Henry
again endeavoured to conciliate the opposing factions, by
obtaining the consent of the Council and Deputies of the
people to the following resolutions, which were proclaimed
on the 9th of November, 1-438, viz. : —

1. That the education of the King, while a minor, and of

170 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

his brothers, as well as the power of nominating to places
in the Court, should be left in the hands of the widowed
Queen Leonora, and that a suitable sum should be assigned
to her for the ]3ayment of the expenses of the royal house-
hold.

2. That the royal Council should consist of six members,
who should — each in turn at certain fixed periods — have
charge of the affairs of the State within their powers, which
should be regulated by the order of the Cortes.

3. Besides this Council, there should be elected a per-
manent deputation from the States to reside in the Court.
This was to consist of one prelate, one fidalgo, or gentleman
of family, and one citizen, each elected for one year by his
respective chamber.

4. All the business of the Council should be dealt with by
the six councillors and by the deputation from the three
estates, under the presidency of the Queen, and with the
approval and consent of Dom Pedro. If the votes were
equal upon any question of business, it should be referred to
the Princes, and Counts, and to the Archbishop, and the
majority should decide. If the Queen and Dom Pedro
should be of the same opinion, their vote would be decisive,
even if the whole Council thought differently.

5. All matters of revenue, except such as fell within the
administration of the Cortes, should be dealt with by the
Queen and Dom Pedro, and decrees and orders should be
signed by both, and the Comptrollers of the revenue should
be charged with its execution.

6. It was finally determined that the Cortes should meet
every year to resolve such doubts as could not be settled by
the Council alone, as for example — " The death of grandees,
the deprivation of high oiiices, the loss of lands, the cor-
rection or forming of laws and ordinances, and that in future
Cortes any defect or error that might have existed in past
Cortes might be corrected or amended."

The Queen, instigated by a violent party, refused to accept
or sanction these resohitions in spite of the earnest per-

TANGIER. 171

suasions of Prince Henry. This refusal produced great
excitement in the public mind, and finally in the Cortes
themselves, so that they began to contemplate investing
Dom Pedro with the authority of Regent.

It is to be observed that Prince Henry invariably expressed
his disapprobation of the deliberations of the Chambers at
Lisbon, and other meetings, and publicly declared that such
assemblies were illegal, in assuming a power which belonged
only to the Cortes. Guided by an enlightened policy, and
by prudence resulting from experience, this wise Prince
showed cqiial indignation when he learned that the Queen
had fortified herself in Alemquer, and had sought for help
from the Princes of Aragon. But this did not prevent him
from going to Alemquer to persuade the Queen to return to
Lisbon, to present the young King to the Cortes (1439),
and so great was the respect entertained for his opinion, that
the Queen, who had obstinately resisted the persuasions of
all others, yielded to those of the Prince.

In the following year the troubles which existed in the
kingdom obliged the Prince to occupy himself with public
aftairs and the reconciliation of parties, in order to avert a
civil war. Such were the events that interrupted the course
of the expeditions and discoveries in the interval from 1437
to 1440.

CHAPTER X.

THE AZANEGUES.
1441-1444.

After the voyage of AfFonso Gonsalves, recounted in Chapter
VL, nothing noteworthy occurred for three or four years.
Two shijDS set out for those parts, hut one returned on
account of bad weather, and the other went only to the Rio
d'Ouro for the skins and oil of sea-calves, and, having com-
l)leted tlieir cargo, returned home. In this year, as has been
seen. Prince Henry went over to Tangier, and therefore was
too fully occupied to send any more ships to the west coast.
In the year 1 438 the disturbances consequent on the death of
Dom Duarte (on the 9th of September at Thomar) called
imperatively for the Prince's presence, and he lost sight of
everything else in his efforts to remedy the dangers and
troubles in which the country had become involved. In the
year 1440 two caravels were fitted out for the west coasts,
but the voyage was an utter failure.

In 1441 the affairs of the kingdom becoming somewhat
tranquillised, Antam Gonsalves, the Prince's Master of the
Wardrobe, was sent out in command of a small ship, but
solely with the order to bring home skins and oil of sea-
calces as before, for as he was but young, the Prince put less
charge u})on him than upon his predecessors. When he
had taken in his cargo, (Jousalves proposed to continue the
voyage, in the hope that some of the natives might come to
the sea-side for traffic, and so he miglit be the first to take
captives to present to the Prince. Accordingly he selected

THE AZANEGUES. 173

nine of the most active of his crew, and proceeded with
them inland. He succeeded in taking two, and as he was
about to set sail on the following day, there arrived an
armed caravel, commanded by Nuno Tristam, a young
knight who had been brought up from his boyhood in the
Prince's household, and was full of zeal in his master's
service. He had come out with a special command from
the Prince to pass as far as he could beyond the port of
Gale, and to endeavour by all means to make some
captures.

Nuno Tristam had brought with him a Moor, a servant of
the Prince's, to act as interpreter. It proved, however,
that the language of the captives was entirely different.
The small capture made by Gonsalves by no means con-
tented Nuno Tristam, and after some discussion he agreed
with Gonsalves to set out in search of natives, with men
selected from their respective crews, and the result was the
capture, after a sharp contest, of ten natives, one of whom
was a chief. When the conflict was over, at the unanimous
request of his companions, Gonsalves was knighted by
Tristam, in spite of his modestly disclaiming his right to
such honour. Hence the place was named the " Porto do
Cavalleiro."

The chief alone among the captives understood the
Moorish language, and was able to converse with the in-
terpreter. The rest spoke the Azanegue language. Hoping
to treat for the ransom of some of the prisoners, the in-
terpreter went on shore with one of the female captives, but
he was detained prisoner, after having in vain tried to
negociate with the natives.

Gonsalves now returned to Portugal, but Tristam, having
orders to proceed farther, and finding that his caravel needed
repairs, put into land and careened her, keeping his tides as if
he were in Lisbon roads, a bold feat which astonished many
of his crew. He then pursued his voyage, and passing the
port of Gale, came to a cape to which from its whiteness he
gave the name of Cabo Branco. Here they found tracks of

174 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

men and some nets, but gained speech of no one. And as
Tristam ob;ierved that the coast took the form of a bay, in
which the currents seemed likely to impede their progress
beyond the time that their provisions would last, he resolved
to return to Portugal.

Prince Henry was in the highest degree gratified by the
prospect thus opened of bringing these barbarous natives
under the influence of Christianity, and extending the
honour and prosperity of his country, and rewarded the two
captains commensurately with the value which he set upon
this successful issue of their labours.

Although the language of the captives was unintelligible
to other Moors in that country, the Prince was nevertheless
able to gather from the chieftain whom Gronsalves had
captured considerable information respecting the country
where he dwelt. Foreseeing that he would have to send out
many expeditions to contend with the infidel natives of that
coast, he sent to the Pope the news of this discovery as the
first fruits of his long-continued exertions, and prayed for a
concession in perpetuity to the Crown of Portugal of what-
ever lands might be discovered beyond Cape Boyador to the
Indies inclusive, especially submitting to His Holiness that
the salvation of these people was the principal object of his
labours in that conquest. In addition to these important
requests the ambassador Fernando Lopez d'Azevedo was
charged to beg of the Pontiff indulgences for the Church of
Santa Maria da Africa which the Prince had founded in
Ceuta. The news of this discovery was considered so valu-
able by the Pope and the College of Cardinals that the Holy
Father readily com})lied and issued a Bull to that eftect,
which was subsequently confirmed by the Poi)es Nicholas V.
and Sixtus IV. The Regent Dom Pedro also granted to his
brother Prince Henr}^ a charter, authorizing him to receive
the entire fifth of the produce of the expeditions a})pertain-
ing to the King, and in consideration of the great labour
and expense which the Prince undertook at his own sole
cost, issued a mandate that none should s"o on these

THE AZANEGUES, ITT)

expeditions without Priuco Henry's license ami especial
command.

The captive chieftain, althongli treated with all gentleness,
chafed under his servitude much more than those of lower
condition, and repeatedly begged Gronsalves to take him back
to his country, where he engaged to give as ransom live or
six negroes. He also said that there were two boys among
the captives, for whom a liberal ransom would be given.
This and the hope of gaining farther information induced
Gonsalves to ask permission to return to Africa.

He was accompanied in his voyage by a nobleman named
Balthazar, of the household of Frederick III., Emperor of
Austria, the husband of the Infanta Leonora of Portugal.
This Balthazar had joined the household of Prince Henry
with the intention of winning his spurs at Ceuta, and
gallantly he won them. He had often expressed a desire to
witness a storm off the coast of Africa, for he had been told
that storms on that coast were very different from those on
the coasts of Europe. In this wish he was gratified to his
heart's content, for they encountered so severe a tempest
that Gonsalves and his crew narrowly escaped with their
lives, and were compelled to put back to Lisbon. Once more,
however, they set forth on their expedition, and when they
reached the point where the ransom was to be effected, they
landed the chief, and Gonsalves agreed with him where they
should meet after he had made his arrangements. The chief
was handsomely dressed in clothes which the Prince had
given him, for Prince Henry hoped thereby to induce the
natives to enter into commercial relations with him.
Gonsalves was blamed for the trust he placed in the chiefs
faith, and a detention of seven days at the appointed place,
four leagues up the Rio d'Ouro, seemed to justify the blame.
At the end of the week, however, a Moor on a white camel
appeared with full a hundred slaves, out of which number
ten negroes of both sexes were given up in exchange for the
two boys. Martin Fernandes, the Prince's messenger, acted
as interpreter, and proved himself an excellent linguist.

176 PRINCE HENliY THE NAVIGATOR.

Besides the negroes, Gonsalves received in that ransom a
small quantity of gold dust, a leathern buckler, and a great
number of ostrich eggs, three dishes of which rarity were
one day served at the Prince's table perfectly fresh and good.

The natives stated that there were merchants in those
parts who trafficked in gold, which the chronicler Azurara
evidentl}^ supposed was found in their own country. He
was, however, not aware that gold was brought thither
from the interior by the caravans which for many
years had carried on that trade across the desert, and
principally since the invasion of the Arabs. During the
sovereignty of the Caliphs this commerce with the interior
of Africa extended nor only to the western boundaries of
that continent, but even as far as Sjiain. The caravans
crossed the valleys and plains of Sus, of Darah, and of
Tafilet to the south of Marocco. Tliibr, the Arabic name for
gold, was brought from Wangara. The Eio d'Ouro, or River
of Gold, received its name from the fact that gold was there
first received in barter by the Portuguese. It has retained
that name ever since, although it is in fact no river at all,
but simply an estuary occupying an indentation in the coast
of about six leagues in dejjth. Gonsalves now returned to
the Prince, and met with a grateful reception, as did also the
German knight, who afterwards returned to his country
with much honour to himself and large reward from the
Prince's bounty.

In the year 1443, the Prince fitted out another caravel,
the command of which he gave to JSTufio Tristam, the crew
consisting principally of people of his own household.
They reached to twenty-five mi^es beyond Capo Branco, and
found a small island, to which they gave the name of Gete.*
Here twenty-five canoes put out from shore, containing a
host of natives entirely naked. This was not on account of

* The Island of Arp;uim. Barros says (Decade i. c. 7), Ntino Tiistam in this
voyage reached un island which the natives called Adcpet, but which is one of
those that we now call Arguim. The Arabs v.all it Ghu-, which Azurara changed
iuto Gete, and Barros into Adeget or Adeger.

THE AZANEGUES. 177

their being in the water, but it was their habitual custom.
Each canoe held three or four who hung their legs over in
the water and paddled with them as with oars. The
Portuguese at first took them for birds of monstrous size,
but when they found their mistake they pursued them to
the island and captured fifteen of them. They would have
taken more but for the smallness of their boat. The
discovery of this point was of great importance to the
Portuguese. It facilitated their obtaining information and
establishing intercourse with the negro states on the Senegal
and Gambia. The Prince subsequently had a fort built
there, the foundations of which were laid in 1448.*

Near the island of Gete they found another, on which was
an infinite number of herons which came there to breed,
and many other birds which afforded them a good supply of
provisions. They gave this island the name of Ilha das
Gar(^as, or Heron Island. ISTuilo Tristam returned the same
year with his booty, which was a greater source of satisfaction
to him than on his former adventure, for not only had he
taken more, but he had reached to a greater distance, and
moreover had not to divide his gains with any one.

When the Prince began to colonize the islands which he
had discovered, and to open a road to the people to turn the
discoveries to profit, those who had been loudest in their
censure were the first to turn their blame into praise. After
the return from Tangier the Prince was almost always at
his own town, which he then had built in the kingdom of
Algarve near to Lagos, where vessels discharged the prizes
which they brought ; and the first to beg permission to make
a voyage at his own cost to the newly-discovered country

* As vnl\ hereafter be seen, Cadamosto gives us considerable information con-
cerning the state of the commercial relations which the Portuguese had in the
course of seven years established with the inhabitants of the interior. In 1638,
this fort was taken from the Portuguese by the Dutch. In 1665 the English
took it, but again lost it. In 1678 the French gained possession of it, and
destroyed the old forti-ess built by the Portuguese. The Dutch recovered the
place in 1685, and retained it tUl 1721, when the French took it by surprise,
but were once again driven out by the Dutch in the following year.

N

178 PEINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

was Langarote, an esquire who had been educated from his
childhood in the Prince's househohl, but who was now married
and held the post of King's almoxarife or receiver of customs
in that city of Lagos.

Having fitted out six caravels, he sailed from thence in
1444, taking with him as commanders Gil Eannes, the same
who had first passed Cape Boyador, Stevam Aifonso, Rodrigo
Alvares, Joao Dias, and JocTo Bernaldes. After a successful
expedition he returned with about two hundred captives,
chiefly taken from the Islands of Naar and Tider in the Bay
of Arguin. The Prince received him with great honour,
and knighted him at the instance of the companions of his
exploit. The captives, who presented every variety of colour
from nearly white to the deepest black, very soon became
Christians, and were treated with great kindness by their
Portuguese masters. Some of the young girls were adopted
by noble ladies, and brought up as their own children.*

* The island of Argiiin, as well as those just mentioned under the respective
names of Cartas or Ileron Island, Naar, and Tider, all lie on the great Arguin
Bank comprised between Cape Blanco and Cape Mirik, but these latter lie in a
group some five-and- forty miles to the south of Arguin Island, which is in 20" 28'.
Cadamosto later speaks of this groiip as being named by the Portuguese thus :
"The first Ilha Branca, the second Garza or Heron Island, and the third Cuori."

CHAPTER XL

THE SLAVE TRADE.

The old chronicler, Aznrara, in a chapter full of eloquent
pathos, gives expression to his feelings of commiseration for
the poor captives on the occasion of their being distributed
amongst their several owners or purchasers, and thereby
separated from those most closely bound to them by the ties
of nature. He thus describes the scene : — "On the 8 th of
August, 1444, early in the morning on account of the heat,
the sailors landed the captives. When they were all mus-
tered in the field outside the town they presented a remarkable
spectacle. Some among them were tolerably light in colour,
handsome, and well-proportioned; some slightly darker;
others a degree lighter than mulattoes, while several were as
black as moles, and so hideous both in face and form as to
suggest the idea that they were come from the lower regions.
But what heart so hard as not to be touched with compassion
at the sight of them ! Some with downcast heads and faces
bathed in tears as they looked at each other ; others moaning
sorrowfully, and fixing their eyes on heaven, uttered plaintive
cries as if appealing for help to the Father of Nature.
Others struck their faces with their hands, and threw them-
selves flat upon the ground. Others uttered a wailing chant,
after the fashion of their country, and although their words
were unintelligible, they spoke plainly enough the excess of
their sorrow. But their anguish was at its height when the
moment of distribution came, when of necessity children

N 2

180 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

were separated from their parents, wives from their husbands,
and brothers from brothers. Each was compelled to go
wherever fate might send him. It was impossible to effect
this separation without extreme pain. Fathers and sons,
who had been ranged in opposite sides, would rush forward
again towards each other with all their might. Mothers
would clasp their infants in their arms, and throw them-
selves on the ground to cover them with their bodies,
disregarding any injury to their own persons, so that they
could prevent their children from being separated from
them. Besides the trouble thus caused by the captives,
the crowds that had assembled to witness the distribution
added to the confusion and distress of those who were
charged with the separation of that weeping and wailing
multitude. The Prince was there on a powerful horse, sur-
rounded by his suite, and distributing his favours with the
bearing of one who cared but little for amassing booty for
himself. In fact he gave away on the spot the forty-six
souls which fell to him as his fifth. It was evident that his
principal booty lay in the accomplishment of his wish. To
him m reality it was an unspeakable satisfaction to contem-
plate the salvation of those souls, which but for him would
have been for ever lost. And certainly that thought of his
was not a vain one, for as soon as those strangers learned
our language they readily became Christians, and I have
myself seen in the town of Lagos young men and women,
the children and grandchildren of these captives, born in
this country, as good and true Christians as those who had
descended generation by generation from those who had
been baptized in the commencement of tlie Christian dis-
pensation. Nevertheless there was abundant tear-shedding
when the final separation came, and each proprietor took
possession of his lot. A father remained at Lagos, while the
mother was taken to Lisbon and the child elsewhere. This
second separation doubled their despair. However, they
were not long in l)econiing acquainted with the country, and
in lindinu' in it great abundance. Thev were far less obstinate

THE SLAVE TRADE. 181

in their creed than the other Moors, and readily ado[)ted
Christianity. They were treated with kindness, and no
ditierence was made between them and the free-born servants
of Portugal. Still more : those of tender age were taught
trades, and such as showed aptitude for managing their
property were set free and married to women of the country,
receiving a good dower just as if their masters had been
their parents, or at least felt themselves bound to show this
liberality in recognition of the good services they had
received. Widow-ladies would treat the young captives that
they had bought like their own daughters, and leave them
legacies in their wills, so that they might afterwards marry
well and be regarded absolutely as free women. Suffice it
to say that I have never known one of these captives put in
irons like other slaves, nor have I ever known one who did
not become a Christian, or who was not treated with great
kindness. I have often been invited by masters to the
baptism or marriage of these strangers, and quite as much
ceremony has been observed as if it were on behalf of a child
or relation."

It is impossible to read this eloquent expression of sym-
pathy with the suflerings of the negro captives at the time
of their partition without deep compassion for the disrup-
tion of natural ties which then of necessity took place. The
scene then described was the consequence of the explorations
instituted by Prince Henry. He was present thereat; and
the first result in the mind of an Englishman hating,
and righteously hating, the very name of slavery and the
sale of human beings, would be that of reprobation of the
Prince and of the people sent out under his auspices, liy whom
these slaves wei'e thus brought in large numbers to Portugal
from the African coast. There are many, however, who will
see, in the conclusion of the chapter just recited, ample reason
for withdrawing that reprobation, when they consider the
motives, full of beneficence, which influenced the Prince in
these transactions. The comprehensive purposes which he had
in view, in the matter of exploration alone, made the capture

182 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

of natives of the west coast necessary, in tbe first instance,
for tbe sake of acquiring local information. The mere pro-
cess of capture is in itself in the highest degree offensive to
us, as we sit in our easy chairs, free from the necessity of
making any exertion in subduing the evils of barbarism
beyond a little loosening of tbe strings either of the heart
or of the purse. But no sooner do we take a survey of the
active processes which, through all history even up to the
present time, have been brought to bear in the extension
of civilisation by encroachment on barbarian soil, than we
find that violence, the details of which, if presented to us
equally closely, would be equally offensive, has invariably
had to be resorted to. It will, however, be observed that
this violence was highly repugnant to the Prince's nature.
In Azurara, we find that, so soon as he found himself
in a position to do so with a fair hope of safety to his
mariners, he charged them to resort to peaceful means with
the natives, and to refrain from doing them injury. We
have the same testimony from Diogo Gomez de Cintra,
and the same from Cadamosto. It must be acknowledged
that three independent cotemporary witnesses are sufficient
to clear the Prince from the imputation of cruelty as to the
mode of deportation of these negroes.

As to the ohject of the Prince, in allowing his sailors in
the first instance to capture and afterwards to purchase
slaves, there can be no question that his first motive was to
rescue them from their original condition of spiritual, moral,
and physical degradation, and his second to add to the wealth
of his own country by an accession of valuable labour cheaply
paid for by the real advantages bestowed upon these captured
negroes. But there are some who, in their justifiable hatred
of the slave trade as tliey know it in connection with
America and the West Indies, will not patiently listen to any
such reasonings, but simjjly object that since the Western slave
trade originated in the deportation of negroes from Africa,
if such negroes were for the first time brought wholesale
from the African coast by the sanction of Prince Ilenry,

THE SLAVE TRADE. 183

upon his head must undeniably rest the odium and the
gravamen of what we abominate in that slave trade. But
here I must demand a pause. The opprobrium thus attri-
buted must consist either in the intrinsic immorality of the
transaction, or in priority in introducing that which, even if
in any v/ay excusable at the time, has since become detest-
able. As regards its intrinsic morality, I think enough has
been said to demonstrate the integrity of Prince Henry's
intention, and, where integrity of intention exists, I conceive
it is impossible to bring the charge of immorality. That
there were co-existent evils, and that such evils have in later
days been aggravated to the most painful extreme, no one
can doubt ; but in what phase of human life do not such
appear? And if they awaken our sympathy or our regret,
we have assuredly no reason to question the existence of
such sympathy or such regret in the character of one so
eminent, not only for the benevolence of his natural disposi-
tion, but for his exalted views of Christian duty.

It therefore only remains for us to inquire —

1st. Respecting the origin of the traffic in slaves ;

2ndly. Respecting the first deportation of slaves from the
west coast of Africa ; and

3rdly. Respecting the originators of what we now know
as the slave trade to the western world.

And in each of these we shall find that Prince Henry had
no share.

1. And first respecting the origin of the traffic in slaves.

History from the remotest ages tells us of men being
bought and sold as slaves and often reduced to a condition
more wretched even than that of the brutes. The Penta-
teuch, which, apart from its divine origin, is the most ancient
and venerable record of history and legislation, makes fre-
quent mention of slaves among the Hebrew people ; some
who under the pressure of their necessities made themselves
such; others who were sold by their own fathers; others
captives of war, &c. It refers also to several laws, given by
God for the same people, some for the regulation of the

184 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

rights and obligations of masters and slaves, others to miti-
gate by all means the miserable condition of the latter.
(See Gen. xxxvii. 26-28 ; xlvii. 18-22 ; Exodus xxi. 2-7 ;
Levit. XXV. 39-54; Deut. xv. 12-18, &c.) That these
unfortunate people were bought and sold for fixed prices like
any other marketable commodity, and that in such traffic
existed what we reprobate in the "'slave trade," there can be
no doubt. We are supplied with a notable instance of this
in the case of Joseph, who was sold by his brothers to the
Ishmaelitish merchants, and by them again sold into Egypt
(Gen. xxxvii.)

The Greeks and Romans also, the most civilised and refined
of the nations of antiquity, not only practised slavery to an
almost incredible extent, but treated their slaves with a
barbarity and ferocity hardly to be equalled among modern
nations. Every schoolboy knows the unmitigated cruelty of
the Spartans to the unfortunate Helots. And as to the Romans,
Lucius Florus in his De tola historid Titi Livii Epito7ney
lib. 3, cap. 19, attributes the revolt of the slaves in Sicily
headed by Eurus Syrus, to the barbarous treatment of these
poor wretches, who were forced to plough the earth, tethered
together {eatcnati cultores) like brute beasts. Seneca, in
his treatise De ird, lib. 3, cap. 40, tells us of one Vedius
Pollion, who ordered a slave to be thrown into the tank in
which his lampreys were fattening, because he had broken a
crystal vase. The virtuous Cato was not ashamed of being
a slave merchant ; and Trajan, that admirable prince, nho
only had the neakness of great hearts, an excessive love of
glory, gave public games at which ten thousand gladiators
and eleven thousand animals slaughtered each other for the
amusement of a cruel peoi)le who dared to stigmatise other
nations with the name of barbarians, &c., kc (Diodor.,
lib. 48.)

When Paulus ^milius conquered Macedonia, says Pliny,
he decreed in one day the ruin of seventy-two cities.
(Historia Naturalis, lib. 4, c. 10.) A hundred and fifty
thousand Epirotes and Macedonians were sold at that time

THE SLAVE TRADE. 185

in Rome, by auction, in the same place where afterwards
were exposed to public sale the no less unfortunate remnant
of the Hebrew people ; and Seneca tells us that in his time
there were in Home slave-warehouses in which the slaves
were kept by the dealers in that kind of stock, and from
which they were taken to the public markets to be sold like
brute beasts.

On the dismemberment of the Roman Empire, the nations
which took possession of its provinces continued the traffic
in men which they found established, and to which they
themselves were not strangers. Christianity, it is true, tended
greatly to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, and was
for many centuries, by the tendency of its eminently human-
izing principles, one of the most powerful causes of the
diminution and decadence of this inhuman commerce. It
did not, however, altogether abrogate the universally adopted
practice, nor did its Divine Author alter, or appear to wish
to alter directly, the established order of human society, or
the diiferent gradations and respective civil conditions which
the laws and customs of the people had adopted. (See Eph.
vi. 5, 9; Colos. iv. 1 ; Philemon 1 ; 2 Pet. ii. 18.)

The churches and monasteries had slaves. The old grants
mention them constantly among the donations. The councils
of different centuries and nations were full of canons rela-
tive to slaves, taking for granted the existence of slavery
without reproof or condemnation. Some forbade that slaves
should be admitted to holy orders or any ecclesiastical
ministration. Others made provisions for the giving up to
their masters of slaves who might have sought the protection
of the Church with the view of obtaining their liberty.
Others ordered that Jews should not have Christian slaves.
Others established rules for the manumission of slaves be-
longing to Churches, &c. The Venetian merchants in the
eighth century, traded in Christian slaves. History has left
us an account of the pious zeal of Pope Zacharias, who in the
)'ear 748, knowing that these merchants had bought in
Rome many slaves of both sexes, that they might sell them,

186 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

after mutilating them, to the infidels of Africa, redeemed a
great number of these unfortunates and restored them to
liberty. In the year " 785 Charlemagne exj^elled from his
territory the Greeks who came to buy Christian slaves to sell
them to the Mussulmans of Spain and of the East. In
the year 820 and in all the following century, the merchants
of Verdun also applied themselves to this traffic, selling their
own fellow-citizens, after mutilating them, to the Kaliphs
and Moors, to be employed in guarding their seraglios.*

At a council at London in 1102 it was determined, that
no one should sell men like hrute beasts, as had been done
formerly in England, says Fleury.f Nevertheless this pro-
hibition was still in force in the year 1171, when Henry II.,
having conquered Ireland, convened the bishops of that
island to a council, in which it was ordered that all English
slaves should be set at liberty, so that (says a cotemporary
writer) the Fathers were persuaded that Divine Justice had
subjected them to the English as a punishment for their
crimes, and especially because tJiey used to sell EnglisJimen as
slaves to merchants and 2nrates.X

In the thirteenth century, in the midst of Europe, among
Christian nations, were sold not only prisoners of war, but
also at times the peaceful and unarmed inhabitants of con-
quered cities or places. The letter which Pope Gregory IX.
Avrote to the Archbishop of Estrigonia in 1231, blaming
certain unworthy things practised in Hungary, as showing
contempt of religion, mentions, that the Saracens went there
to buy Christian slaves, which was an affront to his authority ;
and that the Christians, forced by want and povert}', sold
their own children as slaves to the infidels. Pope Gregory
IX., in his apostolical letters of the 20th of April, 1376,
directed against the Florentines, added to other grave penal-
ties and censures which he fulminated against them, that

• See "M^moire historique et diplomatique siir le commerce et les etablisse-
ments frangais au levant," read at llie public session of the Institute in 1827-
t See his Histoire Ecclesiasliqiie, lib. 65, \ '11.
\ Flcury, Ilistoire Ecules., lib. 'i1, \ 38.

THE SLAVE TRADE. 187

for as many as they had seized, so many of themselves should
be reduced to slavery, and says the historian, many of these
then in England were in fact made slaves to the king, and
had their goods confiscated. These facts, and many others
abundantly furnished by history, are enough to show that
the Portuguese were not the originators of the slave trade,
unless it be maintained that there is any substantial differ-
ence between the traffic in negro slaves and in white ones,
or between buying them in Africa to take them to America,
and buying them not only in Africa, but in France, Venice,
and Rome, to take them to Spain, Africa, or the East.

Let it only once be granted on both sides that the suffer-
ings incident to slavery take the full range from the regret-
able to the execrable, and it may be fairly asserted that,
cceteris paribus, the introduction of negroes into the benefi.ts
of Christianity and civilization was an act very far from
blamable, although the concomitant miseries were to be
regretted ; while the sale of Christians into eastern slavery
was nothing short of execrable.

2. So much for our first question respecting the origin of the
traffic in slaves : we will now proceed to the second, respect-
ing the first deportation of slaves from the west coast of
Africa. The enslaving of and trafficking in negroes in
general may safely be said to be as old as the knowledge that
there were negro nations, since the trading in men has been
a custom in all countries and in all ages, and there is no
reason why the negroes should have been exempt from the
common fate, as soon as there was an opportunity of taking,
selling, and buying them. The facts of history confirm this
thought.

One of the relievi which Mr. Champollion, jun., a few
years ago observed in the temple of Isambul in Nubia,
represents the triumphal car of one of the Pharaohs accom-
panied by troops of negro prisoners from Nubia, which proves
that the negroes from, Africa were from the remotest ages
subject to the same laws of slavery which were practised
among the white nations in all the world. Josephus in his

1S8 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

work on Jewish Antiquities, lib. 8, speaking of the merchant
ships of Solomon, says, that among the objects which they
imported were gold, silver, ivory, Ethiopian slaves, and
apes. " Pro rebus exportatis aurum, argentum, regi refere-
bant, multumque eboris, et mancipia cethiopica, et simias."
So old, so inveterate, and tenacious is this practice, which
derives its origin, its continuance, and inveteracy to the
inspirations of avarice and barbarity.

But, not to dwell on so remote a period, it is known that, in
the time of the Crusades, the use of negro slaves spread
much in Europe, and became a fashion among the great
lords who were engaged in those romantic expeditions. The
reader may also be reminded that long before the Portuguese
discoveries, as stated in page 114, the malagiiette pepper of
Guinea was known in Italy, and consequently must have
been brought fi'om Gruinea by the Moors, who crossed the
country of the Mandingoes, and the deserts of Libya, to the
port of Barca, on the Mediterranean ; and we have the
distinct evidence of Azurara that captured negroes were
among the commodities brought to Barca for sale by the
Moors. Azurara, it is true, was a cotemporary of Prince
Henry's ; but it is manifest that he spoke of a practice of
long standing, and which could by no possibility have any-
thing to do with the Prince's expeditions to the west coast of
Africa. Cadamosto, also, whose explorations in the service
of the Prince will hereafter be related, mentions the same
fact. It will further be recollected that (as shown on page
175), Antam Gonsalves received from the Moors negroes in
ransom of the Moors which he had himself captured, which
shows that among the Moors was already practised not only
the endamng of vcyrocs, but also the traffic in them, since they
promised and gave them as ransom for their own persons
and pro})erty in the same way as they gave gold or ivory, or
any other mercliandise of their country. And should any
objector amuse liimscll' with the frivolous argument ihat at
least the ships of Prince Henry were the lirst to deport
negroes by sea Irom the west coast of Africa, as if deporta-

THE SLAVE TRADE. 189

tion from that coast in ships were more criminal than the
conveyance of slaves across the desert for sale in the Gulf
of Tmiis, even this fanciful stigma will be found not to
attach to the Prince's nnme. Although not preceded by
Jean de Bethencourt in the rounding of Cape JBoyador, lie
was preceded by him in the capture of natives from the
west coast (see ante page 133). So much for the second
question.

ordly. That the importation of negroes into the West
Indies and America is not due either directly or indirectly to
Prince Henry is indisputable. The very time when that
importation commenced is not known, but the earliest date
that any one has ever ventured to suggest was half a century
after the death of the Prince. The country was Spanish, and
jealously exclusive of Portuguese encroachment of any kind.
The most probable conclusion to be formed on a point not
already settled by history is, that when Lisbon was full of
negro slaves from Africa, the Portuguese exported them to
Seville for sale, and that at a later period the Spaniards,
who were interested in the exploration and working of the
mines in the New World, sent their slaves thither, at ^rst in
small numbers, to be employed in these works. As the
number of slaves brought from Africa increased, the transport
of them to America would become more general, till at
length the public authorities would find themselves obliged
to legalize it, and to control its practice by laws and
established re2:ulations.

CHAPTER XII.

S E N E G A M B I A.

1445-1448.

In the year 1445, some time after the return of LaiK^arote,
the Prince gave the command of a caravel to Gonsalo cle
Cintra, an esquire of his household, with strict orders to go
straight to Guinea without putting in anywhere on the road.
He, however, allowed himself to be deceived by the natives
and his own ambition into disobedience of these orders, and
landing on the island of Naar for the purpose of taking
captives, was slain in a fight on the shore, not being able to
swim back to his boat. The unwieldy name of Angra de
Gonsalo de Cintra has been given to a bay some forty miles
south of the Rio d'Ouro as commemorative of the death of
the unfortunate commander, but the island of Naar is in the
Bay of Arguin.

In the same year, 1445, Prince Henry again sent out
Antam Gonsalves in a caravel to the Rio d'Ouro with one of
his own servants, Diogo Afifonso, in another. They were
accompanied by Gomes Pires, who was sent out by the
Regent, Dom Pedro, in a third caravel. The express purpose
of the voyage was to treat with the natives and endeavour
to make converts to Christianity, but they returned without
effecting anything worth notice. Joiio Fernandes went out
with this expedition, and remained seven months alone in
the wilds of the interior, in order to gain information for the
Prince respecting the language and manners of the people.

An old Moor returned voluntarily with Gonsalves, wishing
to see Prince Henry, who received him with great kindness,
and afterwards sent him back to his own country.

SENEGAMBIA. 101

About tills same time Niulo Tristam made another voyage,
in which he went straight to the Ishmds of Gai-(;;as in tlie
great bank of Arguin. These were now left desolate, for
the natives had withdrawn for fear of the invaders. The
Portuguese therefore went further on and came to a country-
very different from the sandy wilderness they had left, for it
abounded in palms and other trees of great beaut3\ The
roughness of the sea prevented their reaching the shore, and
they were driven further south, where having effected a
landing, they came upon a village and took one-and-twenty
captives. The old chronicler, Azurara, who set a higher
value upon such details than the reader is likely to do,
remarks that the circumstances of this capture will never be
knowm, because Nuno Tristam was dead at the time that
King Affonso ordered his history to be written. The expres-
sion is of value as showing that Azurara did not confine
himself to written documents in compiling his history, but
consulted the discoverers themselves. The Vicomte de
Santarem calls attention to a comparison which he made of
the description of this voyage with certain early manuscript
maps which he had the opportunity of consulting. He
shows that after visiting the islands of Arguin, Tristam
sailed southwards past places which bear on those maps the
following names : — Ilha Branca, R. de S. Joao, G. de Santa
Anna, Moutas, Praias, Furna, C. d'Arca, Resgate and Pal-
mar, which last is doubtless the spot where he found the
many palms. It is also particularly worth notice that
Azurara, at the commencement of his very vague description
of this voyage, historically asserts that Nufio Tristam was
tlie first who saw the Country of the Blacks, whereas later in
the book, at page 237, he assigned that honour to Diniz
Dias,* the account of whose voyage immediately follows.

This bold adventurer, who had already distinguished him-
self in the service of King Joao, was the next to beg

* Barros calls him Diniz Fernandez, and as he wrote before the publication of
Azurara, his original authority, he has been copied by all succeeding historians
and geographers.

192 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

permissioii to make explorations in the service of Prince
Henry, who fitted out a caravel for him. Diniz had made
lip his mind to sail further than any of his predecessors, and
this resolution he carried into effect, for he never struck sail
till he reached the land of the Negroes. It was not till now
that the mouth of the Senegal was passed, which separates
the Azanegues or Tawny Moors from the Jaloffs, the first
real Blacks.

The Portuguese looked upon the Senegal as identical with
the Niger, and afterwards, when they found that the Man-
dingoes gave to the Upper Senegal the name of Bafing or
Black River, they unhesitatingly concluded that it was the
Niger of Herodotus, Pliny, and Ptolemy, although Barros
was surprised that the Qanaga or Senegal should have so
little water. It was not till 1698 that the old error respecting
the western course of the Niger received its rectification,
when Brue, the Director of the French African Company,
became informed that that river flowed eastward and passed
near the city of Timbuctoo. It was not, however, till 1714
that this rectification was geographically laid down. This
was on the mappemonde of Del isle, on which we see the
Niger and the Senegal for the first time represented as
issuing from two neighbouring lakes, the one flowing west-
ward, the other to the east. The name of Niger is itself
entirely unknown in Africa. It was introduced by Edrisi,
and afterwards employed by Leo Africanus. The Arab
geographers still regard it as the same as the Nile, but to
distinguish it from the Nil-as-Massr, or Egyptian Nile, they
call it the Nil-as-Soudan, and also the Nil-el-Kebir, or Great
Nile, the latter being regarded as the greater of the two.
Mollien in his vocabulary gives Baleo, as the Poula word for
Black, and in that language the Senegal is called Baleo or
the Black Piver, while in Mandingo it is called Bafing, which
has the same signification, and it seems to have been an
error in ]\Iungo Park to ascribe to the Joliba or Quorra the
name of the Niger, which had always been declared by the
ancient and Arabic geographers to flow westward into the

SENEGAMBIA. 103

Atlantic, while it contained, as shown by IM. Golherry, '' in
the shallower parts of the river hippopotami and crocodiles,
or rather the caymans of prodigious size " (see page 98 of
" Modern Traveller," vol. 22), attributed to it by the ancient
geographers. The largest seen by Adanson, the celebrated
naturalist, were from fifteen to eighteen feet in length.

The Portuguese gave the name of Guinea to the western
country of the Senegal or Senegambia, whereas it is now
confined to the southern coast. In fact, originally Guinea
was supposed to commence at Cape Non. Even so late as
the beginning of the sixteenth century, in a treaty between
Spain and Portugal about the boundaries of their respective
conquests in Africa, the opinion was held that the borders
of Guinea began between Capes Non and Boyador. Azurara
was the first to make the Senegal the northern boundary of
Guinea. He says the negroes were called Guineus, showing
that if he sometimes called the country of the i\zanegues
Guinea, it was in obedience to custom, and not because he
did not recognise the difference between the two countries.
The town of Jinnie, on the river Genua or Niger, was
founded in 1043-4, and soon became wealthy, owing to the
trade in salt from Tegazza and gold from Bitu, and continues
to be an emporium for the commerce carried on by the Man-
dingoes between Soudan and the west coast near Senegal
and Arguin. The negroes call the country lying on the
Niger Genua, Gheuea, Ginea, as well as Jennii, Gennii,
and Jinne, but it is not certain whether the name originated
with the country or the town. The Guinea Coast, as now
understood, began to l)e known by that name after the con-
struction of the Fort da Mina by the Portuguese in 1481,
when the King of Portugal assumed the title of Lord of
Guinea. But we must return from our digression.

As Diniz Dias coasted along this newly-visited shore, the
caravel caused great astonishment among the natives, till at
length four of the latter, being unable to decide whether it
was a fish, a bird, or a phantom, took courage and approached
it in a canoe, but when they found it contained men they fled

o

194 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR,

with such speed that the Portuguese coukl not overtake them.
As, however, it was far more Bias's purpose to discover land
for the service of the Prince than to take slaves for his own
profit, he proceeded still south till he reached a remarkable
headland, to which he gave the name of Cabo Verde. Little
more is known respecting this voyage, but as the Prince set
very great value on this new discovery of the negro country,
he largely rewarded Diniz Dias and his companions.

Seven months had now passed since Joao Fernandes had
been left by his own desire among the Moors at the Rio
d'Ouro. Antam Gonsalves therefore reminded the Prince
of the circumstance, and volunteered^ if the Prince should
think fit to provide him with ships, to do his best not only
to bring Fernandes back, but to make the voyage repay its
expenses. These ships were promptly provided, and the
principal command given to Antam Gonsalves. The other
two captains were Garcia Homem and Diogo Affonso, of the
Prince's household. Being separated by a violent storm, the
first that reached Cape Blanco was Diogo Aftonso, who set
up a large wooden cross as a notice to the rest, if they should
arrive after him, that he had gone on in advance. This cross
was fixed so firmly that it lasted there for many years, and
as Azui-ara was informed, was still there at the time that he
wrote. " Well," he says, " might it astonish any one of
another nation that might chance to pass by that coast to
see such a signal among the Moors, if he should happen to
be entirely ignorant of the Portuguese navigations along
that coast."* The other vessels soon joined him, Gonsalves
being the last to reach the Cape. As the first vessels had
had no success, in consecpience of the natives fleeing fi'om

* This sentenfCM)f Azurara's 1ms been adduced liy i\[. d'Avczau as a proof that
vessels of other nations wore in the habit of passing that way. I submit that
it demonstrates the exact contrary. Had the vessels of any other Christian
nation been in the habit of passinp; that coast, a similar elevation of a cross
■would have been a matter of perfectly easy occurrence, and would be far from
the matter of extreme astonishment pictured by Azurara. Nor could such
frequenters of the coast by any possibility be ignorant, as Azurara in fancy
ttuggests, of the navigations oi the Portuguese.

SENEGAMBTA. 195

tliera, Gonsalves proposed that they should leave the shijis
in charge of lieutenants, and go in their boats to the island
of Arguin, but they found no one there, except one native
and his daughter, whom they captured. In consequence of
information received from this man, they took twenty-five
more, and here Azurara remarks : — " It was a marvellous
thing that as soon as one of these people was taken, he took
refuge in pointing out to the enemy not only other natives,
but his friends, and even his wife and children." They then
returned along the coast in search of the caravels, from
which they had been absent three days. The caravels,
meantime, according to orders, sailed for the island of
Arguin, but, not knowing its position, passed beyond it to the
country farther south. Here they cast anchor, and in little
more than an hour observed a man on the shore opposite.
This proved to be Fernandes, who had been watching with
anxiety on the coast to see if any vessel were coming to
fetch him away. As the caravels could not come close to
the land, he ran along the shore till he met the boats
returning, and was received with great rejoicing.

It appeared that he had engaged the affections of the
natives during his sojourn amongst them, and he told
Gonsalves of a chief named Ahude Maymom, who wished to
barter with him some negroes whom he had taken captive.
Gonsalves received the offer gladly, and exchanged articles
of trifling value for negroes and gold. The place was called
Cabo do Resgate, or Cape of the Ransom. Here Gonsalves
knighted an old man of noble family from Madeira, named
Fernando Tavares, who considered it an especial honour to
be dubbed knight on the newly discovered land. The
caravels then proceeded to the island of Tider, where they
had an encounter with the natives, and narrowly escaped
great danger from an ambush. In his homeward passage
Gonsalves put in at Cape Branco, and made a capture of
about sixty natives, after which he made his way to Portugal
and reached Lisbon in safety.

Prince Henry was at the time in his duchy of Viseu,

o2

196 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

whence lie sent to claim his fifth, and the rest of the slaves
were disposed of in the city by the captains, to the great
benefit of all concerned.

However pleased the Prince may have been with the
general success of this voyage, his principal satisfaction was
in seeing Joao Fernandes back safe and sound, and able to
give him information respecting the country and the people.
Fernandes related that the first thing the natives did was to
strip him of his clothes, and give him a mantle such as the
rest of them wore. The people among whom he lived were
shepherds, who wandered with their cattle wherever they
could find pasture. The fodder was scanty, the land desert
and sandy, with no trees except small ones, such ii^Jigiiieras
do inferno {Pahna Christi), thorn trees, and a few palms.
There were very few flowers. All the water was from wells,
except a very few running streams.

The people were called Alarves, Azanegues, and Berbers.
They were Mohammedans. Their language, wi'itten and
spoken, differed from those of other Moors.* They had
neither law nor lordship, and waged war with the negroes,
who were stronger than they, more by craft than strength.
Some of these negroes they would sell to the Moors, who
came to their country for that purpose. Others they would
take to Barca, beyond Tunis, to sell them to the Christian
merchants who resorted thither, receiving in exchange bread
and other commodities, just as they did at the Rio d'Ouro.
The people had negro prisoners in their possession when
Fernandes was among them, and some gold which was
obtained from the land of the negroes. Their camels were
very numerous, and could travel fifty leagues in a day, and
they had plenty of cattle in spite of the thinness of the
pasture. There were a great number of emus, antas, and
gazelles, partridges, and hares. The swallows leave in the
spring and return to winter on the sands ; the storks go to
the land of the negroes to winter.

* This wmiM seem to indiciite that the Berhors had not at this time adopted
the Aiahic charaetcr. • ' .

SENEGAMBIA. 197

This country extended from Tagaoz or Tagazza to tlie land
of the negroes, in one direction, and to the Mediterranean
at the end of the kingdom of Tunis, at Barca, in the other.

Fernandes further rehited that one day two horsemen
came up to him, who were going to join the before-mentioned
chief, Ahude Maymom, and asked him to accompany them.
He accepted their invitation with pleasure, and they
mounted him on a camel and went their way. On the road
their water failed them, and for three days they had nothing
to drink. There was no certain road except by the sea-
shore, and they guided themselves by the signs of the sky
and the flight of birds. At length, after bearing their thirst
as best they could, they came up to Ahude Maymom and
his family, which, with their retinue, were about one hundred
and fifty in number. Fernandes made his obeisance, and
was welcomed by the Moor, who ordered milk to be given
him, and treated him so well that when he was received by
the caravels he had recovered his good looks and was in his
usual health, though he had suffered much from the heat of
the country and the sand of the desert.

Azurara gives further particulars respecting the Azanegues
among whom Fernandes dwelt. Their food was chiefly
milk, and sometimes a little meat with seeds of wild herbs
gathered on the mountains. Wheat was considered a
luxury. For many months they and their horses and dogs
lived entirely on milk. Those on the sea-shore ate nothing
but fish, mostly raw or dried. Their garments were vests
and breeches of leather, the better classes wore mantles.
They had a few good horses, with saddles and stirrups, and
some few of the chiefs kept brood mares. The women wore
mantles over their faces, but the rest of the body they left
uncovered. The women of the chiefs wore rings of gold on
their ancles, and other jewels. Their merchandise, besides
the slaves and gold which they get from the negro country,
consists of wool, butter, cheese, dates, which they imported,
amber, civet, gum anime, oil and skins of sea-wolves, which
are abundant at the Rio d'Ouro.

198 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

The success of Antam Gonsalves' expedition induced a
gentleman of Lisbon named Gonsalo Pacheco, who belonged
to the household of the Prince, to request permission to
make the voyage. He obtained leave to equip a caravel
which he had built for himself, and two others which he
wished to accompany him. He took with him as captains
Diniz Eannes da Graa, his wife's nephew, an esquire of the
Regent, Alvaro Gil, assayer of the mint, and Mafaldo of
Setuval. When they reached Cabo Branco, they found an
inscription left by Antam Gonsalves, warning them not to go
to the neighbouring village, as it was deserted. They then
went to the island of Arguin, in which, and on the mainland
near, Mafaldo, guided by the pilot Goncalves Gallego, who
had been there with Antam Gonsalves, made a capture of
iifty-three natives in one night. They then went south,
and at a place thirty-five leagues south of Tider, Alvaro
Vasques took seven captives, and the next day Luis Affonso
Cayado took ten. They coasted along some distance and
came to a cape which they named " Cabo de Santa Anna,"
where Alvaro Vasques and Diego Gil took thirty-five more.
Finding they could make no more captures, as the natives
were aware of their presence and fled from them, they
sailed eighty leagues yet further south, and would have
landed, in spite of the hostile appearance of the people, but
were prevented by the roughness of the sea. From the
distance they could see that the land was very verdant, with
a large population, and abundance of domestic cattle. They
would have proceeded further south, but a storm which
lasted three days drove them back, and when the weather
set in fair they found themselves at the place where Alvaro
Vasques had taken his seven captives. Encouraged by their
former success, the boats were sent on shore ; and they took
twelve prisoners.

Between Cabo Branco and Cabo Tira they saw a small
sandy island, where they found traces of men, fishing nets,
and abundance of turtles.

Tlie next day they returned and found the nets had been

SENEGAMBIA. lUU

removed, but there were some turtles with ropes round them
just as they had been caught. Observing another island
near, they went to it, little suspecting an ambush. They were
attacked by a large body of natives, and compelled to retreat
with the loss of seven men killed, and one of the boats, which
was taken to Tider and broken up for the sake of the nails.
The ships then proceeded to Arguin to take in water. The
Portuguese were afterwards told by some captives taken from
that place that the natives ate the Portuguese whom they
had killed, but others denied that such an enormity had
been committed. Azurara declares that it was certainly their
custom^ when they revenged the death of a relative, to eat
the liver and drink the blood of the murderer— but only as
an act of vengeance.

Meanwhile the recollection of the death of Gonsalo da
Cintra caused the inhabitants of liagos to appeal to the
Prince for his permission that an expedition should be sent
out, of sufficient strength to intimidate the natives, who
were in such great numbers at the island of Tider and the
neighbourhood, and so to quell their force that Portuguese
vessels might henceforth pass along any part of that coast
without jeopardy. To this Prince Henry gave his approval,
and fourteen vessels were forthwith equipped for that
object.

At this time (1445), Prince Henry was summoned to
Coimbra by his brother, the Regent Dom Pedro, to invest
with knighthood his eldest son Pedro, who was Constable
of the Kingdom and under orders for Castile ; for in such
profound esteem did the Regent hold Prince Henry,
that he regarded it as the greatest honour that could be
conferred upon his son to receive knighthood from such
hands.

Before Prince Henry started from Lagos, he entrusted the
chief command of the fourteen caravels to Langarote, who had
already proved himself so able a^ad successful a navigator on
the African coast. This was a great distinction, for the other
commanders were men of great eminence — Soeiro da Costa,

200 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Alcaide of Lagos, LaiKjarote's father-in-law, a fine old
soldier ; Alvaro de Freitas ; Gomes Pires, captain of the
King's caravel ; Rodrigueannes de Trava^os, of the Regent's
household ; Fallen 90, who had distinguished himself in the
wars against the Moors ; Gil Eannes, who first passed
Cape Boyador; Stevam Afi"onso, and other distinguished
natives of Lagos. Besides these fourteen ships, there were
sent out from Madeira three others, the captains of which
were Tristam Vaz, commander of Machico, and Alvaro
Dornellas, each in his own caravel, but these were driven
back by the weather before they reached Cape Branco. Alvaro
Fernandes also came out in a caravel, belono:ino- to his uncle
Joao Gonsalves Zarco, commander of Funchal. From Lisbon
Diniz Dias (who first reached the land of the negroes) went
out in a caravel of D, Alvaro de Castro, chief chamberlain
of King Affonso, and Joao de Castilha in another belonging
to Alvaro Gonsalves d'Ataide, the King-'s tutor. Altoo-ether
there were six-and-twenty caravels, besides the pinnace in
which Pallen90 went out.

The fourteen from Lagos set sail in company, on the
10th of August, 1445, having agreed, if they were separated, to
meet at Cape Branco, and as wind and tide were favourable
they tried which had the advantage in speed, and LourenQO
Dias, one of the captains, soon began to take the lead. He first
reached the island of Arguin, where he found the three caravels
of Pacheco's expedition en the eve of returning to Lisbon after
their discomfiture. From him they heard of the fleet that
was on its way thither^ and of the purpose with which it had
been sent out, and they promised themselves ample vengeance
for the loss they had sustained. They had already made a
fair capture for the one voyage, and their provisions were
running short, but rather than not accompany the new ex-
pedition, they preferred to live on short rations for a time-
Accordingly, they proceeded in company with Louren^o Dias
to the Ilha das Gar9as, where they remained for three days
in expectation of the otlier caravels.

They there found birds in great number, which heljied

SENEGAMBIA. 201

their stock of provisions, and some peculiar to that part,
called crooes, entirely white and larger than swans. Their
beaks were more than a cubit long- and three fingers in
breadth, and looked as highly polished as a pacha's scabbard.
The mouth and gullet were large enough to take in a man's
leg of the largest size up to the knee. There is evident
exaggeration in the descri})tion, but the bird appears to be a
kind of Marabou Jabiru.

"When some of the vessels had arrived, and among them
those of Lan^arote, Soeiro da Costa, Alvaro de Freitas, Gil
Eannes, and Gomes Pires, two hundred and seventy-eight
men were selected for the attack and sent on shore in three
boats, steered by pilots who had been there before and knew
the locality. They had intended to take the natives by
surprise, but everything went against them. The pilots
proved unequal to their work, the night was dark, the water
was low. The boats stranded and were obliged to wait for
the tide, and the sun was well up before they reached the
island. They proceeded for three leagues along the shore
till they reached Tider, near which they perceived a host of
natives showing every readiness to fight. A conflict ensued,
in which eight natives were killed, and four taken. They
then took to flight, leaped into the water and swam to the
mainland, having already sent away their wives and
children. Before returning to the ships the Portuguese
went to the village which the natives had deserted, and to
their great delight discovered water, for they were nearly
perishing of thirst. They also found a few cotton trees.

Here Soeiro da Costa and Diniz Eannes de Graa received
knighthood from the hands of Alvaro da Freitas, and De
Graa then returned, with the three caravels of Pacheco's ex-
pedition to Lisbon.

On the following day the natives returned to about a
stone's throw from the caravels, and danced on the shore as
if in defiance. A number of Portuguese, headed by a brave
lad of the Prince's household, named Diogo Gonsalves, and
Pero Alleman, of Lagos, swam ashore and soon put them

202 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

to flight. Fifty-seven were captured. They pursued the
fugitives as far as a village called Tira, on the sea-coast, at
about eight leagues distance, but found that and two other
villages deserted.

On the next day, the commanders of the fleet being all
assembled, Langerote announced to them that as the object
for which they had come out was now accomplished, inas-
much as the island of Tider had been conquered, and its
inhabitants dispersed, his duty as captain-general ceased;
for the Prince's orders were, that after that island was taken,
each of the captains should be free to take his course in any
direction that might seem to promise best. Then, after
making a fair distribution of the captives, he inquired of the
different captains what they proposed to do. Soeiro da
Costa, Vicente Dias (the outfitter), Gil Eannes, Martim
Vicente, and Joao Dias, decided upon returning to Por-
tugal, as their caravels were small, and the winter was
coming on.

On their way back, they determined to explore to its
extremity that arm of the sea which is formed by Cape
Blanco. They anchored near the entrance of this estuary,
and after pulling four leagues in, the boats reached the head
of it, and there landed. They found a few huts, from which
they captured eight natives, who told them there were no
other inhabitants near. Soeiro da Costa now altered his
mind, and went back to Tider with the view of obtaining a
ransom for a woman and a chief's son of that place. He
had cause to repent his, determination, for after he had
handed over a Moor and a Jew as a guarantee of his good
faith, the woman leaped overboard, and swam to land, and
the natives would only surrender the three on condition that
three others were given in exchange. The alternative was
hard, but Da Costa was obliged to put up with the loss, and
return to Portugal.

Gomes Pires, who was captain of the King's caravel, in
answer to Lanrerote's inquiry, declared his intention to
proceed to the land of the negroes, and especially to the

SENEGAMBIA. 203

river Nile,* about which the Prince was very anxious to gain
information. In this purpose he was joined by Lan^erote
himself; and Alvaro de Freitas not only declared his hearty
good-will to join them, but to follow them if possible to the
Terrestrial Paradise. It must not be supposed that this was
mere empty talk. In some of the maps of the middle ages
the Terrestrial Paradise was laid down in the most eastern
part of Asia, but if the reader recalls the connection of the
rivers Gihon and Euphrates, two of the four rivers issuing
from Eden, with the medifeval notions of the Nile, he will
perceive the meaning of the words of De Freitas. Of the
same opinion were Rodrigueannes de Trava^os, Lourengo
Dias, and Vicente Dias (the merchant), and forthwith they
set out on their voyage. Two of the other caravels now
parted company with them, one from Tavila, and another
called the Picaiigo, or the Wreji, belonging to a man of
Lagos, but as they did not reach the land of the negroes,
they will be spoken of hereafter.

The six caravels sailed along the coast till they found the
land of Zaara, or desert, the country of the Azanegues, and
came to the two palm trees which Diniz Dias had found,
and by which they knew that they were very near the land
of the negroes. They would have landed, but the surf on
the coast prevented them. The smell from the shore was so
fragrant that it was as if some delightful fruit garden had
been placed there for their especial delectation. The Prince
had told them from information he had received from the
Azanegue prisoners, that twenty leagues beyond the palms
they would find the western outlet of the river Nile, called
by the natives Qanaga. As they proceeded along the coast,

* This expression shows how full of pui-pose these explorations were, and
that the Prince did not seek simply to add to his knowledge of the "West African
coast, but to compare the information which could be gathered from the natives
themselves with the scientific, historical, and geographical notions of ancient and
mediifval times, so as ultimately to reach the east. The reader wiU have already
seen that the river here spoken of is the Nile of the Negroes, or the Senegal, to
which river the name of Niger adhered even so late as to the close of last
century.

204 PKINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

keeping a look-out for the river, they observed before them
at about two leagues distance from the land a colour in the
water different from the rest, which was mud coloured.
This proved to be the fresh water from the river, and they
soon came to the river's mouth, where they anchored.
Eight of the sailors of Vicente Dias' caravel pulled
ashore, and among them Stevam Affonso, who had partly
fitted out the caravel. One of them pointed out a cabin
near the mouth of the river, and proposed that they should
try to take the inhabitants by surprise. Stevam Affonso and
five others landed, and hiding near the cabin, saw issue from
it a negro boy quite naked, who was immediately taken ;
and when they went up to the cabin, they found his sister, a
girl of about eight years old.

The Prince afterwards had this boy educated, and it was
supposed that he intended him fcr the priesthood, that he
might go and preach Christianity to his people ; but the
youth died before he came of age.

When the Portuguese went into the cabin, they found
a shield made of leather from the ear of the elephant, quite
round, somewhat larger than the ordinary size, with a boss
in the middle made of the same leather. They afterwards
learned from the natives that all their shields were made
from the hide of this animal. When the skin is thicker
than they require, they stretch it more than half its original
size by means of contrivances which they have for that
purpose. They made no use of the ivory, but exported it.
'' I learned," says Azurara, "that in the Levant one of these
bones was worth on an average a thousand dobras " — a
remark which shows thsit his knowledge of the ivory trade
extended only to the ports of the Mediterranean, and not to
any exportation of that commodity from the coasts of Guinea.
They presently came upon the father of the children, who
was busy carpentering, and did not perceive them. 8tevam
Affonso a})proached him stealthily, and springing on him
clutched him by the hair, and as he himself was a little man
and the African very tall, when the latter stood upright he

SENEGAMBIA. 205

lifted his assailant off his feet. Powerful as the negro was,
he conld not rid himself of his antagonist, but tossed himself
about like a bull that some fierce dog had seized by the ear.
The Portuguese then came up and held his arms, intending
to bind him, and Stevam Affonso, imagining that he was
secured by the others, loosed his hold, but no sooner did the
African find his head free than he shook off the others from
his arms, and fled. He was much swifter of foot than the
Portuguese, and soon plunged into a forest of underwood,
and while the rest were trying to find him, he made his way
to his hut in search of his children and of his weapon which
he had left with them. The bereaved father was furious
when he could not find them, and as he looked along the
shore in search of them, he saw Vicente Dias walking
towards him with nothing but a gaff in his hand. The
enraged African fell upon him with his azagay and inflicted
a severe wound on his face ; after which they closed in a
deadly struggle. A negro youth came to the assistance of
his friend, and obliged Dias to loose his hold ; but at the
approach of the other Portuguese, the two negroes made
their escape.

The caravels now made their way to Cape Verde, and all
reached it, excepting that of Eodrigueannes de Travacjos,
who lost company, and whose adventures will be related
hereafter.

Off the Cape they saw an island, on which they landed to
see if it were inhabited, but found only a great number of
long-eared goats, some of which they took for food. Having
taken in water, they went on and found another island * in
which they saw fresh goat skins and other things lying
about, which showed that other caravels were in advance of
them, a fact which was confirmed by their seeing carved
on the trees the arms of Prince Henry and the words
of his motto, "Talent de bien faire." They afterwards
learned that the caravel which had preceded them was
that of Joao Gonsalves Zarco, commander of the island

* These were the Madeleine Islands off Cape Verde.

206 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

of Madeira. The number of the natives on shore was so
great that they had no chance of landing either by day or
night ; but Gomes Pires, by way of trying to bring about
some intercourse, placed on shore a ball, a mirror, and a
sheet of paper on which was drawn a crucifix. These the
negroes broke and destroyed as soon as they found them.
The Portuguese now drew their bows on them, but they
returned the compliment both with arrows and azagays.
The arrows were not feathered and had no notch for the strinsr.
They were short and made of reeds or canes Avith long iron
heads, and some of the shafts were of charred wood. All
their arrows, without exception, were tipped with vegetable
poison. Each azagay had seven or eight barbed points.
The poison used was very deadly.

In that island in which Prince Henry's arms were found
cut on the trees, they found many large trees of a very
peculiar kind, and among them one which measured a
hundred and eight palms round in the stem. The stem of
this tree is not higher than a walnut tree, and with its fibre
they make very good thread for sewing with, and it burns
like flax, its fruit is like a gourd, and its kernels like chest-
nuts. These they dried, and as they were in great quantity,
Azurara supposed that it was used by them for food, when
the season for the fresh fruit was over. Doubtless the tree
was the baobab.

From this point they made sail for Lagos, but Gomes
Pires became separated from the other caravels, and on
his way homewards, after taking water at Arguin, put in
at the Eio d'Ouro, where some of the natives came to him
and sold him a negro for five doubloons. They also gave
him water from the camels, and meat, and in other respects
gave him a good reception. Indeed, they were so confiding,
that they came without hesitation on board his caravel,
which he had rather they had not done. At length he
managed to have them put on shore without the occurrence
of any unpleasantness, and promised them that in July of
the following year, he would return and treat further with

SENEGAMBIA. 207

them. He also laid in a good cargo of phoca skins, and
tlien made his way home.

After the others had departed, Lan^arote, Alvaro de
Freitas, and Vicente Dias put in at the Bay of Arguin for
water, and captm^ed more than sixty natives. Contented
with this success, they returned together to Portugal.

PallenQO, in company with Diniz Dias, after taking in water
at the isle of Arguin, made for the land of the negroes.
Having passed a good distance beyond the point of Santa
Anna, one day when it was calm, Pallen^o proposed to send
some of the men on shore to make a capture. After some
discussion with Dias, who wished to go straight to Guinea,
the men were sent on shore. There was a heavy surf in
spite of the calm, but twelve who could swim well succeeded
in landing through it and caj^turing six of the natives.
"When they recommenced their voyage, the wind freshened,
and Pallengo's pinnace beginning to leak, they were obliged
to desert it.

After Rodrigueannes de Travagos lost company of the
other caravels on their way to Cape Verde, he joined
Diniz Dias. They reached Cape Verde and went to the
islands (the Madeleine Islands) to take in water, and
found by the same traces that Lan^arote had found, that
other vessels had been there before them. He observed on
the island among the cattle there, two that seemed different
from the rest, larger and not so tame, which he took to be
buffaloes. They had a severe encounter with the natives,
who far outnumbered them, but were routed at last, leaving
one of their chiefs dead on the field. A young man of the
Prince's household, named Martim Pereira, distinguished
himself greatly. His shield was stuck full of arrows like a
porcupine's back. After this encounter they returned to
Portugal, stopping only at the Cabo de Tira, where they
captured one man.

Hitherto it has been seen how almost all these explorers
had been intent on their own gains in addition to the Prince's
service ; but Joao Gronsalves Zarco was an exception to this

208 PEINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

rule. He had fitted out a splendid caravel, and gave the com-
mand of it to his nephew Alvaro Fernandes, who had been
brought up in the Prince's household, with injunctions to
forego all thought of gain, and not to land in the country
of the Azanegues, but to proceed straight to the negro
country, and make his way as far as he could with the view
of bringing back some new information that should give
pleasure to the Prince. The caravel was well victualled, had
a crew well disposed for work, and Alvaro Fernandes was
young and zealous. They proceeded as far as the Senegal,
where they filled two pipes with water, one of which they
afterwards took to Lisbon. They then passed Cape Verde
and came to an island, where they landed and found some
tame goats, without any one tending them, of which they
took some for food. It was they who left those indications
of the arms of the Prince, and his device and motto cut on
the trees which were seen by Langarote and his companions,
for this Alvaro Fernandes was the first who came there.

They anchored about a third of a league from the Cape,
hoping to communicate with the natives, though only by
signs, for they had no interpreter. Two boats containing
ten negroes put off from the shore and made straight for the
ship, as if with peaceful intentions. As they approached
they made signs asking for assurance of safety, which Avas
given, and immediately five of them entered the caravel.
Alvaro Fernandes received them with all possible kindness,
gave them plenty to eat and drink, and showed them every
attention in his power. They left with every sign of being
greatly pleased. When, however, they reached the shore
they encouraged other natives to make an attack, and six
boats put out with thirty-iive or forty men in them prepared
for fighting ; but they did not venture to come close to the
caravel, but remained at a little distance. When Alvaro
Fernandes saw this, he launched his boat on the opposite
side of the caravel so as not to be seen by the negroes,
ordered eight men into it, and waited for the negroes to
come nearer. At length, one of the boats containing five

SENEGAMBIA. 209

powerful negroes, took courage to approach. "When Fernandcs
observed that it was in such a position that his own boat
could reach it before the others could bring help, he ordered
his men to sally forth suddenl}'^ and row down upon them.
From the great advantage they possessed in their mode of
rowing, the Portuguese were speedily on the enemy, who
being thus taken by surprise and having no hope of defend-
ing themselves, threw themselves into the water, and the
other boats pulled for the land. The Portuguese had great
difficulty in catching them as they were swimming, for they
dived like cormorants, so that they could get no hold of them.
However, they took two and brought them on board.

Alvaro Fernandes saw clearly that, after this, no advantage
was to be gained by staying there. He therefore proceeded
further south and reached a cape where there were many dry
palm-trees without any branches, and to which he gave the
name of Cabo dos Mastos (the Cape of the Masts). As they
proceeded, Alvaro Fernandes sent out a boat with seven men
to go along the shore, and, as they went, they lighted on four
negroes sitting on the beach, who were out on a hunting
expedition, and armed with bows. When these saw the
Portuguese, they rose quickly and fled, not giving them-
selves time to adjust their bows, and as they were naked,
and had their hair short, the Portuguese could not catch
them, but they took the bows and arrows, together with
some wild boars which they had taken. Among the larger
animals found there was the antelope, which on account
of its tameness they would not kill. They now returned
to the ship and sailed back to Madeira, and thence to Lisbon.
There they found the Prince, who received them with very
great favour, and showed especial honour to Zarco, who had
thus at his o^vn expense set on foot an exploration which
went further than any of the others that made the voyage
to Guinea that year.

It has already been stated that after the six caravels
had sailed for Guinea, • two separated from them and
turned northward, viz., that from Tavila, and the Pican^o.

1'

210 PKINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

On their way they met with the caravel of Alvaro
Grousalves de Atayde, the captain of which was one Joao
de Castilha, going to Guinea, whom they dissuaded from
that voyage, and induced him to join them in an expedition
to the island of Palma. On reaching Gomera they were
well received, and two chieftains of the island, named
Bruco and Piste, after announcing themselves as grateful
servants of Prince Henry, from whom they had received the
most generous hospitality, declared their readiness to do
anything to serve him. The Portuguese told them they
were bound to the island of Palma for the purpose of
capturing some of the natives, and a few of the chieftain's
subjects would be of great use as guides and assistants,
where both the country and the people's mode of fighting
were alike unknown. Piste immediately offered to ac-
company them, and to take as many Canarians as they
pleased, and with this help they set sail for Palma, which
they reached a little before daybreak. Unsuitable as the
hour might seem, they immediately landed, and presently
saw some of the natives fleeing, but, as they were starting
in pursuit, one of the men suggested that they would have a
better chance of taking some shepherds, chiefly boys and
women, whom they saw keeping their sheep and goats
among the rocks. These drove their flocks into a valley
that was so deep and dangerous that it was a wonder that
they could make their way at all. The islanders were
naturally sure-footed to a wonderful degree, but several of
them fell from the crags and were killed. The page Diogo
Gonsalves, who had been the first to swim to the shore in
the encounter near Tider, again distinguished himself. It
was hard work for the Portuguese, for the Canarians hurled
stones and lances with sharp horn points at them with great
strength and precision. The contest ended in the capture
of seventeen Canarians, men and women. One of the
latter was of exti-aordinary size for a woman, and they said
that she was the (|uecMi of a part of the island. In retiring
to the boats with thoii' cnjiture they were closel}' followed

SENEGAMBIA. 211

by the Canarians, and were obliged to leave the greater part
of the cattle that they had had so much trouble in taking.

On their return to Gomera they thanked the island
chieftain for the good service he had rendered them, and
afterwards, when Piste, with some of the islanders, went to
Portugal, they were so well received by the Prince that he
and some of his followers remained for the rest of their lives.

As Joiio de Castilha, the captain of the caravel of Alvaro
Gilianez Datayde, had not reached Guinea as the others had
done, and consequently had less booty than they to carry back
to Portugal, he conceived the dastardly idea of capturing
some of the Gomerans, in spite of the pledge of security.
As it seemed too hideous a piece of treachery to seize any of
those who had helped them so well, he removed to another
port, where some twenty-one of the natives, trusting to the
Portuguese, came on board the caravel and were straight-
way carried to Portugal. When the Prince heard of it he
was extremely angry, and had the Canarians brought to his
house, and with rich presents sent them back to their own
country.

Alvaro Dornellas, after an unsuccessful attempt to make
a capture in the Canary Islands, which resulted in his only
taking two captives, remained at the islands, not caring to
return to Lisbon without more booty. He sent Affonso Marta
to Madeira to procure stores by the sale of the two Canarians.
The weather prevented Marta making the island, and he
was obliged to put in at Lisbon, where at that time was
Joao Dornellas, squire to the King, and cousin to Alvaro.
Joao had a joint interest in the caravel, and hearing of his
cousin's difficulties, hastened to his assistance. Together
they made a descent upon the island of Palma, having
obtained help from the people of Gomera in the name of
Prince Henry, and in a night attack, after a fierce encounter,
took twenty captives. They returned to Gomera, where
Alvaro had to remain, and his cousin left for Portugal. In tlie
homeward passage such a dearth of victuals supervened that
they were well-nigh compelled to eat some of their captives,

T> o

1 /w

212 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

but happily, before they were driven to that extremit}',
they reached the port of Tavila, in the kingdom of Algarve.

It has been seen in a former chapter that the Norman,
Jean de Bethencourt, retiring to France in 1406, had left his
nephew, Maciot de Bethencourt, as governor-general of his
conquests in the Canaries, comprising Lan9arote, Forte-
ventura, and Ferro. Azurara gives the Christian population
of these three islands in his time as follows : — In Lan9arote
sixty men, in Forteventura eighty, and in Ferro twelve.
They had their churches and priests.

In the Pagan islands the numbers were, in Gromera* about
seven hundred men, in Palma five hundred, in Teneriffe six
thousand bearing arms, and in the Great Canary five thou-
sand fighting men. These had never been conquered, but
some of their people had been taken, who gave information
respecting their customs.

The Grreat Canary was ruled by two Kings and a Duke,
who were elected, but the real governors of the island were
an assembly of Knights, who were not to be less than
one hundred and ninety, nor so many as two hundred,
and whose numbers were filled up by election from the
sons of their own class. The people were intelligent,
but little worthy of trust ; they were very active and
powerful. Their only weapons were a short club and
the stones with which their country abounded, and which
supplied them also with building materials. Most of them
went entirely naked, but some wore petticoats of palm
leaves. They made no account of the precious metals, but set
a high value on iron, which they worked with stones and
made into fishing-hooks ; they even used stones for shaving.
They had abundance of sheep, pigs, and goats, and their
infimts were generally suckled by the latter. They had
wheat, but had not the skill to make bread, and ate the
meal with meat and butter. They had plenty of figs,
dragon's blood, and dates, but not of a good quality, and

* Maciot attempted, with the assistance of some Castilians, to subdue the
imaiid of (iDinora, Im! willunit success.

SENEOAMBIA. 213

some useful herbs. They held it an abomination to kill
animals, and employed Christian captives as butchers when
they could get them. They kindled fire by rubbing- one
stick against another. They believed in a God who would
reward and punish, and some of them called themselves
Christians.

The peo})le of Gomera Avere less civilized. They had no
clothing, no houses. Their women were regarded almost as
common property, for it was a breach of hospitality for a
man not to offer his wife to a visitor by way of welcome.
They made their sisters' sons their heirs. They had a few
pigs and goats, but lived chiefly on milk, herbs, and roots,
like the beasts ; they also ate filthy things, such as rats and
vermin. They spent their time chiefly in singing and
dancing, for they had to make no exertion to gain their
livelihood. They believed in a God, but were not taught
obedience to any law. The fighting men were seven
hundred in number, over wdiom was a captain with certain
other officers.

In Tenerifle the people were much better off, and more
civilized. They had plenty of wheat and vegetables, and
abundance of pigs, sheep, and goats, and were dressed in
skins. They had, however, no houses, but passed their
lives in huts and caves. Their chief occupation was war,
and they fought with lances of pine-wood, made like great
darts, very sharp, and hardened in the hre. There were
eight or nine tribes, each of which had two kings, one dead
and one living, for they had the strange custom of kee2)ing
the dead king unburied till his successor died and took his
place : the body was then thrown into a pit. They were
strong and active men, and had their own wives, and lived
more like men than some of the other islanders. They
believed in the existence of a God.

The people of Palma had neither bread nor vegetables,
but lived on mutton, milk, and herbs ; they did not even
take the trouble to catch fish like the other islanders. They
fought with spears like the men of Teneriffe, but pointed

214 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

them witb sharp horn instead of iron, and at the other end
they also put another piece of horn, but not so sharp as
that at the point. They had some chiefs who were called
Kings. They had no knowledge of God, nor any faith
whatever.

In 1414 the exactions and tyranny of Maciot de Bethen-
court had caused Queen Catherine of Castile to send out
three war caravels under the command of Pedro Barba de
Campos, Lord of Castro Forte, to control him. Maciot^
although only Regent, for Jean de Bethencourt was still
alive, ceded the islands to Barba and then sailed to Madeira,
where he sold to Prince Henry these very islands of which
he had just made cession to another, together with those
which still remained to be conquered. Maciot subsequently
sold them to the Spanish Count de Niebla. Pedro Barba
de Campos sold them to Fernando Perez of Seville, and the
latter again to the aforesaid Count de Niebla, who disposed
of them to Guillem de las Casas, and the latter to his son-in-
law Fernam Peraza. Meanwhile the legitimate proprietor,
Jean de Bethencourt, left them by will to his brother
Eeynaud. But as yet there still remained unconquered the
Great Canary, Palma, Teneriffe, and the small islands about
Lan9arote, and, in 1424, Prince Henry sent out a fleet
under the command of Fernando de Castro, with two thou-
sand five hundred infantry and a hundred and twenty horse,
to effect the conquest of the whole of the islands ; but the
expense entailed thereby, combined with the expostulations
of the King of Castile, caused him to withdraw for a time
from the undertaking.

Subsequently, in the year 1446, he resumed his efforts at
this conquest, but before taking any step he applied to his
brother, Dom Pedro, who was then Eegent, to give him a
charter prohibiting all Portuguese subjects from going to
the Canary Islands, either for purposes of war or commerce,
except by his orders. This charter was conceded, with a
further grant of a fifth of all imports from those islands.
The concession was made in consideration of the great

SENEGAMBIA. 215

expenses which tlie Prhice liad incurred. In the following-
year, 1447, the Prince conferred the chief captaincy of the
island of Lan(:;arote on Antam Gronsalves, who went out to
enforce his claim ; but unfortunately, Azurara, from whom
we derive this date, and who, as it was very near the period
of his writing, would be little likely to be in error, fails to
tell us the result of Gonsalves' expedition. If we were to
follow^ Barros and the Spanish historians, the date of this
expedition would be much earlier. Be this as it may, when
in 1455 King Henry IV., of Castile, was married to
Joanna, the youngest daughter of Dom Duarte, King of
Portugal, Dom Martinho de Atayde, Count d'Atouguia,
who escorted the Princess to Castile, received from King-
Henry the Canary Islands as an honorary donation. De
Atayde sold them to the Marques de Menesco, who again
sold them to Dom Fernando, Prince Henry's nephew and
adopted son. In 1460 Dom Fernando sent out a new ex-
pedition under Diogo da Silva, but if we are to believe
Viera y Clavijo, it was as unfortunate as its predecessors.
But meanwhile, at the death of Fernam Peraza, his
daughter liiez, who had married Diogo Garcia de Herrera,
inherited her father's rights in the Canaries, and one of her
daughters married Diogo da Silva. Still Spain maintained
its claims, and it was not till 1479, when, on the 4th of
September, the treaty of peace was signed at Alcapova,
between Alfonso V., of Portugal, and Ferdinand and
Isabella of Castile, that the disputes of the two nations on
this point were settled. The sixth article of that treaty
(Torre do Tombo, Gav. 17, Mac. 6, n. 16) provided that
" the conquests from Cape Non to the Indies, with the seas
and islands adjacent, should remain in possession of the
Portuguese, but the Canaries and Granada should belong to
the Castilians."

Hitherto both the gains and the losses of the Portuguese
in these various expeditions had been but small. Dangers
had been surmounted and captures had been made, but it
may be (Questioned whether the greed of gain alone would

216 PRrNCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

have kept alive the spirit of exploration, in the face of
dangers which greatly outbalanced the profit secured to
individual adventurers. To the far-sighted vision of Prince
Henry, the results, though small and slowly conquered,
were far more promising than to those whose object was
immediate profit, and hence his resolution never wavered,
his zeal in the prosecution of his purpose never flagged.
It needed all that zeal, supported by his princely position,
and the great weight of his personal authority, to induce
men to prosecute yet further search through unknown seas
for lands which, with no certainty of profit, might so easily
ofi"er dangers entirely unanticipated. Such dangers were
now to be encountered, and with disastrous result.

In the year 1446, Nmio Tristam set sail in a caravel, by
the Prince's command, to make explorations beyond the
Cabo dos Mastos, which had been discovered by Alvaro
Fernandes, and, being a resolute man, he passed some sixty
leagues beyond Cape Verde, and reached what is now called
the Rio Grrande. Anchoring at its mouth, he took two
small boats with two-and-twenty men, intending to pull up
the river in search of a village. The tide soon carried him
up a considerable way beyond the bar, when he encountered
twelve canoes containing some seventy or eighty negroes
with bows in their hands, who, having seen the boat when
it first entered the river, had assembled to meet him. As
the tide rose, one of the native boats passed him, and
landed its crew, who began discharging their arrows at the
Portuguese. The others who remained in the boats came
near, and also discharged their poisoned arrows at the new-
comers. The Portuguese hastened back to reach the
caravel, but before they got on board, four men were dead
from the effect of the poison. They then made all haste to
get out to sea, and were obliged to cut their cables and
leave their anchors and boats behind, so fierce was the
shower of arrows with which they were assailed. Of the
two-aiid-twcnty that had set out, two only escaped, one
named Andre Dias, and the other Alvaro da Costa, both

SENEGAMBIA. 217

squires of Prince Henr}", and natives of Evora. The other
nineteen died, the poison being so subtle that the slightest
wound touching the blood caused death.

So perished the brave knight, Nuno Tristam, who would
have coveted a more glorious death, and with him another
knight named Joao Correa, and three other gentlemen of
the Prince's household, named Duarte d'Olanda, Estevam
d'Almeicla, and Diogo Machado. In all oue-and-twenty
were killed, for two were struck in endeavouring to raise the
anchors. Five only remained in the ship : a common sailor
who knew little enough of the art of navigation ; a lad
named Aii'es Tinoco, one of Prince Henry's grooms of the
chamber, and who went out as scribe to the expedition : an
African boy, one of the earliest captures in that country;
and two little fellows who had been attached to the persons
of some of the deceased adventurers. The pitiful position of
this feeble crew on that inhospitable shore may be imagined.
They naturally turned their hopes to the sailor, as the best
navigator amongst them, but he freely confessed his want
of skill. Aires Tinoco, however, had the good judgment to
direct him to steer to the north with a little bearing to the
east. For two months they knocked about without seeing
land, at the end of which time they caught sight of an
armed vessel, which terrified them considerably, for they
feared it was a Moorish ship. It proved, however, to
belong to a Gallician corsair, named Pero Falcom, who, to
their great delight, told them that they were ofi' a place
called Sines, on the coast of Portugal. They then lost no
time in making for Lagos. The grief of the Prince at the
melancholy story related by the boys was enhanced by the
fact that nearly all that had perished had been brought up
from childhood in his own household. He therefore made
it a duty to take the wives and children of all. of them
under his especial care and protection.

In proportion as Nuiio Tristam had been unfortunate,
good fortune seemed to await on Alvaro Fernandes, the
nephew of Joao Gonsalves Zarco, commander of Madeira,

218 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

for in that same year he returned to the coast of Gruinea,
and passed a hundred leagues beyond Cape Verde. At some
distance beyond the Cabo dos Mastos they landed and came
to a village, the inhabitants of which showed a great in-
clination to fight, and one of them came forward armed
with an azagay. Seeing this Feruandes hurled his lance
at him and struck him dead, upon which the rest took to
flight.

On the next day they came to an estuary, where they saw
some women. They took one about thirty years old with
her child of about two, and a girl of fourteen. The woman
was so strong that they could not force her to the boat,
and they were afraid that the delay would bring the natives
down upon them. At last they thought of taking the child
to the boat, when the afi:ection of the mother caused her to
follow without any difficulty. They next came to a river,*
which they entered in a boat, and meeting four or five canoes
full of negroes, had an encounter with them, in which Alvaro
Fernandes received a wound from an arrow in his leg. As
he was aware of the poison, he drew the arrow out instantly
and bathed the wound with acid and oil, and afterwards
anointed it well with theriackf as an antidote, and by dint
of great care he recovered, but for some days was in great
peril of his life.

In spite of their captain being thus wounded, the caravel
pushed on to the south and reached a point of sand in front
of a great bay, where a boat was sent out to explore. As it
approached the shore, some hundred and twent}^ negroes
made their appearance, some armed with shields and azagays
and others with bows, and when they reached the water-side

* Barros says this river is now called Tabite. The Vicomtc dc Santarem
identifies it with that laid do^^^l on the maps of Juan de la Cosa, and Joao Frcire
as Rio do Lagos.

t This now dLsused antidote, the name of which means treacle (Grxce),
was a compound of a groat number of drugs with a basis of viper's flesh. It
was held to be sovereign against the bites of venomous beasts. The name, which
was given by Anchomachus, Nero's physician, doubtless arose from the preserva-
tive nature of treacle against ])uti'id air and other deleterious agents.

SENEGAMBIA. 219

began to play and dance in the merriest fashion, but the
boat's crew not feeling any particular wish, under tlie cir-
cumstances, to share in their jollity, thought best to return
to the ship. This was a hundred and ten leagues south of
Cape Verde. But for the wound of Alvaro Fernandes they
would have gone further.

On their return they put in at Arguin, and afterwards at the
Cabo do Resgate, where they fell in with that same Ahude
Meimom who had kindly treated Joao Fernandes. Unfor-
tunately they had no interpreter, but by signs they negotiated
with him the exchange of a negress for some cloths, and
if they had had a greater quantity, the Moors would gladly
have made a larger traffic with them of the same kind.
This caravel made more way to the south than any of
its predecessors, and received as a reward for so doing two
hundred doubloons, one hundred from the Regent Dom
Pedro and another hundred from Prince Henry.

These rewards encouraged many who would otherwise have
been deterred from these explorations bythe sad fate of Nuno
Tristam, and accordingly in this same year nine caravels were
fitted out, the captains of which were Gil Eannes, who first
passed Cape Boyador; Fernando Valarinho, who had distin-
guished himself at Ceuta ; Stevam AfFonso, Louren^o Dias,
Lom'engo d'Elvas and Joao Bernaldes, an esquire of the Bishop
of Algarve, commanding a ship belonging to the bishop ; and
three others, residents of Lagos. They first proceeded to
Madeira to victual, where they were joined by two caravels,
one belonging to Tristam Vaz, the commander of Machico,
the other to Garcia Homem, son-in-law of Joao Gonsalves
Zarco, commander of Funchal. Thence they sailed for
Gomera, where they landed the Canary men who had been
taken off by Joao de Castilha, and who returned very pleased
with the treatment and presents which they had received
from Prince Henry. But first they proposed to these
Can^iry men to help them in making a capture at the island
of Palma, and for the Prince's sake they would gladly have
done so, but the plan was frustrated by the Palmarenes

220 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

having been put on the alert by the arrival of the caravel of
Louren^o Dias some days before. The Madeira vessels
accordingly returned, as also did Gil Eannes, but the rest
made their way to the Guinea coast, and passed sixty leagues
beyond Cape Verde.

Here they came to a river of great size [Rio Grande],
which they entered with their caravels ; but the bishop's
vessel stranded on a sand-bank and was lost, although the
crew and contents were saved. While some of them were
engaged on the salvage, Stevam Affonso and his brother
followed some tracks that they lighted on, and found some
plantations of cotton-trees and rice, and other trees of various
kinds. The land around was hilly and had the appearance of
loaves. They presently entered a thick wood, from which issued
some natives armed with azagays and bows. Seven of the
foremost of those who went to meet them were wounded, and
of these five fell dead, two Portuguese and three foreigners.
When Stevam Aifonso and the others saw the peril of their
position, they retreated and escaped with great difficulty, for
the natives were there in numbers. On reaching their ships,
they determined to return. The}^ therefore proceeded to the
island of Arguin to take water, and thence to the Oabo do
Resgate, where, finding tracks of natives, and being un-
willing to return without a capture, they followed them and
succeeded in taking eight-and-forty, with whom they made
their way to Portugal.

Stevam Afi'onso only went to the island of Palma, where
he took two women, a transaction which had like to have cost
the lives of the whole party had not Diogo Gonsalves boldly
snatched a crossbow from the hands of one of the Canary
men, and quickly shot seven of them. One of these was a
chieftain, as was known by his canying a palm branch in his
hand. The rest, seeing tlieir leader Ml, surrendered. The
party then returned in safety to Portugal.

In this year (1446) Gomes Pires did not forget his promise
to the Moors in the year before, that he would return to
the Rio d'Ouro, and on his petition the Prince gave him

SENEGAMBIA. 221

two caravels, with twenty men, among whom was a youth
of the Prince's household named Joao Gorizo, who had
charge of the accounts of the receipts and expenditure
which occurred in the Moorish trafhc. It was now the
custom for all the vessels bound to the west coast of
Africa to go first to Madeira to victual, and on their arrival
Gromes Pires desired Gorizo to remain and take in the stores,
while he proceeded straight in the smaller vessel to the
Rio d'Ouro. The Moors not appearing near the entrance,
he made for the head of the estuary, and anchored in a
harbour named Porto da Caldeira, a name which does not
survive in any existing maps, but appears to have been
given by other Portuguese who had previously visited the
estuary. Although he burned fires night and day on a hill
near the harbour, it was three days before any Moors made
their appearance. When they came, he proposed to them
by his interpreters to barter cloth with them for Guinea
slaves. They answered that they were not merchants nor
were there any thereabouts, though inland there were
traffickers in merchandise who had abundance of gold and
Guinea slaves, but to reach the spot where they were would
involve a very laborious journey. Gomes Pires requested
the Moors to fetch these merchants, and gave them in
advance a remuneration fo? their trouble. They pretended
to go, but although he waited for them one-and-twenty days
they never returned. Meanwhile Gorizo arrived with the
other vessel, and they then set sail, and landing at different
points within a range of only eleven leagues of coast
with considerable toil and fatigue, contrived to capture
seventy-nine Moors. As they had brought out a large
quantity of salt for the purpose of salting the phoca skins in
the event of their failing to make a better capture, they
were compelled to discharge the salt in order to make
stowage room for their caj)tives, and so they returned to
Lagos.

" Up to that period, 1446," says Azurara, " there had
been fifty-one caravels to these parts. These caravels went

222 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

four hundred and fifty leagues beyond the Cape. It was
found that that coast ran southward with many points,
which the Prince caused to be added to the sailing chart,
and it is to be observed that what was known for certain of
the coast of the great sea was six* hundred leagues, which
have been increased by these four hundred, and what had
been shown upon the mappemonde with respect to this
coast was not truth, for it had been only delineated at hap-
hazard, but that which is now laid down on the charts is
from ocular observation, as has been already shown."

In the following year, 1447, in consequence of the failure
in establishing friendly relations with the Moors at the Eio
d'Ouro, where Gomes Pires made the capture just recorded.
Prince Henry resolved to try if better success might be met
with at Messa, a town in the province of Sus, in the empire
of Marocco.f With this object he fitted out a caravel which
he put under the command of Diogo Gil, a man who had
already done good service against the Moors, both by sea
and land. And at this time it happened to come to the
Prince's knowledge that a Spanish merchant named Marcos
Cisfontes had in his possession twenty-six Moors from that
same place, the bargain for whose ransom had been already
stipulated for in exchange for some negroes of Guinea. To
turn the outward voyage to advantage, the Prince caused a
proposal to be made to the merchant to carry out those
Moors to Messa in the vessel which had been fitted out with
that destination, with the understanding that he should
receive in return a certain number of the negroes that were
to be given in ransom.

As may readily be supposed, this proposal was not made
by the Prince for the sake of the trifling profit that would
result from the transaction. He had a double object in
view of a far higher kind. He not only wished to gain
information respecting the mode of traffic in that country,

* It should bo two humlred, evidently an error into which the peunian was
led by adding iiieiitally the two to the four hundred.

t Leo Al'ricanus says, liv. 2, that it was built by the early inhabitants of
Africa.

SENEUAMBIA. 223

but his great anxiety, in accordance with the earnest piety
which distinguished his whole life, was to rescue these
negroes from heathenism, and confer on them the blessings
of Christianity. The proposal was readily accepted, and
Joiio Fernandes, the same who had lived seven months
among the Moors at Arguin, accompanied the party, and
on arriving volunteered to negotiate the ransom. He was
so successful that he procured fifty-one negroes in exchange
for eighteen of the Moors.* It so happened that while he
was yet on shore there came on so strong a wind from the
south that they were compelled to trip their anchor and
sail for Portugal. They brought back with them for the
Prince a lion, which he afterwards sent to Gal way by way
of a present as a curiosity to an Englishman who lived
there, and who had been formerly in his service. Joao
Fernandes remained till another ship returned for him.

In this same year also Antam Gonsalves returned to the
Eio d'Ouro to try if it were possible to bring the Moors of
that part to terms. He anchored at some distance within
the estuary, and a number of Moors came to the shore,
among whom was one who was evidently a chief. This
man spoke assuringly to Gonsalves, but warned him not
to trust the rest unless he were present. It happened
once that while he was at a distance, the other Moors made
a show of friendliness to the Portuguese, and Gonsalves,
thinking the chief was among them, was about to land,
but the boats no sooner neared the shore than the Moors
attacked the Portuguese with their azagays, and, but lor
the promptitude of Gonsalves, they would all have been
slain. They managed, however, to effect their escape, but
with one of their men so seriously wounded that he died
in a few days. Another expedition to the Rio d'Ouro under
the command of Jorge Gonsalves, in which he brought
back a large quantity of oil and skins of sea-wolves, com-
pleted the list of voyages in the year 1447.

* This proves the influence that Joao Fei-nandes had acquired over the natives,
no douht from his knowledge of Arabic.

224 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

In January, 1448, the fame of these expeditions brought
out to Portugal a nobleman of the household of the King of
Denmark,* named Vallarte, who begged the Prince to grant
hira a caravel to go to the land of the negroes. It was the
kind of request that Prince Henry was always ready to listen
to, and accordingly he had a caravel quickly fitted out to go
to Cape Verde. To Vallarte he gave the principal command,
but as he was a foreigner he sent with him one Fernando
d'Affonso, not only to aid in the command of the vessel, but
as a sort of ambassador to the king of the country. With
them also went two natives of that country as interpreters,
by whose means the Prince hoped that something might be
done towards the conversion of the jjeople. The weather
was so exceedingly adverse that it took them six months
from the time they left Lisbon to reach the island of Palma,
near Cape Verde. But as that was not their destination
they proceeded further, and anchored at a place called by
the natives Abram, where Vallarte went on shore with some
others, and found a considerable number of negroes assem-
bled. To these Vallarte proposed that as a guarantee for
friendly intercourse they should give him one of their people
in exchange for one of his. This was agreed to by the per-
mission of Guitanye, the governor of the country. As soon
as they had one of the negroes on board the caravel, Fer-
nando d'Affonso told him that their object was to instruct
him to inform his master that the Portuguese were servants
of a great and mighty Prince of the west of Spain, f and were
come by his command to treat for him with the great king
of that country. The negro told them in reply, that the
residence of their King Boor was six or seven days' journey
off, and that the king was then at a great distance lighting
against a rebel.

* The king in question is called bj' Aziirara King of Denmark, Sweden, and
Norway, and as on the death of King Christopher on the 6th of Jannar)', 1448,
these three crowns were separated, we have proof both of the name of the
sovereign referred to, and of the date of the occurrence.

t The word Spain was fre(]uenlly used in those times for the wliole iicniusula.

SENEGAMniA. 225

Fernando still desiring- to treat with the king himself, the
governor Guitanye, who seems to have been very friendly
with the Portuguese, promised, after some delay, to send
the message. During the absence of the governor, Vallarte
ventured on shore with a boat's crew, and fell into an ambush
of the natives, who attached them with their azagays to
such effect that, of the whole number, only one saved him-
self by swimming and returned to the ship. Of the end of
the rest no news survived, except that the man who swam
away declared that he only saw one killed, and the three or
four times that he looked round as he was swimming, he
always saw Vallarte sitting at the stern of the boat. But at
the time that Azurara was writing his chronicle in 1448,
some natives of that part came into Prince Henry's pos-
session, who stated that in a fortress far in the interior, there
had been four Christian prisoners, one of whom had died,
but three were still alive, and these were supposed to be the
remnants of the boat's crew. After this miserable adventure
Fernando d'Affonso, not having even a boat remaining, re-
turned to Portugal.

The people of Lagos had gained too much experience of
the west coast of Africa to be insensible of the value of its
fisheries, and they obtained permission from the Prince, on
payment of a royalty, to turn their knowledge to account in
that respect. Off the Cabo dos Ruyvos they found a large
abundance. After they had been there some days, and had
taken a great quantity of fish, some of which they had
dried, and the rest were drying, the Moors came down upon
them, and they only narrowly escaped with two men
wounded.

In the course of the above explorations, to the period of
Azurara's completing his chronicle, nine hundred and
twenty-seven souls had been taken to Portugal.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE REGENT DOM PEDRO.

1439_1449.

We left Dom Pedro on his return to Portugal in 1428. On
the 13th of September in the same year he married Isabel,
the eldest daughter of Don Jaime, second Count of Urgel,
and of Isabel, Infanta of Aragon. After the death of King
Joao, his brother, King Duarte, by a charter dated from
Santarem, Nov. 6th, 1443, appointed him, conjointly with
Prince Henry, guardian to his son the Infant Alfonso, heir-
apparent to the throne.

During the lifetime of Dom Duarte, Dom Pedro had had
the misfortune not only of incurring the ill-will of Queen
Leonora, but also of having to oppose, from a sense of duty
to his country, the strong desire of his brothers, Prince
Henry and Dom Fernando, to make the attack upon Tangier
which ended so disastrously. But worse misfortunes than
these were in store for him. If Dom Duarte by the virtues
of his life had been unable to save his kingdom from mis-
fortune, he left behind him a legacy which entailed upon it
yet greater troubles. By his will he appointed his widow,
Leonora, Regent during the minority of his son, Aflonso,
who at the time of his father's death was but six years old.
This arrangement was obnoxious to the peojile, not only
because the Queen was a Castilian, and had moreover insti-
gated the disastrous expedition to Tangier, but because her
appointment set aside the claims of Dom Pedro and Prince
Henry, who were in every respect far better fitted for so

THE REGENT DOM PEDRO. 227

responsible a post. The more devoted and pruden t adherents
of the Queen dissuaded her from assuming the Regency ; but
their advice was overruled by those who insinuated that if
the government were to fall into the hands of Dom Pedro,
the king's life would be very insecure, inasmuch as the
Prince was powerful and popular, and had sons on whose
behalf he might aim at the crown.

Meanwhile the funeral of King Duarte was to be solem-
nized in the monastery of Batalha, and while awaiting at
Thomar the arrival of those who were to be present at the
ceremony, Dom Pedro availed himself of the presence of so
large a number of grandees to suggest that, in consideration
of the king's youth, and to remove all doubt as to the suc-
cession, Alfonso's brother Fernando should be sworn here-
ditary prince of the kingdom, until the King should have a
son. The whole of the council approved of the proposition,
and Dom Fernando was sworn heir-apparent, and thence
forward bore the style and title of Prince of Portugal.

On the 1st of Noveml)er, 1439, Dom Pedro was nominated
Regent of the Kingdom by the States General of the
Realm, to whom, and not to the King, the prerogative really
belonged. In this high position he showed great prudence
and justice, and materially assisted the labours of Prince
Henry, but without lending his name to them. He was a
great patron of literature, and instilled this taste into the
young King and his own family. In spite, however, of all
these excellencies, he was not destined to enjoy his dignities
in peace. A disagreement with the Duke of Braganza about
the office of High Constable, was the prelude to a long series
of disputes, in which the latter, who was a great favourite
with the people, on account of his having married the
daughter of the Holy Constable, was frequently enabled to
make his malice triumphant.

On the ISth of February, 1445, Queen Leonora died, and,
as has been supposed, by poison. In the following year at
the age of fourteen Affonso attained his political majority,
and the Regent accordingly resigned to him the sceptre ;it a

Q 2

228 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

convocation of the states of the kingdom, held at Lisbon
for that purpose. The King requested his uncle still to direct
the affairs of the kingdom in his name, feeling it to be a
charge too responsible for his yet unpractised youth, and a
proclamation to that effect enjoined entire obedience to the
command of Dom Pedro. The King further declared that
his betrothal with his uncle's daughter, which had taken
place at Obidos during his minority, was entered upon at his
own earnest desire, and he called upon the nobles and
deputies present to confirm the marriage.

Thus far well ; but the enemies of Dom Pedro, who did
their best to frustrate his re-appointment as Regent, were
the more embittered by their want of success. His bas-
tard brother, the Count de Barcellos, now Duke of Braganza,
with his son Alfonso, Count d'Ourem, spared no pains to
prejudice the young King against his uncle, and at length
they persuaded him to assume the reins of government
himself. This Pedro willingly conceded, at the same time
urging on the King the propriety of carrying into effect the
contemplated marriage with his daughter. The King agreed
to this without hesitation, but before the preparations for
the marriage could be completed, at the instigation of the
Prince's enemies, he demanded of him the surrender of the
Kegency in advance of the stipulated period. To prevent
ill-consequences the Prince again yielded, and in May, 1447,
Alfonso established his Court at Santarem, and celebrated
his marriage with Dom Pedro's daughter, though without
the magnificence and rejoicings which the fiither of his
bride would naturally have desired. The Duke of Braganza
now sought to prejudice the people against Dom Pedro.
With this object he expelled with insult all the adherents
of the Prince from the offices which had been given them
by the King, and placed guards in their vacant castles and
houses, as though the King had alrciidy declared war against
his uncle. Meanwhile the Prince was forbidden access to the
King, and thus de})arred from the only means of defence open
to him. The mo.st dangerous of his enemies was a young

THK llEGENT JJOM I'EDRO. 229

Portuguese of noble birth, named Berredes, who had retired
from Rome with the rank of Pontifical Protonotary, by whoso
machinations the King was induced to resolve upon the
dismissal of his uncle from the Court. His design, how-
ever, reached the ears of Uom Pedro, who wisely resolved
to do voluntarily that which was about to be forced upon
him. He therefore presented himself without any show of
agitation before the King, and requested that, in considera-
tion of his long and faithful services, he might be permitted
to seek repose on his own estate, adding that, in any emer-
gency, those services were at the King's disposal, as they had
always been throughout his Regency. The King received
with delight this proposition, which spared him the pain of
giving his uncle a dismissal. He not only acceded to the
Prince's request, but parted from him with expressions of
affection and regret, and promised him faithfully to approve
and confirm all that he had done during his Regency.

Towards the end of July, Dom Pedro retired to Coimbra,
but was pursued by his enemies with untiring malignity.
And he soon found himself accused of nothing less than
having caused the death of King Duarte, his sister-in-law
Leonora, and his brother Joao. The apathy of those who
might have befriended the Prince was as remarkable as the
malignity of his enemies. There was one noble exception,
however, in Alvaro Vaz de Almada, the Prince's sworn
brother-in-arms. This gallant nobleman had, like Dom
Pedro himself, travelled much in Europe, and had every-
where been treated with great distinction. In England he had
received the high honour of the Knighthood of the Garter.
In Germany the Emperor had shown him especial marks of
favour, and Charles VII., King of France, had conferred
upon him the title of Count d'Avranches. In spite of the
coldness shown him on account of his friendship for Dom
Pedro, he became his warm and persevering advocate, and
so powerful was his influence, that the King's evil coun-
sellors thought it necessary to withdraw him to Cintra.
A series of bitter persecutions followed, the Prince only

230 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

opposing remonstrance to the injustice of his enemies. The
strongholds which were in possession of his adherents were
taken from them. His eldest son was deprived of the
dignity of Constable, and the arms in the arsenal of Coimhra
were demanded in the name of the King. Dom Pedro,
whose only hope of obtaining justice lay in his nephew's
learning the truth undistorted by his evil advisers, wrote
several letters to the King by his confessor. It is supposed
that the answers he received were not those dictated by
the King, for they were written as a King would write to a
rebellious subject, and he had always formerly written as a
son to a father.

Soon after this Dom Pedro received intelligence that the
Duke of Braganza intended to pass through his domains
without his permission, so that, if he submitted to this
indignity, the stigma of cowardice would fall upon him;
while, on the other hand, if he resented it, he would be
accused of breaking the peace. The Prince resolved to go
to Penella to stop the Duke's march, and as soon as the
news reached Santarem, he was joined by many nobles of the
court. Meanwhile, a message from the King reached the
Prince, commanding him to return to Coimbra, and to offer
no hindrance to the march of the Duke of Braganza. Dom
Pedro replied, that if the Duke came peaceably, he would
welcome him cordially, but if otherwise, his honom* as a
prince forbade him to submit to so gross an indignity. He
therefore ranged his troops in order of battle at Penella, and
awaited the Duke. The latter, who by this time had reached
Villarinho, did not believe that the Prince would dare to
oppose the King's orders with so few troops, but when he
found that such was the case, and that many of the knights
of his suite, being secretly attached to Dom Pedro, were
unwilling for the encounter, he resolved to secure his own
safety, and escaped in the night accompanied by only two
persons. The next morning, when the soldiers found that
they were deserted by their leaders, they were seized with
panic, and fled. The Duke rallied his troops with difflculty

THE REGENT DOM PEDRO. 231

lit Covilliam, and found he had sustained considerable loss.
lie now persuaded the King to declare war personally
against his uncle.

On his return to Coimbra, Dom Pedro received from
Dona Isabel, his daughter, an intimation of the King's
intention, which induced him to call a council to deliberate on
his future plans. The course which he finally adopted was
that proposed by the Count d'Avranches, viz., that they
should march peaceably towards the King, and solicit an
audience, and if that were denied, to die as gentlemen and
soldiers. A few days after this, Dom Pedro and the Count
d'Avranches, being sworn brothers in arms, made a vow
to be together in death as they had been in life, and
solemnly sealed the compact by a reception of the blessed
sacrament.

Meanwhile, Doila Isabel had made a last despairing effort
to preserve the peace between her husband and her father, to
both of whom she was devotedly attached. By her tears and
entreaties she had extorted from the King a promise to
pardon her father, if he would consent to ask forgiveness,
and had also succeeded in wringing that concession from the
Prince. But the first burst of generosity having passed,
Affonso contrived, by taking exceptions to certain portions
of Dom Pedro's letter, to find a pretext for breaking his
promise to the queen, and preparations for the war were
continued.

On the 5th of May, 1449, the Infant left Coimbra with
an army of one thousand horsemen and five thousand foot
soldiers. At the convent of Batalha, Pedro visited the
royal tomb, and gazed sadly at the open sepulchre prepared
for him by his fiither, little thinking that the malice of his
enemies would deprive him for a time of even this last
resting-place. At Rio Mayor, five leagues from Santarem,
he took counsel on his future conduct, and, contrary to the
advice of most of his followers, decided to march against
Lisbon, in the hope that his enemies would attack him
before the arrival of the King, with whom he dreaded an

232 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

hostile encounter. If tliey did not attack him he resolved
to return to Coimbra.

The King hearing of Dom Pedro's intentions, sent a
division of troops to secure Lisbon, and set out in person from
Santarem with an army of thirty thousand men, the largest
army till then raised in Portugal. Dom Pedro selected a
good position near Alfarrobeira, above the town of Alverca ;
and awaited the King's army, which came up with him on
the 20th of May. During the sharpshooting preliminary to
the attack, a badly aimed missile from the Infant's camp
struck the King's tent. The report spread that the King
was hurt. This so roused the indignation of his soldiers,
that they rushed with headlong fury on the enemy, who,
unprepared for such an attack, yielded on all sides. The
Prince, to inspire his soldiers with courage, leaped from his
horse, and pressing upon the enemy dealt terror and death
among them, till he fell, pierced by an arrow, and died
shortly after. When the Count d'Avranches heard of his
death, he threw himself into the conflict, and fought with
desperation till, as it is reported of him, worn out with
fighting, he sank down among the heaps of slain more con-
quered by his own exertions than by the enemy. A soldier
immediately cut off his head and carried it to the King,
hoping thereby to merit the order of knighthood. The
natural brother of the hero with difficulty obtained per-
mission to bury the mutilated trunk on the field of battle.
The body of the Infant remained all that daj on the field,
and in the night some common soldiers carried it on a
shield to a hut, where it remained for three days unburied.*

After his death the enemies of the Infant sousrht in vain
among his papers for proofs of guilt. His daughter Dona
Isabel now became the object of his enemies' persecution,
and they sought to persuade the King to put her away, but
the prudence of her conduct at this trying juncture, and

* In this battle perished Sir William Arnold, an Ensrlish knight, who had
been Major Domo to Queen Philippa, and after her death had passed into the
service of Dom Pedro.

THE REGENT DOM PEDRO. 233

tlie affection which the King bore to her, prevented their
wicked counsels from taking- effect.

The courts of Europe were unanimous in reprobation of
the King's conduct to his uncle. The Duke of Burgundy,
and the Duchess Isabel, the sister of the unhappy Prince,
sent an ecclesiastic of high standing to Portugal, who, in
their name, severely reproved the King, and demanded that
the body of Dom Pedro should either be buried in the tomb at
Batalha destined for him by Dom Joao I., or delivered to him
to convey to Burgundy, where it should receive honourable
sepulture. Not wishing that his uncle's remains should be
taken out of the kingdom, the King had them exhumed
from the church of Alverca, where some common people had
buried them under a staircase, and had them conveyed to
the castle of Abrantes. The Burgundian priest insisted on
the restoration of the children of Dom Pedro to their
jiroperty and dignities. For some time the King refused
out of consideration for the Duke of Braganza and the
Count d'Ourem, but finally acceded to the demand, and
further at the queen's request pardoned nearly all those who
had fought for the Infant.

In the same year, the Queen having given birth to a son,
took advantage of the favourable disposition of the King at
this event, to obtain his permission for the honourable
burial of her father. Accordingly the remains of the Prince
were accompanied to the tomb by a long train of ecclesiastics
and nobles, headed by his brother Prince Henry, and were
solemnly deposited in his tomb at Batalha.

This was the last satisfaction enjoyed by Dona Isabel, and
probably cost her her life, for immediately on her return to
Evora with her husband from the funeral, she fell ill and
died. Her sudden death was attributed by the people to
poison administered by her father's enemies, who feared
her influence over the King, which had just proved so
powerful.

The death of the Prince having removed the great o1)stacle
to their ambition, his enemies persuaded the King 1o grant

234 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

them the domains which, in order that the crown lands might
not be alienated, the Regent had always steadfastly refused
them. Thus the Duke of Braganza obtained the town of
Guimaraens, and would have had Oporto but for the deter-
mined oj^position of the inhabitants.

So much was Dom Pedro honoured in Portugal, that in
spite of the powerful faction raised up against him, there
were yet many writers of his own time who dared to use
their pens in his defence, while in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries there were not wanting men like Camoens and
Luis da Souza to sing his praises. And well did he deserve
their advocacy, for not only was he a liberal patron to men
of letters, but himself was an author and a poet of no mean
capacity. It has been said that the first book ever printed
in Portugal was a collection of " Coplas," or couplets, by
him. There is no date or place of imprint in the earliest
edition known to exist, but the learned academician Antonio
Ribeiro dos Santos has conjectured the date of 1478. It
was, however, brought out by a Spaniard, Antonio d'Urrea,
and there is nothing to show that it was printed in
Portuofal.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE AZORES.

1431— 146G.

That tlie middle and eastern groups of the Azores, like the
Madeira group, were discovered by Portuguese vessels, under
Genoese pilotage, at the beginning of the fourteenth century,
is proved by the simple fact, that the}^ also appear in the
Laurentian map of 1351. The same facts which have
enabled us to unfold the history of the discovery of the
Madeira group, apply with equal force to the others.

Although on the Laurentian map each island of the Azores
has not a sej)arate name, the group is laid down with con-
siderable accuracy for the period, the orientation only being
at fault, and has collective designations, thus : — the two
islands of San Miguel and Santa Maria are called " Insule
de Cabrera ;" the islands of San Jorge, Fayal, and Pico, are
called, " Inside de Vetitura sive de Colomhis" while Terceira
is called, '•"Insula de Brazi." Subsequent charts, but
anterior to the effective discovery of these islands in Prince
Henry's time, show their names in detail, some being identical
with those which they at present bear, and others remark-
ably interesting as showing the observations or impressions
which influenced the first discoverers in naming each island.
At the same time they illustrate the application of the names
on the Laurentian map. Thus, in the Catalan map of 1375,
we have San Zorzo, the Catalan form of the present name of
the island San Jorge, doubtless indicative of the discovery
having been made on St. George's day. Fayal, which the

236 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR,

Portuguese afterwards so called from its forests of beech
trees, is here called Insula de la Ventura, implying its dis-
covery by an accident. Terceira received the name of Insula
de Brazil from the dyewood with which it abounded, thus
preceding its famous namesake in South America by nearly
two hundred years. The island of Pico would seem to have
been frequented by wild ijigcons at the time of its discovery,
since, on the Catalan map its bears the name of Li Columbi.
Cabrera, or the island of goats, is a name which, on the map
of Andrea Bianco of 1436, we find given to the island of St.
Miguel. We thus get full explauation of what islands were
indicated by the collective names which occur on theLauren-
tianmap. The islands of Graciosa, Corvo, and Flores, are not
laid down on that map, if we are to trust to the extract sup-
plied to us by Count Baldelli Boni. Corvo had its present
name given to it, on the Catalan map, under the form of
Insula de Corvi Marini, and Flores was called Li Conigi,
from which we must presume that it abounded in rabbits.

It has been already seen that the discovery of the M adeha
group, as exhibited on the Laurentian map, produced no
beneficial results in the way of colonization. We have inci-
dental evidence that the same, as might be expected, was
the case with the Azores. Father Antonio Cordeyro, a native
of Terceira, who, in his " Historia Insulana," supplies us
with information derived from the early and still unpublished
MS. History of the Discovery of the Azores, by Father
Gasi)ar Fructuoso, a native of San Miguel, records a tradi-
tion that, about the year 1370, a Greek Avas driven on the
latter island by a tempest, and resolved on colonizing it, but
failed in his first experiment. He brought back to the
island a considerable quantity of cattle, but they soon died,
and he gave up his project.

There can be no doubt that the knowledge of the existence
of the Azores, as laid down in the Laurentian map of 1351,
was preserved on the map brought from Venice in 1428, by
Dom Pedro, and enabled Prince Henry to give directions to
his navigators for (he re-discovery of these islands. Thus,

THK AZORKS. 2''^7

we find on tlie Catalan map of Gabriel de Valscca, dated
]48V>, the entire group laid down, aecompanied hy tlie I'ol-
lowing significant legend : " These islands were found [not
dhcoverecl] by Diego de Sevill, pilot of the King of Portugal,
in the year mccccxxvii.," or mccccxxxii., according as one
Tcmj read the last figure but two as a v or an x.

As in 1439, the island of Santa Maria and the Formigas
were all that had been re-discovered in Prince Henry's time,
Valseca's word " found^' would imply the lighting on the
group, which he was able geographically to depict from other
sources. Of the two readings of the date of that discovery,
I incline to think that the latter, 1432, is correct, inasmuch
as, in 1431, Prince Henry had sent out Gonzalo Vellio
Cabral, a gentleman of illustrious family, in search of these
islands. He then discovered the Formigas only, but in the
following year, on the 15th of August, the Feast of the
Assumption, he fell in with the island which, on the Italian
maps, had been named Uovo, or the Egg, and named it
accordingly Santa Maria. In all probability Diego de Sevill,
the King's pilot, menti(^ned in Valseca's map, was the pilot
in this expedition. Prince Henrj^ resolved to colonize the
island, and gave Cabral the rank of Captain Donatary, with
full powers to collect, even from his own household, as many
volunteers as he could, with all the requisites for that object.
Cabral devoted three years to recruiting, and finally suc-
ceeded in taking out to the island a great number of men of
rank and fortune.

Many years afterwards, a runaway negro slave, who had
escaped to the highest mountain on the north of the island,
perceived in the distance, on a clear day, another island, and
he returned to his master with the news, which he hoped
would secure him his pardon. After the fiict had been
verified, intimation thereof was transmitted to Prince Henry,
and as it tallied with the information afibrded by the ancient
maps which he possessed, he commissioned Cabral, who
happened at that time to be with him, to go in search of the
new island. His first essay was fruitless, but the Prince

238 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

showed him that he had passed between Santa Maria and the
island he was in search of, and sent him out again. This
time he was successful. Cordeiro states that he reached the
island he sought on the <Sth of May, 1444, which being the
day of the apparition of St. Michael, he named the island
San Miguel. But Azurara tells us that Dom Pedro, who,
with Prince Henry's acquiescence, interested himself much in
the colonization of this island, gave it the name of San
Miguel from his own peculiar devotion to that saint.

The Prince gave Cabral the command of this second
island, also with instructions to colonize it, and a year
having been spent in the needful prej)arations, the explorer
returned thither on the 29th of September, 1445. In the
previous voyage he had taken out with him some Moors
belonging to the Prince, for the purpose of tilling the soil,
but on his return he found them in such a state of alarm
from the earthquakes that were taking place in the island,
that if only they had had a boat to escape in, they would
certainly not have awaited his return. Moreover, the ship's
pilot, who had accompanied him in both voyages, remarked,
that, whereas in the former voyage he ,had seen a very lofty
peak at the east end of the island and another at the west,
that at the east only now remained.

It was at this time that the name of Azores was first
given to these two islands of Santa Maria and San Miguel,
from the circumstance that the explorers had found azores,
or hawks, there, or, what is more probable, kites, which
they may have taken for hawks. Prince Henry subse-
quently bestowed on the Order of Christ the tithes of the
island, and one-half of the sugar revenues.

The third island discovered in the Archipelago of the
Azores, and on that account named Terceira or '' the third,"
would seem to have been sighted by some sailors, probabl}''
returning from Cape Verde to Portugal, whose names were
not deemed of importance enough to be attached to the
discovery. Nor is the date of the discovery known, but it
occurred between the years 1444 and 1450, and on some

THE AZORES. 239

festival especially dedicated to our Blessed Lord, since it at
first received the name of the Island of Jesu Christo, and
bore for its arms the Saviour on the Cross.

The Flemings, however, claim for themselves the exclusive
discovery, to which they give the date of 1445 as made by
Josue van den Berge, a native of Bruges. This pretension
is not corroborated, but rather disproved by contemporary
evidence. Cordeiro has given us a copy of Prince Henry's
grant of the Captaincy of the island on the 2nd of March,
1450, to Jacques de Bruges, whom he describes as his
servant, who had rendered him some services, but says
nothing of the island having been discovered either by him
or any one of his countrymen. The sole reason given by the
Prince for making the grant was that Jacques came to him
and stated, that as in the memory of man the Azores had
been under the aggressive lordship of no one except himself,
and as the Island of Jesu, the third of these islands, was
entirely uninhabited, he begged permission to colonize it.
As he had no legitimate sons and only two daughters, the
Prince allowed the inheritance to descend to the female line.
This unusual grant is readily explained by the fact that the
new Captain Donatary was very rich, fitted out the arma-
ment and requisites for this rather distant colonization at
his own expense, was a good Catholic, had married a noble
Portuguese lady, and in all probability had entered the
Prince's service under the recommendation of his sister, the
Duchess of Burgundy.

The islands of San Jorge and Graciosa, being within sight
of Terceira, soon became participators in the colonization
which had been brought to the latter. The first colonizer of
Graciosa was Vasco Gil Sodre, a Portuguese gentleman,
who, while on service in Africa, hearing of the newly
colonized island of Terceira, went thither with all his family,
but soon passed over to Graciosa, where he was joined by
one Duarte Barreto, who had married his sister, and who
had come out with the rank of Captain Donatary of half of
the island. This Barreto being afterwards carried off by

240 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

some Spanish pirates, the Captaincy of the entire island fell
into the hands of one Pedro Correa da Cunha, who had been
Governor of the Island of Porto Santo during the minority
of his wife's brother, the son of that Bartholomew Perestrello,
whom Prince Henry had originally appointed Captain of that
island.

One of the companions of Jacques de Bruges, a wealthy
and noble Fleming, named Willem van der Haagen, whose
northern name sounded so harsh to Portuguese ears, that
they translated it into Da Silveira, which means the same
thing, viz., " Hedges " or " Underwood," took from Flanders,
at his own cost, two ships, full of people and artisans of
different kinds, to make a trial of the island of San Jorge.
Selecting a point of the island which they called the Topo,
he founded the city wdiich afterwards bore that name, but
the sterility of the island at a later period made him remove
to Fayal, which had been discovered in the interval.

On what day or in what year the island of Fayal was
discovered, or who was the discoverer, no research has ever
succeeded in finding. There is no doubt that the first
Captain Donatary was Jobst van Heurter, in Portuguese
named Joz de Utra, Lord of Moerkerke in Flanders,
father-in-law of the celebrated Martin Behaim, from a
legend on whose famous globe, made in 1492, and still
preserved in the ancestral house in Nuremburg, we gather
the following statement respecting the bes tower of the
Captaincy : —

"The islands of the Azores were colonized in 14G6, when
they were given by the King of Portugal, after much
solicitation, to his sister Isabel, Duchess of Burgundy. A
great war was at that time being carried on in Flanders,
accompanied by severe famine, and the Duchess sent out to
these islands a great number of men and women of all
classes, with priests and everything requisite for the main-
tenance of religious worship. She also sent out several
vessels laden with materials for the cultivation of the soil
and for building houses, and during ten years she continued

THE AZORES. 241

to send out means of subsistence. In 1490 there were some
thousands of souls there who had come out with the noLle
knight, Job de Huerter, Lord of Moerkirchcn in Flanders,
my dear father-in-law, to whom and his descendants tliese
islands were gimn by the Duchess of Burgundy. In them
grows the Portuguese sugar. There are two crops in the
year, for there is no winter. All food is cheap, and there
would be abundance of subsistence for a large jDopulation. In
the year 1431, when Prince Pedro was Regent, two vessels
were equipped with necessaries for two years by Prince
Henry to go to the countries beyond Cape Finisterre, and sail-
ing due west for some five hundred leagues discovered these
ten islands, which they found uninhabited, and as there were
neither quadrupeds nor men, the birds were so tame that
they were not frightened, whence they called these islands the
Azores.* In the following year by the King's orders six-
teen vessels were sent out with various kinds of domestic
animals, that they might breed on each of the islands."

This account does not exactly tally with other documen-
tary evidence. Father Cordeyro, in his '' Historia Insulana,"
writing on the spot with documents before him, and at a
time when such documents would be by no means scarce,
says nothing of any cession of these islands to the Duchess
of Burgundy. His words on the subject run thus : — " Fayal
being now in some degree colonized by Portuguese from the
island of Terceira, St. Jorge, and Graciosa, the Royal
jyeii'sonages thought of appointing some Captain Donatary
of the island, in order to add to the wealth and dignity of
the colony, and as there was then at Lisbon, in the service
of the Royal personages, a Fleming of high birth named
Joz d'Utra, thie King of Portugal made him CajAoAn Donatary
of the island of Fayal, and gave him in marriage a lady
of the court named Brites, of the ancient family of the

* According to the Portugiiese historians the Formigas only -n-ere discovered
in this year. It was uil432 that Gonsalo Velho Cabral landed at Santa Maria.
The rest were, as we have seen, discovered later. It is equally plain that Behaim
blunders about the origin of the name.

R

242 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Macedos." Barros says of him that " he was a native of
Bruges, a large landholder, and had come out as a young man,
hearing of the fame of the Portuguese discoveries, with the
view of seeing the world and learning languages, as was the
custom of young men of high family to do. WAen he had
received his charter of temure he returned to Flanders, sold
all his property, and emharked with a number of relatives
and friends for Lisbon, whence he took his wife and esta-
blished himself at Fayal, where he had several daughters,
one of whom married Martin Behaim."

There is in existence another piece of evidence wdiich
prima, facie would place in yet another light than the preced-
ing the question as to the first bestower of the commander-
ship of the island of Fayal. This document is a judgment
in a lawsuit respecting the succession to that commander-
ship which still exists in the Torre do Tombo (Gaveta 15,
Ma^o 16, No, 5), under date of 16th of September, 1571.
The claim lay against the crown on the part of Jeronymo
d'Utra Cortereal, whose allegation was that his grandfather
Joz d'Utra, at the instance of Dom Fernando, Master of the
Order of Christ, had come to colonize these islands, which
belonged to that order, and that tlie commandership had been
given to liim and his descendants, and afterwards confirmed by
Don Manuel, and that, by the death of the first commander,
the commandership devolved on his son Manuel d'Utra
Cortereal.

From these various statements, no doubt is left of the
appointment, but in each it has been made to emanate from
a different source ; in one from the Duchess of Burgundy,
in another from the crown, and in the third from the Grand
Master of the Order of Christ. The sum of the evidence
seems to be that the grant was made by Prince Ferdinand,
Grand Master of the Order of Christ, at the request of his
aunt, the Duchess of Burgundy, and confirmed by the
crown.

In this lawsuit a confusion is made between Jobst de
Huerter, the first captain of the island, who married a

THE AZORES. 243

Macedo, and his son, who bore the same name as liis father
and married a Cortereal. It was the grandson of the hitter
who instituted the proceeding's. All the details tend to
confirm the statement of Behaim, on his globe, that the
appointment was made in 14GG.

The grant of the newly-discovered islands made by King
Duarte to Prince Henry in 1433, was transmitted by bequest
of the latter to his nephew and adopted son Dom Fernando,
and confirmed by Alfonso V., by a charter dated at Evora,
December 3rd, 1460.

At the same time it is reasonable to infer that the extra-
ordinary expenses incurred by the Duchess of Burgundy,
De Huerter, and other Flemings in colonizing these islands,
would secure to them privileges and powers that would give
some show of plausibility to Behaim's statement, that the
islands had been given by the King of Portugal to the
Duchess of Burgundy. As to the discrepancy between
Behaim's account and that of Cordeyro with respect to the
islands being inhabited or not at the time of Huerter's
appointment, if credit is to be given to each for a wish to be
truthful to the best of his ability, the palm must rest with
the former, as his father-in-law was in every sense the
highest possible authority on the subject.

Some years after Jobst de Huerter had undertaken the
colonization of Fayal, he obtained the commission of the
Captaincy of Pico, which island, though lying at only a
league's distance from Fayal, is supposed not to have been
discovered for many years later than it. This is quite
possible, for we have seen that it was some time before the
dark spot observed from the island of Porto Santo was
made out to be the important island of Madeira, though only
at one league distant.

Equal obscurity rests on the date of discovery of the
islands of Flores and Corvo, as well as on tlie discoverer. It
is only known that they were first conceded to a lady of
Lisbon, named Maria de Vilhena. When the Fleming
Willem van der Ilaagen, alias Da Silveira, went from Sau

ii2

244 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Jorge to Fayal, it was by invitation from his compatriot Jobst
van Huerter, who had been now four years established there,
and promised to give him part of the island. It happened,
however, that Silveira became so popular by his virtues and
distinguished personal qualities, that Van Huerter, under the
influence of jealousy, broke his promise under the pretence
that the lands he had referred to had been already given
away. Silveira thence passed to Terceira, where he grew
great quantities of corn and woad for dying blue, which he
exported to Flanders. Returning from a visit to his native
country by way of Lisbon, he became the guest of Dona
Maria de Vilhena, who proposed to him that he should go
out and colonize her two islands of Flores and Corvo, and
rule over them in her name. This offer he accepted, but
after a trial of seven years, found himself a loser both in
property and position ; he therefore once again betook him-
self to his original locality at the Topo in the island of San
Jorge, where he realized great wealth from his corn plan-
tations, and became the ancestor of some of the most noble
families in the Atlantic islands.

A tradition which we look for in vain in any Portuguese
or Spanish historical document of the fifteenth or six-
teenth centuries, has been widely disseminated in almost
every work which speaks of the discovery of America, to the
effect that an equestrian statue pointing with its right hand
to the west, was discovered by the Portuguese in the island
of Corvo. A circumstantial account of it is given in the
Epitome de las Ilistorias Portuguezas, by Manoel de
Faria y Souza, published in Madrid, 1628. fol. He says:
" On the summit of a mountain called Cuervo was found the
statue of a man on horseback without saddle, bare-headed,
the left hand on the horse's mane, the right pointing to
the west. It stood on a slab of the same stone as itself ;
beneath it, on a rock, were engraved some letters in an un-
known language." M. Boid, who resided a long time in the
Azores, speakhig of Corvo in his work entitled " Description
of the Azores," London, 1835, 8°, explains how a natural

THE AZORES. 245

phenonemon has given rise to this fable. He says, " Among
a great number of absurdities dealt in by the poor and
superstitious inhabitants, they gravely assert that the dis-
covery of the New World is due to their island, because a
promontory which stretches far into the sea towards the
north-west, presents the form of a person with his hand
stretched out towards the west." They say that " it was the
will of Providence, that this promontory should have tliis
extraordinary form in order to indicate to European navi-
gators the existence of another world, and that Columbus
understood and interpreted this sign, and threw himself
into the career of Western discovery." We can thus un-
derstand how the grotesque configuration of a volcanic rock
should have given rise to a story of an equestrian statue,
which learned men have not hesitated to attribute to Car-
thaginians and Phoenicians, who, we know but too well,
were very little inclined to point out the road of discovery
to rival nations.

CHAPTER XV.

CADAMOSTO.

1455-1456.

We now reach the period of a very important voyage, made
by a Venetian gentleman named Alvise Cadamosto, under
the auspices of Prince Henry, and of which a detailed
account by himself was published at Vicenza, in 1507, 4**^,
under the title of " La Prima Navigazione per L'Oceano
alle terre de^Negri della Bassa Ethiopia di Luigi Cadamosto."
Cardinal Zurla tells us that the name of Cadamosto is
synonymous with Casa or famiglia da Mosto, while Alvise
is the Venetian form of Luigi or Louis, so that in Alvise or
Luigi Cadamosto, we have what in its simpler form might
be called Luigi da Mosto. His narrative has always been
highly commended for the carefulness of its detail, but I
shall have occasion hereafter to show that an account of a
second voyage by him to the west coast of Africa is very far
from deserving that credit. Messer Alvise Cadamosto, though
only twenty-two years of age, had already made one voyage
to Flanders on a trading expedition, and his object being, as
he expressly declares, to acquire wealth, a knowledge of the
world, and, if possible, fame, he determined to repeat his
venture. On the 8th of August, 1454, he set sail in one of
the galleys belonging to the Republic, under the command of
a Venetian cavalier, named Marco Zeuo.*

* The period of this voyaj^e has been variouslj' stated by various authors, but
not only is the above date tliat which is stated in Ramusio, but its correctness
is confirmed by a decree of tlie Venetian senate of the same date to the following
effect : — " As on the last voyage, all three of the galleys went to Sluya, for which

CADAMOSTO. . 247

Contrary winds detained the vessel off Cape St. Vincent,

near which Prince Henry happened to be at the time, at a

village named Keposeira, which being a retired and quiet

spot, well suited for his studies, was a favourite residence of

his. Wlien the Prince heard of their arrival, he sent his

own secretary, Antonio Gonsalves, and the Venetian consul,

Patricio de' Conti, with samples of Madeira sugar, dragon's

blood, and other products of the newly-discovered countries

which he had colonized, and commissioned them to assure

the Venetians that great things were to be done by those

who would make the voyage. All this awakened in Cada-

mosto a strong desire to go, and he inquired what conditions

the Prince made with those who undertook the adventure.

He was told that either the adventurers were to equip and

freight a caravel at their own expense, and on their returji

pay the Prince a fourth part of the produce, and retain the

remainder themselves ; or the Prince would supply the

caravel and furnish it with every necessary, in which case

the adventurers were to retain only the half of the i)roduce,

the Prince, in the event of failure, being at the expense of

the entire outlay. Cadamosto was, however, assured that the

voyage could scarcely fail of realizing great ])rofits. He

then had an interview with the Prince, who received him

with great kindness, confirmed all that had been told him,

and easily persuaded him to undertake the voyage.

Having made inquiry as to the nature and quantity of the
merchandise and provisions he would require, he made the
arrangements necessary for his new undertaking, and the
Venetian galleys went on their way to Flanders. The Prince
kept Cadamosto with him at Reposeira, till he had fitted out
for him a new caravel of ninety tons burthen. The sailing-
captain was Vicente Dias, of whom we have heard already.

port all the merchandise was loaded to evade the duty of two per cent, on goods
passing between Venice and England, — the captain of the Flanders gallej-s,
" Ser" Marco Zcno, knight, is ordered to make inquiries as to goods of Venetian
subjects unloaded in England, and to exact the two per cent."

See Calendar of State Papers and MS. Brown. Lond. 186 i, vol. i. 1202-
1509, page 79-

248 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

They set sail on the 22nd of March, 1455, and at midday of
the 25th reached the island of Porto Santo.

Cadamosto states that this island had been discovered
twenty-seven years before by the caravels of Prince Henry.
He should have said thirty-seven, but it is probable that
the former figure has been incorrectly transcribed. This
difference of ten years may have had to do with the widely-
accepted mistake that Cadamosto's first voyage took place
ten years earlier than it really did. He found the island,
which thirty-seven years before was uninhabited, tolerably
well peopled, producing sufiicient wheat and oats for the use
of the inhabitants, and abounding in cattle, wild boars, and
rabbits, which last were innumerable. The island produced
dragon's blood,* and excellent honey and wax ; the coast
abounded in fish.

They left Porto Santo on the 28th of March, and the same
day arrived at Monchrico (doubtless Machico), one of the
ports of Madeira, where they landed. Cadamosto relates
how Prince Henry had, twenty-four years before, colonized
this island, which till then had been uninhabited. He found
four settlements on the island, one named Monchrico
(Machico), another Santa Cruz, a third Funchal, and the
fourth the " Camara dos Lobos.'^ There were inhabitants
elsewhere, but these were the principal localities. The
island could furnish about eight hundred armed men, and of
that number one hundred mounted. Cadamosto describes

* Dragon's blood is first mentioned in tlie account of the voyage of Jean de
Bethencourt to the Canaries in 1402. The produce oi the Dracceiia Draco of the
Canaries has ceased to be the dragon's blood of commerce. That which is now
used as such is the produce of the Calamus Draco, and is imported from the
islands of the Indian Archipelago. The famous dragon tree at Orotava at the
foot of the Peak of Tencrittc, the trunk of which ten men can scarcely embrace,
is said to have been almost as large when first found in 1402 as it is now. This
tradition is rendered probable by the slow growth of the tree. Next to the
baobab trees it is regarded as one of the oldest inhabitants of the eaith. The
learned botanist Locluse (Clusius), "Rariomm Plantarum Ilistoria," lib. i. cap. 1,
saw one of these trees in L5C4 at lisbon growing amongst some olives on a hill
behind the monastery of Nossa Senhora de Gra^a, a tree which had doubtless
been brought over from Porto Santo or the Canaries by a navigator who valued
it as a curiosity mure thau the monks, by whom it was ignored and neglected.

OADAMOSTO. 249

the fertility as so great that the island produced an average
of thirty thousand Venetian stara or nearly seventy thou-
sand bushels of wheat yearly. The soil had at first yielded
sixty fold, but at the time of his visit only thirty or forty,
because the land had become impoverished, although well
watered.

On eight or more small rivers which intersected the island
they had set up saw-mills, which were kept constantly at
work in cutting wood for making furniture of various kinds,
which was sent to Portugal and elsewhere. Two kinds of
wood used for this purpose were held in great esteem : the
one a fragrant cedar like cypress, of which they made tables
of great length and breadth, boxes and other articles ; the
other a yew, which was also very exquisite, and of a red
colour.

The sugar canes, which the Prince had caused to be
imported from Sicily, and planted in the island, were pro-
ducing so abundantly that four hundred cantaros * of sugar
were made at one boiling, and the climate was so favourable
that the quantity was likely to increase. White sweetmeats
were made in great perfection. Honey and wax were pro-
duced, but in small quantities. The wines were extremely
good, considering the infancy of the colony. Among the
vines which the Prince had imported thither were those of
Malvoisie from Candia, which flourished so luxuriantly, in
consequence of the richness of the soil, that they bore as
many grapes as leaves, in bunches two or three or even four
palms in length, which Cadamosto declared was the most
beautiful sight in the world. There were wild peacocks,
some of which were white ; no partridges, or other game,
except quails, and wild boars on the mountains in
great abundance. There had been immense numbers of
pigeons, and still a great many were to be found, which they
caught by the neck with a kind of lasso, with a weight at
the end, and though they pulled them down from the trees,

* In Portugal the cantaro is the same as the alqueira, which contains about
three galloaa.

250 rniNCE bekry the navigator.

the birds, having never been hunted, were not frightened.
There were plenty of cattle on the island. Many of the
inhabitants were wealthy, for the whole country was like a
garden. There were Friars Minors of the Observantine
order, men of good and holy life.

From Madeira they sailed southward and came to the
Canary Islands. Four of them, Langarote, Fuerteventura,
Gomera, and Ferro, were inhabited by Christians ; the other
three^ the Grand Canary, Teneriffe, and Palma, by pagans.
The governor of the former was a knight named Herrera, a
native of Seville, and a subject of the King of Spain. They
had barley-bread, goats' flesh and milk in plenty, for goats
were very numerous, but they had no wine nor corn, except
what was imported, and the islands produced but little fruit.
There were great numbers of wild asses, especially in the
island of Ferro. Great quantities of orchil for dyeing were
sent from these islands to Cadiz and Seville, and thence to
other parts both east and west. The chief products were
goats' leather, very good and strong, tallow, and excellent
cheeses. The inhabitants of the four Christian islands spoke
different languages, so that they could with difficulty under-
stand each other. There were no fortified places in them,
only villages ; but the inhabitants had retreats in the moun-
tains, to which the passes were so difficult that they could
not be taken except by a siege.

Of the three islands inhabited by Pagans two were the
largest and most populous of the group, viz., the Grand
Canary, in which were about eight or nine thousand
inhabitants, and Teneriffe, the largest of all, which con-
tained from fourteen to fifteen thousand. Palma was not
so well peopled, being smaller, but a very beautiful island.
The Christians had never been able to subdue these
three islands, as there were plenty of men of arms to
defend them, and the mountain heights were difficult of
access.

Teneriffe, of whose Peak Cadamosto speaks as being-
visible accordinfi: to some sailors' accounts at a distance of

CADAMOSTO. 251

two hundred and fifty Italian miles, and sixty miles liii;li *
from the foot to the siTmmit, was governed by nine chiefs,
bearing the title of Dukes, who did not obtain the succession
by inheritance, but by force. Their weapons were stones,
and javelins pointed with sharpened horn instead of iron,
and sometimes the wood itself hardened by fire till it wa^s
as hard as iron itself.

The inhabitants went nalvcd, except some few who wore
goats' skins. They anointed their bodies with goats^ fat,
mixed with the juice of certain herbs to harden their skins
and defend them from cold, although the climate is mild.
They also painted their bodies with the juice of herbs, green,,
red, and yellow, producing beautiful devices, and in this
manner showed their individual character, much as civilized
people do by their style of dress. They were wonderfully
strong and active, could take enormous leaps, and throw
with great strength and skilL They dwelt in caverns in
the mountains. Their food was barley, goats' flesh, and
milk, which was plentiful. They had some fruits, chiefly
figs, and the climate was so warm that they gathered in
their harvest in March or April. They had no fixed religion,
but some worshipped the sun, some the moon, and otheivs
the planets, with various forms of idolatry.

The women were not taken in common among them ; but
each man might have as many wives as he liked. No
maiden, however, was taken till she had passed a night with
the chief, which was held as a very great honour. These
accounts were had from Christians of the four islands, who
would occasionally go to Teneriffe by night, and carry ofi'
men and women, whom they sent to Spain to be sold as
slaves. It sometimes happened that the Christians were
captured in these expeditions, but the natives, instead of
killing them, thought it sufficient i)unishment to make
them l)utcher their goats, and skin them, and cut them

* The i)crpendicular height is twelve thousand one Lundrod and eighty feet,
but the distance in ascending from the foot to the summit may fairly be com-
puted at sixty miles.

25)1 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

up, an occupation which they looked upon as the most
degrading that a man could be put to ; and at this work
they kept them till they might be able to obtain their
ransom.

Another of their customs was, that when one of their
chiefs came into possession of his estate, some one among
them would offer himself to die in honour of the festival. On
the day appointed, they assembled in a deep valley, when,
after certain ceremonies had been performed, the self-devoted
victim of this hideous custom threw himself from a great
height into the valley, and was dashed to pieces. The chief
was held bound in gratitude to do the victim great honour,
and to reward his family with ample gifts. Cadamosto was
told of this inhuman custom, not only by the natives, but
also by Christians who had been kept prisoners in the island.

Cadamosto visited the islands Gomera and Ferro, and
also touched at Palma, but did not land, because he was
anxious to continue his voyage.

Sailing southwards, in a few days they reached Cape
Branco, eight hundred and seventy (gay rather five hundred
and seventy) miles from the Canaries, during one-third of
which passage they were out of sight of land. They then
steered for the coast, lest they might pass the Caj^e without
seeing it.

Cadamosto here observes that from the Straits of Gibraltar
to Cape Cantin, no habitations were found, and between
Cape Cantin and Cape Branco, the desert of Sahara begins,
which on the north is bounded by the mountains, and on
the south by the country of the blacks.

This desert, he states, is fifty or sixty days' journey on
horseback, in some ]i)laces more, in others less. It reaches
to the sea-coast, where it is sandy, white, and arid, and is a
perfect level as far as Cape Branco. This Cape was so
called by the Portuguese, who first discovered it, on account
of the whiteness of the santl, on wliich rliere was no sign of
grass or of any vegetation whatever. The Cape itself is a
veiy beautiful object when seen from the front, and forms a

CADAMOST^. ■ 253

triangle, whose three points are about a mile distant from
each other.

On all this coast they found abundance of fish. The Gulf
of Arguin is very shallow throughout, and there are many
shoals in it both of sand and rock. The currents are so very
strong that they did not venture to sail except in the day-
time, and then constantly heaving the lead, and going with
the current. Two ships had already been wrecked on these
shoals. Cape Branco is situated S.E. of Cape Cantin.

Beyond Cape Branco was a place named Hoden, about
six days' camel-journey inland. It was not enclosed with
walls, but was a place of resort for the Arabs and caravans
trading between Timbuctoo and other places belonging to
the negroes, and the western parts of Barbary. The inhabi-
tants of this place lived on dates and barley, which they had
in abundance. Then- drink was camels' milk. They kept
cow^s and goats, but no great number, as the soil was so
barren, and their cattle were small compared with those of
Venice. The people were Mahometans, and great enemies
of Christianity. They had no settled habitations, but
wandered continually over the deserts, travelling between
the country of the negroes and the western parts of Barbary.
They travelled in great numbers, with long trains of camels,
conveying brass and silver and other things from Barbary to
Timbuctoo, and the country of the Blacks, and bringing
back in exchange gold and malaguette pepper. These
people were tawny, and both sexes wore white dresses with
red borders, without any linen under ; the men wore turbans
like the Moors, and always went barefoot. Lions, leopards,
and ostriches abounded in these deserts, the eggs of the
latter Cadamosto found very good food.

Prince Henry farmed out the trade of the island of
Arguin for ten years in the following manner. None were
to enter the gulf to trade with the Arabs who came to the
coast excepting those who held a grant from him, and who
were to be residents in the island, and have agents for that
purpose. Their merchandise consisted of linen and woollen

254 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

cloths, silver, alkhizeli or cloaks, carpets, &c., but especially
wheat, which was eagerly sought after. In return the
Arabs gave slaves brought from the lands of the negroes,
and gold.

The Prince consequently had a fort built in the island that
this trade might be permanently established, and with this
object the caravels of Portugal made a yearly voyage to this
island. The Arabs had a great number of Barbary horses,
which they took to the land of the negroes to barter for
slaves, a good horse being often valued at twelve or fifteen
slaves. They brought also Moorish fabrics of silk made in
Granada and in Tunis, with silver and a variety of other
things, for which they received in exchange a great number
of slaves and a small quantity of gold. These they took to
Hoden to divide. Part went to Barca, and thence to Sicily,
and part to Tunis and the whole coast of Barbary. The
rest were taken to Arguin and there sold to the licensed
Portuguese traders, who purchased every year seven or
eight hundred slaves to send to Portugal. Before the
establishment of this traffic the Portuguese sent out every
year four or more caravels to the Bay of Arguin, the crews
of which attacked the fishing villages, and carried ofi' both
men and women to sell in Portugal. They did the same all
along the coast from Cape Branco to the Senegah

The Azanegues are tawny, or rather dark brown. They
inhabit the part of the coast beyond Cape Branco, and their
district is bordered by that of the above-named Arabs of
Hoden. Their food was dates, barley, and camels' milk,
they also procured millet and beans from their neighbours
the negroes, and thus sui)})orted life, for they required but
very little. The Portuguese, as just stated, used to seize
and sell them, as the best kind of slaves, but Cadamosto
bears witness that for some time this had been prevented
by Prince Henry, and the traffic confined to merchandise,
because the Prince ho])ed that by kindness these people
might be converted to Christianity. These Azanegues have
a curious custom of covering their mouths with a piece of

CADAMOSTO. ^ 255

linen, which is first twisted round their heads, and the end
left to hang- over their mouths ; they do this because
they say that the mouth is an unseemly thing, from wliich
bad odours are emitted, and therefore ought to be concealed.
They have no chiefs among them, but any that are better
off than the rest are treated with deference and obedience.
They are a poor race, and the most lying, thievish, and
treacherous people in the world. They are of middle height
and thin ; they wear their black hair flowing down over
their shoulders, and anoint it daily with fish oil, which
causes a most offensive smell, but is looked upon as a great
embellishment. They had never seen any Christians but
the Portuguese. They thought the ships were great birds
with white wings floating on the sea, then seeing them with
the sails furled, they took them for fish ; some thought they
were phantoms wandering through the night, which caused
them great fear, the more so that they could not understand
being attacked at different places at a great distance, within
so short a time.

About six days' journey from Hoden, there is a place
named Tegazza (which signifies a chest of gold), whence
rock-salt is obtained in great quantities, and carried
by the Arabs and Azanegues on the backs of camels to
Timbuctoo, and thence to Melli, in the empire of the
negroes, where it is sold at two or three hundred mitigals*
the load, in exchange for gold. The Melli country is very hot,
and affords but poor sustenance for cattle ; the climate is bad
even for the natives, and many who go with the caravans
■ never return. From Tegazza to Timbuctoo is forty days'
journey on horseback, and from Timbuctoo to Melli is thirty
days'. In reply to inquiries about the consumption of salt,
the natives said, that it was used in great quantities by the
people who lived so near the equinox, as a purifier of
blood, because the excessive heat caused disease for which
the salt was a remedy.

A curious account is given of the transport of the salt

* The mitigal or miscal is equal to about a drachm and a half

256 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

when the heat becomes too great to be endured by camels.
It is then carried by negroes, who go in a long proces-
sion, each with a large block on his head, and carrying in
his hand a fork on which he rests the block when he is tired.
In this way they reach a piece of water which Cadamosto
supposed to be river, and here a singular traffic commences
with another tribe of negroes. When the iirst party reach
the water, they pile the salt in mounds, each marking his
own pile. They then retire half a day's journey to give place
to the purchasers, who will not be seen or spoken to ; these
come in large boats as if from an island ; they examine the
salt, and put a quantity of gold by the side of it, and then
retire leaving the gold and the salt together. When they
have left, the others return and take the gold, if they find it
enough ; if not, they again withdraw. The purchasers come
back, take the salt for which the gold has been accepted,
and leave more gold with the remainder, if they think it
worth more. And so the traffic goes on till they are
mutually satisfied, without either party seeing the other.
This was an ancient custom of which Cadamosto was
informed by Arab and Azanegue merchants, on whose word
he could rely. Cadamosto inquired of the same merchants
why the Emperor of Melli, being a great and powerful lord,
had not tried to discover who tliese people were. They
replied, that not long ago the attempt had been made, and
one of the blacks was captured in order to bring him before
their own prince, but the man would not utter a word, either
not understanding them, or resolving not to speak, nor would
he touch any food, so that after four days he died. The
chieftain was greatly vexed at the result, but those engaged
in the capture were able to give him some account of these
people, and told him that they were very black and well
made, taller than themselves by a hand's breadth, and had
the upper lip small like their own, but the under lip was
large and red, showing the gums, so that it seemed to have
blood oozing out of it. Their teeth were large, and they
had two on each side of extraordinary size. Their eyes were

CADAMOSTO. 2o7

black, and very open, which gave them a very fierce and
savage look. After the capture and death of this negro, the
others were so much offended, that for three years they
bought no more salt, and when they returned, the blacks of
Melli concluded that they found they could not exist with-
out the salt, which kept then" lips from corrupting. This
was all that Cadamosto had been able to learn on this sub-
ject, but he believed it from the number and credibility of
the witnesses.

The gold taken to Melli was divided into three parts. The
first was sent by caravan to a place called Cochia,* which is
on the road to Syria and Cairo ; the two others to Tim-
buctoo, whence the one was sent to Toet, and so to Tunis ;
the other part to Hoden, and thence to Oran and Hona, in
Barbary within the straits, and to Fez, Marocco, Arzilla,
Saffi, and Messa without the straits. It was taken hence by
Italian merchants, in exchange for a variety of merchandise.
The greatest advantage which the Portuguese obtained from
the country of the Azanegues was the gold which was yearly
sent from Hoden to the island of Arguin, and which they
got by barter with the negroes.

The Azanegues used no coin, but in some of the inland
towns the Arabs used cowries for small purchases ; these
were brought from the Levant to Venice, and sent thence to
Africa. The gold was sold by the mitigal, as in Barbary.
The women were brown, and they had little petticoats or
alkkizeli, which were brought from the country of the
negroes, and some wore these alkhizeli without any other
dress. Those who had the longest breasts were considered
the most beautiful, and so anxious were they for this dis-

* Kukia, or Kugha, the ancient capital of the Songhay empire. It must not
be confounded ^v-ith G6gu, the present capital, for El Bekri,. besides Gogu, givfs
an account of Kugha, but unfoitunately says nothing of its situation, except the
distance of fifteen days from Ghanata, nor does he show its position with regard
to Gogo. Kukia, lying at the veiy outset of the Egyptian caravan road, was
inhabited exclusively by Mahometans, while all around were idolaters. It was
the greatest market for gold in all Negroland, although the quality of the gnld
brought to Audagost was better than that exported from Kukia.

See Barth, " Travels in North and Central Africa," vol. iv. p. 583.

S

258 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

tinction, that girls of seventeen or eighteen submitted to
have a cord drawn tightly round each breast, so as to break
them, and make them hang down ; and by frequently pulling
these cords, they made them grow so long that they some-
times reached the navel. These people were good horsemen,
like the Moors, but they could not keep many horses, on
account of the barrenness of the land and the great heat,
and those they had did not live long. There were no rains,
except in August, September, and October. The locusts,
which were of a finger's length, and of a red and yellow
colour, sometimes rose in the air in such numbers that for ten
or twelve miles nothing else could be seen on the earth or in
the air, and nothing remained undestroyed wherever they
j)assed. These creatures came only once in three or four
years, or the country would have become unfit for habitation.
When Cadamosto was there, he saw numbers on the ships.

He now came to the Senegal,* which he describes as more
than a mile wide at the mouth, and deep. A little further
on it has another entrance, and between the two there is an
island which forms a cape, running into the sea ; there are
sand-banks at each mouth, that extend about a mile from
the shore. The flux and reflux of the tide extends more
than sixty miles up the river, as Cadamosto learned from
Portuguese who had ascended it in their caravels. In enter-
ing the river it is necessary to go with the tide to avoitl
the sand-banks at the mouth. It is three hundred and
eighty miles from Cape Blanco ; the coast is sandy for twenty
miles up the river, and was called the Anterote coast, and
belonged to the Azanegues.

Cadamosto was surprised to find so great a difference
between the inhabitants on the two sides of the river. On
the south side the people were very black, stout, and well
made, and the country verdant, woody, and fertile ; while,

* Cadamosto says that five years before his voyage, this river was diseovcred
by three of Prinee Henry's caravels, and that a conimcrcial treaty was made
with the blacks, so that in his time many ships went there. He is inaccurate
in this statement. According to Azurara the Senegal was discovered in l-i45.

CADAMOSTO. 259

on the north side, the men were thin, tawn)", and short, and
the country dry and sterile. It was believed by some that
this river was a branch of the Gihon, which rises in the
terrestrial Paradise. The ancients named this branch Niger,
and say that after watering- Ethiopia it runs westward, and
dividing into several branches, falls into the ocean ; and
that the Nile is another branch, which waters Egypt, and
falls into the Mediterranean.

The first kingdom of the negroes bears the same name as
the river, the Senegal, and the people are called JalofFs.
The country is quite flat as fiir as Cape Verde, which is the
highest land on the whole coast, and is four hundred miles
from Cape Branco. The kingdom of Senegal is bounded on
the east by the country of Tukhusor, on the south by the
kingdom of Gambra, on the west by the ocean, and on the
north by the river. When Cadamosto was there, the King
of Senegal was named Zucholin ; he was about twenty-two
years of age. The succession was not hereditary, but the
nobles chose a king from among their number, who remained
on the throne as long as he pleased them. If they were dis-
satisfied, they dethroned him by force, unless he had made
himself powerful enough to resist them.

The people were poor and ferocious ; they had no walled
towns, only miserable villages, with houses covered with
(hatch. They did not understand masonry, or brick-making.
Tlie kingdom was very small, being only about two hundred
miles square. The king had no fixed revenue, but the nobles
made him presents of horses and cattle, and different kinds
of vegetables and grains. The principal part of his wealth,
however, was got by pillage. He carried off the neighbouring
people for slaves ; some to cultivate the land, and some for
sale to the Azanegues and Arab merchants, in exchange for
horses and other merchandise, besides the traffic with the
Christians, since the trade was opened with them. Each
negro was allowed as many wives as he pleased. The king
had never less than thirty, who were honoured according to
the rank of their fathers. These wives were distributed by

s2

260 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

tens and twelves in different villages, where each had a
house to herself, with women to wait upon her, and slaves
to cultivate the land assigned her by her lord. They also
had cows and goats, with slaves to keep them. When the
king visited them, he took no provision with him for himself
or his retinue. At sun-rising, each wife at the place where
he arrived prepared for him food and delicacies, and after
the king had stayed his appetite, the remainder was dis-
tributed among his followers ; but they were so numerous,
that there were always some left unsatisfied. The king
travelled in this way from place to place, to visit all his
Avives in succession, and in consequence his children were
very numerous. As soon as he knew one of his wdves to be
pregnant, he left her ; which custom was observed by all his
nobles.

These negroes professed Mahometanism, but were not so
strict as the white Moors. The nobles having most inter-
course with the Azanegues or Arabs, paid more attention
to religion than the people, but since they had become
acquainted with Christians, they had less respect for Ma-
hometanism.

The common people wore nothing but goats' skins made
in the shape of breeches. The nobles w^ore shirts of cotton,
spun by the women. The width of the cloth was only a hands-
breadth ; they did not know how to make it wider, and were
obliged to sew several pieces together to make it the required
width. These shirts reached half way down the thigh, and
had wide sleeves which covered half the arm. Beside this
they had hose of the same cloth, which reached from the
waist to the instep, and were exceedingly broad, some of them
containing thirty or even forty hands-breadths of cloth, which
hung in many folds, like a sack in front, and dragged on
the ground behind. The women wore nothing above the
waist. Whether married or not, they had only a short petti-
coat reaching from the waist to the middle of the leg. Both
sexes went l)ai-e-foot, and wore nothing on their heads. Their
hail- was well-dressed, and fastened up tastefully, though it

CADAMOSTO. • 261

was very short. The men worked like the women, at spin-
ning-, washing, &c.

The ch'mato is very hot, their January being warmer than
April in Italy, and later in tlie season the heat becomes
insupportable. It was the custom to wash three or four
times a day, so that the people were extremely clean in their
persons, but the reverse in their food. Though they were
very stupid and awkward in matters that they were not
accustomed to, they showed considerable skill in those they
had been used to. They were great talkers and great liars,
but so hospitable that the poorest would give food and
lodging to strangers, looking for no reward. They were
often at war among themselves or with their neighbours.
They fought on foot, the heat preventing them from keeping-
war horses. The same cause prevented their wearing armour.
They used round shields, covered with the skin of an animal
called the danta, which Avas very difficult to pierce. Their
offensive arms were azagays, or light darts, having barbed
iron points, which they threw with admirable skill, and
inflicted very dangerous wounds ; and a kind of scimitar,
which they got from the negroes of Gambra ; they had iron
in their country, but did not know how to work it. They
had also a kind of javelin. Their wars were very deadly,
because, their bodies being unprotected, all their blows took
effect. They were a bold and savage peoide, with no fear of
death, which they infinitely preferred to flight. They knew
nothing of navigation, and never saw a ship till the coming
of the Portuguese.* Those who lived on the banks of the
river, or on the sea-shore, had canoes made of one piece of
wood, the largest of which could contain only three or four
men, and which they used for fishing and other purposes.
They were the finest swimmers in the world.

After having passed the river Senegal, Cadamosto reached
the country of Budomel, which is about fifty miles farther.
Budomel was the title of the Prince, but it gave the name

• 111 tills short sentence we have a summary disproval of the claims to prior
exploration by the Genoese, Catalans and Frenchmen.

262 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR,

to the country, as in Europe we should say the territory of
such a Count or such a Lord. The country is flat all along
the coast. Cadamosto, having heard that the Prince was a
courteous and honourable man, stopped here. He had on
board the caravel some Spanish horses, much valued by the
negroes, linen cloths, Moorish silks, and other merchandise.
Having anchored in the bay called the Palma de Budomel,
he sent his interpreter on shore, to give notice of his arrival
and make proposals of commerce.

The following day the negro Prince appeared with a
retinue of fifteen horse and a hundred and fifty foot soldiers.
He invited the Portuguese to land, and Cadamosto came on
shore in a sloop, and was very well received by the Prince,
to whom he off'ered seven horses in harness, and other
merchandise to the value of about three hundred ducats.
The payment was to be made at the house of the Prince,
which was twenty-five miles inland, and Cadamosto was
invited to receive it himself, and to be the Prince's guest
for some days. Before setting out Budomel presented him
with a young girl twelve or thirteen years old, to serve, he
said, in his cabin ; she was very black, and on that account
was considered very beautiful. The Prince also furnished
him with horses and all things necessary for the journey.
When they were within four miles of his house he consigned
him to the care of one of his nephews named Bisboror, the
lord of a neighbouring village, who received him into his
house and entertained him honourably.

It was now November. Cadamosto remained there
' twenty-eight days, and made frequent visits to the
Prince, which gave him excellent opportunities of observ-
ing the customs of the country. He had still more
opportunity of doing this when he was obliged to return
to Senegal by land ; the weather was so stormy that he
could not return to. the ships without danger, and in
consequence he sent them to the entrance of the river, ami
made the journey himself on horseback. In order to com-
nmuicatc with his caravel, and send orders to his men to

CADAMOSTO, 203

meet liim at Senegal, he bad to put the swimming powers
of the natives to the test. He says the vessel was three
miles out at sea, and it appeared impossible to execute his
commission on account of tlie violence of the waves break-
ing on the sand-banks, but in spite of this the negroes were
eager in oifering their services to carry his letter on board.
He asked two of them what he should give them for the
enterprise, and they only asked two mavulgies of tin apiece,
the mavulgi being worth something less than a pcnnj'. " I
cannot describe," says the author, " the difficulty they had
to pass the sand-banks in so furious a sea. Sometimes I
lost sight of them, and thought they were swallowed up by
the waves. At last one of the two could no longer resist
the force of the water, turned his back on the danger, and
retm-ned to the shore. The other, more vigorous, after
battling- for more than an hour with the wind and the
waves, passed the Lank ; carried my letter to the ship, and
brought me the answer. I dared hardly touch it, looking
upon it as a wonderful and sacred thing. And thus I
learned that the negroes of Budomel are the best swimmers
in the world."

The negro kings and nobles had neither cities nor forts,
their richest habitations were but miserable villages. The
Prince Budomel's authority depended chiefly on the respect
the negroes had for his riches, so little was the subordina-
tion to rank understood. Personal merit, strength, sense, '
justice, courage, and good looks also produced an efltect, and
Budomel possessed these advantages. He had assigned to
him, for himself and his wives, a certain number of villages,
which he visited in succession. The one in which Cada-
mosto stayed contained between forty and fifty houses
covered with thatch, built close to each other in a round,
encompassed by a ditch and screens of large trees, with
two or three passages for entrance ; each house had an
enclosed court. Budomel had nine wives in this place, and
more or less in his other villages. Each wife had five or six
voung girls for her service, with whom their lord was

264 PRINCE HENRY THE NAA^GATOR.

permitted to live as with his wives, who ditl not consider
this an injuiy, as it was the custom. Jealousy was a
common vice among them, and it was an insult to a negro
to enter the house of his wife ; even his sons were excluded.

Budomel had always about two hundred negroes in
attendance upon his person, when one left, another supplying
his place ; beside which there were always a number of people
who came to attend his court. Between the entrance of his
house and his own private apartment there were seven
courts, and in the midst of each was a large tree, to shelter
those who waited for an audience. In these courts his
retinue were distributed, according to their rank and employ-
ments ; those in the courts nearest the Prince being the
most distinguished. Few, however, dared approach the
person of the Prince ; the Azanegues and the Christians had
almost the exclusive privilege of entering his apartment,
and speaking to him. He maintained great state towards
his subjects, and showed himself only for one hour in the
morning, and again for a short time in the evening near the
door of the outermost court.

He required great ceremony when giving audiences to his
subjects. However high the rank of a suitor, he had to
take off his garments, with the exception of a covering
round the middle, and when he entered the last court he
threw himself on his knees, with his forehead on the earth,
casting sand over his head and shoulders. Even the Prince's
relatives were not exempt from these humiliations. The
suppliant remained a long time in this posture, sprinkling
himself with sand. He approached his lord on his knees,
still throwing sand on his bowed head; when about two
paces from him, he stopped and offered his petition. The
reply was given as shortly as possible, and with scarcely a
glance towards him. Cadamosto witnessed this scene
several times, and accounts for the excess of submission by
the excess of fear ; tlie negroes knew that their tyrants
could carry off their wives juid children, and sell them for
slaves at their pleasure, and they trembled before them, and

CADAMOSTO. 265

feared them more than God himself, with wliose name
indeed they were scarcely acquainted.

Budomel was so gracious to Cadamosto, that he allowed
liim to enter his mosque at the hour of prayer. The
Azanegues and Arabs, who were his priests, were summoned
to attend, and Budomel performed his orisons in the
following manner. Standing up, he raised his eyes towards
heaven, then walked forward two steps, uttered a few words
in a low tone, and prostrated himself on the ground, which
he kissed respectfully. In all this he was followed by the
Azanegues and the rest of his retinue. He continued in
prayer about half an hour, repeating the same ceremonies
ten or twelve times. Having finished, he turned to Cada-
mosto, asked him what he thought of it, and desired him to
give him some idea of the Christian religion. Cadamosto
had the courage to tell him, in the j)resence of the priests,
that the Mahometan religion was false, and that the Catholic
was the only true faith. This enraged the priests, but
Budomel only laughed, and said that the Christian faith
must be good, because God alone could have bestowed such
riches and knowledge as we possess. He added that he
thought the Mahometan religion was good also, and that the
negroes must have a better chance of salvation than the
Christians, because God being a just master, and having
given the Christians so many advantages in this world that
they had a paradise here, it followed that great compensation
awaited the negroes in the next world, and they might
expect their paradise there. Budomel showed much good
sense and reflection in his remarks, and took pleasure in
conversing about religion. Cadamosto thought he would
easily have been induced to embrace Christianity, had he
not been afraid of offending the j^eople. His nephew told
Cadamosto this, and took great delight himself in conversing
on the subject.

The table of Budomel was supplied in the same manner
as that of the King of Senegal. The negro nobles ate lying
upon the ground, without ceremony, and no one might eat

2G6 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

with them but the Moors, whom they looked upon as
instructors. The common people ate in companies of ten
or twelve, round a copper full of meat, in which they all put
their hands. They ate little at a time, but had frequent
meals.

The climate is so hot that they could not grow wheat, rye,
barley,, oats, or vines, for there is no rain for nine months,
that is, from October to June. However, they had millet,
large and small, and two kinds of beans. The beans were
very fine, both red and white. They sow in July to reap in
September, as this is the rainy season when the rivers
overflow and fertilise the land; and thus all the work of
agriculture was done in the three months. They only planted
as much as they thought necessary for the year, not caring
to raise provisions for sale, as they were bad economists and
very idle. Their method of cultivating the ground was for
five or six to work in a field, and they used their swords for
tools ; they scarcely dug four inches deep, but the rains
made the land so fertile that it gave an abundant harvest.

Their drinks were water, milk, and palm-wine, which was
distilled from a tree found in abundance in the country,
but not the same that produces the date, though it is
like it. This wine, which was called mignol^ was distilled
into calabashes from two or three openings in the trunk of
the tree : from morning till night a tree would not fill more
than two calabashes. This liquor had a good flavour,
and without any mixture was as intoxicating as wine.
Cadamosto says that the first day it was as good as the best
European wine, but daily it lost its flavour, till it became
sour. It was, however, more wholesome on the third or
fourth day than the first ; for in losing some of its sweetness,
it became purgative. It was not so abundant that all could
have as much as they liked, but as the trees which produced
it were spread through the fields and forests, every one ])ro-
curcd what he could by his labour, and the nobles employed
people to collect it for fliem.

The land produced many kinds of fruit, differing more or

CADAMOSTO. 267

less from those of Europe ; they were excellent growing
wild, but might have been much improved by cultivation.

The country was very fertile and woody, and abounding in
small but very deep lakes, full of fish and water snakes,
called calcatrici. There was a kind of oil used by the
natives to flavour their food, the ingredients of which
Cadamosto was unable to discover. It had the scent of
violets, the taste of olives, and the colour of saffron. There
was also a tree which produced little red beans, with black
specks, in great abundance.

The country abounded with animals, and there were a
prodigious number of serpents, some venomous, and some so
large that they would swallow a goat whole. Cadamosto
was told by the negroes that these creatures went in great
numbers to the mountainous parts of the country, which also
abounded in white ants. The ants by a wonderful instinct
build houses for these terrible neighbours with earth, which
they carry in their mouths. The negroes being great magicians,
had recourse to charms on all occasions, especially to defend
themselves against serpents. Cadamosto relates an anec-
dote which he had from a Genoese, a trustworthy man, who
told him that the year before he had been in the country of
Budomel and was staying in the house of his nephew
Bisboror. Once at midnight he was awakened by hisses all
round the house, and saw his host rise and give orders to
two negroes to bring his camel. The Genoese asked where
he was going so late, and was only told that he was going
on business, and would soon return. He came back early in
the morning, and the Genoese, curious to know the end of
the adventure, renewed his questions. " Did you not hear
at midnight," said Bisboror, "hissings all round the house?
It was surrounded by serpents, and if I had not employed
charms to make them return to their own place, they would
have destroyed much cattle." The Genoese was greatly
surprised, but Bisboror told him that his uncle could do much
more wonderful things. When he wanted to obtain venom
to poison his arrows, he had a large circle formed, into which

268 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

he charmed all the serpents in the neighbourhood ; and when
he had selected the most venomous, he killed them with his
own hands, and let the others go. He then mixed their
venom with the seed of a certain plant, which made a poison
so powerful that a wound from a weapon dipped in it was
fatal in a quarter of an hour. The Genoese added that
Bisboror offered to show him some charms, but he had no
taste for such things, and declined having anything to do
with them. Cadamosto says that he believed in the negroes'
power of charming serpents the more readily, because in
Italy there were Christians who practised enchantments.

There were no domestic animals nor sheej) in Senegal, but
there were oxen, cows, and goats. The cattle were thinner
than in Europe, and red was a rare colour among them, the
usual colours being black, white, or a mixture of both.
There were great numbers of beasts of prey ; lions, panthers,
leopards, wolves, and other wild animals. The wild elephants
went in herds ; they were of great size, as the tusks im-
ported into Europe j)roved.

Cadamosto saw no other beasts than those here mentioned,
but there were a great number of birds, especially paroquets,
which the negroes hated because they destroyed their millet
and vegetables. They said that there were several kinds,
but Cadamosto only saw two : one like those of Alexandria,
but a little smaller; the other much larger, with brown
heads, and the rest of the body mingled with green and
yellow. He took many of both kinds, but lost a number of
them on the voyage home. The caravel which accompanied
him took a hundred and fifty more, which sold for half a
ducat each in Portugal. These birds build their nests very
cleverly : they collect a quantity of reeds and twigs, and
make them into the shape of a ball, with a hole for the
entrance ; these they hang from the slenderest branches
they can find, as a protection from serpents, the weight of
these creatures preventing them from attacking the nests in
such a position. There were great numbers of the birds
called in Europe Pharaoh's hens, which came from the East.

CADAMOSTO. 269

They were dark birds, and marked with black and white spots.
They had likewise other birds, very different from those in Italy.

During Cadamosto's sojourn with Bisboror, he Avent to a
market or fair, which was held on Thursday and Friday in
a meadow near, and which was attended by numbers of both
sexes from five or six miles round. Those who lived at a
g-reater distance had other similar markets. The poverty of
the people was shown by their merchandise, consisting of
cotton in small quantities, nets and cotton cloths, vegetables,
oil, millet, wooden bowls, and palm mats. Sometimes they
brought a little gold, but m very small quantities. They
had no money, and all the traffic was by barter. The people
who came from the interior were very much astonished at
the whiteness of Cadamosto's skin, and the fashion of his
dress. He wore a Spanish dress of black damask ; his
mantle, being of wool, greatly surprised them, as they have
no wool in their country; and some of them rubbed his hands
with saliva to find out if they were painted white. His
object in going to these markets was to see if any quantity
of gold was brought there.

Horses were valued by the negroes in proportion to their
rarity. The Arabs and Azanegues imported them from
Barbary and the countries bordering upon Eurojie, but the
extreme heat soon killed them ; besides, the beans and
millet, which were their only food, made them so fat that it
became a disease. A horse with its harness was worth from
nine to fourteen slaves, according to its beauty. When a
noble purchased a horse, he went to the sorcerers, who
lighted a fire of dried herbs, over the smoke of which they
held the horse's head by the bridle, and repeated their charms.
They anointed him with the best oil, shut him up for eighteen
or twenty days, so that no one might see him, and tied
round his neck certain charms folded square, and covered
with red leather, and having done this the master believed
him to be secured from danger.

The negro women were very gay, especially the young
ones, and very fond of singing and dancing. Their time lor

270 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

dancing was at night, by moonlight, and their dances were
quite different from the Italian.

Nothing caused so much astonishment to the natives as
the discharges of artillery from the caravel. Cadamosto
caused a cannon to be fired when some of the negroes were
on board, the noise of which terrified them extremely, but
they were still more frightened when they were told that one
discharge of this dreadful machine would kill a hundred of
them. After they had recovered from their fright, they
declared that so destructive an engine could only be the work
of the devil. They were greatly pleased with the sounds of
the bagpipe, and thought it was an animal which sung the
difierent tunes. Cadamosto, amused with their simplicity,
placed the instrument in their hands, and when they saw
that it really was a work of art, they thought it must be
made by divine skill, for they had never heard such sweet
sounds. The most simple instruments about the vessel
excited their admiration, and they thought the eyes painted
on the prow of the vessel were real eyes by wdiich it saw its
w\ay through the water. They repeated incessantly that the
Europeans must have much more skilful sorcerers than
theirs, and little inferior to the devil himself, for travellers
by land found it difficult enough to keep the right road
from one place to another, while they, in their vessels, could
find their way on the sea, however distant they might be
from the land.

Though the country abounded in honey, the negroes had
no idea of making any use of the wax, and Cadamosto
greatly surprised and delighted tliem by making some
honeycomb, drained of tlie honey, into candles before their
eyes. " The white people," they exclainicd, " know every-
thing." They had two kinds of musical instruments — the
one was a sort of Moorish drum, and the otlier a kind oi'
violin with two strings, played witli (lie fingers," but there
was little music to be got out of them.

After this long sojourn in Budomel's country, Cadamosto
resolved, having l)oiiglit some slaves, to proceed on his way

CADAMOSTO. 2'/]

to double Cape Verde, and make further discoveries. lie
remembered to have heard from Prince Henry that beyond
Senegal there was another river called the Gambia, from
which a quantity of gold had already been brought, and tliat
no one could go there without amassing great riches. With
this inviting prospect he took leave of Budomel, and again
set sail. One morning he came in sight of two vessels,
which proved to belong, the one to Antonio Uso di Mare, a
Genoese gentleman, and the other to some Portuguese in
the service of Prince Henry. They were going together
towards the coast of Africa, with the intention of passing
Cape Verde and making new discoveries. Cadamosto, whose
objects were the same, joined company; they sailed together
towards the south, keeping sight of land, and the day fol-
lowing they came to the Cape. The name of Cape Verde
had been given the year before,* when jt was discovered by
the Portuguese, because they found it covered with trees
which never lost their verdure. It projects far into the sea,
and has two small mountains at the point. In passino- thev
could see many villages of the Senegal negroes, consisting' of
thatched cottages. Above the Cape there are sand-banks,
extending for half-a-mile into the sea. After doubling the
Cape, the ships came upon three islands, filled with lar-^e
trees ; they anchored at the largest, hoping to take in
water, but they could find no spring. However, as there
were quantities of birds'-nests and eggs, of an unknown
species, they stayed there one day, which they spent in
hunting and fishing. They took an incredible number of
fish, among which were dentali and orate vecchie, which
weighed twelve or fifteen pounds.

This was in the month of June. The following day they con-
tinued their course, always in sight of land. Beyond the Cape
was a gulf; the coast was low, and covered with fine large
trees, which were always green, the fresh leaves supplying the
place of those that fell, without the trees ever becoming bare,

* This error ^vill bo readily noticed bj- the reader, M-ho has seen tliat llie dis-
covciy was made by Diuiz Bias in 1445.

272 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

as in Europe. They grow so dose to the sea, that they seemed
to be watered l)y it. The prospect was so beautiful that
Cadamosto declared that he had never seen anything to
compare to it. The land was watered by several small rivers,
but as it was impossible for the vessels to enter, they could
not take in water.

Beyond the little gulf, the coast was peopled by two
nations of negroes, the Barbacini and the Serreri, both
independent of the King of Senegal. They had no dis-
tinctions of rank among them, but only of riches and
personal qualities. They were idolaters, lawless, and very
cruel. They fought with poisoned arrows, the least scratch
of which that fetched blood caused instant death. They
were very black, and very well made. The country was full
of wood, lakes, and rivers, and could only be approached
through very narrow defiles, which had helped them to pre-
serve their independence. The Kings of Senegal had often
tried to conquer them, but had always been foiled by the
difficulties of the country.

Advancing along the coast with a favourable wind, they
discovered the mouth of a river, about a bow shot in width and
very shallow (the Joal ?). They gave it the name of Barbacins ;
which name it bears in Cadamosto's chart. This river is
sixty miles from Cape Verde. They continued to follow the
coast all day, and at evening cast anchor four or five miles
from shore ; in the morning they continued their course,
taking care to keep a man at the mast-head, and two in the
fbre part of the vessel, to keep watch for rocks and sand-
banks. They arrived at the mouth of another river as large
as the Senegal (the Joombas), which was so beautiful, with
the trees growing down to the water's edge, that they deter-
mined to send one of their negro interpreters on shore.
Each ship had some on board whom they had brought from
Portugal ; slaves that had been taken in the first voyages,
who having learned the language, had come out as inter-
preters with the promise that they should be made free.
They drew lots to find which oi' the three ships should send

CA1>.\M0ST0. 273

to the shore, and it fell to that of the Genoese. lie
(les[)atchecl an armed bnr(iuc, with orders to his people not to
land till the interpreter had obtained information respecting'
the government and riches of the country. They set him on
shore, and when they had put oif to a little distance, saw
several neirroes advance to meet him, who had been waitint--
in ambush. After some questioning, which the men in the
boat could not hear, they attacked and killed him, before the
others could come to his rescue. The boat returned to tlie
ships with the news, and the commanders thinking that a
people who had shown themselves so cruel to one of their
own countrymen would be still more barbarous to strangers,
continued their course along the coast, which increased in
beauty and verdure the further they went, but was very flat
and low.

At length they came to the mouth of a very large river,
at the narrowest part not less than three or four miles wide,
and the ships could enter it with safety. The next day they
learned that this was the much desired Gambia. They sent
on the smallest caravel, well equipped with men and arms,
to sound the river, and find out whether the larger vessels
could follow. Finding that at the shallowest it was four feet
deep, they resolved to send sloops well armed with the caravel,
with instructions that if the negroes came to attack them,
they were to return without fighting, because, their object
being to establish commerce, they could only do this by
gaining the confidence of the people. Two miles up the
river the sloops found twelve and sixteen feet of water. The
banks of the river were extremely beautiful and covered with
magnificent trees, but, as they proceeded, it became so winding
that they did not care to go further. On their way back, they
saw, at the entrance of a small river which ran into the large
one, three canoes made each of a single piece of wood. Though
the men in the sloops were strong enough to defend themselves,
they rowed back with great speed, in accordance with their
orders, and when they reached the caravel and had got on board,
they saw the blacks about a bow-shot behind. The negroes

T

274 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

v/ere about twenty-five or thirty in number, and seemed
much: surprised at the sight of the caravel. They stayed
some time to satisfy their curiosity ; but made no reply to
the signs made to them, and at last departed as they had
come.

The following day, at three in the morning, the two
caravels which had remained at the mouth of the river,
took advantage of wind and tide being in their favour, to
enter the river and rejoin their companion. They had
scarcely gone three or four miles, one after the other, when
they perceived that they were followed by a great number of
canoes, but could not understand where they came from.
Seeing this, they turned upon the negroes, and a battle
a|)pearing inevitable, covered themselves as well as they
could as a protection against the poisoned arrows. The
canoes surrounded the prow of Cadamosto's ship, which was
in advance of the rest. There were fifteen of them, con-
taining about a hundred and fifty negroes, all tall, well-
made men. They had on shirts of white cotton, and white
hats with a plume, which gave them a war-like air. At the
prow of each canoe was a negro on the look-out, with a
round shield that seemed made of leather. When close to
the caravel, they remained with their oars raised, looking at
it with admiration, till the other caravels came hastening
up at the sight of danger. As soon as they came quite
near, the negroes laid down their oars, and took to their
bows, from which they discharged a heavy shower of arrows.
The three caravels remained stationary, but fired oft' four
cannon, which astonished the negroes so much that they
threw down their bows, and looked on all sides in the
greatest terror for the cause of so frightful a sound. W'lien
the noise ceased they again took courage, and resumed their
bows, coming within a stone's throw of the ships, and
bearing the fire of the crossbow-men very bravely. One of
ihem was killed by a shot from the son of the Genoese
gentleman, but they continued their attack till a great
number had been slain, without the loss of a single man on

CADAMOSTO. 275

board the caravels. When the nej^roes l)ecame aware of
their loss, and found their canoes likely to sink, the\v threw
themselves on the smallest caravel, which was badly armed,
and attacked it violently. Cadamosto seeing their intention,
placed the smaller vessel between the other two, and gave
orders for a general discharge of artillery. Though they
took care not to fire on the canoes, the noise and the
agitation of the water so terrified the negroes, that they fled
in disorder. The three caravels were then made fast to each
other, and by means of a single anchor remained as firm as
a vessel in the greatest calm.

During several days following, Cadamosto sought occa-
sion to convince the natives that he had no intention of
hurting them. The interpreters went on shore in a canoe,
spoke to the people, and asked them why they attacked
strangers who only wished to make conditions of peace
and commerce with them, as they had already done with
the people of Senegal, and who had come from a far
distant land with presents from the King of Portugal to
them. They asked the name of their country and river, and
invited them to come to the vessels and make exchanges of
merchandise, according to their own will and pleasure. To
all this the negroes replied, that they had heard of the
arrival of the white people at Senegal, and that they
despised their neighbours of Senegal for entering into any
treaty with the Christians, who, they believed, lived on
human flesh, and only bought negroes to devour them.
They declared their intention to kill the Christians if
possible, and take their spoil to their sovereign, who was
three days' journey inland. Their country was called
Gambra, and the large river had a name which Cadamosto
could not remember. The wind having risen, during this
conference, the caravels took advantage of it to bear down
upon the negroes, who escaped to the shore, and thus
ended the encounter.

The commanders then consulted whether they should sail
furtlier up the river, in the hope of finding some more hos-

T 2

276 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

pitable people, but the sailors were so anxious to return
home, that they declared they would not go on. The com-
manders were obliged to submit, fearing a mutiny. On
the following day they set out on their homeward voyage
and sailed towards Cape Verde on their way to Portugal.

All the time they remained at the mouth of the river, they
saw the north star only once, when it seemed to be low down,
about a span's length above the sea. They observed also
six other stars about the same height — large, clear, and
brilliant — which were placed thus * * * » * ^ and which
they took for the southern chariot, but they did not see the
23rii]cij)al star, not being far enough to the south to lose
sight of the north star. In the same place they found the
night to be eleven hours and a half on the first and second
days of July. The heat was excessive^ though it was a little
more temperate during the short time which the natives
called winter, from the beginning of July to the end of
October. During this time it rained every day ; the clouds
rose in the north-east quarter east, or east-south-east, and
the rain was accom^^anied by violent thunder. This was the
time for planting and sowing as among tlie negroes of
Senegal. Their food was milk, honey, and vegetables.
Cadamosto was told that in the interior the heat was so
great, that even the rain was very hot. There was no
twilight as in Europe, but the darkness did not disapj)ear
at once when the sun rose ; for about half an hour the sky
was obscured as by a thick smoke. Cadamosto believed that
the flatness of the country was the cause of the sun appear-
ing,- so suddenly.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.

1460.

In the present chapter will be given for the first time in the
English language the correct statement of the discovery of
the Cape Verde Islands, and that by their first discoverer.
Hitherto we have had to content ourselves with the narrative
transmitted to us by Cadamosto in his description of his
own second voyage to the west coast of Africa, to which has
been erroneously assigned the date of 1450. But it will l^e
my duty first to show that that narrative is so full of errors,
contradictions, and incoherences that we must look else-
where for the truth ; and secondly, to produce from a hitherto
imtranslated manuscript, recently discovered in Munich, the
truth as related to us by the original discoverer. It is a
happy circumstance that the details supplied by this latter
document coincide with and confirm the careful corrective
criticisms on Cadamosto's narrative, which had been made,
in entire ignorance of the MS. in question, by a learned
Portuguese writer in 1844.*

But while one ancient document is thus introduced to
correct another, it would be unjust alike to the authors of
those documents and to the reader not to give their own
statements as far as is consistent with the avoidance of
prolixity. A verbatim rendering of such documents would

* See " Ensaios sobre a statistica das possessoes Portuj^uesp.s," &c., por Jug^
Joaquim Lopes do Lima, Lisbon, 1844. Liv. i., part 2, cap. 1, page 4.

278 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

weary most readers, but it is at the same time necessary
that no substantive statement be omitted. The following,
with such limited modification, is the narrative of Cada-
mosto's second voyage. Of its date we shall speak hereafter.

CADAMOSTO S SECOND VOYAGE.

The next year Cadamosto, together with the Genoese
gentleman, Uso di Mare, undertook a second voyage, with
the view of following up his discoveries in the country of
Gambra, which had been frustrated before by the barbarity
of the natives and the opposition of the Portuguese sailors.
Prince Henry warmly approved of the expedition, and
fitted out a caravel in his own name to accompany them.

The three ships set out from Lagos in the beginning
of May, and the wind being favourable, they reached the
Canaries in a few days, and without stopping went on to
Cape Branco. When they had doubled the Cape they put
out into the open sea, but the night following were surprised
by a storm from the south-west, which carried them west-
north-west during three days and two nights.

The third day they discovered land, to their great joy, and
two men being sent to the mast-head saw two large islands,
at which there was great rejoicing, for they believed them to
be hitherto unknown, and hoped to find them inhabited.
They sailed towards them, and having found good anchorage,
sent on shore a skiff with men well armed to explore, but
they found no sign of habitation. The next day, to make
quite sure, Cadamosto sent ten men, armed with crossbows,
with orders to ascend a mountain and see if there were any
sign of liabitation, or if there were any other islands within
sight. They could see no dwellings of any kind, but found
an immense number of pigeons, so tame that they could be
taken by tlie hand. From the mountain they could see
throe other islands, one toward the north, and two in a
soutliward direction. Tliey thought they could see islands in
the west, but so far oil' that they could not distinguish them,

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. 279

and Cadaniosto did not care to spend the time required
to go to them, as he thought the)'' would be all alike wild and
uninhabited. Afterwards others, attracted by the discovery
of the four islands, went further and found ten islands of
diiferent sizes, inhabited only by pigeons and other birds.

The three caravels then weighed anchor and went to one
of the other islands, which appeared covered with trees, and
finding the mouth of a river, they anchored there in order
to get water for the ships. Some of the sailors went up
the river a good distance in the sloop, and found some
small lakes of salt, fine and white, which they brought into
the vessel in great quantity, and took some of the water, which
seemed very good. They found many turtles, and put some
of them in the caravels, the upper shells of which were larger
than a shield. The sailors killed a great number, and dressed
them in different ways, observing that they had formerly
eaten them in the Gulf of Arguin, where there are some of
the same sort, but not so large. Cadamosto tasted them,
and found them very savoury. They salted a good number,
which proved very useful in their voyage. At the mouth
of the river and further up, they found fish in incredible
numbers and great variety. The river is very broad, so that
a ship of one hundred and fifty tons can get into it easily,
being a bow-shot in breadth.

They remained two days to refresh themselves, agreeing
to name the first island they had found Boavista, because
it was the first they had discovered. The larger one they
named Santiago, because they came to anchor there on the
feast of St. James and St. Philip.

They again set sail and came in sight of land at a place
called Spedegar, and followed the coast till they came to The
two Palms, a place situated between Cape Verde and the Kiver
Senegal. Without any further difficulty they proceeded on
their way to the River Gambra, which they entered without
interruption. They sailed on, sounding the river for about
ten miles, the few negroes that they saw not daring to
approach. They then anchored ona Sunday near an island,

280 PP.IN'CE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

where they buried one of the saihjrs who had died of a fever,
and as he was much beloved and lamented, they named the
island after him, S. Andre. They now continued their course
up the river, followed by some canoes at a distance. Cada-
mosto sent interjDreters to them to tell them they might
come on board in safety. The interpreters showed them
stufi's and toys which had been brought for the purpose, and
offered to give them some if they would come on board.

At length overcoming their fears, they came to the
caravel, and one of the negroes was able to talk with Cada-
niosto's interpreter. They were very much astonished at every-
tliing thiij saw on board the caravel, and especially with
the sails, for they had only been accustomed to use oars.
The dress and colour of the Europeans amazed them, their
own dress being only a white cotton shirt. Cadamosto
received them with great kindness, and asked them the name
of their country and of their prince, to which they replied that
their country was called Gambra, and that their prince was
named Forosangoli ; that he lived about ten days' journey
from the river, between the south and south-west ; that he
was a vassal of the Emperor of Melli, who was chief of all the
negroes ; that there were many other princes who lived
nearer, and that if Cadamosto wished it, they would take
him to one named Batti Mansa {i.e. King Batti, Mansa
being the Mandingo for king). This offer was thankfully
accepted, and the caravel proceeded up the river according
to the direction of the negroes, till they reached the re-
sidence of this prince, which Cadamosto believed to be
about sixty miles from the river's mouth. It must be
remarked, that tliey sailed up the river in an easterly direc-
tion, and saw many tributaries wliicih flowed into it; the
place wliere they anchored was much narrower than the
mouth, being only about a mile in breadth.

When they had cast anchor, Cadamosto sent one of the

i nterpreters w'ith the negroes to Batti Mansa, bearing a

very handsome IMoorisli di-ess as a present, and charged with

a niessai;v to tlieelVcct (b;it ihev b;iil cdnu' iVoui tlu> Christian

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. 281

Kin<^ of Portugal, to make a treaty witli liim. The mes-
sengers were favourably received by Inatti Mansa, who sent
some of his people to the caravel. A treaty was made, and
European goods were exchanged for slaves and gold, but the
(jnantity of gold was not at all equal to the expectations
raised by the accounts given by the people of Senegal, who
being very poor themselves, thouglit their neighbours
richer than they were. The negroes valued their gold as
highly as the Portuguese did, but showed how much they
admired the European trifles by their willingness to give
a large price for them. The Portuguese remained there
eleven days, during which many negroes came on board,
some only from curiosity, others to sell their merchandise,
cotron cloths, white and striped nets, gold rings, &c. They
also brought baboons and marmots, civet and skins of the
civet cat, all which they sold very cheap. An ounce of civet
they would give for forty or fifty marchetti. Others brought
fruits, especially dates, which the sailors found very good,
but which Cadamosto would not touch, fearing they were not
wholesome.

Every day the caravels were visited by negroes differing
in race and language, both men and women, who came and
went in their canoes with the utmost confidence. They
only used oars and rowed standing, having always a second
in the boat to steer with his oar. The oars were in the
form of a half lance, between seven and eight feet long,
with a round board like a trencher at the end ; with these
they managed their canoes very skilfully, keeping close to
the coast, not venturing far for fear of being taken by the
neighbouring people and sold for slaves.

At the end of eleven days, they resolved to return to the
river's mouth, as fever began to show itself among them.
Cadamosto had not failed to make his observations on the
religion and customs of the people. They were generally
idolaters, and superstitious with regard to charms and
enchantments ; but they believed in a God, and there were
some Mahometans among them, who travelled al)0ut, and

282 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

traded with other countries. There was but little difference
between the food of these people and that of the natives of
Senega], except that they ate dogs' flesh, which Cadamosto
had never seen done elsewhere. They dressed in cotton, which
they had in abundance, while the natives of Senegal, whose
cotton was scarce, often wore nothing at all. The women
dressed like the men, but for ornament tattooed their skins
when they were young with a hot needle. Tiie heat of the
climate was extreme, and increased towards the south ; and
was greater on the river than on the sea, on account of the
great quantity of trees which grew on the banks and kept
the air confined. As an instance of the size of these trees,
Cadamosto mentions one which measured seventeen fathoms
round ; the trunk was pierced and hollowed out in many
places, but the foliage was green, and the branches spread
out so as to afford an immense shade. There were others
still larger, showing that the country was wonderfully fer-
tile and well watered.

There were great numbers of elephants, which the natives
did not know how to tame. While the caravels were at
anchor, these elephants came out of the neighbouring
wood, down to the banks of the river. Some of the sailors
got into the skiff, but before they could reach the bank,
the elephants saw them and went back to the wood. These
were the only living elephants that Cadamosto saw. A
negro chief named Guumi Mansa, who lived near the
mouth of the river, showed him a small one that he had
killed after a hunt of two days. The negroes hunted on
foot with bows and poisoned darts or javelins. They hid
behind the trees, and sometimes climbed up into them, and
from their hiding-places threw their poisoned weapons at
the animals, leaping from tree to tree in pursuit, and the
elephants being large and unwieldy were struck many
times before they could escape or defend themselves. They
never dared attack an elephant in the open country,
for however active a man might be, he could not hope
to ()ut)-un him. Hut the eh'phant never attacks a man

THE CAPE VERDE I.'^LANDS. 283

unless in self-defence, for he is naturally gentle and
docile.

The tusks of the little elephant which Cadamosto saw
dead were not more than three palms long, one-third of the
length being buried in the jaw; this showed it, was quite
a young one, for the full-grown animals have tusks from ten
to twelve palms long. Young as this one was, it had as
much flesh as five or six oxen. The negro chief presented
Cadamosto with the best part, and gave the rest to the
hunters. Cadamosto's portion was taken to the caravel to
be cooked, as he was curious to taste the flesh of an animal
so new to him, but he found it hard and disagreeable ; how-
ever, he had some salted to take home to Prince Henry on
his return. He sent on board the caravel one of the feet
and a part of the trunk, with some of the skin, which was
black and very coarse ; all of which with the salted flesh
he presented to the Prince, who received them as great
curiosities.

This chief also gave him another elephant's foot,
which measured three palms and a finger each way, and
a tooth twelve palms in length, which were afterwards
presented by the Prince to his sister the Duchess of
Burgundy.

In the river Gambra and other rivers of the country,
besides the serpents called " calcatrici,'^ and other ani-
mals, Cadamosto saw the horse-fish (the hippopotamus),
which he thus describes : " It is amphibious, and its body
is as large as that of a cow, with very short legs and its feet
cloven ; the head is large, and like that of a horse. It has
two tusks like those of the wild boar, some two palms and
a half long. It comes out of the water, and walks like
other quadrupeds." Cadamosto says that it had not been
seen by Christians before, except on the banks of the Nile.
He saw also bats three palms long or more, a number of
birds, different from those of Europe, and a multitude of
fishes, also differing from the European, but almost all very
<j:ood to eat.

284 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOii.

The sickness of tlie men now compelled them to leave the
country of Batti Mansa. They descended the river, and
being- well-furnished with provisions, determined to go
further along the coast. The current of the Gambra
carried them far beyond the mouth of the river, and the
land stretched south-south-west, in the form of a cape (Cape
St. Mary), They therefore stood out well to sea, but found
the point of land was no cape to speak of, for the shore was
quite straight beyond it. But as they saw breakers at four
miles distance, they kept out to sea, to escape the sand-
banks and rocks, and two men continued on the look-out,
one at the prow, and one at the mast-head. Besides which
they only sailed by day and cast anchor at night. To av(nd
disputes, they every day cast lots which caravel should go
first, and in this way they coasted along two days. On the
tliird, they discovered the mouth of a river, half a mile
wide, and towards evening they saw a little gulf, which had
been taken for another river, but as it was late they cast
anchor.

The next morning they sailed on, and came to the mouth
of a very large river, but somewhat smaller than the river
Gambra, the banks of which were covered with trees of
extraordinary size and beauty. They sent on shore two
armed sloops, with interpreters, to reconnoitre, and they
returned with the information that the river was called
Casa Mansa, from the name of a negro chief, who resided
thirty miles up the river and was then at war with a neigh-
bouring chief. They departed the following day. The
distance from the river Gambra was about a hundred
miles.

They continued their course, following the coast, till they
came to a cape about twenty miles further on, to which they
gave the name of Capo Roxo, from the red colour of the
earth. They next came to the mouth of a i-iver, about a
bow-shot in width, which they did not enter, but gave it the
name of llio de Santa Anna (the Cneheo). Further on they
found anotlu'r river of the same size, which they named

THE CAPE VEHDE ISLANDS. 285

S. Domingo (the Rio de Jatte), which was about fifty-five
or sixty miles from Cnpe Roxo.

A day's journey beyond, they came to the mouth of a
river, so wide that they thought it was a gulf; they were
some time crossing, for it was twenty miles over. The south
bank was covered with beautiful trees, and when they
arrived there, they discovered some islands out at sea. They
then cast anchor, resolving to gain more information before
they went on. The following day two canoes approached
the caravels, the largest containing about thirty negroes,
and the other sixteen. All on board the caravels took to
their arms, expecting an attack, but the negroes raised a
piece of white linen fastened to an oar, in sign of peace.
The Portuguese replied in the same manner, and the negroes
came on board Cadamosto's caravel, where they showed great
surprise at everything they saw, for all was new to them,
the whiteness of the men, the form of the vessel, the masts,
the sails, and cordage, &c. It was a great disappointment
to find that the interpreters were no longer of use, for they
did not understand the lano-uao-e of the natives. This
induced Cadamosto to think of turning back, as they could
not get any further information, and to this the other com-
manders agreed. During their stay, which lasted two days,
one of the negroes gave bracelets of gold in exchange for other
things, without speaking a word, only making use of signs.

They named the river. Bio Grande.* The north star
appeared to them very low. They also found that the tides
were difierent here from anything they had observed in
other countries. Instead of the flux and reflux being six
hours each, as at Venice and other countries of Europe, the
tide here rose in four hours, and took eight to subside ;
and so great was the impetuosity of the tide, that three
anchors scarcely sufficed to keep each caravel steady, and
they set sail with great danger, for the force of the sea was
greater than that of the wind, though all the sails were set.

* From the extreme breadth of its mouth this would seem to be the river
Jeba.

286 PRINCJE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

In returning to Portugal, Cadamosto visited two large
islands and some small ones, which they saw about thirty
miles from the main land. The large islands were inhabited
by negroes, the land was low and covered with fine trees, but
the language of the people was unknown to the interpreters,
so they made a very short stay, and steered homewards,
arriving safely in Portugal after a good voyage.

Now it will not be difficult to prove from the very words
of the foregoing document, the utter impossibility of its own
correctness as to the details of the asserted discovery of the
Cape Verde Islands, while the incorrectness of the date can
be demonstrated from other data. Cadamosto says, that
he sailed from Lagos in the beginning of the month of May ;
then went to the Canary Islands, thence proceeded to Cape
Branco, off which he was assailed at night by a furious storm
from the south-west. It went on increasing, and for two
nights the ship was driven in a west-north-west direction,
when on the third day they sighted two large islands, on
one of which they landed and named it Boavista. From the
top of a mountain in this island the explorers gained sight
of three more islands, one to the north and two to the south,
and they thought they saw others to the west. On the follow-
ing day, Cadamosto says, that he came in sight of the two
to the south, and went to one of them, which he named
Santiago, because he cast anchor there on St. Philip and St.
James's day. He found in that island a river of fresh
water, so large that a ship of seventy-five tons could enter it
with ease ; and along this river his men found some small
lagoons of remarkably white and beautiful salt, a great
quantity of which they brought away. They also found
many turtles, which they cooked in various ways, and of
which he tasted.

Now all this is simply impossible. 1st. A man who sailed
from Lagos in the beginning of May, could not, after a
voyage of some days, an(^hor ofi one of the Cape Verde
Islands on St. I'hilip and St. James's day, Avliich tliroughout

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. 287

Christendom is kept on the 1st of May. 2dly. Three days
driving before a furious tempest in a west-north-west direc-
tion, from Cape Branco, coukl not bring a vessel to the
island of Boavista, which lies a hundred leagues to the south-
west. 3rdly. From Boavista may be seen in clear weather
the island of Sal, which is eiglit leagues off; but, from
Cadamosto's time till now, no human being has been able
from that island to sight Santiago, which is more than
twenty-five leagues to the south-west. To the west lies St.
Nicolas, nearly as far off as Santiago, so that the explorers
could not possibly see from Boavista more than one island
to the north. 4thly. Neither in Santiago, nor in any one
of the Cape Verde Islands, is there a single river of fresh
water, nor any stream big enough to float a canoe ; and the
inhabitants of Santiago would be only too glad to realize the
pleasant dream of Cadamosto, especially if their fresh water
river, which would easily admit a vessel of five-and-seventy
tons, w^ere fringed with lagoons of remarkably white and
beautiful salt, a commodity of which the island is as lacking
as it is of the turtles with which the Venetian had also
blessed them.

"We know from a statement of Cadamosto's elsewhere
that he remained in Lisbon till 1463, and it is tolerably
clear that he made capital of discoveries that had taken
place in the interval, and appropriated them by an altera-
tion of the date. His own first voyage, on which he
started on March 22nd, 1455, would appear to have lasted
till 1456, for in it the mention of a month of November
is followed by a mouth of June ; and his second voyage
being in the " anno sequente," would be 1457. But there
is evidence to show that the discovery of Santiago was not
made till 1460, and it would also seem from the recently
discovered mannscript of which I am about to give the
translation, that the honour of that discovery belongs, not
as has been hitherto supposed by the severest critics, to the
Genoese, Antonio de Nolle, but more properly to the Portu-
guese Diogo Gomez, who claims it as his own, and shows

288 PRIXCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOU.

how the Genoese took advantage of his first arrival in
Portugal to claim the honour and emoluments of the dis-
covery at the hands of the King.

The following is Gomez' narrative : —

THE NARRATIVE OF DIOGO GOMEZ.

"Not a longtime after (the disaster of Adalbert, or Vallarte,
as related by Azurara, see page 224) * the Prince equipi)ed
at Lagos a caravel, named Pica?iso,f and appointed (the
writer) Diogo Gomez caj)tain, together with two other cara-
vels, of which he appointed Diogo Gomez captain-in-chief.
The captain of one of these was Joiio Gonsalvez Ribeiro, of
the Prince's household, and of the other Nuiio Fernandez de
Bay a, the Prince's esquire-at-arms. The Prince gave them
orders to proceed as far as they could. After jjassing the
Eiver of S. Dominick (the S. Domingo), and another great
river called Fancaso (the present Rio Grande) beyond the
Rio Grande (the Jeba), we encountered strong currents in
the sea, so that no anchor could hold, and which were called
Macareo. The other captains, therefore, and their men
were greatly alarmed, thinking that they were at the ex-
tremity of the ocean, and they begged me to return. In the
middle of the current the sea was very clear, and the natives
came from the shore and brought us their merchandise, viz.,
cotton cloth, elephants' teeth, and a quart measure of mala-
guette, in grain and in its pods as it grows, with which I was
much delighted. The current prevented our proceeding-
further, and in fact increased so much that it obliged us to
put back.

We came to a land where, near the shore, were many
palm trees, with their l)ranches broken, and so tall that

* The earlier portion of Diogo Gomez' narrative is omitted, because it con-
tains none of his own adventures, but a hearsay account of Prince Ilenry's pre-
vious expeditious, which he related to Martin Behaini in a far less accurate and
authentic form than has already been laid bcfor(> the reader from Azurara's
chronicle.

t This is doubtless the same vessel, the "Pican(;o" or "Wren," already
luenticmed by Azurara. (Sec page "203.)

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. 289

from a distance we thought that they were masts or spars of
nt'gTO vessels.* Thither we went, and found an extensive
plain full of hay, and more than five thousand anin:ials called
in the negro language myongas. These are beasts a little
Larger than stags, which showed no fear at sight of us. We
also observed five elephants come out of a small river
sheltered with trees. Three of them were large, with two
young ones, and they tied from the myongas. On the sea-
shore we saw many crocodiles' holes. We returned to the
ships, and on the next day made our way from Cape Verde,
and we saw the broad mouth of a river, three leagues in
width, which we entered, and from its size correctly con-
cluded that it was the River Gambia. We entered it with
the wind and tide in our favour, and came to a small island
in the middle of the river, and there remained that night.
In the morning, however, we went further in, and saw many
canoes full of men, who fled at sight of us, for it seems they
were the same who had slain Nuno Tristam and his men.
The next day, however, we saw beyond the point ? [Caput]
of the river some people on the right hand side of it, to
whom we went, and were received in a friendly manner.
Their chief was called Frangazick, and was the nephew of
Farisangul,f the great Prince of the negroes. There I
received from the negroes one hundred and eighty pounds
weight of gold, in exchange for our merchandise ; such as
cloths, necklaces, &c. They told us that the negroes on the
left shore would not hold intercourse with us because they
had slain the Christians. The lord of that country had a
certain negro, named Bucker, who was acquainted with the
whole country of the negroes, and finding him perfectly
truthful, I asked him to go with me to Cantor, and promised
to give him a mantle and shirts, and every necessary. I
made also a similar promise to his chief, which I kept. We
ascended the river, and I sent a cajftain with his cainvel
into a certain harbour, named Ulimays [tloubtless Ollimaiisa,

* The Cabo dos Mastos.
t See Cadamosto, page 280.

U

290 PRINCE IIKNRY THE KAVIGATOR.

see 2)0St']. The other remained in Animays [Nomimansa ?] ,
and I went up the river as far as Cantor, which is a large
town near that river's side. On account of the thick growth
of the trees on both sides of the river, the vessels could pro-
ceed no farther, and I sent out the negro whom we had
brought with us, to make it known to the people of the
country that I had come thither for the purpose of exchanging
merchandise, and, in consequence, the negroes came in very
great numbers. When the report spread throughout the
country round, that the Christians were in Cantor, the
natives came together from all quarters, viz., from Tambu-
catu [Timbuctoo] in the north, from the Sierra Geley *■' in
the south, and there came also people from Quioquun (sic),
[Kukia] , which is a great city, surrounded by a wall of baked
tiles, and where I understood there was abundance of gold,
and that caravans of camels and dromedaries crossed over
thither with merchandise from Carthage or Tunis, from Fez,
from Cairo, and from all the land of the Saracens, in ex-
change for gold. They said that the gold was brought from
the mines of Mount Gelu, which is the opposite side of the
range called Sierra Lyoa. They said that that range of
mountains began at Albafur, and ran southwards, which
pleased me much, because all the rivers, large and small,
descending from those mountains (which had been as yet
observed) ran westward ; but they told me that other very
large rivers ran eastward from them, and that near that city
was a certain great river, named Emiu, and that there was
also a great lake (mare), but not very broad, on which were
many canoes, like ships, and that the people on the opposite
sides were in constant warfare with each other, those on the
eastern side being white men. On my inquiring what
sovereigns ruled in those parts, they answered, that the
chief of that l)ar(, which was inhabited by the negroes, was
named Sambegcny, and that the lord of the eastern part

* The Siiinc ns Mount Gelu ei,i;-lit liufs on. It is luiist probably the ".DjaliiUt "
of Almlfida. Sec Rciiiiiuirs (■dilinn, tom. ii. ])ai:(>S(i. He speiiks of the treasure
that it produces.

THE CAl'E VEUDE ISLANDS. 291

was called Semanagu, and that a short time before they had
a great battle, iu which Semanagu was the conqueror. And
a certain Saracen of Termezen [Tlemsen?], named Adnicdi,
told me that he had been through all that land, iwid hud
been present at the battle, both by sea and land. When I
afterwards related all these things to the Prince, he told me
tliat a merchant in Oran had written to him two months
before respecting this engagement, which had taken place
between Semanagu and Sambegeny, and, therefore, he
believed the account. Such are the things which were told
me by the negroes who were with me at Cantor. I ques-
tioned the negroes at Cantor as to the road which led to the
countries where there was gold, and asked who were the
lords of that country. They told me that the king's name
was Bormelli, and that the whole land of the negroes on the
right side of the river was under his dominion, and that he
lived in the city Quioquia [Kukia]. They said further, that
he was lord of all the mines, 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 scarcely move it,
and that the king always fastened his horse to it, and kept
it as a curiosity on account of its being found just as it was,
and of so great size and purity. The nobles of his court
wore in their nostrils and ears ornaments of gold. They
said also, that the parts to the east were full of gold mines,
and that the men who went into the pits to get the gold did
not live long, on account of the impure air. The gold sand
was afterwards given to women to wash the gold from it.*

I inquired the road from Cantor to Quioquia [Kukia],
and was told that to Morbomelli [Bormelli f] from Cantor

* Tlic mouxLtainous country of Boure on the Tanldsso, an affluent of the Joliba,
is doubtless here refeiTed to. It contains many very abundant gold mines. The
gold of Boure circulates throughout the whole inteiioi", and finds its way to the
French and English settlements on the coasts ; while Jenne, which was formerly
considered as the country most plentifully supplied with this precious metal, has
none except what is brought from this rich tract." See CaiUie's "Travels through
Centi'al Afi-ica to Timbuctoo." London, 1830. Vol. i. p. 284.

t The name of the resident, Bormelli, jiut in lieu of his place of residence,
Kukia.

u2

292 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

the road is eastward to Somandu, and from Soinandu to
Conmuberta and to Cercculle and other places, the names of
which I have forgotten. And in these aforenamed places is
great abundance of gold, as I can well believe, for I saw the
negroes at the time who went by those roads come loaded
with gold. And they said that Forisangul [_sic] was subject
to Mormelli [Bormelli], who "was lord of the right part of
the river Gambia.

While thus holding peaceful intercourse with these negroes
of Cantor, my men became worn out with the heat, and so
we returned in search of the other two caravels, and in the
caravel which had remained in Ollimansa [the same named
previously Ulimays], I found nine men had died, and the
captain, [Joao] Gronzalo [Alphonso], very ill, and all the
rest of his men sick, except three. I found the other caravel
fifty leagues lower down towards the ocean, and in it five
men had died. We immediately withdrew, and made for
the sea, and I went to the place where I had hired the negro
traveller, and gave him what I had promised him.

They then informed me that on the other, that is, the left
or south side of the river, there was a certain great chief,
named Batimansa, and I desired to make peace with him,
and I sent to him that negro who had been with me at
Cantoi\ That chieftain desired to speak with me in a great
wood on the bank of the river, and brought with him an
immense throng of people armed with poisoned arrows,
azagays, and swords and shields [dargis]. And I went to
him, carrying him some presents and biscuit, and some of
our wine, for they have no wine except what is made from
the date palm, and he gave me three negroes, one male and
two female, and lie was pleased and extremely gracious,
making merry with me and swearing to me by the one only
God that he would never again make war against the
Christians, but that they might travel safely through his
land and interchanoe their merchandise. Beinij: desirous of
l)utting this to the proof, I sent a certain Indian named
Jacob, whom the Prince had sent with us, in order that, in

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. 293

tlio event of our reaching India, he might be able to hold
speech with the natives, and I ordered him to go to the
place which is called Alcnzet, with the lord of that country,
whitlier, on a former occasion, a knight had gone with him,
through the land of GelofFa to find the Sierra de Gelu and
Tambucutu. This Jacob, the Indian, related to me that
Alcnzet is a very vicious land [multum viciosa], having a river
of sweet water and abundance of lemons, some of which he
brought with him to me. And the lord of that country sent
me elephants' teeth, one of them very large, and four ne-
groes, who carried the tooth to the ship. And so they came
peacefully u}) to our ships, and thus I was safe from them.
Afterwards I sent to his abode, which was surrounded by
many negro habitations. Their houses are made of seaweeds,
covered with straw, and I remained with them for three days.
Here were many parrots and many ounces, and he gave me
six skins, and ordered that an elephant should be killed and
its flesh carried on board the caravels.

It was here that I learned the fact that all the mischief that
had been done to the Christians had been done by a certain
king, called Nomymans [Nomimansa], who possesses the land
which lies on that promontory. 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 to his own
country. This salt is plentiful there, and of a red colour. He
greatly feared the Christians, on account of the injury which
he had done t.hem. I went by the river towards the ocean,
as far as the harbour, near the mouth of the river, and he
sent to me many times men and women to tr}^ me, whether
I would do them any harm, but, on the contrary, I always
gave them a friendly reception. When the King heard this,
he came to the river-side with a great force, and sitting down
on the bank, sent for me to come to him, which I did,
paying him all ceremonious respect in the best fashion I
could. There was a certain Bishop there of his native
church, who put questions to me with respect to the God of
the Christians, and I answered him according to the intelli-

294 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

gence which God had given me, and at last I questioned
him respecting Mahomet, in whom tliey believe. What I
said pleased the King so much, that he ordered the Bishop
within three days to take his departure out of his kingdom,
and springing to his feet, he declared that no one, on pain
of death, should dare any more to utter the name of Ma-
homet, for that he only believed in the one only God, and
that there was no other God but He, whom his brother, the
Prince Henrv, said that he believed in. Callino- the Infant
his brother, he desired that I should baptize him, and so
said also all the lords of his household, and his women like-
wise. The King himself declared that he would have no
other name than Henry, but his nobles took our names, such
as Jacob, Nuiio, &c., as Christian names. I remained that
night on shore with the King and his chiefs, but I did not
dare to baptize them, because I was a layman.

On the next day, however, I begged the King with his
twelve principal chiefs and eight of his wives to come to dine
with me on board the caravel, which they all did unarmed,
and I gave them fowls and meat cooked after our own
fashion, and wine, both white and red, as much as they
pleased to drink ; and they said to each other that no nation
was better than the Christians.

Afterwards, when we were on shore, he desired that I
would baptize him ; but I answered that I had not received
authority from the supreme pontiff. I told him, however,
that if he so desired, I would convey his wishes to tlie
Prince, who would send a priest to baptize them. He
immediately wrote to the Prince to send him a priest, and
some one to inform him respecting the faith, and begged
the Prince to send him a falcon for hunting, for he wondered
greatly when I told him that the Christians carried a bird
on the hand which caught other birds. He wished him
also to send two rams, and sheep, and ganders and geese,
and a pig, as well as two men who would know how to
construct houses and make a survey of his city. All these
requircnients I promised that the jtrince would fullil. At

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. 295

my departure he and all his people lamented, so great was
the friendship which had sprung up between him and me.

It so happened that for two years no one went back to
Guinea because King Alplionso was gone, with a fleet of
three hundred and fifty-two ships, to Africa, and took the
powerful city of Alcacer al Quivir [or rather El Seguer], for
which reason the Prince, being fully occupied, gave no
attention to Guinea.

After leaving the King at Gambia I pursued my way to
Portugal, and sent one caravel with those who were in the
best health straight home. The other remained with me,
because the people on board of her were sick. And I
ordered the captain of the first vessel, if he had a favourable
wind, to go straight to Portugal, if not, to wait for me at
Arguin, and so he departed ; but I with the other caravel
sailed with a favourable wind to Cape Verde. As we came
near the sea-shore we saw two canoes putting out to sea.
We sailed between them and the land, and came up to
them, and in one of the canoes we counted thirty-eight men,
and the interpreter came to me, and said in my ear, that
that was Beseghichi, lord of that land, a malicious man, of
whom I have already spoken. I made them come into the
caravel, and gave them to eat and drink, and a double
portion of presents, and pretending that I did not know
that he was the chief, said to him by way of trying him,
"Is this the land of Beseghichi?" He said ''Yes." I
replied, " Why is he then so malignant against the Chris-
tians? It would be better for him to make peace with
them, and that both might interchange merchandise, and
that he might have horses, &c., as Burbruck in Budumel,
and other lords of the negroes did. Tell him that I have
taken you in this sea, and for love of him have set you free
to go on shore." He much rejoiced, and I told him to go
into their canoes, which they did, and as they all stood in
their canoes, I said to the chief, " Beseghichi, Beseghichi,
do not think that I did not know thee. It was certainly in
my jiower to do with thee whatever I wished, and since I

296 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

have acted kindly by thee, do thou do likewise with our
Christians," and so they went their way.

A few days after, we came to Cape Tofia, and to Anterot,*
and entered Arguin. And not far from the coast we came
to the island called the Ilha de Gargas. It was not in-
habited, and was only one league in circumference. On it
we found an innumerable multitude of birds of every kind,
and on the ground pelicans' nests, and many dead pelicans.
These are not as the painters represent them, but have a
broad beak, and a stomach lars-e enoufrh to hold a measure
of wheat, such as is commonly called an alqueiro.\ The
number of birds there was so great, that we killed as many
as we could carry in our boat, and so we went into Arguin.
We thus sailed for Portugal, and came to Algarve, to the
great city named Lagos, where the Prince at that time was,
and he rejoiced greatly at our arrival.

After the Prince returned from the fleet with King Alphonso,
I reminded him of what King Nominaus [Nomimansa] had
said, so that he should send to him all those things which had
been promised. This the Prince did, and sent thither a
certain priest, a relation of the cardinal's, the Abbot of Soto
de Cassa, that he should remain with that King and instruct
him in the faith. He also sent with him a young man of his
household, named John Delgado. This was in the year 1458.}
.... Two years afterwards King Alphonso equipped a large
caravel, in which he sent me out as captain, and I took with
me ten horses and wen! to the land of Barbacins, which is
between Serrcos and King Nomemans \plc\. Those Ijarbacins
had two kings, viz, Barbacin Dun and Barbacin Negor. And
the King gave ine authority over the shores of that sea, thai
whatever caravels I might lind oil' the land of Guinea should

* The const from Arguin to the Senegal was calk'd Aiiterote.

t See antt; page 201.

\ Here ocexirs an aeeuunt of the death and burial of Prince Ilenry in 1460,
vliich will he found in the following chapter; hul that the immediately ensuing
words, " 'I'wo years afli'rwards," hear refereni'e nut to the rrinct''s death, hut to
(ionie/' last explorations, will lie demonslialed at the close of the present
cliapler.

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. 297

be under my coinmaiul and rule, ibr he knew that there
were caravels there which carried arms and swords to the
Mot)rs, and he ordered me to take such prisoners and bring
them to him to Portugal. And by the help of God in twelve
days I arrived at Barbacins, and found there two caravels :
one, in which was Gonzalo Ferreira, of the household of
Prince Henry, a native of Oporto, who was conveying- horses
thither; and in the other caravel was Captain Antonio dc
Noli, a Genoese, who was also a merchant conveying horses.
This was in the port of Zaza. I found there also Borgebil, who
had been King of Geloffa, and who had fled thither from fear
of the King of Burbuck, who had taken his country from
him. The aforesaid merchants with their caravels greatly
damaged the traffic in those parts, for whereas the Moors
used to give twelve negroes for one horse, they gave them
now no more than six. Then I summoned those captains to
me, and on behalf of the King gave them seven negroes for
one horse, but myself exchanged every horse for fourteen or
hfteen negroes. While we were there, there came a caravel
from Gambia, which brought us information that a certain
man named De Prado, was coming with a very richly laden
caravel, whereupon I immediately fitted out the caravel of
Gonzalo Ferreira, and ordered him in the King's name, on
pain of death, and confiscation of all his goods, to go to
Cape Verde, and to look out for that caravel, which he did,
and took it, and we found great booty in it. I forthwith
despatched the captain, together with Gonzalo Ferreira, to
the King, and wrote to the King an account of all these
events.

I and Antonio de Noli then left that port of Zaza, and
sailed two days and one night towards Portugal, and we saw
some islands in the sea, and, as my caravel was a lighter
sailer than the other, I came first to one of those islands, and
saw white sand, and it seemed to me a good harbour, and I
cast anchor there, and so also did Antonio. / told them that I
wished to be the first to land, and so I did. We saw no sign of
any man there, and we called the island Santiago : it is so called

298 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

to tJiis day. There was abimdance of fisli to be caught there.
On shore we found many strange birds and streamlets of
fresh water. The birds were so tame, that we killed them
with sticks ; and there were many geese there. There were
also an abundance of figs, but they do not grow on the trees in
the same manner as in our parts, for our figs grow near the
leaf, but these all over the bark from the foot of the tree to
the top. These trees grow in great numbers, and there was
great quantity of hay there. And I had a quadrant when I
went to these parts, and I wrote on the table of the quadrant
the altitude of the Arctic Pole, and I found it better than the
chart. It is true that the course of sailins; is seen on the
chart, but when once you get wrong, you do not recover your
true position. We afterwards saw one of the Canary
Islands, called Palma, and after that we went to the Island
of Madeira. Though I was anxious to 2:0 to Portuo'al, I
was driven by a contrary wind to the Azores, but Antonio
de Noli remained at Madeira, and availing himself of a more
favourable wind, reached Portugal before me. And he begged of
the King the captaincy of the Island of SoMtiago, which I had
discovered, and the King gave it him, a.nd he hept it till his
death. And I with extreme labour made my way to Lisbon,
and after some time the King went to Oporto, where that
De Prado, who had carried arms to the Moors, and whom
Gonzalo Ferreira had taken prisoner, lay in irons, and the
King ordered that they should martyrize him in a cart, and
that they should make a furnace of fire, and throw him into
it with his swoi-d and gold."

In the above narrative of Gomez we have an interesting
supplement to Cadamosto's account of those ex[)lorations
along the west coast of Africa which, till noAv, had been the
latest recorded as occurring during the life of Prince Henry.
But this narrative brings us to 1400, the year of the Prince's
death, since not only does Gomez use the words " two years
afterwards," after the mention of the date 1458, but it can
be shown that he could not mean " two years after" the

THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. 290

Prince's death, of which he had spoken in the interim,
because if wo revert to the question of the Cape Verde
Islands, we shall find collateral evidence to prove their
discovery in 1460. In the Torre do Tombo, which is rich in
documents of the period, not a single one is found hearing
reference to the Cape Verde Islands anterior to December
3rd, 1460,* under which date they arc mentioned, and it is
in the highest degree improbable that, had they been dis-
covered at the period given by Cadamosto, so many years
would have been allowed to pass without their being colonized
by so energetic a colonizer as Prince Henry, whereas in 1461
we find the colonization proceeding with considerable rapidity.
Moreover Faria y Souza distinctly gives 1460 as the date of
the discovery. On the 3rd of December, 1460, King Alfonso
V. , being at Evora, made a donation to his brother Fernando,
Prince Henry's adopted son and heir, of the islands hitherto
discovered — to possess them in like manner as he had re-
ceived them from Prince Henry. These islands, some of
which have names now unknown, are recounted in the order
of the groups, the last being the Cape Verde group, of which
the following islands are mentioned : — S. Jacobe (Santiago) ;
S. Filippe (Fogo) ; De las Moyaes (Maio) ; S. Christovao,
supposed to be Boavista, a name apparently falsely given by
Cadamosto years afterwards ; Ilha Lana, most probably the
Ilha do Sal, which from its proximity to Boavista could
scarcely fail of being, as here, mentioned next to it. The
remainder of the Cape Verde Islands were soon after dis-
covered by some mariners in the service of Prince Fernando,
when they received their collective name from the cape olf
which they lay. The King ceded them to that Prince on
the 19th of September, 1462. The first colonized was
Santiago.

* ToiTe do Tombo, liv. i., of iVlfonsi V., fol. 61.

CHAPTER XVIL

THE DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY.

1457—1460.

After the death of the hapless Duke of Coirabra at Alfar-
roLeira, the agitations which had had their source in private
intrigue were laid aside, and gave place to opportunities for
concentrated national action. King Alfonso, energetic and
warlike, occupied himself with those conquests on the north
coast of Africa which gained for him the surname of " the
African."

In 1454 Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks,
and the Pope summoned all the princes of Europe to a general
crusade against the infidels. In 1457 a special legate, the
Bishop of Silves, was sent to Alfonso by Calixtus III. with
the bull of the Crusade. The King entered warmly into
the })lan, and made great preparations for it, offering to
su})ply twelve thousand men yearly. He also struck, with
the view of making Portuguese money of more value in
the foreign countries through which his march would lie,
a new })icce of gold money, which had a cross on one side,
and was called a cruzado. In no country had the spirit of
chivalrous enthusiasm for the defence of the faith been pre-
served with less diminution from its ancient loyalty than in
Portugal ; but the zeal which animated King Alfonso Avas
manifestly inadequate, with his limited exchequer, to con-
tend against the Turks, unless the Pope's appeal were
warmly responded to ])y other sovereigns. Such, however,

THE DEATFI OF PRINCE HENRY. 301

was not the case, and after tlie death of Calixtus III., in
1458, the crusade came to an end.

In this position of affairs, the object "wliich the King had
proposed to himself of fighting against the infidels, and the
avoidance of those financial losses which his people ap-
prehended, became reconciled in the notion of directing his
forces against Africa. His first thought was to attack
Tangier, but remembering its strength, and how much it
had cost the Portuguese on a former occasion, he fixed on
Alcazar Seguer, or Alcazar the Little, to distinguish it
from Alcazar Quivir, or the Great, as the place to be
attacked.

On the 30th of September, 1458, Aflfonso sailed from
Setuval with a fleet of ninety sail, and on the 3rd of October
landed near Sagres, where Prince Henry gave him a mag-
nificent reception. When the contingents from Mondogo,
Oporto, and elsewhere, joined the royal fleet at Lagos, they
mustered in all two hundred and twenty sail, and on the
16th of October twenty-five thousand men disembarked,
though not without some opposition and loss, off Alcazar.
The artillery and implements for the siege were promptly
landed, and that same evening the order was given to invest
the town. A portion of the ramparts was soon broken down,
and at midnight Prince Henry, having constructed a battery
in a favourable position, brought to bear a large piece of
ordnance, a few shots from which made a considerable
breach in the wall. The Moors, who, it must l^e acknow-
ledged, had hitherto ofi'ered a brave and troublesome resist-
ance, were overcome with fear at this result, and sent to
propose terms of surrender. Prince Henry replied that
'' the King's object was the service of God, and not to take
their goods or force a ransom from them. All that he
required was that they should withdraw witli their wives
and children and effects from the town, but leaving behind
them all their Christian prisoners." They begged for time
to reflect, which was prudently refused, with a threat that if
the town had to be taken by main force, all would be i)ut to

302 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

the sword. On this the Moors submitted, and sent the
King hostages for the suspension of the conflict.

On the morrow they withdrew from the city unmolested,
under the Prince's warrant for their safety. The Portuguese
entered in triumph, the Mosque was consecrated, and thanks
were oftered for the conquest. Duarte de Menezes was ap-
pointed Governor of the place, and the King, who then
assumed the title of Lord of Alca9ar, withdrew by sea to
Ceuta.

In a short time the King of Fez brought a large force to
lay siege to Alcacar. Alfonso had at first intended to march
from Ceuta to the assistance of the place, but soon found
that it was necessary to raise more men in Portugal, if he
was effectually to relieve the besieged. A letter w^as shot
into the town to tell the Governor his plans, and an answer
was shot back, saying that Menezes was failing in provisions
and stores. This letter, which was written in French, un-
fortunately fell into the Moorish camp, and the King of Fez,
availing himself of the condition of the Portuguese, offered
favourable terms if the Governor would surrender. Dom
Daarte not only refused, but to show how little he feared the
Moors, had the boldness to offer the King his scaling-
ladders, if he chose to accept them. After some further
attempts, the King of Fez withdrew for the purpose of
raising fresh troops, and on the 13th of November returned
with thirty thousand cavalry and a vast force of infantry
and artillery. Tlie siege had now lasted fifty-three days,
when, on the 2ud of January, 1459, the Moors were obliged
to retire with immense loss. When Dom Duarte saw that
the siege was about to be raised, he sent a message to the
King, recommending him to try a little longer before he
quite gave it up.

King Alfonso now perceiving the advantage which would
result from this place having a mole for the mooring of
small craft, sent out twenty-six vessels, laden with materials,
masons, and labourers. Dom Duarte commenced the con-
struction of the mole on the 12tli of March, and it was

THE DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY. 303

finished by the end of July, in spite of the contimud
himh-ances oflered by the Moors to the progress of the "svork.

Alfonso Y. hud idready, on the loth of September, 1448,
transferred entirely to Prince Henry the trade in Guinea in
the old acceptation of the word, in which Arguiu was
inchided, for he had decreed that no ships shoukl sail
beyond Cape Boyador without the Prince's permission, and
the transgressor of this prohibition should forfeit his ship to
the Prince; but that all ships sailing with his permission
should pay him tribute, of the fifth or tenth part of their
freight. On the 7th of June, 1454, Afi'onso granted to the
Order of Christ, for the discoveries made and to be made
at their expense, entire spuitual jurisdiction in Guzulla
(Gozola), Guinea, Nubia, and Ethiopia, with all its accus-
tomed rights, and in the same manner in which it was
exercised at the house of their Order at Thomar ; and on the
26th of December, 1458, Prince Henry signed a decree " in
my town" (Villa do Iffante), stipulating that the Order of
Christ should receive tribute of the twentieth, instead of the
tithe, of all merchandise from Guinea, whether slaves, gold,
or whatsoever it might be, and the remainder should fall to
whomsoever held the dominion, as the Prince then held it, by
royal prerogative. This record is preserved in the collection
of Pech-o Alvarez, Pt. HI, fob 17-18.

We have no public act of Prince Henry to record between
his return from Alca9ar and his death on Thursday, the 13th
of November, 1460, with the exception of the already-men-
tioned donation, on the 18th September, 1460, of the eccle-
siastical revenues of Porto Santo and Madeira to the Order
of Christ, and of the temporality to the King and his suc-
cessors.

We have already seen that he carried into effect the promises
which had been made on his behalf to Nomimansa, the King
of the Barba^ins, by his faithful navigator, Diogo Gomez.
It would seem that that loyal servant was about his master's
jierson at the time of his death, inasmuch as, by the King's
command, lie remained constantly near the Prince's remains

PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

till they were removed from Lagos to their last resting-
place ill Batalha. It is therefore a satisfaction to be able to
give the old sailor's own accoimt of the matter in his own
language.

" In the year of our Lord 1460," he says, " Prince Henry
fell ill in his town on Cape St. Vincent, and of that sickness
he died on Thursday, the 13th of November, of the same
year. And the same night on which he died, they carried
him to the church of St. Mary in Lagos, where he was buried
with all honour. At that time King Atfonso was in Evora, and
he, together with all his people, mourned greatly over the
death of so great a Prince, when they considered all the expe-
ditions which he had set on foot, and all the results which he
had obtained from the land of Guinea, as well as how much
he had laid out in continuous warlike armaments at sea
against the Saracens in the cause of the Christian faith.

" At the close of the year King Alfonso ordered me to be
sent for, for, by the King's command, I had remained con-
stantly in Lagos near the body of the Prince, giving out
whatever was necessary to the priests, who were occupied in
constant vigils and in Divine service in the church. And
the King ordered that I should look and examine if the body
of the Prince was decomposed, for it was his wish to remove
his remains to the most beautiful monastery called Santa
Maria de Batalha, which his father. King Joao I., had built
for the Order of Friars Preachers. When I approached
the body of the deceased, I found it dry and sound, except
the tip of the nose, and I found him clothed in a rough
shirt of horse-hair. Well doth the Church sing ' Thou shalt
not give thine holy one to see corruption.' That my Lord
the Infant had remained a virgin till his death, and what
and liow many good things he had done in his life, it would
be a long story for me to relate.

"The King then issued a command that his brother Dom
Fernando, Duke of Beja, and the bishops and nobles should
go and convey the body to the aft)resaid monastery of
Batalha, where the King would await its arrival.

Til 10 TOMli OK 1>KI-\C1<: JIO'KV.

IN THE MdNASTKIiV 01' liATAI.riA.

THE DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY. o.

" And the Prince's body was placed in a large and iiiosl
beautiful chapel which King Joao his father had built, and
where lie the bodies of the King and his Queen l*hili})}i:i,
the Prince's mother, together with his tive brothers, tlie
memory of all of whom is wortliy of i)raise for evermore.
There may they rest in hol}^ peace. Amen."

On the face of the tomb, on the south side of the
Founder's Chapel,* which contains the mortal remains of
Prince Henry, and which is in a line with those of his
brothers, Dom Pedro, Dom Joao, and the Constant Prince,
are three escutcheons. On the first are sculptured Prince
Henry's own arms ; on the second the cross, device, and
motto of the Order of the Garter, the riband of which had
been conferred on him by King Henry VI., in 1442-3, f and
on the last the cross of the military order of Christ. Over
the tomb is a recumbent statue of the Prince in full armour,
with a kind of turban bound round the head. This is
protected by a sort of canopy worked in minute sculpture.
On the frieze of the tomb, intertwined with ilex l)oughs, is
the Prince's well-known motto, "Talent de bien faire," and

* The following remarks from the pen of our late distinguished ecclesiologist,
Dr. Mason Neile, will give some notion of the beauty of the noble specuuen of
Chi-istian architecture which King Joao erected at Batalha, and in which he and
his family are entombed. He says, " The traveller who is a man of taste will
be more than delighted to observe the manner in which this unique temple is
being restored, so that in a few years it wiU have recovered its ancient purity,
not to say splendour, and which, for its exquisite workmanship, its umivalled
cloisters, its marvcllovis Founder's Chapel, its nave, aisles, chapter-house, and
Capella Imperfeita, is perhaps the most striking edifice in Christendom. In a
few years its exterior, as well as interior, will be little short of perfection ; and
if Dom Ferdinand were a person endued with as much wealth as he is with
taste, there might be some hopes that the present generation would not pass
away without seeing finished the truly wonderful CapeUa Imperfeita, the very
parts of which are replete with all that man's ingenuity can imagine, and his
skill execute. It were worth all the trouble of a trip to Portugal for any one to
come to Batalha to revel in the inexhaustible beauty of this superb monument of
the taste of bygone days." It is not unlikely, from the friendly intercourse that
existed between Portugal and England, that Dom Manoel conceived the idea of
imitating Ilenrj' VII. 's chapel in the Capella Imperfeita.

t nis Excellency the Count de Lavradio has informed me "that lie has traced
the identical collar of Prince Heniy to its present holder as a Knight of the
Order, the Earl of Clarendon.

X

306 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

below the frieze, in a single line, the following inscription :
" Aqui jaz o miiito alto e muito honrado senhor o Ifante dom

anrique governador da ordeni da cavallaria de no om

Joham e rainha philipa, que aquy jazcm nesta capella cuias

almas deos por sua mercee aja o qual se finou em na

era de mil e " The first of the gaps here

marked has arisen from a fault in the stone. The other
two, which should contain the date, seem to show that the
tomb was prepared during the Prince's lifetime, and that,
after his death, the day, month, and year of his decease were
neglected to be inserted.

The following is Azurara's description of Prince Henry : —
" He was large of frame and brawny, and stout and strong
of limb. His naturally fair complexion had by constant
toil and exposure become dark. The expression of his face
at first sight inspired fear in those who were not accustomed
to him, and when he was angry, which rarely happened, his
look was very formidable. Stout of heart and keen in
intellect, he was extraordinarily ambitious of achieving great
deeds. Neither luxury nor avarice ever found a home with
him. In the former respect he was so temperate that after
his early youth he abstained from wine altogether, while
the whole of his life was reputed to have been passed in
inviolate chastity. As for his generosity, the household of
no other* uncrowned Prince formed so large and excellent
a training school for the young nobility of the country.
All the worthies of the kingdom, and still more foreigners

* Note by the Vicomte de Santarcm. " This remark quoted from Azurara,
■who was the Prince's cotemporary, shows the error into which Fr. de Luiz de
Souza fell when, in his Historia de S. Domingos, lib. 6, fol. 331, he said that the
Infant was elected King of Cyprus, which mistake was repeated by Jose Soares
de Sylva in his memoirs of King Joao I. ; and, if the Avords of Azurara were not
sufKcicnt to prove this, it might be shown by dates and historical facts. In fact,
the kingdom of Cyprus, which Richard I. took from the Greeks in 1191, was
afterwards grantcnl by Iutu to Guy de Lusignan, whose posterity held the crown
till 1487, and as Prince Henry was born in 1394 and died in 1460, he could not
have been elected to a kingdom which was governed by a legitimate royal line.
Moreover, in the list of Ihe kings of Cyprus, the name of Prince Henry docs not
occur. It may be supposed that Fr. Luiz de Souza confounded Henry Prince
of Galilca, son of James I., King of Cyi)rus, with Prince Henry of Portugal."

THE DEATH OF PRINCE HENKY. 307

of renown, found a general welcome in liis house, and there
were irequeutly assembled in it men of various nations, the
diversity of whose habits presented a curious spectacle.
None left that house without some proof of the Prince's
generosity. His self-discipline was unsurpassed ; all his
daj'S were spent in hard work, and it would not readily be
believed how often he passed the night without sleep, so
that by dint of unflagging industry he conquered what seemed
to be impossibilities to other men. His wisdom and
thoughtfulness, excellent memory, calm bearing, and cour-
teous language, gave great dignity to his address.

" He was constant in adversity, and humble in prosperity,
and it was imi)Ossible for any subject of any rank to show
more obedience and reverence to the sovereign. This was
especially noticeable in his conduct to his nephew Don
Affonso, even at the beginning of his reign. He never
entertained hatred or ill-will towards any, however serious
the offence they might have committed against him. So
great was his benignity in this respect, that the wise-
acres said that he was deficient in retributive justice,
although in other matters he was very impartial. No
stronger example of this could be shown than his forgive-
ness of some of his soldiers who deserted him in the attack
on Tangier, when he was in the utmost danger. He was
devoted to the public interests of the kingdom, and took
great pleasure in trying new plans for the general welfare
at his own expense. He gloried in feats of arms against
the enemies of the Faith, but earnestly sought peace with
all Christians. He was universally beloved, for he did good
to all and injured none. He never failed to show due
respect to every person, however humble, without lowering
his own dignity. A foul or indecent word was never known
to issue from his lips.

'' He was very obedient to all the commands of Holy
Chm'ch, and attended all its offices with great devotion, and
they were celebrated with as much solemnity and ceremony
in his own chapel as they could be in any cathedral cburcli.

x2

308 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

He held all sacred things in profound reverence, and took
delight in showing honour and kindness to all who minis-
tered in them. Nearly one half of the year he passed in
fasting, and the hands of the poor never went empty away
from his presence. His heart never knew what fear was,
except the fear of committing sin. Assuredly," con-
tinues Azurara, " I know not where to look for a Prince
that shall bear comparison with this one."

Such was the exalted character of the man whom we
honour as the originator of continuous modern discovery. In
the prefatory chapter to this work, where the Prince's
purpose was spoken of, a passing allusion was made to his
dignity as the son of a King, and there was an especial
object in the mention of that reality. All modern discovery
found its origin in one great event — the rise of the powers
which bordered on the Atlantic ; and this rise, although slow,
was identical with the strengthening of the respective monar-
chies. At the close of the middle ages, the Kings were, in all
these countries, the real centres of their nations, whilst in tlie
" Roman Empire" many contending claims existed, but no
general government. This difference had long been in favour
of tlie East as far as commerce and navigation were con-
cerned. But now the balance began to turn to the other
side. The Hanseatic confederacy, powerful as it might be,
was but a confederacy; and Venice, however magnificent,
was but a city. The really modern states of Western Europe
had the germs of quite another force and power within them.

The first discoveries of the Portuguese were originated by
that exuberant regal power which was free to leave the
paternal realms, and to extend itself beyond the Mediterra-
nean in wars against the infidels. This movement also
received a new intensity 1)}^ the emigration of the able sea-
men of Italy, Germany, iind the Netherlands to the rising
states along the Atlantic. Under the liberal inducements
of I^-ince Henry, men of these WwQ^i nations held prominent
positions in the eai-ly naval exploits of the Portuguese. But
not Portugal onlv rose by their talents; the newly united

THE DEATH OF PRINCE HKN15Y. 300

kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, England, and France
received with avidity the offers of service of the most
gifted men of those nations which had held the sway of
the sea.

It is a notable fact, and one that greatly redounds to the
honour of Italy, that the three Powers, which at this day
possess almost all America, owe their first discoveries to the
Italians: Spain to Columhus, a Genoese ; England, to the
Cabots, Venetians ; and France, to Verazzano, a Florentine :
a circumstance which sufiiciently proves, that in those times
no nation was equal to the Italians in point of maritime
knowledge and extensive experience in navigation.

It is, however, remarkable, that the Italians, with all
their knowledge and experience, have not been able to acquire
one inch of ground for themselves in America, a Aiilure which
may be ascribed to the penurious mercantile spirit of the
Italian republics, to their mutual animosities and petty wars,
and to their contracted and selfish policy.

Indeed, it may be said that it was principally to the efforts
of Italians and Hanseatics that the dominion of the waters
was lost to Italy and the Hanse Towns, and passed to the
nations of the West. Nor can this be deplored or ascribed to
ingratitude; the new regal powers, such as Portugal, disposed
of better means to carry out extensive plans of discovery, to
make the first and necessary sacrifices, and to pursue one pur-
pose with that unremitting earnestness which is so seldom
found in republics. Nor were they inapt pupils in the
practical development of nautical knowledge. Cadamosto,
himself a Venetian, and well acquainted with the progress of
navigation in the Mediterranean, declares that the caravels
of Portugal were the best sailing ships afloat. " Sendo le
caravelle di Portugallo i migliori navigli che vadano sopra
il mare di vella."

Furthermore, their geographical situation along the
Atlantic made them also, be}ond conii)arison, fitter for
these endeavours than the old masters of what are merely
inland waters compared with the mighty oceanic seas.

310 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Nevertheless for the prosecution of these endeavours the
knowledge of the latter was of the utmost value.

During the long period in which Prince Henry was con-
tinuing his maritime explorations he did not cease to culti-
vate the science of cartography. In this he was warmly
seconded by his nephew King Alfonso V. We have, unfor-
tunately, nothing to show as the result of the cartographical
labours of the geographer Mestre Jayme, whom the Prince
had procured from Majorca, to superintend his school of
navigation and astronomy at Sagres, whither he had also
brought together the most able Arab and Jewish mathema-
ticians that he could obtain from Marocco or the Peninsula ;
but we have already seen what good service had been
practically rendered by the Venetian Cadamosto and the
Genoese Antonio de Nolli, whose discoveries gave extension
to the grant recently conferred on Portugal by a Bull of Pope
Nicholas V., dated January 8, 1454, of all Guinea beyond
Capes Non and Boyador as far as a certain large river
reputed to be the Nile (Senegal) which they had then
reached. The discovery that beyond Cape Verde the coasts
trended eastward, inspired the King with new energy, for he
assumed therefrom that it would soon lead to India. He
thought it possible that in that direction the meridian of
Tunis, and perhaps even that of Alexandria, had been already
passed. He gave names to rivers, gulfs, capes, and harbours
in the new discovery, and sent to Venice draughts of maps on
which these were laid down, with a commission for the con-
struction of a mappemonde on which they should be
pourtrayed.

It was to the Venetian Fra IMauro of the Camaldolese
Convent of San Miguel de Murano, that this commission Avas
entrusted. King Alfonso V. spared no expense, and Fra
Mauro paid the draughtsmen from twelve to fifteen sous a
day, while from 1457 to 1450 he himself gave all jiossible
pains to perfecting his task. The practised draughtsman
Andrea Bianco was called to take a part in its execution. At
length this mnguificcnt specimen of mediteval cartography was

THE DEATH OF PRINCE HENKY, 311

completed, and by desire of the King despatched to Portnf!:al,
in charge of the noble Venetian Stefano Trevigiano, on the
24tli April, 1459. In the same year, on the 20th of October,
the drawings and writings, and a copy of the mappemonde,
were enclosed in a chest and sent to the abbot of the convent,
from which it would seem that Fra j\Iauro was then dead.
It is to be presumed that while elaborating the mappemonde
for King Alfonso he made at the same time a copy which he
intended to leave to the convent. In the convent library
still exists the register of Keceipts and Expenditure of the
convent, written by the Abbot Maffei Gerard, afterwards in
1466 Patriarch of Venice, and in 1489 Cardinal. In that
register is a note of the current cost of the map.* (See
Count Carli, tom. 9 of his works, page 9, and tom. 13,
part 3, page 212, and the extract from M. Villoison's letter
to him.)

It is on this map in especial, which preceded by forty years
the periplus of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama,
that we see more clearly laid down the southern extremity
of Africa, under the name of " Cavo di Diab." We find
delineated a triangular island on which, north-east of Cavo
di Diab (our Cape of Good Hope), are inscribed the names
of " Soifala " and " Xengibar." This southern extremity is
separated from the continent by a narrow strait. An
inscription on Cape Diab states that in 1420 an Indian junk
from the East doubled the Cape in search of the islands of
men and women (separately inhabited by each), and after a
sail of two thousand miles in forty days, during which they
saw nothing but sea and sky, they turned back, and in
seventy days' sailing reached Cavo di Diab, where the sailors
found on the shore an egg as big as a barrel, which they
recognised as that of the bird Crocho, doubtless the roc
or rukh of Marco Polo, a native bird of Madagascar.

It has been already seen that the Arabs who traded

* TIktc is a vellum copy of this planisphere in the British Mnsium made in
1804 l>y Mr. William Frazer, b'.it according to Dr. Vincent it is not perfectly
accurate.

uL2 prince henry the navigator.

on the east coast of Africa were prevented, by the force
of the current, from venturing southward of the Cape,
afterwards named by the Portuguese the Cabo dos Corrientes.
It coukl only, therefore, be by communication with the'
natives, or from some daring expedition such as that re-
counted by Fra Mauro, that the form of the southern
extremity of Africa coukl have been learned. The Indian
junk, after being carried westward by the Great Lagulhas
stream might, after passing forty days in the Atlantic,
return by the southern connecting current, which, reinforced
by the west wind in more southern latitudes (between 37°
and 40°), brings back a portion of the waters of the Atlantic
eastward into the Indian Ocean. (See " Humboldt's
Geographic du Nouveau Continent," page 344.)

It is more remarkable that the Camaldolese geographer
makes no mention of the sources from which he derived his
information. He does not even mention the names of the
most renowned voyagers, not even that of his own country-
man, Cadamosto, whose recent discoveries he was made
acquainted with by direct communication. The unfortunate
Doge, Francesco Foscarini, states in a letter that '' when he
considered the success of Cadamosto's voyage, and witnessed
the plan and commencement of Mauro's work, he trusted
that Prince Henry would therein find new inducements to
continue his explorations." But the sums expended by the
Prince on his maritime expeditions were so large, that not
only were his own revenues exhausted, as well as the profits
derived from commerce with the African coast, but he died
heavily involved in debts, which were partly paid by his
nephew and adopted son, Dom Fernando, and partly by Don
Manuel, the son of Fernando, while Duke of Beja. The
Duke of Braganza, Dom Fernando I., in a declaration or
codicil, dated 8th of November, 1440, declares that Prince
Plenry owed him, in 1448, nineteen thousand three hundred
and ninety-i'oiii- and a-half golden crowns, somewhat under
£70,000, for the payment of which he had pledged his lands
and goods, and in his will the Duke slates that this debt

STATIE OF I'KLNCK lIKXin".
ovr.i! Tin: mi.k cati; or tiik. i\ns.\>■n:\t^

AT BKLK.M.

THE DEATH OF TRINCE HEKRY. 313

was furtlier iiicrensed by sixteen thousand and cighty-fonr
golden crowns, nearly £00,000 more.

But we have already seen that the Prince did not conlinc
his exjDenditure or his patronage to the development of
geographical knowledge. Having already in 1431 jiur-
chased residences for the University of Lisbon, which had
previously been obliged to rent its house-room, he, by a deed
dated 25th March, 1448, established the chair of Theology
in that University, and subsequently confirmed it by a
charter dated from the Villa do Infante, at Sagres, the 22nd
of September, 14G0. He ordered that every Christmas-day
twelve silver marks should be given to the lecturer in that
science out of the tithes of the island of Madeira. These
important services gained for him the honourable designa-
tion oi Protector of the studies of Portugal, in like manner as
the maritime expeditions won for him the epithet of the
Navigator.

His great nephew, the King Dom Manuel, had a statue of
him placed over the centre column of the side gate of the
church of Belem, in memory of his having been the founder
of the little chapel of Restello for the service of sailors in
the harbour, which chapel had stood upon the site of that
magnificent church. On 24th of July, 1840, in the reign
of Dona Maria 11. , at the instance of His Excellency the
Viscount, now Marquis, de Sa da Bandeira, then Secretary
of State of the Navy and Colonies, a monument to Prince
Henry, prepared in 1839, was finally erected at Sagres, a
representation of which, from a drawing most kindly sent
to the author by His Excellency, is here given.

The monument consists of one piece of marble, twelve
palms and a half high, embedded in the wall over the inner
gate of the principal entrance of the fort of Sagres. On
the upper part of the monument is sculptured, as in the
drawing, in semi-relief, the escutcheon of the Prince, with
an armillary sphere on the right, and a ship in full sail on
the left. The lower part of the monument contains two
panels with an inscription on the one liehtw ihe spliere in

314 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Latin, and another on the one below the ship in Portuguese.
The two inscriptions are as follows : —

Aetern • Sacrum.

Hoc • Loco.

Magnus • Henricus • Joan. I. Portugal • Reg. Filius

Ut • Transmarinas • Occidental • Afric^e • Regiones

Antea • HoMiNiBus • Impervias • Patefaceret

Indeque * Ad • Remotissimas • Orientis • Plagas

Africa • Circumnavigata

Tandem Perveniri • Posset

ReGIAM • Su^ • HaBITATIONIS • DOMUM
COSMOGRAPHI^ • SCHOLAM • CeLEBRATISSIMAM

Astronomic AM • Speculam • Amplissimaque • Navalia.

PrOPRIIS • SUMPTIBUS * CONSTRUI • FeCIT

Maximoque • Reipublic^ • Litterarum • Religionis
Totiusque • HuMANi ' Generis • Bono

Ad • EXTREMUM • VlTiE * Spiritum

Inceedibili • Plane • Virtute • et • Constantia

Conservavit • FoviT • ET • AuxiT.

Obiit • Maximus • Princeps

Postquam • Suis • Navigationibus • ab • Equinoctial • ad • viii.

Versus • Septemtrionem • Gradum

Pervenit

Quampluresque • Atlantici • Maris • Insulas • Detexit

Et • CoLONis • ab • Lusitania • Deductis

Frequentavit

xiii . * Die • Novembr. • An. • Lom. • bi.cdlx.

Maria • II. Portugal • et . Algarb • Regina.

Ejus • Consanguinea

Post • ccclxxix • annos

H. M. P. J.

Curante • Rei • Navalis • Administro

Vice • Comitk • De • Sa • D\ • Bandeiea

M.DCCCXXXIX.

MONUMENT TO PRINCL HENRY AT SAGRES

THE DEATH OF TRINCE HENRY. 315

Monum • consagrado • a eternidado • o grando •

Infixnte • d. hcnrique * filho • de • el-rei • do * portugal •

d • joilo • I. tendo • emprehcndido • descobru* • as • regiocs '

ate • entao • descouhecidas • de • africa • occidental •
c ' abrii" • assim • caminho • para • se ' chegar • por • mcio •

da • circumnavegacao • africana • ate as • partes ' mais •

romotas • do * oriento • fuudou • nestcs • lugares • a • sua •

custa • 0 • palacio • da • sua • liabitaeao • a • fiimosa •

escola • de • cosmografia • o • obscrvatorio •

astrouomico * e • as officinas • de • coustrucrao .

uaval * conservaudo • promoveiido • e • augmcntando •

tudo • isto • ate • ao ' termo • da • sua • vida • com •

admiravel • esforco • e • constancia • e • com •

grandissima • utilidade • do • reino • das • letras '

da • relegiao • e • de • todo • o gcnero • bumauo • falleceo •

este • graude • principe • depois • de • ter • chcgado •

com • suas • navegacoes • ate • o • 8° • gr • de • latitude *

septemtr • e • de • ter • descoberto • e • povoado • de •

geute • portuguezza • muitas • ilhas • do • atlantico •

aos • XIII. • dias • de novembro • de • 14G0 • d • maria • II. '

rainha • de • portugal • e • dos • algarves • mandou •

levantar • este • monumento • a • memoria • do •

illustre • principe • seu • consanguineo • aos • 379 •

annos • depois • do • seu • fallecimento • sendo •

ministro • dos • negocios • da • marinha • e •

ultramar • o • visconde • de • sa • da • bandoira •

1839.

The following is a translation : — ' , . . . •

SACRED FOR EVER.

In this Place

the Great Prince Henry, son of John I., King of Portugal, having
undertaken to discover the previously unknown regions of West
Africa, and also to open a way by the circumnavigation of Africa
to the remotest parts of the East, established at his own cost his
Royal Palace, the famous School of Cosmography, the Astronomical
Observatory, and the Naval Ai-senal, preserving, improving, and

316 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

enlarging the same till the close of his life with admirable energy
and perseverance, and to the greatest benefit of the kingdom, of
literature, of religion, and of the Avhole human race. After reaching
by his expeditions the eighth degree of north latitude, and dis-
covering and planting Portuguese Colonies in many islands of the
Atlantic, this great Prince died on the 13th of November, 1460.
Three hundred and seventy-nine years after his death, Maria II.,
Queen of Portugal and the Algarves, commanded that this monu-
ment should be erected to the memory of the illustrious Prince,
her kinsman, the Viscount de Sa da Bandeira being Minister of
Marine. 1839.

To the kindness of Ills Excellency the Marqnis de Sii da
Bandeira, I am also indebted for the accompanying plan of
the promontory of Sagres, which was taken at the time by
Captain Lourenr^o Germack Possollo, to whose able manage-
ment the erection of the monument was entrusted.

On this plan will be seen the site of the present small
fort, which was erected in 1793, and the traces of the few
ancient walls and ruins that remain. The hard granite
rock of which the promontory consists is hollowed out at
its base into a natural arch, and there are holes worn
through to the surface, through which in time of storms
from the south-west, the sea drives the air with terrific
force, and expels to a considerable height any objects which
may be in the way. On some occasions the sea water is
driven through these holes in great quantity, and falls down
on the surface of the earth in the form of rain. This salt-
water shower, which will sometimes extend to a distance of
nearly two miles, goes lar to destroy the very few traces of
vegetation which are to be found on this desolate and sterile
spot.

CHArTER XVIII.

THE STORMY CAPE.

14G0— 1487.

The death of Prince Henry produced the eifect that might
have been expected. The progress of discovery received for
the time a check when the presiding genius was removed
from the scene of action. In the main the tendencies of King
Affonso were rather towards conquest in Mauritania, and the
support of his pretensions to the throne of Castile, than to
the prosecution of discoveries on the west coast of Africa.
Nevertheless the "talent de bien faire" had left behind it
its impress in its example and its benefits, and we are not
without something to record in the way of discovery, between
the death of the Prince in 1460, and that of his nephew, King
Affonso v., in 1481. Indeed in the year following the death
of the Prince, the King was induced, by the great traffic in
gold and negroes at the island of Arguin, to build a fort there
to insure its safety. Its construction and commandership
were committed to Soeiro Mendez, a gentleman of his
household, to whom and to his heirs the King, by deed of
July 26th, 1464, made a grant of the governorship-in-chief
of the fortress.

Cadamosto had reached the Rio Grande, and from his pen
we have an account of the exploration of more jthan six
hundred miles yet further south by a gentleman of the King's
household, named Pedro de Cintra, whom tlie King had sent

318 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

out in command of two armed caravels. The narrative was
dictated to Cadamosto by a young Portuguese, who had been
his secretary in his own two voyages, and who, after accom-
panying Pedro de Cintra, returned to his former master, who
still resided at Lagos. The date of the voyage is not given, but
it was either in 1461 or 1462, since it occurred between the
death of Prince Henry, at the close of 1460, and Cadamosto's
departure from the Peninsula at the beginning of 1463.
De Cintra first went to the two large inhabited islands,
discovered by Cadamosto in his second voyage, at the mouth
of the Rio Grande, on one of which they landed. In the
miserable straw-thatched hovels in the interior they found
some wooden figures, which led them to think that the
blacks were idolaters, but as they were unable to hold any
conversation with them, they returned to the ship and pro-
ceeded on their voyage. After sailing forty miles, they
reached the mouth of a large river, about three or four miles
in breadth, called Beseque, from the name of the chief who
lived at its mouth. A hundred and forty miles further on
they came to a cape, which they called Cape Verga. The hills
were lofty, and eighty miles beyond they came to another
cape, which the sailors all agreed was the highest they had
ever seen. It was covered with beautiful green trees, and
had at its summit a point shaped like a diamond. In honour
of Prince Henry, and in remembrance of his residence at
Cape Sagres, the Portuguese gave it the name of " Caj)e
Sagres of Guinea." The people worshipped wooden images
in the shape of men, to which at mealtimes they oifered
food. They were tawny rather than black, and had figures
branded on their faces and bodies. They had no clothes, but
simply wore pieces of the bark of trees in front of them.
They had no arms, for they had no iron in their country.
They lived on rice, honey, and vegetables, such as beans
and kidney-beans, of a finer and larger kind than those of
Europe. They had also beef and goats' fiesh, but in no
great abundance. Near the ca})e were two little islands, one
about six miles distant, the other eight, but too small to be

THE STORMY CAPE. 31V)

inhabited. They were thickly covered with trees. Those
who lived on this river* used very large canoes, each carrying
from thirty to forty men, who rowed staniling, without row-
locks. They had their ears pierced with holes all round, and
wore in them a variety of gold rings. Both the men and
women had the cartilage of their noses pierced and a ring-
passed through it, like the butlaloes in Italy; but these they
took off when they ate.

About forty miles beyond Cape Sagres they found another
river, which they called the San Vicente, about four miles
broad at the mouth, and some five miles further they came
to another river, called Rio Verde, yet broader at the mouth
than the San Vicente. The country and coast were very
mountainous, but there was good anchorage everywhere.
Four-and-twenty miles from this Cape was another, which
they called Cape Ledo, or " Joyous," on account of the
beauty and verdure of the country. Further on was a lofty
mountain range extending fifty miles, covered with fine trees,
at the end of which, at about eight miles out at sea, were
three little islands, the largest about ten or twelve miles in
circumference. These they called the Selvagcns, and the
mountain they called Sierra Leona, on account of the roaring
of the thunder which is constantly being heard on its cloud-
enveloped summit.

Thirty miles beyond Sierra Leona they found a large river,
three miles broad at its mouth. They called it Rio Roxo, or
Red River, because passing through a red soil, it assumed
that colour. Beyond was a cape, also of red colour, which
they named Cabo Roxo ; and about eight miles out to sea, an
uninhabited island, which for the same reason they called

* The original text is exceedingly faulty, as for instance where above it is
stated that the natives were marked with tire the Italian expression is " com
ferro atfocata," with heated iron, whereas immediately afterwards it is stated
that there was no iron in the country. Again, the two islets just mentioned are
declared to be " one distant from the other six miles, the other eight," a piece of
Hibernicism for which one is unprepared. So here reference is made to " this
river " when no river whatever has been named. The river alluded to must be
the Pongas, at the mouth of which Cape Sagies is situated.

320 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Illm Roxa. From this island (which is about ten miles
from the Rio Roxo) the north star seemed to be about the
height of a man above the sea. Beyond Cabo Roxo they
discovered a gulf, into which flowed a river, and this they
named Santa Maria das Neves,* " St. Mary of the Snows."
They saw it on the 2nd of July, the visitation of the
Blessed Virgin. On the other side of the river was a point,
and opposite that, a little way out at sea, a small island. The
gulf v/as full of sandbanks, running ten or twelve miles
along the coast. The sea broke here with great violence,
and there was a very powerful current, both at the ebb and
flow of the tide. They called this island Ilha dos Bancos,
on account of these sandbanks.

Twenty-four miles beyond this island is a great cape,
called Cabo de Santa Anna, because it was discovered on
St. Anne's day, the 26th of July. Sixty miles beyond they
found another river, which they called Rio das Palmas, on
account of the many palms which grew on its banks ; but
its mouth, though of considerable breadth, was full of sand-
banks, which made it very dangerous. This was the cha-
racter of the coast the whole distance between Cabo de
Santa Anna and this river. About sixty miles further they
discovered another small river, which they called Rio dos
Fumos, because when they discovered it they could sec
nothing on land but smoke. Four-and-twenty miles beyond
this river, they discovered a cape jutting out into the sea,
which they called Cabo del Monte, because beyond it they
saw a very lofty mountain. Coasting thence for sixty
miles, they saw another small cape, not very high, but
similarly capped by a hill. This they called Cabo Mesurado.
Here they observed a great number of lires, lighted by the
blacks in consequence of their getting sight of the ships,
the like of which tliey had never seen before. Sixteen
miles beyond this cape, there was a wood of fine trees,

* There would appciir to be sonic blumk'v here, us the feast of St. Marj^ of the
Snows is on the 5th of August, which would not ueconl with the chronology of
tlie voyage.

THE STORMY CAPE. 321

reaching down to the sea. This thoy calK'd tlio Bosque de
Santa Maria, or St. Mary's Grove.

The caravels came to anchor beyond this wood, but no
sooner had they arrived than some little canoes, witli two
or three naked men in each, came towards them, some of
them having- the remains of what seemed to be human
teeth hang-ing on their necks. One of them they captured
in order to bring him into communication with other blacks
in Portugal, that they might gain information respecting
his country, but nothing of importance could be gathered
from him. He was subsequently sent back to his own
country with clothes and other presents. Cadamosto in-
forms us that no other ship had returned from that coast
np to the period of his departure from the Peninsula, on
the 1st of February, 1463.

On the 12th of June, 1466, the King granted privi-
leges to the colonists with respect to the Guinea trade,
which were abused by them to an extent that caused the
King by a new charter to restrict the use of these privileges
to the limits of his original grant.

In 1469, King Atfonso V. rented the trade of the
African coast to Fernam Gomez, for five hundred cruzado?
a year, for five years, reserving the ivory-trade only to the
crown, and stipulating for the discovery of a hundred
leagues of coast annually. This stipulated exploration was
to commence at Sierra Leona, the point reached by Pedro
de Cintra and Soeiro da Costa, who were the latest previous
discoverers. The latter, who had already distinguished
himself as one of the first explorers from Lagos, subse-
quently discovered the river which received his name, but
Avhich is now known as the Groat Bassam or Assinie River.
The explorers selected by Fernam Gomez were Joao de
Santarem, and Pedro de Escobar, both knights of the
Kuig's household. The pilots were Martin Fernandez and
Alvaro Esteves, the latter having at that time the liighest
repute as a navigator in the whole kingdom.

In January, 1471, they discovered the coast afterwards

Y

322 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

named La Mina, where so large a trade in gold-dust
was carried on, and in the same year crossed the line
and extended their explorations even as for as Cape
St. Catherine, thirty-seven leagues beyond Cape Lopo
Gonsalves.

Fernam Gomez acquired great wealth by this traffic,
so that he was able to render good service to the King in
his wars in Marocco. When his contract expired in 1474,
the King conferred on him a coat-of-arms argent, three
negroes' heads collared or, and with rings in their noses
and ears. He also gave him the surname of Mina, in com-
memoration of his important discovery.

The last of the explorers, during the reign of King Af-
fonso v., was a knight of his household named Sequeira,
who discovered Cape St. Catherine, two degrees south of the
equator.

On the death of Affonso V., his son and successor,
Joao 11. , entered with zeal into the views of his prede-
cessors and of his uncle Prince Henry. Before he came to
the throne, a part of his revenues had been derived from the
African trade, and the fisheries connected therewith, so that
he had every inducement to prosecute its extension. With
this view he not only ordered the completion of the Fort of
Arguin, which had been commenced years before, but
resolved on the construction of another, on a larger scale,
at S. Jorge da Mina. The gold traffic had at first been
carried on at a place called Saama, discovered in 1472, by
Joao de Santarem and Pedro de Escover, in the service of
Fernam Gomez, already mentioned ; but San Jorge de Mina
was now selected for its suj^erior convenience.

That the fort might be constructed the most expeditiously,
both for preventing objections and saving his people from
exposure to the dangers of the climate, the King took the
precaution to have the stones cut and fashioned in Portugal.
With these, and bricks, and wood, and other needful mate-
rials, he loaded ten caravels and two smaller craft. He sent
out also provisions suilicient for six hundred men, one

THE STOllMY CAl'E. 323

hundred of whom were officers to superintend the work.
The command of this fleet was given to Diogo de Azam-
buja.

It set sail on the 11th December, 1481, and after stopping
to conchide a fjivourable treaty with Bezeguiche, the lord of
the harbour and court which bore his name, they reached La
Mina on the 19th of January, 1482. On the following
morning they suspended the banner of Portugal from the
bough of a lofty tree, at the foot of which they erected an
altar, and the whole company assisted at the first mass that
was celebrated in Guinea, and prayed for the conversion of
the natives from idolatry, and the perpetual prosperity of
the church which they intended to erect upon the spot.

By good Juck they found there a small Portuguese vessel,
the captain of which, Joiio Bernardes, was engaged in trafiic
with the natives, and him they ]nade interpreter between
Caramansa, the chief of the place, and Azambuja. The
interview took place with the greatest ostentation pos-
sible on both sides, a kind of rivalry in which, as may be
supposed, the negro prince had a very sorry chance of pro-
ducing any very imposing effect. Azambuja appeared in
a tunic of brocade, with a collar of gold and precious
stones, and his captains were all in holiday attire, while
Caramansa, who was no less ambitious of making a good
display, was habited, like the rest of his people, in the best
vestments with which nature had provided them. With
their skins anointed and glistening till their native blackness
was made blacker still, they considered their toilette per-
fect, although their only garment was an apron of monkeys'
skin or palm leaves. To this extreme simplicity, however,
Caramansa himself was in so far an exception that his arms
and legs were adorned with bracelets and rings of gold, and
round his neck a collar from which hung small bells, and
some sprigs of gold were twisted into his beard, so that the
curls were straightened by the weight.

Azambuja then addressed the chieftain in the name of
King Joao, commending to him the Christian religiou,

y2

324 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

which if he would recognise and be baptized, the King would
regard him as a brother, and make with him an alliance,
oflensive and defensive, against their common enemies, and
enter into a treaty for the interchange of the })roducts of their
respective countries. With this view he proposed, with the
chieftain's permission, to found a permanent establishment
in his country which should serve as a place of security
against their enemies, as a refuge to the Portuguese who
visited the coast, and also as a storehouse for their merchan-
dise. Caram'ansa, who was very shrewd for a negro, after
some hesitation, gave his consent. On the following day
Azambuja put the work in hand, but no sooner was it com-
menced than the negroes showed signs of an intention to
interrupt it. Fortunately mischief was prevented by Azam-
buja's learning that this arose from displeasure that the
requisite presents had not as yet been offered to the chieftain.
The oversight was soon remedied, and the work was set about
with so much activity that in twenty days the fort was in a
condition to repel an attack. Azambuja also built a church on
the site, where on his arrival he had erected an altar. Both
the church and the fort were dedicated to St. George. In
the former, a daily mass was established in perpetuity for
the soul of Prince Henry, and to the latter the King con-
ceded the privileges of a municipality. Azambuja took up
his abode there, with a garrison of sixty men, and sent back
the rest to Portugal with gold and slaves and other articles
of merchandise. By a charter of King John II., dated
17th March, 1485, Diogo Azambuja received in recogni-
tion of his great services in the wars, and especially in
the construction of the fortress of San Jorge da Mina, the
permission to add a castle to his arms in commemoration of
the fact.

Hitherto the Portuguese in making their explorations had
contented themselves by setting up crosses by way of taking
formal possession of any country ; but these crosses soon
disapi)eared, and the object in setting them up was frustrated.
They would also carve on trees the motto of Prince Henry,

THE STORMY CAPE. 325

"Talent de Lien faire," togetlier with tlio name Avliicli tlioy
gave to the iie\vl3'-(liscovereJ land. In the reign of King
Jojio, however, they began to erect stone pilkirs surmounted
hy a cross. These pillars, which were designed by the King,
were fourteen or fifteen hands high, with the royal arms
sculptured in front, and on the sides were inscribed the
names of the King and of the discoverer, as well as the date
of the discovery, in Latin and Portuguese. These pillars
were called Padraos.

In 1484, Diogo Cam, a knight of the King's household,
carried out with him one of these stone pillars, and passing
Cape St. Catherine, the last point discovered in the reign of
King Afibnso, reached the mouth of a large river, on the south
side of which he set up the pillar, and accordingly called
the river the Rio do Padrao. The natives called it Zaire. It was
afterwards named the Congo, from the country through which
it flowed. Diogo Cam ascended the river to a little distance,
and fell in with a great number of natives, who were very
peacefully inclined, but although he had interpreters of
several of the African languages, none of them could make
themselves understood. He accordingly determined to take
some of the natives back with him to Portugal, that they
might learn the Portuguese language and act as interpreters
for the future. This was easily managed, and without any
violence, by sending Portuguese hostages to the King of
Congo, with a promise that in fifteen months the negroes
should be restored to their country. He took with him four
of the natives, and on the voyage they learned enough Por-
tuguese to enable them to give a fair account of their own
country and of those which lay to the south of it. The King
Joiio was greatly gratified, and treated the negroes with much
kindness and even munificence, and when Diogo Cam took
them back the fullowiug year, the King charged them with
many presents for their own sovereign, accompanied by the
earnest desire that he and his people would embrace the
Christian religion. Up to the year 14bo, John II. used
the title of King of Portugal and the Al^arves on this side

326 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

the sea and beyond tlie sea in Africa,* but in this year he
added thereto that of Lord of Guinea. f

In this remarkable voyage Diogo Cam was accompanied
by Martin Behaim, the inventor of the application of the
astrolabe to navigation, and to whom has been erroneously
attributed the first idea of the discovery of America.

A singular train of collateral events places Behaim in
curious juxtaposition and comparison with the great Colum-
bus, whose glory he never wished to disparage, although
others have attempted to do so for him. J Born in the same
year, the two men died in the same month. Behaim, though
a native of Nuremberg, took up his residence with his wife in
a remote island in the Atlantic, Fayal, of which his father-
in-law, Jobst de Huerter, was the Captain Donatary : Co-
lumbus, a native of Genoa, married the daughter of that
Perestrello to whom, as we have already seen. Prince Henry
gave the commandership of Porto Santo. Like Behaim, he
lived with his wife on her family property in that singularly
analogous position, so calculated to develop the ardent desire
of each for geographical discovery. Both these illustrious
men were at Lisbon at the same time, and both engaged in
nautical projects. The same physicians of King Joao IL,
Mestre Eodrigo and Mestre Josef, who were entrusted by
Diogo Ortiz, Bishop of Ceuta, to examine the project of
Columbus for sailing to Cipango by the west, worked with
Martin Behaim in the construction of an astrolabe adapted to
the purposes of navigation. Another link between Columbus
and Behaim was the tutor of the latter, the celebrated
llegiomontanus (Johann Miiller, a native of Koenigsberg in

* Tins nrosc from tlio name of Algarb being givon hj the Moors to the Prince
of Fez, wliile the southernmost province of I'ortugal bore the same name.

t Kuy de I'ina. Chron. cap. 19 of the Ined. dellist. Port, published by the
Royal Acad, of Sciences, torn. 2, page 65. JoJloP. Ribeii'O. Dissert. Ctronol. e
Critica, torn. 2, page 207, and Garcia de Resende. Clu-on de D. Joao 2, cap. 56.

X Chief among these is M. ]\[uiT,in a memoir originally -written in German and
translated into French with the title of " Notice siu' le Chevalier Martin Behaim
avec la description de son Globe Terrcstro, traduite par 11. J. Jansen." It is
inserted at the end of Ainoretti's edition uf Pigui'etla't; Voyage Round the World
published Paris, An 9.

THE STORMY CAPE. 327

Franconia). In 1463 ho dedicated to Toscanelli (whose
letter to Cohmibus is so famous in the history of the dis-
covery of America) his treatise on the Quadrature of the
Circle, in which he refuted the pretended solution of that
problem by the Cardinal Nicolas de Cusa. Dissatisfied with
the astronomical tables of Aftonso the Wise, known as the
Alphonsine Tables, but which he maliciously called the
Alphonsine Dream, Eegiomontanus published at Nuremberg
his famous astronomical Ephemerides, calculated prospec-
tively for the years 1475 to 150G, and which were used on
the coasts of Africa, America, and India in the first great
voyages of discovery of Bartholomew Dias, Gama, and
Columbus. (See Humboldt, Examen Critique, tom. i.
p. 274.)

But the most prominent material that has been employed
for detraction from the fame of Columbus in favour of Martin
Behaim, was the famous globe made by the latter in 1492,
and still existing in the possession of his descendants in their
ancient mansion in Nuremberg. All sorts of claims have
been set up by the Nurembergers on behalf of their distin-
guished countryman on the asserted evidence of this globe.
Hartmann Schedel, in the famous Nuremberg Chronicle,
published in 1493, had happened to speak of Behaim and
Cam having crossed the equator and reached the other
hemisphere, and this suggestive declaration seems to have
supplied the Nurembergers with the idea that long before
Columbus or Magellan sailed in those seas, Behaim had dis-
covered not only America, but the straits of Magellan. The
best refutation of these assertions is Behaim's globe itself,
copies of which are given in the elegant Life of Behaim, by
Dr. F. W. Ghillany, published in Nuremberg, 1853, and in
the magnificent atlas prepared by the Vicomte de Santarera,
and elsewhere. Even letters by Behaim himself, found in
the archives of Nuremberg, have been referred to in ratifi-
cation of the same claims ; but their futility is proved by the
date of the letters themselves (1486) plainly pointing to
the voyage with Diogo Cam, the limits of which are clearly

328 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

defined, and from which Behaim returned in April or May
of that year.

There is on Behaim's globe a legend of much importance
to this part of our narrative. Below the Bhas do Principe
and S. Thome is the following statement : — " These islands
were discovered by the ships of the King of Portugal in
1484. We found them all deserts, nothing but woods and
birds. ■ The King of Portugal sends to them every year
those who are condemned to death, both men and women, to
cultivate the land and sustain themselves with its produce,
so that they may be inhabited by Portuguese. It is spring
there when it is winter in Europe, and the birds and beasts
are all different from ours. There is a great abundance of
amber there, called in Portugal algalia^''' by which I presume
he means civet. Now Barros and others make these islands
to have been discovered in the time of Affonso [before
1481]. Galvao says 1471 or 1472, but I have not found
Galvao generally trustworthy for dates. De Barros' ex-
pression is : — " There were also discovered, by command of
King Affonso, the islands of S. Thome, Annobon, and Principe,
and others, of which we do not now speak particularly,
because we do not know when or by what captains they were
discovered ; but we do know, by common report, that more
was discovered in that King's reign than we have been able
to write down." It is of course impossible therefore to say,
under such circumstances, whether in Behaim's voyage in
1484 these islands were for the first or second time dis-
covered. It is, however, generally believed, and with high
probability, that Joiio de Santarem and Pero de Escobar,
both knights of the King's household, went out in 1470, on
account of Fernam Gomes, to explore the coast beyond Cape
Palmas, and took with them, for their pilots, Martin Fer-
nandez of Lisbon, and Alvaro Esteves of Lagos, and that,
in spite of the calms, south winds, and northward currents
common in that gulf, they managed to run along the whole
of the coast of the kingdom of Benin, and on the 21st of
December, St. Thomas's Day, sighted a lofty island covered

THE STORMY CAPR. 329

with wood, to which they gave the name of that apostle.
Ou the 1st of January, 1471, they are supposed to have
come upon a smaller island, to which they gave the name of
Anno Bom, or Good Year, in memory of the happy omen
that it was discovered on New Year's Day. And in truth a
good year it was, for in that same month of January they
made the first traffic in gold on the Gold Coast, in the
village of Sama, between Cape Three Points and La Mina,
whither they were carried by the currents and breezes from
the south, after having sighted the terra firma of Cape Lopo
Gonsalves. In this same voyage they discovered the Ilha do
Principe, but it is not kno^vn on what day. It was, probably,
in the passage from Cape Lopo Gonsalves to the Gold Coast,
in 1471 ; and as they originally gave the island the name
of Santo Antao, or Saint Anthony, we may infer that it was
discovered on the 17 th of January, which is the day of that
saint's commemoration. It afterwards received the name of
Ilha do Principe, because the King's eldest son had assigned
to him, as his appanage, the duty on the sugars grown in
the island. Whether the Ilha Formosa, or Beautiful Island,
discovered by Fernam do P6, a gentleman of the King's
household, whose name it afterwards received, was discovered
in this vo3'age, or as some have supposed in 1486, when, as
we shall presently see, Joae Aflbnso de Aveiro was sent by
King Joao U. on an especial mission to the King of Benin,
and in which voyage the first African pepper was brought to
Portugal, we possess no evidence to show. However all this
may have been, it would seem that the islands were now, in
Cam's voyage, for the first time brought under the notice of
the Government and turned to any account. But there is
another point in connection with these islands, which demands
consideration. It will have been noticed that in previous
voyages, when islands at a distance from the mainland had
been discovered, it had been through the vessels being driven
on them by storms ; as, for example, the discovery of Porto
Santo by Zarco, and of the Cape Verde Islands by Antonio
de Nolle and Diogo Gomez, but in the present case we have

330 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

islands, one, S. Thome, more than fifty, the other, Annobon,
more than eighty leagues distant from the mainland, dis-
covered without the interference of any storm whatever, of
which we are informed. The reasonable inference seems to
be that the navigators used their newly-improved nautical
instruments to good purpose, and were able to leave the
coast with impunity, which their predecessors were not in
the position to do, for want of being able to take the altitude.
From Behaim's globe we derive the following statement : —

" In the year 1484, King John of Portugal fitted out two caravels,
well provided with men, provisions, and munitions of war for three
years, and he ordered that after passing the Straits, they should
proceed southv/ard and eastward as far as they possibly could.
The vessels were laden with all sorts of merchandise for barter.
There were also taken out eighteen horses with their harness for
presents to the several kings, one for each, as we might find it ex-
pedient. We also took all sorts of spices to show the natives what
we went in search of. We sailed from Lisbon straight to Madeira,
where the Portuguese sugar grows. Passing the Canaries, we
found some Moorish chiefs, with whom we interchanged presents,
and afterwards came to the kingdom of Gambia, where the
malaguette grows, eight hundred leagues distant from Portugal.
Thence we passed twelve hundred leagues to the dominions of
the King of Furfur, where grows the pepper called Portuguese
pepper."' Far beyond that country we found the cnsca de canella
[or cinnamon], where, having then sailed a distance of two
thousand three hundred leagues, we turned back and reached
Lisbon in the nineteenth month from our departure."

This statement is confirmatory of the dates derived from
Barros. As Diogo de Azambuja reached La Mina on the
19th of January, 1482, and remained there two years and
seven montlis, he would be back in Lisbon at the end of
August or beginning of September, 1484, and as Diogo
Cam did not start till his return, if he left in October or

* The designation of the "Grain Coast " is derived from the "Grains of
Paradise," " Guinea Grains " or malaguette pepper, which is there produced.

THE STORBIY CAPE. 331

November the addition of the nineteen months above stated
by Behaim wonkl make their return to Lisbon fall in May
or June of 148G, as stated by Barros. It must, however, be
confessed that the cinnamon mentioned by Behaim is not to
be found on the west coast of Africa, and must have been
confounded by him with some other aromatic tree that grew
on that coast.

Diogo Cam did not forget his promise to return with his
charges to Congo within the fifteen months. When he
reached the Congo River he was received with great wel-
come by the natives, and by their King. He then pro-
ceeded further south, and planted two pillars surmounted by
crosses, one named St. Augustine, in 15° 50' south, and the
other at a point w^hich they called the Manga das Areas, or
Sleeve of Sands, in 22'^, now called Cape Cross by the English.
The cross is still in good preservation, only part of one of
the arms being gone. (See a letter by William Messem,
in Nautical Magazine for 1855, p. 211.) It is here that
the country of the Cimbebas terminates, and that of the
Hottentots begins. Cam thus traversed more than two
hundred leagues beyond the Congo, landing occasionally,
and taking some of the natives for the sake of the language.

On his retm-n he was received by the King of Congo with
marked affection, and had the happiness of inspiring him
with a great desire to receive instruction in the tenets of the
Christian religion. For this purpose, he not only requested
that priests might be sent out from Portugal, but he himself
despatched one of his own subjects, named Ca^uta, with
some youths to urge this request. On their arrival, the
King and Queen stood sponsors for Ca9uta, who received
the King's name of Joiio for his Christian name, with the
surname of Silva, from his other godfather Ayres da Silva,
the King's chamberlain. The whole of the little embassy
were baptized before their return to Africa, in the year
1490, and thus originated the diffusion of Christianity in
those benighted countries.

The expedition which took them back consisted of three

332 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

ships under the command of Gonzalo de Sousa, but this
commander died at Cape Verde, and was succeeded by his
nephew Euy de Sousa. On their arrival in Congo, they
were warmly received by an aged uncle of the King named
Mani SoDO,wdio very shortly received baptism, and was named
Manuel. His son was also baptized, and took the name of
Antonio. This was the first baptism that was adminis-
tered in those heathen countries. It took place on Easter-
day, the 3rd of April, 1491. Twenty-five thousand men
were present at the ceremony. The King was fifty leagues
away at the time, but when he heard of it he testified his
approval by bestowing on his uncle a large increase of terri-
tory, and he ordered the idols to be destroyed throughout
his dominions. Indeed, so zealous was he for the main-
tenance of reverence for everything sacred, that on one occa-
sion when some of his people made a disturbance at the
door of the church which the Portuguese had constructed of
boughs, he would have had them put to death but for the
intercession of the priests. The King's residence was at
Ambasse Congo, about twenty leagues from the sea-coast,
where he received Euy de Sousa. When at two leagues
from the city he was met by a chieftain, accompanied by a
great host of men formed in procession, who to the noise of
trumpets and kettle-drums, barbarously constructed, sang
the praises of the King of Portugal, three or four singing
a verse, and the whole body joining in the chorus. The
King sat on a throne of ivory, raised on a lofty wooden plat-
form, so that he could be seen from all sides. From his
waist upwards, his black and glittering skin was uncovered.
Below that he wore a piece of damask which had been given
him by Diogo Cam. On his left arm was a bracelet of
copper, and from the shoidder hung a dressed horse's tail,
which was a symbol of royalty. He had a cap on his head
resembling a mitre made of palm leaves so skilfully that
it had the a2)pearance of stamped velvet, lluy de Sousa
made his obeisance to him in the Portuguese fiishion, which
the King returned in his ; that is, he put his right hand on the

THE STORMY CAPE. 333

ground as if to take up dust; lie then passed his hand first
over Sousa's hreast, and then over his own, which was tlic
greatest courtesy he couhl show him. He not only gave
permission to buihl a church, hut ordered one of his chief-
tains to provide materials and labourers, so that no time
might he lost. The first stone was laid on the 3rd of May,
and the work proceeded so rapidly that the church was com-
pleted on the 1st of June. It was dedicated to the Holy
Cross, and afterwards became the Cathedral Church of a
bishopric. The King himself received baptism in presence
of a hundred thousand men, who were brought together both
by curiosity and the preparations for a war with some rebels,
who had done great mischief in his territory. He took the
name of Joao, and the Queen that of Leonora, from the
Portuguese sovereigns. After the ceremony he proceeded
to the battle, and with more than eighty thousand men in
the fiekl, won an easy victory over the rebels. When they
returned the King's eldest son was baptized, and took the
name of Alfonso.

The King's second son, however, named Panso Aquitimo
not only rejected the Christian religion, but excited others
to do the same. One great ground of dissatisfaction was
that the Church forbad them to have more than one wife,
and at this the King himself took olience, and relaxed
from his original fervour, even so far as to leave the crown
to his second son to the prejudice of the eldest. At the
death of the old King, however, Affonzo recovered his right
by force, and, firm to the religion of his adoption, zealously
developed the Christian faith throughout his dominions,
and sent his children and grand-children to Portugal to be
educated, and two of these young princes afterwards received
consecration as Bishops.

In the course of a century from this time, the Portuguese
having become well established in Congo, we find one of their
countrymen, Duarte Lopes, going on a mission from the King
of Congo to Pope Sixtus V. and Philip II., King of Si)ain
and Portugal, for the purpose of representing the dei)lorable

334 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

condition of Christianity in the country at that time, and
begging for missionaries. Lopes then related to Felipe
Pigafetta, the account of his observations while in Africa
during the years 1578 to 1587 ; and this narrative, under
the title of " Eelatione del Reame di Congo," was published
by Pigafetta at Rome, in 1591, 4°. This rare work is accom-
panied by two maps, of one of which a reduction is annexed,
and from which, as well as from the account which I shall
proceed to extract from the text, it will be seen that the two
great equatorial lakes, Victoria Nyanza and Albert Nyanza,
with their probable southern feeder, lake Tanganyika, the
positive existence of which has only been made known to
us in recent years by our noble explorers. Burton and Speke,
and Sir Samuel Baker, were actually laid down and described
from information gathered in Africa by a Portuguese three
hundred years ago. But though so laid down and described,
these three great facts, of such vital importance to the question
of the discovery of the sources of the Nile, slept and remained
unrepeated by geographers during all those centuries, until
our brave adventurers unfolded the truth from absolute per-
sonal observation.

The single fact of the map exhibiting, as none of its pre-
decessors or successors had done, these three important lakes
so recently discovered, would be sufficient to justify us in
hoping for enlightenment on points which have not yet been
established by satisfactory modern observation. But, vague
and strange as its delineation will appear to eyes accustomed
to neater and more systematic cartography, it contains
several other items of information which I can point out
as wanting in subsequent maps, until they had become
matters of fact substantiated by recent explorations.

To begin at the north, it is not improbable that in the
Lago Cliinanda we have Clapperton's Lake Chad, although
considerably north of the true position, and the Lago de
Nubia may well be the Liba Lake ; but of these I speak
with much hesitation. I can with far greater confidence
call attention to the fact that on this map for the first time

THE STOPv^MY CAPE. 335

is laid down the great empire of Mononioezi, or Uniamuezi,
occupying in a remarkably striking manner a position be-
tween the easternmost of the two equatorial lakes and
another vast lake to the south-west, exactly corresponding
with the true position of that country between the Victoria
Nyanza and Lake Tanganyika. In the north-east is the
Lago Barcena corresponding with Lake Dembea, with an
affluent of the White Nile issuing from it, —a fact by no
means unworthy of notice, even though the indistinctness
of the delineation leaves us in doubt Avhether the Atbara or
Bar-el-Azreh may be intended : moreover, the name of
Barsena still survives in another affluent of the White Nile.
Nor is it without significance that north-westward of the
Lake Colue, which answers to the Victoria Nyanza, there
occurs the word Barimboa, closely expressing Baringo, the
name of the water north-west of that great lake.

If we travel further south, we find near to each other the
names of Matemba and Quimbebe, suggestive of an in-
distinct piece of information respecting Kabebe, the court
of the great Sovereign of Matiamvo, to whom the King of
Casembe was a tributary. Yet further south, on the Tropic
of Capricorn, we find the word Butua representing on its
proper position the country of the Bechuanas. We have
here a sufficient amount of approximately correct informa-
tion as established by recent exploration, to justify us in
inquiring what further the author of the map can tell us
with reference to the important subject of the tide. Un-
fortunately we get not the slightest recognition of two great
lakes south of these on the Equator. One only is spoken
of, but I propose to show that the two great lakes of
Tanganyika and Livingstone's Nyassa have been confused
into one, doubtless through the information being procured
from various sources. The following is the statement in
the work which the map was made to illustrate : —

"The Nile does not rise in the country of Bel Giau, /.''. Prcstor
John (the Emperor of Abyssinia), nor in the Mountains of the Moon,

33G PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

nor, as Ptolemy ^viites, from two lakes Ipng east and west of each
other, with about four hundred and fifty miles between them. For
in the latitude in which he places these two lakes lies the kingdom
of Congo and Angola on the west ; and on the east are the empire
of Monomotapa and the kingdom of Sofala, the distance from sea
to sea being twelve hundred miles. In this region Lopes stated
that there was only one lake, on the confines of Angola and Mono-
motapa. It is one hundred and ninety-five miles in diameter, as
he learned from the people of Angola on the west, and those of
Sofala and Monomotapa on the east ; and while they give us a full
account of this, they mention no other lakes, whence we may con-
clude that there is no other in that latitude. It is true that there
are two lakes, not lying east and west, but north and south of each
other, and about four hundred miles apart. Some of the natives
think that the Nile, issuing from the first lake, flows underground
and again appears ; but Lopes denies this. The first lake is in
12'^ S. lat., and like a shell, and surrounded by very lofty moun-
tains, the highest of which on the east are calletl Cafates, and on
both sides are mountains from which saltpetre and silver are dug.
The Nile flows thence four hundred miles due north, and enters
another very great lake, which the natives call a sea. It is larger
than the first, for it is two hundred and twenty miles across, and
lies under the equinoctial line. Respecting this lake very certain
information is given by the Anzichi, near Congo. They say that
there are people on it who sail in great ships, and who write and
have weights and measures, such as they have not in Congo.
Their houses were built of stone and lime, and equalled those of
the Portuguese, whence it might bo inferred that Prester John was
not far off. From this second lake the Nile flows seven hundred
miles to the island of Mcroe, and receives other rivers, the principal
of which is the River Colues, so named because it issues from a
lake of that name on the borders of Melinde, and when the Nile
reaches Meroe it divides into two branches, and embraces a high
land named Meroe, to the right of which, on the cast, is a river
named Abagni that rises in the Lake Braeina and crosses the
empire of Prester John till it reaches that island."

Now if there be any value in this statement at all, coin-
ciding as it does with considerable accuracy with what we

. THE STORMY CAPE. 337

now know of the relative positions of the two equatorial
lakes and Tanganyika, it is impossible to avoid identifying-
the latter lake with that here described as the headwater of
the Nile, which confirms the suggestion recently put forth
by our distinguished geographer, Mr. Findlay, that the
waters of the Lake Tanganyika fall into the Albert Nyanza.
(See Transactions of Royal Geographical Society Meeting
of June 3rd, 1867.) At the same time, the latitude of
12° S., and the placing the lake described on the confines of
Angola and Monomotapa, plainly indicate the Lake Nyassa
of Livingstone ; but, clearly, it is quite possible for a
certain amount of accurate information to have been derived
from the natives with respect to both these lakes, though
from want of completeness in the information, confusion
may easily have arisen.

While, however, the teaching of the doctrines of Chris-
tianity was thus successful in Congo, it was far otherwise in
the kingdom of Benin, which lay between Congo and the Fort
of St. Jorge da Mina. At about the same time that Diogo
Cam was returning for the first time under such propitious
circumstances from Congo, one Joao Affonso de Aveiro Wiis
commissioned by the King of Benin to convey an ambassador
to the King of Portugal, with a request that he would send
missionaries to teach his people the Christian religion. His
real object, however, was much more to strengthen his
hands against his enemies than to secure the blessings of
Christianity. The mission accordingly languished, and the
unwholesomeness of the locality caused many deaths,
amongst the earliest to succumb being Aveiro himself. The
negro ambassador, however, had informed King Joao that
eastward of Benin, some three hundred and fifty leagues in
the interior, lived a powerful monarch named Ogane, who
held both temporal and spu'itual dominion over all the
neighbouring kings, and that the King of Benin on his own
elevation to the throne sent him an eml)assy witli rich
presents, and received from him the investiture and insignia
of sovereignty. These latter consisted of a stall' and cap of

z

338 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

shining bmss by way of sceptre and crown, with a cross of
brass. Without this ceremony the kings were not held to
be legitimized. The ambassadors never saw this monarch
during the whole term of their stay at his court. Only on
the day of audience he showed one of his feet, which they
kissed with reverence as something holy. At their departure
a cross of brass was thrown over the neck of each in the
name of the King, and this liberated Ihe wearer from all
slavery, and was to him as an ennobling order of chivalry.

The story tallied so remarkably with the accounts of
Prester John which had been brought to the peninsula by
Abyssinian priests, that the King was seized with an ardent
desire to get enlightened upon this subject, for he plainly
saw how immensely his double object of spreading Chris-
tianity and extending his commerce by opening the road to
the Indies would be furthered by an alliance with such a
sovereign. It was, as has been sliown in a previous chapter,
the idea of the geographers of the time that the sources of
the fSenegal and the I^ile were very near to each other. The
King therefore gave orders that as soon as the fortress at the
mouth of the Senegal was comj^leted the ascent of the
river should be made as far as its source ; but he little fore-
saw the difficulties of such an undertaking. He nevertheless
determined that both by sea and land the attempt should be
made to reach the country of Prester John.

By sea he sent, in August, 1486, two vessels of fifty tons
respectively, under the command of Barrholomeu Dias and
.Joiio Infante. A smaller craft which carried the provisions
was commanded by Pedro Dias, Bartliolomeu's brother. Of
this voyage, however, we shall speak more fully after that
we have described the measures which the King adopted
with the view of finding, if possible, the country of Prester
John by land. The first persons whom he sent out with
this object were Father Antonio de Lisboa and one Pedro
dc Montarryo; but when they reached Jerusalem ^they found
that without knowing Arabic it would be useless to continue
their voyage, and therefore they returned.

THE STORMY CAPE. 339

On the 7th of May, 1487, however, the King despatched
two men who were not wanting in that respect, viz., Pedro
de Covin 1 am and Alfonso de Payva. They went by Naples
and Rhodes to Alexandria and Cairo, and so to Aden, where
they separated with an agreement to meet at a certain time
at Cairo. They left Lisl)on for Na})les, where, says Alvarez,
their bills of exchange were paid by the son of Cosmo dc
Medicis ; and from Naples tliey sailed to the island of
Rhodes. Then crossing over to Alexandria, they travelled
to Cairo as merchants, and proceeding with the caravan to
Tor on the Red Sea, at the foot of Mount Sinai, gained some
information relative to the trade with Calicut. Thence they
sailed to Aden, where they parted ; Covilham directed his
course towards India, and Payva towards Suakem in
Abyssinia, appointing Cairo as the future place of their
rendezvous.

At Aden, Covilham embarked in a Moorish ship for
Cananor, on the Malabar coast, and after some stay in
that city, went to Calicut and Goa, being the first of his
countrymen who had sailed on the Indian Ocean. He then
passed over to Sofala, on the eastern coast of Africa, and
examined its gold mines, where he procured some intelligence
of the island of St. Lawrence, called by the Moors the
Island of the Moon, now known as Madagascar.

Covilham had now, according to Alvarez, heard of cloves
and cinnamon, and seen pepper and ginger ; he therefore
resolved to venture no further until the valuable information
he possessed was conveyed to Portugal. With this idea he
returned to Egypt ; but found on liis arrival at Cairo, where
he met with messengers from King Joao, that Payva had
died a short time before. The names of these messengers
were Rabbi Abraham of Beja, and Joseph of Lamego ; the
latter immediately returned with letters from Covilham,
containing, among other curious facts, the following re-
markable report : — " That the ships which sailed down the
coast of Guinea might he sure of reaching the termination of
the continent^ by j^ersisting in a course to the south ; and that

z 2

340 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

when they should arrive in the eastern ocean, their best direction
must he to inquire for Sqfala, and the Island of the Moon'"
{Madagascar). Rabbi AbraliaDi and his companion, having
already visited the city of Baghdad and the island of Ormnz,
had made tliemselves acquainted with many particulars re-
specting the spice trade. This alone was sufficient to
recommend them to the patronage of Joao IL, and they
accordingly were employed by him to seek Covilham and
Payva at Cairo, with additional directions to go to Ormuz
and the coast of Persia, in order to improve their com-
mercial information.

Covilham eagerly embraced this opportunity to visit Ormuz,
and having attended Abraham to the Gulf of Persia, they
returned together to Aden, whence the latter hastened to
give King Joao an account of their tour, and Covilham
embarked for Abyssinia to complete that part of his voyage
wliich the death of Payva had hitherto frustrated.

Crossing the Straits of Babelmandeb, he landed in the
dominions of the Negus. That prince took him with
him to Shoa, the residence of the court, where he met
with a very favourable reception. He at length became so
necessary to the prince, that he was compelled to spend the
remainder of his life in Abyssinia. He married in that
country, and from occupying highly important posts,
amassed a considerable fortune. It is stated by Alvarez,
that when, in 1525, the Portuguese embassy under Don
llodriguez de Lima arrived in Abyssinia, Covilham shed
tears of joy at the sight of his fellow-countrymen. He
passed thirty-three years of his life in Abyssinia, and died
there. From his letter to King Joao, already quoted, it
will be seen that to him is to be assigned the honour of the
theoretical discovery of the Cape of Good JHope, as that of
the practical discovery will presently be shown to belong to
Dias and Da Gama.

Meanwliih^ in the year 14S8, the King had fitted out a
considerable armament witli (lie view of founding another
station at tiie mouth of the Senegal, similar to that of iSan

THE STORMY CAI'E. 341

Jorge da Mina, but this project met with very diftcrcnt
success. It so hajjpened that the Prince of the Jaloil's, a
man whose vicious habit of life made the cares of ruling
irksome, had to a certain extent abandoned the government
to his uterine brother, named Bemoi, and in so doing had
slighted the claims of his two brothers, the sons of the late
king. Bemoi, who was a man of talent and energy, strength-
ened himself against the princes, his rivals, by forming a
close alliance with the Portuguese, to whom he never failed
to show every possible attention and kindness. All went
on well till the death of the King, who was assassinated at
the instigation of his brothers. Bemoi now found himself
engaged in open warfare, and naturally appealed for help to
his allies. King Joiio promised him every help if only he
would become a Christian and be baptized, and for this
purpose sent out anjbassadors with presents and accompa-
nied by missionaries. Bemoi promised to do what was
required of him, but objected that it was highly inexpedient,
during a civil war, to make a change which would naturally
alienate even many of his own partizans, but he engaged
that, if he should obtain quiet possession of the kingdom,
he would not only embrace Christianity, but would make
the whole nation do the same. A year thus passed, during
which the commerce was seriously interrupted by the war,
and the Portuguese merchants complained to King Jofio,
who, finding that Bemoi did not embrace Christianity,
ordered all his subjects under heavy penalties to leave him
and return to Portugal. Bemoi became alarmed, and sent a
nephew of his in company with the Portuguese, with a
collar of gold and a hundred picked slaves as a present to
the King, in the hope of securing his assistance. There was
not time, however, for him to receive the answ^er, for he was
beaten and with difficulty escaped to the fortress of Arguin,
whence he embarked for Portugal, with twenty-five of his
most faithful adherents.

When the King heard of his arrival he had him conducted
io the Palace of Palmella, where he was treated with the

342 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

greatest magnificence until he should make his public entry
into Lisbon. On that occasion his jiassage through the
streets was an ovation, and he was received with the
greatest pomp, both by the King and Queen at separate
palaces, each surrounded by a numerous court of ladies and
grandees. For a long time Bemoi had been receiving in-
struction in the tenets of Christianity ; so that the King's
anxiety was gratified by his spontaneous request, that he
and his companions might be admitted by baptism into the
Christian Church. He was baptized in the Queen's palace,
by the Bishop of Ceuta, on the 3rd of December, 1489, and
received the King's name of Jojio. On the following day
the King dubbed him knight, and gave him for arms, gules
a cross or between the five escutcheons of Portugal.

Meanwhile the King equipped twenty caravels, well j^ro-
vided with men, and provisions, and munitions of war, and
everything requisite for the construction of a fortress, to-
gether with a number of missionaries for the conversion of
the heathen. Unhappily for the fulfilment of the King's
desires, the command was entrusted to Pedro Vaz da Cunha,
a man of brutal nature, who, in a moment of spleen at
finding the foundations of the new fortress laid in an un-
healthy position, in which it would be his duty for some
time to reside, stabbed Bemoi to death upon an empty
pretence that he had plotted treason against him. Not only
the negroes, but the Portuguese themselves were horrified
at this act of baseness, which caused the King much pain.
He contented himself, however, with leaving Da Cunha to
his remorse, which would probably be but a trivial punish-
ment to so heartless a coward.

But it is time we revert to that most important expedi-
tion of which Bartholomeu Dias was the commander, and
which, ;is we stated on page 338, set sail for the south in
1486. It was fitting that a Dias should be the first to
accomplish the great task which it luul been the ruling
desire of the life of Prince Henry to see effected. It was a
family of daring navigators. Joiio Dias had been one of

THE STORMY CAPE. 343

the first wlio bad doubled Cape Boyador, and Diniz Diaswas
tbe first to pass tbe Senegal and reacb Cape Verde. Tlie expe-
dition of Bartbolomeu started about the end of August, and
made directly for tbe soutb. Passing tbe Manga das Areas,
where Diogo Cam bad placed his furthest pillar, they reached
a bay to which they gave tbe name of Angra dos Ilheos.
Here Dias erected a pillar, which was broken some seventy
years ago. The point is now called Dias Point or Pedestal
Point. From seaward is seen what looks like two conical
shaped islands, on tbe highest of which stood tbe cross.
These hillocks stand out dark from tbe surrounding sand,
and probably gave rise from their tint to tbe name of Serra
Parda, or tbe Dark Hills, [in which Barros places this
monument. Proceeding southward, Dias reached another
point, where he was delayed five days in struggling against
tbe weather, and the frequent tacks that he had to make
induced him to call it Angra das Voltas, or Cape of the-
Turns or Tacks. It is still calletl Cape Voltas, and forms
tbe south point of Orange River. From this they were-
driven before the wind, for thirteen days, due soutb, with
half-reefed sails, and were surprised to find a striking
change in the temperature, the cold increasing greatly as-
they advanced. When the wind abated, Dias, not doubting
that tbe coast still ran north and south, as it had dono-
hitherto, steered in an easterly direction with tbe view of
striking it, but finding that no land made its appearance, he
altered his course for tbe north, and came upon a bay where
were a number of cowherds tending their kine, who were
greatly alarmed at the sight of the Portuguese, and drove
their cattle inland. Dias gave the bay tbe name of Anc'-ra
dos Vaqueiros, or the Bay of Cowherds. It is the present
Flesh Bay, near Gauritz River.

It is a fact specially worthy of notice that in this voyage
an entirely different system was adopted with respect to the
natives than had prevailed hitherto. Instead of capturing
tbe negroes that they chanced to find on the coast, they had
orders to leave on tbe shore at intervals negroes and

344 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

negresses well dressed and well affected towards Portugal,
to gather information respecting Prester John, to speak in
praise of the Portuguese from experience of kindnesses
received, and to infuse a desire to contract alliances with
them. In accordance with these instructions two negroes
had been restored at Angra do Salto (the Bay of the
Capture) so called from Diogo Cam having captured them
at this place. They had left also a negress at Angra dos
Ilheos (Angra Pequena), and another at Angra das Voltas.
An unfortunate event, however, occurred which neutralised
the effect of this well-intended plan. In proceeding east-
ward from Flesh Bay, Dias reached another bay, to which
he gave the name of San Bras, where he put in to take
water. In doing this he met with determined opposition
from the natives, who threw stones at his men. They were
thus compelled to resort to their own weapons in self-
defence, and an unfortunate shot from an arblast struck
one of the Caffres dead, and thus the favourable impres-
sions which had been looked for from a pacific system of
procedure were nullified by an act of violence which they
would gladly have avoided. Continuing east, Dias reached
a small island in Algoa Bay, on which he set up another
pillar with its cross, and the name of Santa Cruz, which he
gave to the rock, still survives ; and as they found two
springs in it, many called it the Penedo das Pontes.
This was the first land beyond the Cape which was trodden
by European feet, and here they set on shore another
negress.

The crews now began to complain, for they were worn
out with fatigue, and alarmed at the heavy seas through
which they were passing. With one voice ihey protested
against proceeding further. Dias, however, was most
anxious to prosecute the voyage. By way of compromise
he proposed that they should sail on in the same direction
for two or three days, and if they tlien found no reason
for proceeding fnrther, he promised they should return.
This was acceded to. At the end of that time they reached

THE BTORMY CAPE. 'M5

a river some twenty-five leagues beyond the island ol' Santa
Cruz, and as Jofio Infante, the captain of the second ship,
the S. Pantaleon^ was the first to land, they called the
river the Rio do Infante. It was the river now known as
the Great Fish River.

Here the remonstrances and complaints of the crews com-
pelled Dias to turn back. When he reached the little island
of Santa Cruz, and bade farewell to the cross which he had
there erected, it was with grief as intense as if he were
leaving his child in the wilderness with no hope of ever
seeino- him aii^ain. The recollection of all the dano-ers that
he and his men had gone through in that long voyage, and
the reflection that they were to terminate thus fruitlessly,
caused him the keenest sorrow. He was, in fact, uncon-
scious of what he had accomplished. But his eyes were
soon to be opened. As he sailed onwards to the west of
Santa Cruz he at length came in sight of that remarkable
cape which had been hidden from the eyes of man for so
many centuries. In remembrance of the j^erils they had
encountered in passing that tempestuous point, he gave to it
the name of Cabo Tormentoso, or Stormy Cape, but when
he reached Portugal and -made his report to the King,
Joao II., foreseeing the realization of the long-coveted
passage to India, gave it the enduring name of Cape of
Good Hope.

The one grand discovery which had been the object of
Prince Henry's unceasing deshe was now effected. The
joy of the homeward voyage was, however, marred by a
most painful incident. Dias had, by way of precaution, left
behind him, off the coast of Guinea, the small vessel con-
taining the supplies of provisions. He now went in search
of it, it being nine months since they had parted company.
When they reached it, they found three men only surviving
out of the nine that had been left, and one of these, named
Fernando Cohif-o, a scrivener from Lumiar, near Lisbon,
was so weakened by illness that he died of joy when he saw
his companions. The cause of the loss had been that, while

346 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

the Portuguese were holding friendly communication with
the negroes, the latter were seized with a covetous desire to
possess some of the articles which were being bartered, and
as a short means of obtaining them killed the owners. Not
to return empty-handed, Dias put in at St. Jorge da Mina,
and received from the commander, Joao Fogaza, the gold
which he had taken in barter. He then proceeded to
Lisbon, which he reached in December, 1487, after an
absence of sixteen months and seventeen days.

In that voyage he had discovered three hundred and fifty
leagues of coast, which was almost as much as Diogo Cam
had discovered in his two voyages. In the seven hundred
and fifty leagues exploj-ed by these two captains, six
Padraos, or pillars, had been set up. The first, called S.
Jorge, at the river Zaire or Congo ; the second, called St.
Augustine, at the Cape Negro ; the third, which was Diogo
Cam's last, at the Manga dos Areas, or Sleeve of Sand
(Cape Cross) ; the fourth, called Santiago, which was Dias's
first, at Sierra Parda (Dias or Pedestal Point) ; the fifth,
called San Felipe, at the Cape of Good Hope; and the
sixth, Santa Cruz, at the island of that name. This great
and memorable discovery was the last that was made in the
reign of King Joao 11.

CHAPTER XIX. ^

RESULTS WE ST WARD.
1470—1507.

" It was in Portugal," said Ferdinand Columbus, the son
and biographer of the most illustrious navigator that the
world has seen, — " it was in Portugal that the admiral began
to surmise, that, if the Portuguese sailed so far south, one
might also sail westward, and find lands in that direction/'
The period of Christopher Columbus' sojourn in Portugal
was from 1470 to the close of 1484, during which time
he made several voyages to the coast of Guinea in the
Portuguese service. While at Lisbon he married Felipa
Moniz de Perestrello, daughter of that Bartholomeu Peres-
trello to whom we have already seen that Prince Henry had
granted the commandership of the island of Porto Santo.*

* Prince Henrj'- had originally, -s^ith the consent of the king his father, con-
ferred this grant on Perestrello for his lifetime only, but subsequently, on the
1st of November, 1446, gave it in perpetuity to him and his successors, and the
grant was afterwards confirmed by King AfTonso his nephew. On the death of
Perestrello the Prince gave it, with the consent of his widow Isabel Mouiz, to
Pedro Correa da Cunha, a gentleman of his ovm. household, who had married a
daughter of Perestrello, to be held by him during the minority of his ^vife'a
brother, also named Bartholomeu Perestrello. Pedi'o Correa subsequently con-
tracted -with Bartholomeu's mother and uncle, who were also nis guardians, for
the concession of the governorship for a certain sum of money. This was done
with the peiTnissioa of the Prince, who issued a warrant to that effect dated
Lagos, 5Iay 17th, 1458, which was confirmed by King Affonso V. at Cintra on
the 17th of August, 1459 ; but the govoraorship subsequently reverted to
Bartholomeu Perestrello, son of the first grantee, as is shown by the confirma-
tion of it made to him by King Aifonso V., on tlie 15th of Mureb, 1473, and
still existing in the Torre do Tombo.

3,^8 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOK.

For some time Columbus and his wife lived at Poi'to
Santo with the widow of Perestrello, who, observing the
interest he took in nautical matters, spoke much to him of
her husband's expeditions, and handed over to him the
papers, journals, maps, and nautical instruments which
Perestrello had left behind him. *

"It was not only," says Ferdinand Columbus (see Vida^
cap. 8), " this opinion of certain philosophers, that the greater
part of our globe is dry land that stimulated the admiral ; he
learned also from many pilots, experienced in the western
voyages to the Azores and the island of Madeira, facts and
siirns which convinced him that there was an unknown land
towards the west. Martin Vicente, jDilot of the King of
Portugal, told him that at a distance of four hundred and fifty
leagues from Cape St. Vincent, he had taken from the water
a piece of wood sculptured very artistically, but not with an
iron instrument. This wood had been driven across by the
west wind, which made the sailors believe, that certainly
there were on that side some islands not yet discovered.
"Pedro Correa, brother-in-law to the admiral, told him, that
near the island of Madeira he had found a similar piece of
sculptured wood, and coming from the same western direc-
tion. He also said that the King of Portugal had received
information of large canes having been taken up from the
water in these parts, which between one knot and another
would hold nine bottles of wine, and Herrera (Dec. 1, lib. i.
cap. 2) declares that the King had preserved these canes,
and caused them to be shown to Columbus. The colonists
of the Azores related, that when the wind blew from the

* Las Casas, in his History of the Indies, tells ns distinctly that Cohinihus
derived much information from Pcrestrello's maps and papers, and adds that
*' in order to ucciuaiut himself practically with the method pursued hy the
Portuguese in navigating to the coast of Guinea, he sailed several times Mith
them as if he had been one of them." Las Casas says that he learned this from
the admiral's son Diego, adding that " some time before his famous voyage
Columbus resided in Madeira, Avhere news of fresh discoveries was constantly
arriving, and this," he says, " a^ipcared to have bctn the occasion of Christoplier
Columbus coming to Spain, uud tlie bc;j,iiiiiiiig of the discovery of this great
world (America)."

RESULTS WESTWARD. " 349

west, the sea threw up, especially in the islands of Graciosa
and Fayal, pines of a foreign species. Others related, that
in the island of Flores they found one day on the shore two
corpses of men, whose physiognomy and features differed
entirely from those of our coasts. Herrera, perhaps from the
MSS. of Las Casas, says, that the corpses had broad faces,
different from those of Christians. The transport of these
objects was attributed to the action of the west winds. The
true cause, however, was the great current of the Gulf, or
Florida stream. The west and north-west winds only in-
crease the ordinary rapidity of the ocean current, prolong
its action towards the east, as far as the Bay of Biscay, and
mix the waters of the Gulf stream with those of the currents
of Davis Straits and of North Africa. The same eastward
oceanic movement, which in the fifteenth century carried
bamboos and pines uj^on the shores of the Azores and Porto
Santo, deposits annually on Ireland, the Hebrides, and Nor-
way, the seeds of tropical plants, and the remains of cargoes
of ships which had been wrecked in the West Indies.*

While availing himself of these sources of information,
Columbus studied with deep and careful attention the works
of such geographical authors as supplied suggestions of the
feasibility of a short western passage to India. Amongst
these, the " Imago Muudi "" of Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly (Petrus
de Aliaco) was his favourite, and it is probable that from it
he culled all he knew of the opinions of Aristotle, Strabo,
and Seneca, respecting the facility of reaching India by a
western route. Columbus' own copy of this work is now in
the cathedral of Seville, and forms one of the most precious
items in the valuable library, originally collected by his son
Ferdinand, and bequeathed to the cathedral on condition of
its being constantly preserved for public use. It contains
many marginal notes in his own handwriting, but of com-
paratively little importance.

The fondness of Columbus for the works of Pierre d'Ailly,
a Frenchman, has caused a recent French writer, M. Margry,

* lIuniLoldt, Examen Critique, vol. ii. p. 210 — 2ol.

350 PRINCE HEKRY THE NAVIGATOR.

to put forth the empty pretension that the discovery of
America was due to the influence of French teaching-, whereas,
not only was the "Imago Mundi" itself a compilation from
ancient authors, but the first edition was not printed till
many years after Columbus had devoted himself to the pur-
pose which ended in his great discovery, for his famous
correspondence with Toscanelli, of which I shall presently
speak, occurred in 1474. M. Margry, indeed, asserts, but
without giving his authority, that in the Columbian Library
at Seville are D'Ailly's treatises jnnnted at Nuremberg in
1472. This is in contravention of all the bibliographers —
Panzer, Ebert, Hain, Serna Santander, Lambinet, and Jean
de Launoy.

The earliest date assis^ned to the first edition of the '' Imago
Mundi," is about 1480 by Serna Santander, 1483(?) by Lambi-
net, while Jean de Launoy, in his " Regii Navarrae Gymnasii
Parisiensis Historia," Parisiis, 1677, tom. ii. page 478, dis-
tinctly gives it the date of 1490. Humboldt, who had
Columbus' copy in his hands, and who, as the subject was
especially his own, cannot be suspected of sleeping over such
an important point, adopts De Launoy 's date of 1490, while
Lambinet gives the queried date of 1483 from actual colla-
tion with another work printed in that year, at Louvain, in
the very identical type, by John of West})halia. In the re-
cently published second volume of the " Ensayo de una
bibliotheca de libros espanoles raros," por Don Bartolome
Gallardo, is a list of the books in the Columbian Library,
but D'Ailly's "Imago Mundi" is not .therein mentioned,
although his " Quti^stiones," printed much later by Jean
Petit at Paris, a far less important book, is inserted. The
omission is to be regretted, as we might have hoped for
some illustrative comments from the author.

But perhaps it may be suggested that Columbus may
have possessed, or seen, a manuscript copy of Pierre d'Ailly
at a yet earlier period. We will willingly suppose it for the
sake of the argument; but even then the reasoning will
fail, for I find that the very portion of the " Imago Mundi,"
writen in 1410, which is assumed to have supplied the

RKSULTS "WKSTWAUD. 351

inspiration for the discovery of America, and whicli Columbus
quoted in his letter to- Ferdinand and Isabella from Haiti
in 1498, is t alien hj Pierre (TAilh/, nithof/f acknorcledgment,
almost nord for ivord, from the '■'■Opus Majas'" of lioger
Baeon written in 1267, a hundred and forty-three years
before, as will be seen at pag'e 183 of that work, printed
Londini, 1733, fol. See Humboldt, Examen Critique, tom. i.
pp. 64-70.

Unfortunately Eoger Bacon was not a Frenchman, but
there remains for M. JMargry the consolatory fact that no
Englishman is likely to avail himself of the circumstance
which I have just enunciated, to claim for his countrymen the
honour of having inspired Columbus with the idea which led to
the discovery of America, although, by M. Margry's process of
reasoning, he might do so if he would. True, Roger Bacon
had been a student in the University of Paris ; but this fact
did not communicate the character of French inspiration to
the ancient authors whose statements he quotes. True also
(but this is a circumstance either unknown or unnoticed by
M. Margry), Ferdinand Columbus tells ns that his father
was principally intiuenced in his belief of the smallness of
the space between Spain and Asia, by the opinion of the
Arab astronomer Al Fergani, or Alfragan, to that effect ;
and it is further true, that Alfragan is treated of by Pierre
d'Ailly, in his " Mapa Mundi." This is a separate work from
the " Imago Mundi," although it happens to have been printed
with it, at a period which we have shown to be posterior to
Columbus' correspondence with Toscanelli, in 1474. It
follows, therefore, that either; 1st, thegreat explorer obtained
his knowledge of Alfragan's opinion through one of the
Arabo-Latin translations to which he seems to have had
recourse during his cosmographical studies in Portugal and
Spain (see Humboldt, Examen Critique, tom. i. p. 83),
in which case French influence is eliminated; or 2ndly, he
derived it from a mannscript of Pierre d'Ailly before 1474,
which there is no evidence to show ; or 3rdly,. he derived it
from his printed copy of Pierre d'Ailly, in which caso the
influence of Alfragan on his mind could not have been

352 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

primarily suggestive, but only corroborative of conclusions
to which he had come several years before that book was
printed. And in either of the two latter cases, the informa-
tion supplied by Alfragan would not become French because
adduced by a Frenchman, unless we introduce into serious
history a principle analogous to the old conventional English
blunder of giving to the toj^s manufactured in Nuremberg the
name of "Dutch toys," because imported through Holland.

The suggestions derived from these works were cor-
roborated by the narratives of Marco Polo and Sir John
Mandeville, whose reports of the vast extent of Asia east-
Avard led to the reasonable inference that the westward
passage to the eastern confines of that continent could not
demand any considerable length of time. The natural
inclination of Columbus for nautical enterprise being thus
fostered by the works that he studied, and by the animating
accounts of recent adventurers, as well as by the glorious
prospects which the bro^d expanse of the unknown world
opened up to his view, we iind that in the year 1474 his
ideas had formed for themselves a determined channel, and
his grand project of discovery was established in his mind
as a thing to be done, and done by himself. The combined
enthusiasm and tenacity of purpose which distinguished his
character, caused him to regard his theory, when once
formed, as a matter of such undeniable certainty, that no
doubts, opposition, or disappointment, could divert him
from the pursuit of it.

It so hap})encd that while Columbus was at Lisbon, a
correspondence was being carried on between Fernando
Martinez, a prel)endar3' of that place, and the learned Paolo
Toscanelli of Florence, respecting the commerce of the
Portuguese to the coast of Guinea and the navigation of the
ocean to the westward. This came to the knowledge of
Columbus, who forthwith despatched by an Italian then at
Lisbon a letter to Toscanelli, informing him of his project.
He received an answer in Latin, in which, to demonstrate
his approbation of the design of Columbus, Toscanelli sent

RESULTS WESTWARD. 353

him a chart, tlie most important features of which were
hiid down from the descriptions of Marco Polo. The coasts
of Asia were drawn at a moderate distance from the opposite
coasts of Europe and Africa, and the ishmds of Cipang-o,
Antilla, &c., of whose riches such astonishing accounts had
been given by this traveller, were placed at convenient
spaces between the two continents.

While all these exciting accounts must have conspired to
fan the flame of his ambition, one of the noblest points in
the character of Columbus had to be put to the test by the
difficulty of carrying his project into effect. The political
position of Portugal, engrossed as it was wdth its wars with
Spain, rendered the thoughts of an application for an ex-
pensive fleet of discovery for the time worse than useless,
and several years elapsed before a fair opportunity pre-
sented itself for making the proposition.

At length, as we have already seen, about the year 1480,
Martin Behaim rendered the astrolabe useful for the pur-
poses of navigation, and shortly afterwards Columbus sub-
mitted to the King of Portugal his proposition of a voyage
of discovery westward. The King at first received him
discouragiugly, but was at length induced to refer the
proposition to a council consisting of the great mathema-
ticians and geographers, Roderigo and Josef, and Cazadilla,
Bishop of Ceuta, the king's confessor, who treated the
question as an extravagant absurdity.

The King, not satisfied with their judgment, then con-
voked a second council, consisting of a large number of the
most learned men in the kingdom ; but their deliberations
only confirmed the verdict of the first junta, and a general
sentence of condemnation was passed upon the proposition.
As the King still seemed inclined to make a trial of the
scheme of Columbus, some of his councillors, who w^cre
enemies of the Genoese, and at the same time loth to
oftend the King, suggested a plan which suited their own
views, but which was as short-sighted as it was dishonest.
Their design was to procure from Columbus a detailed

A A

354 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

account of his plan that it might be submitted to the
council, and then, under the false pretext of conveying
provisions to the Cape Verde Islands, to despatch a caravel
on the voyage of discovery. King Joiio, deviating from his
general character for prudence and generosity, yielded to
their insidious advice, and their plan was acted upon ; but
the caravel which was sent out, after keeping on its west-
ward course for some days, encountered a storm, and the
crew, possessing none of the lofty motives of Columbus to
support their resolution, returned to Lisbon, ridiculing the
scheme in excuse of their cowardice. So indignant was
Columbus at this unworthy manoeuvre, that he resolved to
offer his services to some other country, and towards the
end of 1484 he left Lisbon secretly with his son Diego.

It is not difficult to understand why the King of Portugal
should have hesitated to accept the proposition of Cokimbus.
Nearly seventy years of continued effort on the part of the
Portuguese to realise the great conception of Prince Henry,
afforded substantial proof of their conviction of the sound-
ness of that conception. Many years before Columbus
proposed to reach India by the sea. Prince Henry had
finished a life which had been spent in aiming at the same
result by another route. That route, therefore, though by
no means free from great dangers, was identified with their
hopes in the future as well as their predilections in the past."
What wonder that they refused to resign a course so
hopeful, comparatively so simple, and so essentially their
own, in favour of a project replete with danger, and which
they regarded as the chimera of a visionary ?

The learned and careful Muhoz states his opinion that
Columbus went immediately from Portugal to Genoa, and
made a personal proposition to that government, but met
with a contemptuous refusal. Great obscurity, however,
hangs over his history during the first year after his leaving
Portugal, but from calculations based on his own state-
ments, it would seem that it was in 1485 that he made liis
first application to the court of Spain. It is well known

RESULTS WESTWARD. 355

that the lively interest which the worthy prior of the
Franciscan convent of Santa Maria dc Ral)ichi, Fray Juan
Perez de Marchena, took in his guest, and his anticipated
influence with his friend Fernando de Talavera, prior of the
monastery of Prado, and confessor to the Queen, was the
cause that first induced Columbus in the spring of 148G to
venture to the Spanish court in the hope of gaining a
favourable audience. On reaching Cordova, however, he
had the mortification to find that Talavera regarded his
design as preposterous. The court also was engrossed with
the war at Granada, so that all hope of gaining attention to
his novel and expensive proposition was out of the question.
At length, at the close of 1486, Mendoza, archbishop of
Toledo, and grand cardinal of Spain, became impressed
with the high importance of the scheme as set forth by the
earnest and lucid reasoning of Columbus. He adopted his
cause, and became his staunch protector and friend.
Through his means an audience with the sovereign was
procured, and it was resolved to submit the proposition to
the judgment of the literati of the country. But here again
Columbus found himself in a painful predicament. He was
to be examined at Salamanca by a council of ecclesiastics,
whose ignorance of cosmography and blind conclusions from
misinterpreted texts of Scripture stood in strong opposition
to his arguments, and he began to find himself in danger of
being convicted not only of error, but of heresy. For-
tunately one learned man of the number, Diego de Deza,
tutor to Prince Juan, and afterwards Archbishop of Seville,
appreciated the lucid arguments of the adventurer, and
aiding him with his own powers of language and erudition,
gained for him not only a hearing, but even approval from
some of the most learned of the council. At length, in
1491, after a succession of vexatious delays, Talavera, the
chief of the council, was commanded to inform Columbus
that the cares and expenses of the war precluded the possi-
bility of their Highnesses engaging in any new enterprises,
but that, when it was concluded, there would be both tl)e

A A 2

356 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

will and the opportunity to consider the subject further.
Regarding this as nothing better than a courteous evasion of
his application, Columbus retired, wearied and disappointed,
from the court, and were it not that an attachment which
he had formed at Cordova made him reluctant to leave Spain,
it is probable that he would have gone to France, under
the inducement of an inviting letter from that quarter.

The interval till 1492 was spent in a succession of appeals
to the Spanish court, and in contending against all the
vexatious variety of obstacles that ignorance, envy, or a
pusillanimous economy could suggest.

At length, having overcome all obstacles, he set sail with
a fleet of three ships on the 3rd of August, 1492, on his
unprecedented and perilous voyage. The ordinary diffi-
culties which might be expected to occur in so novel and
precarious an adventure were seriously aggravated by the
alarming discovery of the variation of the needle, as well as
by the mutinous behaviour of his crew ; and his life was
upon the point of being sacrificed to their impatience, when
the fortunate appearance of land, on the morning of the
12th October, converted their indignation into compunction,
and their despondency into unbounded joy.

In this first voyage the discovery was made of the islands
of St. Salvador, Santa Maria de la Concepcion, Exuma,
Isabella, Cuba, Bohio, the Archipelago off the south coast
of Cuba, called by Columbus the Jardin del Key, or King's
Garden, the islands of St. Catherine and Hispauiola. On
this latter Columbus erected the fortress of La Navidad,
and estabhshed a colony. He set sail on his return voyage
on the IGth January, 1493, and, after suffering severely
from a storm and a wearisome struggle with the trade
winds, reached the island of St. Mary's on the 18th of
February. Scarcely had he and his tempest-tost crew com-
menced their thanksgivings for their safe return to the
abode of civilised men, when the governor of the island,
acting under the general orders of tlie King of Portugal,
surrounded tlicni and took tlicm nil prisoners. This re-

RESULTS WESTWARD. 357

ccption of the admiral on his return to the old world is wrll
described by Washington Irving, as an earnest of tiie
crosses and troubles with which he was to be requited
through life for one of the greatest benefits that ever man
had conferred upon his fellow-beings. He was at length
liberated, with an apology, invited to the court, and received
most graciously by the King and Queen, but not without
evident manifestations of jealousy and chagrin on the part
of some of the courtiers, and propositions to take away his
life. The magnanimity of the King prevented this in-
justice, and leaving Portugal in safety, on the 13th of
March, Columbus arrived on the 15th, at the little port of
Palos, from whence he had sailed on the 3rd of August in
the preceding year. His reception in Spain was such as the
grandeur and dignity of his unrivalled achievement deserved,
and his entrance into Barcelona was scarcely inferior to a
Boman triumph.

The description of his voyage, which he had addressed to
the Spanish sovereigns through their treasurer, caused so
much excitement, that numerous editions of it were issued in
the same year (1493) from the various great printing cities of
Europe ; and the narrative, embodied in otf.auL rima by the
Florentine poet, Giuliano Dati, was sung about the streets
to announce to the Italians the astounding news of the dis-
covery of a new world.*

It is not my duty here to lead the reader through details
of the exj)lorations made by Columbus in his four voyages.
It has been my purpose to show the correctness of my
assertion in the first chapter, that " while this vast achieve-
ment of Columbus was the link that united the old world
with the new, the explorations instituted by Prince Henry
of Portugal were in truth the anvil on which that link was
forged." It was an event in which all humanity was con-

* Believing at the time that the copy of this extremely scarce and curioxis
poem, then recently purchased by the British Sluseuni, was unique, I reprinted
it as an appendix to the Introduction to my " Select Letters of Columbus,"
printed for the Ilakluyt Society in 1847.

358 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

cerned, but one which was recompensed with the basest
ingratitude even from those most closely and beneficially
interested in it.

The seductive adulation of the court and the people shown
for the moment to Columbus, did not divert his thoughts
from the preparations for a second expedition. A stay of
six months sufficed to make all ready for this purpose,
during which period a papal bull was obtained which fixed
the famous line of demarcation, determining the right of
the Spanish and Portuguese to discovered lands ; which
line was drawn from the north to the south pole, at a
hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape de Verde
Islands ; the discoveries to the westward were to belong to
Spain, and those to the eastward to Portugal. It may be
well here to remark that the success of Columbus in obtain-
ing a second armament gave rise to a malignant feeling
towards him on the part of Juan Rodriguez Fonseca, Bishop
of Badajos, who had treated him as a visionary, which
eventually led to such disgraceful ill-usage of the admiral,
as will remain a stain upon the character of Spain while
the name of Columbus exists in the memory of man.

On the 2.5th of September, 1493, Columbus sailed west-
ward, taking his departure from Cadiz with a fleet of three
large ships of heavy burthen, and fourteen caravels, and
after a pleasant voyage reached the island of Dominica on
the 2nd of November. In this voyage he discovered the
Caribbee Islands, Jamaica, an archipelago named by
Columbus the Queen's Gardens, and supposed to be the
Morant Keys, Evangelista, or the Isle of Pines, and the
island of Mona.

He sailed with his fleet finally for Spain on the 28 th of
April, 1496, and after working his way for nearly two
months against the whole current of the trade winds, — during
which provisions became so reduced, that there was talk of
killing, and even eating, the Indian prisoners, — he reached
the bay of Cadiz on the 11th of June. The emaciated state
of the crew when they disembarked, presenting so mournful

RESULTS WESTWARD. 359

a contrast with the joyous and triumphant appearance
which tliey were expected to make, produced a very dis-
couraging impression upon the opinions of the public, and
reflected a corresponding depression upon the spirits of
Cohunbus himself. He was reassured, however, by the
receipt of a gracious letter from the sovereigns inviting
him to the court; a letter the more gratifying to him tliat
he had feared he was fallen into disgrace. He was received
with distinguished favour, and had a verbal concession of
his request to be furnished with eight ships for a third
voyage. He was doomed, however, to have his patience
severely tried by the delay which occurred in the per-
formance of this promise, which was partly attributable to
the engrossing character of the public events of the day,
and partly to the machinations of his inveterate enemy, the
Bishop Fonseca.

It was not till the 30th of May, 1498, that he set sail
from San Lucar, with six of the eight vessels promised, the
other two having being despatched to Hispaniola with pro-
visions in the beginning of the year. When off Ferro, he
despatched three of his six vessels to the same island, with
a store of fresh supplies for the colony, while with his re-
maining three he steered for the Cape Verde Islands, which
he reached on the 27th of June. On the 5th of July, he left
Boavista, and proceeded southward and westward. In the
course of this voyage the crews suffered intensely from the
heat, having at one time reached the fifth degree of north
latitude, but at length land was descried on the 31st of
July, — a most providential occurrence, as but one cask of
water remained in the ship. The island they came to
formed an addition to his discoveries ; and as the first land
which appeared consisted of three mountains, united at their
base, he christened the island, from the name of the Trinity,
La Trinidad. It was in this voyage that he discovered Terra
Firma, and the islands of j\Iargarita and Cubagua. On
reaching Hispaniola, to which he was drawn by his anxiety
on account of the infant colony, he had the niortilication to

360 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

find that his authority had siiff'ered considerable diminution,
and that the colony was in a state of organized rebellion.
He had scarcely, by his active and at the same time politic
conduct, brought matters to a state of comparative tran-
quillity, when a new storm gathered round him from the
quarter of the Spanish court. The hatred of his ancient
enemies availed itself of the clamour raised against him by
some of the rebels who had recently returned to Spain, and
charges of tyranny, cruelty, and ambition were heaped un-
sparingly upon him. The King and Queen, wearied with
reiterated complaints, at length resolved to send a judge to
inquire into his conduct, — injudiciously authorising him to
seize the governorship in the place of Columbus, should the
accusations brought against him prove to be valid. The
person chosen was Don Francisco de Bobadilla, whose
character and qualifications for the office are best demon-
strated by the fact, that, on the day after his arrival in
Hispaniola, he seized upon the government before he had
investigated the conduct of Columbus, who was then absent;
he also took up his residence in his house, and took posses-
sion of all his property, public and private, even to his
most secret papers. A summons to appear before the new
governor was despatched to Columbus, who was at Fort
Concepcion ; and in the interval between the despatch of
the summons and his arrival, his brother (Don Diego) was
seized, thrown into irons, and confined on board of a caravel,
without any reason being assigned for his imprisonment.
No sooner did the admiral himself arrive, than he likewise
was put in chains, and thrown into confinement. The habi-
tual reverence due to his venerable person and exalted
character, made each bystander shrink from the task of
fixing the fetters on him, till one of his own domestics, de-
scribed by Las Casas as " a graceless and shameless cook,"
filled up the moasure of ingratitude that he seemed doomed
to experience, by riveting the irons, not merely without
compunction, but with alacrity. In this shackled condition
he was conveyed, in the early part of October, from prison

RESULTS WESTWARD. 361

to the ship that was to convey him home ; and when Andreas
Martin, the master of the caravel, touched with respect for
the years and great merit of Columhus, and deeply moved
at this imworthy treatment, proposed to take off his irons,
he declined the oifered benefit, with the following magnani-
mous reply : " Since the king has commanded that I should
obey his governor, he shall find me as obedient to this, as I
have been to all his other orders ; nothing but his command
shall release me. If twelve years' hardship and fatigue ; if
continual dangers and frequent famine ; if the ocean first
opened, and five times jiassed and repassed, to add a new
world, abounding with wealth, to the Spanish monarchy ;
and if an infirm and premature old age, brought on by
these services, deserve these chains as a reward, it is very
fit I should wear them to Spain, and keep them by me as
memorials to the end of my life." This in truth he
did, for he always kept them hung on the walls of his
chamber, and desired that when he died they might be
buried with him.

His arrival in Spain in this painful and degraded condition
produced so general a sensation of indignation and astonish-
ment, that a warm manifestation in his favour was the
immediate consequence. A letter, written by him to Dona
Juana de la Torre, a lady of the court, detailing the wrongs
he had suffered, was read to Queen Isabella, whose generous
mind was filled with sympathy and indignation at the recital.
The sovereigns immediately commanded that he should be set
at liberty, and ordered two thousand ducats to be advanced
for the purpose of bringing him to court with all distinction
and an honourable retinue. His reception at the Alhambra
was gracious and flattering in the highest degree; the
strongest indignation was expressed against Bobadilla, with
an assurance that he should be immediately dismissed from
his command, while ample restitution and rewards were pro-
mised to Columbus, and he had every sanction for indulging
the fondest hopes of returning in honour and triumph to
St. Domingo. But here a grievous disappointment awaited

362 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

him ; his re-appointment was postponed from time to time
with various plausible excuses. Though Bobadilla was dis-
missed, it was deemed desirable to refill his place for two
years, by some prudent and talented ofiicer, who should be
able to put a stop to all remaining faction in the colony, and
thus prepare the way for Columbus to enjoy the rights and
dignities of his government both peacefully and beneficially
to the crown.

The newly selected governor was Nicolas de Ovando, who,
though described by Las Casas as a man of prudence,
justice, and humanity, certainly betrayed a want both of
generosity and justice in his subsequent transactions with
Columbus. It is possible that the delay manifested by the
sovereigns in redeeming their promise might have continued
until the death of Columbus, had not a fresh stimulant to
the cupidity of Ferdinand been suggested by a new project
of discovering a strait, of the existence of which Columbus
felt persuaded, from his own observations, and which would
connect the New World which he had discovered with the
wealthy shores of the East. His enthusiasm on the subject
was heightened by an emulous consideration of the recent
achievements of Vasco de Gama and Cabral, the former of
whom had in 1497 found a maritime passage to India by the
Cape, and the latter in 1500 had discovered for Portugal
the vast and opulent empire of Brazil. The prospect of a
more direct and safe route to India than that discovered by
De Gama, at length gained Columbus the accom})lishment
of his wish for another armament ; and finally, on the V)th
of May, 1502, he sailed from Cadiz on his fourth and last
voyage of discovery.

It is i)aiuful to read the description given of the splendour
of the fleet with which Ovando left Spain to assume the
government of Hispaniola, and to contrast it with the slender
and inexpensive armament granted to Columbus for the pur-
pose of exploring an unknown strait into an unknown ocean,
the traversing of whose unmeasured breadth wouUl complete
the circumnavigation of the i;lobe. Ovando's fleet consisted

RESULTS WESTWARD. 3G3

of thirty sail, five of them from ninety to one hmidrcd and
fifty tons burden, twenty-four caravels of from thirty to
ninety tons, and one bark of twenty-five tons ; and the
number of souls amounted to about two thousand five
hundred. The heroic and injured man, to whose unj^aralleled
combination of noble qualities the very dignity which called
for all this state was indebted for its existence, had now, in
the decline of his years and strength, and stripped both of
honour and emolument, to venture forth with four caravels,
— the largest of seventy, and the smallest of fifty tons bur-
then,— accompanied by one hundred and fifty men, on one
of the most toilsome and perilous enterprises of which the
mind can form a conception.

On the 20th of May he reached the Grand Canary, and
starting from thence on the 25th, took his departure for the
west. Favoured by the trade winds, he made a gentle and
easy passage, and reached one of the Caribbee Islands, called
by the natives Mantinino (in all probability Martinique), on
the 15th of June. After staying three days at this island,
he steered northwards, touched at Dominica, and from
thence directed his course, contrary to his own original in-
tention and the commands of the sovereigns, to St. Domingo.
His reason was that his principal vessel sailed so ill as to
delay the progress of the fleet, which he feared might be an
obstacle to the safety and success of the enterprise, and held
this as a sufficient motive for infrinffinof the orders he had
received. On his arrival at San Domingo, he found the
ships which had brought out Ovando ready to put to sea on
their return to Spain. He immediately sent to the governor
to explain that his intention in calling at the island was to
procure a vessel in exchange for one of his caravels, which
was very defective, and further begged permission for his
squadron to take shelter in the harbour from a hurricane,
which, from his acquaintance with the prognostics of the
weather, he had foreseen was rapidly approaching. This
request was ungraciously refused ; upon which Columbus,
though denied shelter for himself, endeavoured to avert the

■3^4 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

danger of the fleet, which was about to sail, and sent back
immediately to the governor to entreat that he would not
allow it to put to sea for some days. His predictions and
requests were treated with equal contempt, and Columbus
had not only to suffer these insulting refusals and the risk
of life for himself and squadron, but the loud murmurings
of his own crew that they had sailed with a commander
whose position exposed them to such treatment. All that
he could do was to draw his ships up as close as possible to
the shore, and seek the securest anchorage that chance
might present him with. Meanwhile the weather appeared
fair and tranquil, and the fleet of Bobadilla put boldly out
to sea. The predicted storm came on the next night with
terrific fury, and all the ships belonging to the governor's
fleet, with the exception of one, were either lost, or put back
to San Domingo in a shattered condition. The only vessel
that escaped was the one which had been freighted with
some four thousand gold pieces, rescued from the pillage of
Columbus's fortune. Bobadilla, Roldan, and a number of
the most inveterate enemies of the admiral, perished in this
tremendous hurricane, while his own fleet, though separated
and considerably damaged by the storm, all arrived safe at
last at Port Hermoso, to the west of San Domingo. He
repaired his vessels at Port Hermoso, but had scarcely left
the harbour before another storm drove him into Port
Brazil. But we must not follow him through the remainder
of this unhappy voyage, the toils and perils of which were
aggravated to Columbus by extreme bodily suffering, and
which closes by his reaching Jamaica, where he would in all
probability have perished, but for the activity and zeal of
the faithful and devoted Diego Mendez.* When at length,
through the agency of Mendez, two ships arrived from
Hispaniola to the assistance of the admiral, he was enabled,
on the 2b;th of June, 1504, to leave his wrecked vessels

* The highly interesting descriptirm of that brave man's exploits on behalf
of Coliinihus, has been quoted by Navarrete from his \\i\\, and is translated
in my " Select LeUera of Columbus," ininted for the Uiikluyt Society, 1847.

RESULTS WESTWARD. 365

behind him, and start with revived hopes for San Domingo,
which he reached on the 13th of August,

On the 12th of September, 1504, he set sail for Spain ;
the same tempestuous weather, which had all along tended
to make this his last voyage the most disastrous, did not
forsake him now. The ship in which he came home sprung
her mainmast in four places in one tempest, and in a sub-
sequent storm the foremast was sprung, and finally, on the
7th of November, he arrived, in a vessel as shattered as his
own broken and care-worn frame, in the welcome harbom- of
San Lucar.

It is impossible to read, without the deepest sympathy,
the occasional murmuriugs and half-suppressed complaints
which are uttered in the course of the veteran navigator's
touching letter to the sovereigns describing this voyage.
These murmuriugs and complaints were wrung from the
manly spirit of Columbus by sickness and sorrow, and
though reduced almost to the brink of despair by the
injustice of the King, yet do we find nothing harsh or dis-
respectful in his language to the sovereign. A curious
contrast is presented to us. The gift of a world could not
move the monarch to gratitude ; the infliction of chains, as
a recompense for that gift, could not provoke the subject to
disloyalty. The same great heart which through more than
twenty wearisome years of disappointment and chagrin gave
him strength to beg and to buflet his way to glory, still
taught him to bear with majestic meekness the conversion
of that glory into unmerited shame.

The two years which intervened between this period and
his death, present a picture of black ingratitude on the part
of the crown to this distinguished benefactor of the kingdom,
which it is truly painful to contemplate. We behold an
extraordinary man, the discoverer of a second hemisphere,
reduced by his very success to so low a state of poverty that
in his prematurely infirm old age he is compelled to subsist
by borrowing, and to plead, in the apologetic language of a
culprit, for the rights of which the very sovereign whom he

36S PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

has benefited has deprived him. The death of the benignant
and high-minded Isabella, in 1505, gave a finishing blow to
his hope of obtaining redress, and we find him thus writing,
subsequently to this period, to his old and faithful friend,
Diego deDeza: — "It appears that His Majesty does not
think fit to fulfil that which he, with the Queea, who is now
in glory, promised me by word and seal. For me to contend
for the contrary, would be to contend with the wind. I have
done all that I could do ; I leave the rest to God, whom I
have ever found propitious to me in my necessities." The
selfish and cold-hearted Ferdinand beheld his illustrious and
loyal servant sink, without relief, under bodily infirmity,
and the paralysing sickness of hope deferred ; and at length,
on the 20th of May, 1506, the generous heart which had
done so much without reward, and sufiered so much without
upbraiding, found rest in a world where neither gratitude
nor justice is either asked or withheld.

His body was in the first instance buried at Valladolid,
in the parish church of Santa Maria de la Antigua, but was
transferred in 1513 to the Cartnja de las Cuevas, near
Seville, where a monument was erected over his grave with
the memorable inscription : —

"A Castilla y a Leon
NuEVO MuNDO Di6 CoLox."

In the year 153C, both his body, and that of his son Diego,
who had been likewise buried in the Cartuja, were transported
to St, Domingo, and deposited in the cathedral of that citj.
From hence they were removed to Havanna in 1795, on the
cession of Hispaniola to the French, and the ashes of the
immortal discoverer now quietly repose in the cathedral
church of that city. A tardy tribute has been at length
paid to his memory by his fellow-citizens of Genoa, and the
first stone of a monument in commemoration of his achieve-
ments was laid in tluit city on the 27tli of Sei)tcmber, 1S46.
But injustice, niili;ii)})ily, was not buried with Columbus
in the tomb. It was but one twelvemonth after his death

RESULTS WESTWARD. 367

that an attempt was made, and only too successfully, to
name the new world which he had discovered, after another
who was not only his inferior, but his pupil in the school of
maritime enterprise. In an obscure corner of Lorraine, at
the little cathedral town of St. Die, a cluster of learned
priests, who had there established a printing press under the
auspices of Rene II., Duke of Lorraine, suggested to give to
the newly-discovered continent the name of the Florentine,
Amerigo Vespucci, whose nautical career did not commence
till after Columbus had returned from his second voyage to
the western hemisphere. The first time that the name of
Amerigo came into notice was in the year 1504, when Johann
Ottmar published at Augsburg the " Mundus Novus," a
description of Vespucci's third voyage, now extremely rare,
embodied in a letter addressed by Vespucci himself to
Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici. In this voyage,
which occupied from May, 1501, to September, 1502, he was
in the service of Portugal, and explored the coasts of South
America as far as beyond the fifty-second degree. But it
was not till May, 1507, when Columbus had been a twelve-
month dead, that the world was informed of four voyages
professed to have been made by Vespucci, of which the one
just mentioned was only the third, the two former having
been made, as he states, in the service of Spain. As the
first of these was asserted to have taken place between May
20th, 1497, and October, 1499 [say 1498], and, if correct,
would involve the discovery by him not only of the north
coasts of South America, but a large extent of the coast of
North America also, and that in priority of the claims both
of Cabot and Columbus as regards the discovery of the
American continent, it has been a matter of keen interest
to many to examine minutely the correctness of Vespucci's
claim to having made this voyage. This is not the place to
enter into the complicated arguments in which this question
is involved, but the reader may be interested to know some of
the leading positions of the dispute on both sides. For this
purpose he must be invited to travel back with us a few years.

368 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

There was a Spaniard who had accompanied Cohimbns in
his second voyage in 1493, named Alonza de Ojeda, small of
stature, but of indomitable energy, courage, and perseverance.
He was charged by Columbus to explore the gold mines in
Hispaniola, and was not only successful in bringing back
samples of gold, but also in capturing a formidable cacique,
named Caonabo, who was doing his utmost to drive away the
Spaniards from his territories. Ojeda subsequently quarrelled
with Columbus, and when he returned to Spain in 1498, he
was provided by the Bishop Fonseca, Columbus' enemy,
with a fragment of the map which the admiral had sent to
Ferdinand and Isabella, showing the discoveries which he
had made in his last voyage. With this assistance Ojeda
set sail for South America, accompanied by the pilot, Juan
de la Cosa, who had accompanied Columbus in his first great
voyage in 1492, and of whom Columbus com])lained that,
*' being a clever man, he went about saying that he knew
more than he did," and also by Amerigo Vespucci.

They set sail on the 20th of May, 1499, with four vessels,
and after a passage of twenty-seven days came in sight of
the continent, two hundred leagues east of the Oronoco.
At the end of June, they landed on the shores of Surinam,
in six degrees of north latitude, and proceeding west saw
the mouths of the Essequibo and Oronoco. Passing the
Boca del Drago of Trinidad, they coasted westward till they
reached the Cape, which Ojeda named the Capo de la Vela
in Granada.

It was in this voyage that was discovered the Gulf, to
which Ojeda gave the name of Venezuela^ or Little Venice,
on account of the cabins built on piles over the water,* a
mode of life which brought to his mind the water-city of the
Adriatic. From tlie American coast Ojeda went to the
Caribbee Islands, and on the 5th of September reached
Yaguimo, in Hispaniola, where he raised a revolt against

* In the same maniu'r as, in ages long gone hy, the recently disoovered lake
dwellings in Switzerland were eonstructed, and as they still are in lioruco and
elsewhere.

RESULTS "WESTWARD. 369

the authority of Columbus. His plans, however, were frus-
trated by Roldan and Escobar, the delegates of Columbus,
and he was compelled to withdraw from the island. On the
5th of February, 1500, he returned, carrj^ng with him to
Cadiz an extraordinary number of slaves, from which he
realized an enormous sum of money.

At the beginning of December, 1499, the same year in
which Ojeda had set sail on his last voyage, another com-
panion of Columbus, in his first voyage, Vicente Yanez
Pinzon, sailed from Palos, was the first to cross the line on
the American side of the Atlantic, and on the 20th of
January, 1500, discovered Cape St. Augustine, to which he
gave the name of Cabo Santa Maria de la Consolacion,
whence returning northward he followed the westerly trend-
ing coast, and so discovered the mouth of the Amazon,
which he named Paricura.

Within a month after his departure from Palos, he was
followed from the same port and on the same route by Diego
de Lepe, who was the first to discover, at the mouth of the
Oronoco, by means of a closed vessel, which only opened,
when it reached the bottom of the water, that, at a depth of
eight fathoms and a half, the two lowest fathoms were salt
water, but all above was fresh. Lepe also made the observa-
tion that beyond Cape St. Augustine, which he doubled, as
well as Pinzon, the coast of Brazil trended south-west, which
may have first given the idea of the pyramidal conformation
of South America.

In October of that same year, 1500, Eodrigo de Bastidas,
guided by the counsels of Juan de la Cosa, sailed from
Cadiz, and coasting the Terra Firma of South America,
reached the Gulf of Uraba and the Puerto del Retrete
(Puerto Escribanos), in the isthmus of Panama, seventeen
miles east of the Puerto de Bastimentos, where in 1510
Diego de Nicuesa founded the once celebrated, but now
destroyed, town of Nombre de Dios. He returned to
Europe in September, 1502, at which time Juan de la Cosa
was in Seville, where a courier arrived with the news of tlie

B B

370 PRINCE HENKY THE NAVIGATOR.

discoveries of Bastidas, and announcing that he had landed
in Portugal and had brought with him several Indian
slaves. Juan de la Cosa forthwith repaired to Lisbon to
ascertain the truth of the report. In 1504 he was himself
employed by Queen Isabella, who gave him four vessels for
the purpose of making fresh explorations. His expedition
was so successful that he was able to hand over to the crown
491,708 maravedis as the royalty of one-fifth on the amount
of gold which he had brought back.

Now, in Vespucci's own accounts of his first two voyages,
there exists so much indistinctness and uncertainty that it
is only by correlation with the dates of departure, the num-
ber of ships mentioned, and casual coincidences of descrip-
tion with the voyages above described, that any approxima-
tion to conviction could be arrived at with respect to the
reality and identity of the more certain of the two, the
second. The Baron von Humboldt seems to have dis-
covered here and there points of coincidence with all, but
there can be now no doubt that Vespucci's voyage in 1499
was identical with that of Ojeda. The establishment of this
identity is of value, because in treating of the first and most
important of the asserted voyages of Vespucci, it will be
necessary, for reasons which will make themselves apparent,
to call the reader's attention to the second.

It is not till the 18th of July, 1500, that we find a date
given to any letter of Vespucci's descriptive of any mari-
time explorations of his, and that date appertains to a letter
addressed to Lorenzo di Pier Francisco de' Medici, and
descriptive of his asserted second voyage. Had any letter
addressed by him to either of the illustrious men to whom
he subsequently wrote been indited immediately after his
return from his first voyage, it would have been a strong
point in his favour, which is now unfortunately wanting.
Such a deficiency is the more remarkable that a voyage of
the kind, involving priority in the discovery of the continent
whicli Columbus had gone in quest of, was a fact so stupen-
dous that silence on such n subject bnffies our comprehension.

RESULTS WESTWARD. 371

And while we have to rely for the fact solely on Vespucci's
own word, unsupported by one single assertion of any con-
temporaneous witness, we do find distinct corroborative
evidence of the reality of his so-called second voyage
described by him in his letter, dated 18th July, 1500,
evidence which is exceedingly damaging to the probability
of the first having ever taken place.

In the process instituted by the Procurator- Greneral against
the heirs of Columbus, Alonzo de Ojeda bore witness that in
the expedition which he undertook to the coast of Paria
" after the admiral (Columbus) in 1499, he took with him
Juan de la Cosa, pilot, Morigo Vespuche, and other pilots."
This ambiguous sentence may or may not place Vespucci in
the category of pilots. I incline to think not, but that he
was the astronomer of the expedition, his part being as he
himself says '^ per ajutare a discoprire, " to aid in making
discoveries. But the witness of Ojeda is here quoted for the
purpose of showing that Vespucci was with him in his visit
to the coast of Paria in June and July, 1499, and yet so far
from Vespucci having made him aware that he had seen that
coast before, he (Ojeda) distinctly declared that he himself
was the first man who came thither to explore after the
admiral. Silence on the part of Vespucci respecting so
great a previous discovery might under any circumstances
be regarded as incredible ; under such circumstances, well-
nigh impossible. Yet not even once does Vespucci him-
self claim, in so many plain words, that he had first
discovered the continent, but leaves the fact to be derived
from what he relates. Equally difiicult of comprehension
is it that, in the aforesaid process, no trace or mention
whatever of such a discovery, made b}^ a man so con-
spicuous at that time in the service of Spain, should have
appeared, when every report that was inimical to the priority
of the discovery of the Terra Firma by Columbus was seized,
not only with avidity, but with malice, the jjeriod of that
discovery being tlie principal object of the process.

It is further remarkable that whereas Ojeda in this well

B B 2

372 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

attested voyage of 1409, a voyage perfectly recognised by
Columbus and established by documentary evidence, speaks
of houses built on piles, like those in Venice, which made
him give the country the name of Venezuela, or little Venice,
we find in the asserted previous voyage to the same shores
by Vespucci in 1497, exactly the same observation, and the
comparison of the houses built on the water with Venice.
The occurrence of the same observation and idea to two
persons at two different times is sufficiently remarkable, but
it is yet more so that in 1499 Ojeda should be left in igno-
rance that his companion had observed the same curious fact
iu 1497. Then the entire omission in the " four voyages "
of the names of those with whom he sailed, cannot fail
to have a mischievous effect on the judgment of most,
especially when brought into correlation with the facts
already adduced. Indeed, so great was the indistinctness
and com2;)lication connected with the letters of Vespucci,
that the Baron von Humboldt, who devoted years to the
examination of the history of American discovery, found it
difficult to decide to his own satisfaction to which of the
different Spanish and Portuguese expeditions the navigator
was successively attached.

In spite, however, of all these causes of mistrust, there have
been powerful and hearty defenders of the correctness of
Vespucci's statements just as we have received them. The
latest of them — and the Florentine navigator could not
have had a more earnest or more conscientious advocate —
is his Excellency Senhor F. A. de A'^arnhagcn, envoy from
the Court of Brazil to Lima. In the asserted first voyage,
he makes Vespucci to have passed from the gulf of Honduras
round the peninsula of Yucatan, to Vera Cruz and Tampico,
and thus to have sailed between the west point of Cuba and
the mainland, verifying its insularity, and also to have
explored the coasts of Florida. In arriving at this conclusion,
my valued friend Senhor dc Varnliagen, like all who have
ventured on exploring the complications of this perilous first
voyage, has been forced into an entanglement. He brings

RESULTS WESTWARD. 373

Vespucci into the port of Tampico or Panuco, in compliance
with the text which places the port alluded to in :2o^ north
latitude ; but from this port the navig-ators, according- to the
text, sailed eight hundred and seventy (or, as Senhor do
Yarnhagen suggests, three hundred and seventy) leagues
constantly towards the north-west (" tuttavia verso el
maestrale)." The man who would sail three liundred and
seventy leagues north-west from Tampico must do so upon
wheels across dry land. The text goes on to say that after
they had been out thirteen months, being very fatigued,
and their ship in bad condition, they put into tha finest
harbour in the 7wrld, when they met Avith great kindness
from the inhabitants, with whose aid they repaired their
vessels, &c.

From this statement, combined with anotlier of Yesi)ucci's,
that he had traversed one quarter of the globe's circum-
ference, from Lisbon to beyond the fiftieth degree of south
latitude, Senhor de Varnhagen is tempted to adapt the
Bay of Chesapeake to this description of " the finest harbour
in the world," which would necessitate, contrary to his own
sense of correctness, the retention of the eight hundred and
seventy instead of three hundred and seventy leagues. But
in order to make their passage from this harbour in harmony
with the textj which places a group of islands at one hundred
leagues, or seven days' journey E.N.E. therefrom, Senhor de
Varnhagen confesses that a bay in the east coast of Florida
would meet the necessities of the case better than the
Bay of Chesapeake, since he had decided that the islands
referred to, and which bore the name of Iti, were the
Bermudas. Unfortunately, however, we shall seek in vain
for the finest harbour in the world on the east coast of
Florida.

Manifestly, it would be simply ungenerous and vexatious
to withhold large latitude to the computations of an investi-
gator so patient, laborious, and conscientious as Senhor de
Varnhagen, when brought to bear upon a text so indistinct
and unmanageable as this description of Vespucci's assumed

374 PKINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

first voyage. My learned and highly honoured friend him-
self acknowledges that, at the part we have referred to, the
text is incomplete and obscure. It is this very incomplete-
ness and obscurity which has made this voyage a torment to
every one who has attempted to reconcile it with known
facts, either geographical or historical.

Upon such insecure grounds for a decision, one feels but
little inclination to withdraw from John and Sebastian Cabot,
the honour of having been the first to discover the continent
of America since the times of the early Scandinavian expe-
dition. It is a fact, about which there is no doubt, that on
the 24th of June, 1497, the Cabots discovered the coast of
North America, " with Bristol men, in a ship called the
Matthew^'' and explored from Hudson's Bay to the southern
part of Virginia. This was a year before Columbus landed
on the Terra Firma of South America.* Yet none the less,
for ever and for aye, must Columbus be esteemed the dis-
coverer of America.

Vespucci, it is clear, was not without his merit. His
voyage with Ojeda, already described, together with his pre-
vious voyage, if it really took place, won for him sufficient
renown to induce the King of Portugal to invite him to his

* Not to interrupt inopportunely the statement of the deeds and deserts of
Columbus, I resort, though ujiwillingly, to a note to insert here, in its chrono-
logical position, another important voyage. In the year 1500 Gaspar Cortereal
(whose father, Joao Vaz Cortereal, was governor of Terccra, and is stated by
Father Cordeiro to have discovered the Terra de Bacalhaos or Land of Codfish,
now called Newfoundland, so early as 1463, nearly thuly years before the great
success of Columbus) sailed from Lisbon with two ships, and steering northward
from the Azores discovered the land since known as Canada, and gave the
Portuguese name of Terra do Labrador to the countiy still known thereby.
That country was frequently designated by geographers in the follo'wing century
" Corterealis," after his name. Again in IMay, 1.501, ho made another voyage north
with two ships, and reached Greenland, but a storm there separated the ships,
and his consort only returned. Cortereal was never more heard of. Ilis brother
Miguel, who went in search of him in 1502, met with an exactly similar fate ;
and in 1503 King IManucl sent out two ships expi'cssly with the object of learning
what had befallen them, but in vain. Lastly, a third brother, Vasco Eaunes
de Cortereal, prepared to follow their traces, but the king Mould not give his
sanction to the last svirvivor of this courageous family thus placing himself in a
peiil which seemed to have a fatality for the race.

RESULTS WESTWARD. 375

service. He possessed nautical and astronomical knowledge,
which he had turned to good account. With respect to his
third voyage (the first made for Portugal), which itself has
been the subject of severe dispute, Navarrete, who was })y
no means prejudiced in his favour, concedes that " it may be
concluded from documents found in the archives of the
Casa de Contratacion, at Seville, that Vespucci did navigate
along the coasts of Brazil, that he had seen Cape St. Augus-
tine, and fixed its latitude at 8^ south." The purpose of the
expedition to which he was attached was a double one : first,
to examine the country discovered by Cabral, and next to
seek a westward route to the Moluccas ; and it is only justice
to add that, but for the inclemency of the weather, and the
uncertainty of the ships holding out, he was in a fair chance
of anticipating both Magalhaens and Balboa in reaching the
Pacific. The expedition consisted of three ships, which
touched at Cape Verde, and there met Cabral on his home-
ward voyage, which will be hereafter described. From
thence the course they sailed was S.W. & :^ S., and sixty-
seven days, of which forty-four were very stormy, brought
them to land in five degrees of south latitude. They cast
anchor on the 17th of August, oil" Cape Saint Roque, which
they then so named from having sighted it on the festival of
that saint the day before, and in the name of the King of
Portugal they took possession of the country.

On the 18th they again landed to take in water, and saw
a great number of natives on a neighbouring mountain, but
from which they had not the courage to descend. They
therefore left some bells and small mirrors on the beach and
went on board, when the natives came down and showed
their admiration of the things which had been left behind.
On the morrow smoke was observed at different points along
the coast, which they regarded as an invitation, and two of
the crew offered to go amongst them, and take with them
some of their small articles of traffic. Permission was
granted, on condition that they returned in five days. Seven
days passed without their return, during which, Ironi time

376 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

to time, a few Indians would make their appearance, but
with looks that betokened no good intention.

On the 26th of August, the crews again landed, and the
Indians sent their women among the sailors, but when one
of the latter approached, the women immediately surrounded
him, and one of the women, with a bludgeon, broke open his
head and stretched him dead on the spot. They then carried
him away to the mountain, while the Indians came forward
defiantly and discharged a great quantity of arrows. With
difficulty the Portuguese reached their boats. Four cannon
shot dispersed the natives, but when they returned to the
mountain they began cutting up the body of their victim
into pieces, which they first showed and then roasted. This
left little hope as to the fate of the two first. The crews
clamoured for vengeance, but the commander thought it
more prudent to pursue his voyage. They proceeded E.S.E.
till they reached Cape St. Augustine, which they then so
named in honour of the day, the 28th August. Rounding
the cape, they followed the coast, often anchoring and com-
municating with the inhabitants. On the 4th of October,
they discovered the mouth of the San Francisco, and on the
1st of November, the Bahia de todos os Santos.

Sailing still south, they found themselves, on the 3rd of
April, beyond the fifty-second degree of south latitude. On
that day a tempest arose of such severity that they were in
great dread. They were obliged to take in all sail and to
run under bare poles. The nights became very long, that of
the 7th of April lasting fifteen hours. On that day, in the
midst of the storm, a new land made its appearance, the
coast of which they followed for nearly twenty leagues ; but
it was quite wild, and they saw no inhabitants and no port.
Bpt what with the intensity of the cold and the thickness of
the fog, they were scarcely in a condition to take note of
anything. In this state of things they resolved to turn
their prow homewards. Senhor do Varnhagen is of opinion
that this wild uninhabited country was the island of Georgia,
lat. 34° 30' S., long. 37^^ W., the description of which by

RESULTS WESTWARD. 377

Captain Cook fully corroborates the inference. The fleet
first made its way to Sierra Leone, thence to the Azores,
and finally reached Lisbon on the 7th of September, 1502.

It was the description of this grand voyage made in the
service of Portugal, accompanied by his own bold expression,
that he had explored regions which he might be permitted
to call a New World, that first brought the name of Ves-
pucci into prominent relief in 1504. In itself the voyage
was a great and noble achievement, eminently and justly
calculated to inspire enthusiastic admiration of the qualities
developed in its performance. The ground of complaint is
not to be found in the admiration of those qualities, but in
the injustice to another's fame to which that admiration
afterwards became the stei^ping-stone. Meanwhile we will
proceed to lay before the reader, as briefly as we may, the
details of Vespucci's fourth voyage.

The fourth voyage of Vespucci was undertaken with great
hopes on his own part of imj^ortant consequences. Before
starting on it he announced his intention to proceed to the
coast by way of the south, and when he should have reached
his destination " to do many things for the glory of God,
the service of his country, and the i^erpetual memory of his
own name.'"' His thoughts, like those of Columbus, were
constantly directed to finding the rich islands of the east by
the coasts of the new country ©iDposite to Africa. Moreover,
information from India directed the attention of the Portu-
guese government to the port of Malacca, and it was re-
solved to send out a small fleet, and Vespucci was ofi"ered
the command of one of the ships.

At first two ships only seem to have been thought of, but
at length six were fitted out. If we were to accept Ves-
pucci's own statement, they started on the 10th of May,
1503, but Senhor de Varnhagen judiciously suggests from
internal evidence that the 10th of June, the date given by
Damiao de Goes to the departure of the expedition of
Gonzalo Coelho, with which Vespucci's was identical, was
the correct one. After a stay of thirteen days in the

378 rnmcE henry the navigator.

harbour of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, the com-
mander of the expedition sailed south-east, making for
Sierra Leone ; but the weather was bad, and the wind con-
trary, and after four days he altered his course and steered
south-west.

On the 10th August, when in three degrees S. latitude, they
saw on the horizon the island now known by the name of
Fernando de Noronha, and on a rock near this island the
principal vessel, of three hundred tons, was wrecked. The
crew was happily saved, but everything else went to the
bottom. Vespucci was then four leagues from the island,
and received orders to take his ship in search of a harbour.
He obeyed, but soon lost sight of the other vessels. He
fell in with one after the lapse of eight days^ and the two
together returned and took in water at the island, and thence
made for Bahia, which evidently had been already dis-
covered, as the King's instructions had indicated this
harbour as the point of rendezvous in case of separation.
In seventeen days they reached Bahia, and remained there
two months and four days, in hope of the arrival of the
other three ships, but in vain. They then proceeded south,
and after several communications with the inhabitants,
put into a harbour, where they found a great quantity of
dye-wood {Brazil wood), with which they loaded their
ships.

They remained five months in this harbour, and esta-
blished there a little f;ictory, which they fortified with twelve
cannon, and garrisoned with four-and- twenty armed men.
It is to Senlior de Varnhagen's researches that we owe the
identification of this port, in which, so soon after the dis-
covery of Brazil, a factory for facilitating the commerce of
the dye-wood there found, and from which the country took
its name, was established. It was the port of Cape Frio.
In 1854 Senhor de Varnhagcn discovered in the Torre do
Tombo the " Lhjzro " of Duarte Fernandez, and published it
for the first time in note 13, p. 427, et scq., of his " Historia
Gcral do Brazil." llio de Janeiro, 1854. In this work it is

RESULTS WESTWARD. 379

shown that in the year 1511, the ship Bretoa, commanded
by Christovao Pires, went to load dye-wood at the port of
Cape Frio, where on an island in the harbour was a factory,
with its factor, &c. After a passage of seventy-seven days,
the two ships reached Lisbon on the 18th of June, 1504.
The other vessels were not arrived, and when Vespucci
wrote his account, dated the 4th of September of that year,
he believed that they were all lost. Senhor de Varnhagen
seems to have reasons for supposing that in pursuing their
course towards Malacca, they reached the La Plata River,
and that that river, as well as the cape at its mouth, then
received from them the name of Santa Maria.

In February, 1505, Vespucci again entered the service of
the King of Spain, and by a patent of the 24th of April,
of that year, we find him naturalised as a Castilian. His
occupation was to attend to the equipment and provisioning
of ships destined for the Indies, for which he received an
annual salary of thirty thousand maravedis. On the 22nd
of March, 1508, the post of Pilot-Major of the kingdom
was created for him, with a considerable salary attached,
and in August of the same year, a royal letter was issued to
him, which was to be read and proclaimed through all the
towns and villages of Spain, in which he was charged to
examine pilots on the use of the astrolabe and quadrant, to
prove their acquaintance with the theory as well as the
practice of navigation, to give them certificates, to receive
payment from them for instruction, and to preside over the
compilation of a sailing instruction-book to be named
" Padron Real," which should receive constant corrections
from information brought by pilots coming from the Indies,
which information they were bound to supply to the Casa
de Contratacion at Seville. This post he held for five years,
and died at Seville on the 22nd of February, 1512, having
just reached his sixty-first year.

There can be little doubt that the conferment of this
honourable and comfortable post was led to by the reputa-
tion that had accrued to his name by the publication in

380 PKINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

France, Germany, and Italy, of the suggestion to give to
the new world in honour of him, that name which has ever
since been attached to it, the name of America.

But let us trace the history of this name. When
Vespucci was at Seville in 1501, we find from a statement
in a letter describing his third voyage, addressed to his old
schoolfellow, Pietro Soderini, Gonfaloniere of Florence, that
one Giuliano Giocondi, then resident at Lisbon, was sent to
him by Dom Manoel, King of Portugal, to seduce him from
the service of the King of Spain, in which mission Giocondi
was successful. Another letter describiug the same voyage,
but addressed by Yespucci to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de'
Medici, was translated from Italian into Latin by another
member of the Giocondi family. This was no less than the
celebrated Fra Giovanni Giocondi, of Verona, who had
gained great renown as an architect at Venice, but was, at
the time we speak of, engaged in the service of Louis XII.,
and built the bridge of Notre Dame at Paris, which is
at present standing, together with, as some had supposed,
the 2Jetit pont in continuation, crossing the southern branch
of the Seine.*

Now at the time that Fra Giocondi was thus engaged in
Paris, a young man of great talent, named Mathias Riug-
mann, a native of Schlestadt, on the eastern side of the
Vosges mountains, was also jiursuing his studies in the
French capital at the college of Cardinal Lemoine. Ring-
mann is better known in the literary world by the pseu-
donym of Philesius, with the adjunct of Vosgesigena, in
allusion to his birth in the Vosges mountains. He was a
great proficient in Latin versification, and when he returned
to his native Alsace, he found the fiercest literary rivalry
existing between two contiguous parties of students, the one
recognised as the Suevi or Swabians, the other as the

* This supposition was drawn from the following couplet by Sanazzaro : —
" Joeundus geniinuni iinposuit tilii, Scquana, poutem,
lluuc tu juro potes dicerc I'outihccm."
But it has since been disproved.

RESULTS WESTWARD. 381

Rheni or Rhine-men. Among the hitter Ringmann soon
distinguished himself by the gracefulness, no less than the
wit, of his versification. At the University of Fribourg, the
party of the Swabians found a talented but discreditable
supporter in a dissolute professor, named Jacob Locher,
better known as Philomusus.

A pique occasioned by some able verses of Ringmann in
defence of his own party, induced Locher to resort to a mode
of retribution of the most brutal and disgraceful character.
At the close of the year 1505, Ringmann, who was at the
time but twenty-two, a beardless young man of inoffensive
manners and far from strong in frame, happened to be on a
visit to the Syndic Zasius at Fribourg. Locher, having
heard that on a certain day Ringmann intended to proceed
on his way through the Black Forest, secured the assistance
of eight armed confederates, and awaited the arrival of his
victim by the wall of the Carthusian Convent about two
miles from Fribourg, which lay on his road. Totally free
from suspicion, Ringmann came as was expected, and was
forthwith seized by this troop of cowards, who untrussed
him, and inflicted on his bare body a severe and ignominious
flagellation. This wJnpped and weakly youth was the originator
of the name which now belongs to the whole of the vast 'western
world.

For reasons which I shall now proceed to describe,
there is great room for supposing that, when in Paris,
Ringmann had made the acquaintance of Fra Giovanni
Giocondi. From Paris he carried back with him to Alsace
that admiration for Vespucci and his achievements which
no one in Paris, of whom we have as yet heard, was so
likely to have instilled into him as Giocondi ; and in August,
1505, he became the editor, at Strasburg, of an edition of
Giocondi's translation of Vespucci's above-mentioned letter,
of which seven other editions are extant, but only one with
a date, viz., that published by Johann Ottmar, at Augsburg,
in 1504. In this edition of 1505 there are not only a set of
verses by Ringmann, in laudation of Vespucci's discoveries

382 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

in his so-called third voyage, but there is also a Latin
epistle on the same subject to one Jacobus Brunus, whom
he addresses as his Achates and also as his " second self."
We thus find even at this early period an intellectual and
earnest advocate of the glory of Vespucci existing in Alsace.
A short distance beyond the line which separated that
province from Lorraine, stood the small cathedral, city of
St. Die, on the banks of the Meurthe, within the dominions
of Rene 11. , Duke of Lorraine, a prince who greatly dis-
tinguished himself by his encouragement of the arts and
of literature. The Duke's secretary was Walter Lud, one of
the Canons of the Cathedral of St. Die. A zealous friend
of literature, this worthy priest established a gymnasium or
college at St. Die under the Duke's auspices, and, what is
still more remarkable, he there set up also a printing press.
Ringmann became professor of Latin at the College, and
corrector of the press in the printing ofiice ; and in 1504
another important personage joined this little confraternity.
This was Martin Waldseemiiller, or, as he is better known
by his Grteco-latinized pseudonym, Hylacomylus, a native
and student of Fribourg, who, going in the vintage season
of that year, in conformity with an annual habit of his, to
eat grajies in Lorraine, became so charmed with the society
of his learned friends at St. Die, that he made up his mind
to take up his abode there, and became the teacher of
geography at the college. On the 25th of April, 1507, a
year after the death of Columbus, this latter member of the
clique produced, from the St. Die printing-press, a little work
entitled " Cosmographije Introductio,'^ to which was ap-
pended a Latin translation of Vespucci's four voyages as
described by himself, and addressed to Duke Rene of
Lorraine, though it can be shown by the contents to have
been really intended for Soderini. In the same year ap-
peared at Strasl)urg a work, now of great rarity and possibly
unique, by Walter Lud himself, entitled " Speculi orbis
Succinctiss. sed neque poenitenda neque inelcgans De-
claratio ct Canon," wliich throws mucli light on diiliculties

RESULTS WESTWARD. 383

presented by Waldseemiiller's publication.* Not only was
it from that publication that the world was, for the first
time, made aware of four voyages made to America by
Vespucci, and one of them involving absolute priority in the
discovery of the continent of America, but in the text which
preceded the narrative of those voyages, the name of
America was now, for the first time, suggested for the
newly discovered western world.

Before we proceed to notice the form of that suggestion,
we natm'ally pause with the reader to enquire how came
these letters, hitherto unknown to the world, to make their
appearance now for the first time at St. Die ? I say "for the
first time," because while these letters, which are in Latin,
bear a date (1507), the oldest Italian edition bears neither
date nor place of imprint, and although, by the paper and
type, it may be recognised as of nearly the same period as
the Latin, there is no reason, with which I am acquainted,
for believing that it was printed before the latter. From
"Walter Lnd's " Speculum " we find that the letters were
sent from Portugal to Duke Rene in French, and from the
French translated at Lud's request into Latin by another
Canon of St. Die, named Jean Basin de Sandacourt. From
this we must infer that the French version of the letters of
Vespucci, intended for King Rene (and which was probably
in manuscript — for no copy in type has ever been heard of),
was prepared in Lisbon under the eye of Vespucci himself.
But whence the connection between King Rene and Ves-
pucci? That question has never been clearly answered, but
I think I can offer a solution. It is a fact not entirely
without significance that, immediately after the sentence
from Walter Lud's work, which speaks of the letters coming
from Portugal, we find the following remark, "and the

* To my great good fortune this valuable work, which consists only of four
leaves, was purchased by the British Museum two j-cars ago, when I was en-
gaged on an examination of this very subject for a " Memoir on a Mappemondc
by Leonardo da Vinci " in the collections at Windsor, being the earliest map
hitherto known containing the name of America, printed in the Archccologia.

38^ PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

booksellers carry about a certain epigram of our Philesiu8
(Ringmann) in a little book of Vespucci's, translated from
Italian into Latin by Giocondi of Verona, tlie architect from
Venice." We have seen the connection of the Giocondi
with Vespucci. We have seen also the connection of Eing-
mann with the work of Fra Giovanni Giocondi. Here lies,
as I submit, the probable solution of the enigma. The
interest taken by Ringmann in the glory of Vespucci has
been clearly demonstrated. He has infused into the little
circle of St. Die a similar interest, and, certes, the question
of a claim to the glory of having discovered a new world
and of a right to confer on it a name, is one which might
excite an interest in the most phlegmatic. But these men
are possessed of a printing press, and we can imagine the
keenness of their pleasure in having the opportunity to set
forth a subject which would throw so bright a reflection on
the obscurity of their secluded valley. Well might Pico de
Mirandola express his surprise that so learned a cluster of
men should exist among those wild rocks. (See his letter
to the Editor of the Ptolemy of 1513.) One of the mem-
bers of that little circle is jDrivate secretary to the Prince of
the Duchy, and that Prince is remarkable for taking a pride
in connecting his name with the spread of knowledge and
refinement. Vespucci has a French translation made from
the original narrative, which he had drawn up in his own
Hispanicized Italian for Soderini, and this French translation
be sends to the Duke Rene, for whom there is, I think,
little doubt that it was made expressly at Riiigmann''s sug-
gestion. It is reasonable to suppose that Vespucci, who
was no good linguist, was too ignorant of French to revise
the translation, and hence the explanation of what has
hitherto been to so many, and myself amongst the number,
an inexplicable enigma.* This account of the four voyages

* That he did not revise the Fiviieh translation is proved bj- the fact that in
the fourth voyage there is a blunder which he could not have allowed to pass,
had he seen it. In naniinp; the Hahia d(> todos os Santos (15ay of all Saints),
Vespucci had in his half Spanish, half Italian original, written " Bahia di tueti i

RESULTS WESTWARD. 385

thus sent in French to Duke Rene is prefaced by an address,
in which "Vespucci reminds the personag;e to whom he is
writing that " in their youth they had been friends, and had
together learned the elements of grammar from the writer's
uncle, Fra Georgio Antonio Vespucci." Now, we know
from the antiquary Giuliano Ricci, that Soderini, to whom
Vespucci's original Italian letters were addressed, had been
his schoolfellow, which Duke Rene could not easily have
been. We have, therefore, only to entertain the hypothesis
which I have now suggested, viz., that the French transla-
tion was made by suggestion from Uingmann for Duke
Rene without revision by Vespucci, to find the explanation
of this puzzle, about which so much has been written with-
out any satisfactory conclusion. It may further be stated,
by way of showhig more fully the likelihood of communica-
tion between Ringmann and Vespucci, that the former had
already made two journeys into Italy in connection with the
subject of an edition of Ptolemy, which was intended to be
prepared at St. Die, and for which Giovanni Francesco Pico
de Mirandola made him a present of a Greek MS. of that
geographer. These journeys would naturally bring him into
contact with friends of Vespucci, whose praises he so zeal-
ously proclaimed, that Pico de Mirandola himself states
that, in consequence thereof, he had testified his sympathy
by adding to the hymn to Christ some verses in honour of
Vespucci's Lusitanian voyage. We have evidence that in
1508 the preparation of this edition of Ptolemy was going
on in full vigour, but Duke Rene died in December of that
year, the printing-press at St. Die was broken up, and Ring-
mann went home to Schlestadt, where he died in 1511 at the
early age of twenty- nine. It is probable that his with-
drawal may have caused the delay in the production of that
really valuable work till 1513. When it did appear, it

saiicti," the first word being Spanish and Portuguese, the rest Italian. In the
original script, however, he wrote the " h" in the first word so like a " d" as to
mi^ilead both the printer of the Italian and the French translator. The result was
that the word " Bay" was converted into " Abbey," aud appeared as such in Italian,
French, and Latin, both in books and on maps for very many years afterwards.

C C

386 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

contained a new map, entitled, " Tabula Terre Nove," by
Hylacomylus, on which, strange to say, the name of America
does not appear, but on the contrary there is inserted on the
very continent of South America the following legend : —
" Haec terra cum adjacentibus insulis inventa est per Colum-
bum Januensem ex mandatis Regis Castillia3." As far as we
have been hitherto able to trace the motives and meanino- of
the suggestion of the name of America, it seems that this
sentence stands in direct contradiction of the only basis on
which the suggestor could have pretended to give this
honour to Vespucci.

But now at length we come to the mode of suggesting the
name of America. In the " Cosmographife Introductio " of
Hylacomylus, occur the following words : " And the fourth
part of the world having been discovered by Americus, may
well be called Amerige, which is as much as to say, the land
of Americus or America."*

And a few pages later he says : But now these parts are
more extensively explored, and as will be seen in the follow-
ing letters, another fourth part has been discovered by
Americus Vesputius, which I see no just reason why any
one should forbid to be named Amerige, which is as much
as to say, the land of Americus or America, from its dis-
coverer Americus, who is a man of shrewd intellect ; for
Europe and Asia have both of them taken a feminine form
of name from the names of women."t

In September of the same year appeared a re-issue at St.
Die of this same book, and in 1509 a new edition of it was
issued from the printing-press of Johann Griininger, of
Strasburg. Now in this very same year, 1509, the name of
America, thus proposed two years before, appears as if it

* " Et quarta orbis piii's qiiain quia Americus invenit, AmerigL'n quasi Americi
terrain, sive Aniericam inmcui)are licet."

t " Nunc vero et htec partes sunt latius lustrata?, et alia quarta pars per
Amcricum Vesputium, ut in scquentibus audictiir, inventa est. quani non ^-idco
cur quis jure vctct ab Anicricto inventore, sagacis ingenii viro, Amerigcn quasi
Americi terram sive Aniericam dicendam, cum et Europa et Asia a nuilieribus
sua sortita sint nomina. Ejus situm et gentium n\orcs ct bis binis Americi
navigationibus qua; scquuntur li(iuidc inti'lHgi dant."

RESULTS WEST"\VARD. 387

were already accepted as a well-known denomination in an
anonymous work, entitled " Globus Mundi," printed also
at Strasburg in that year. This was three years before the
death of Vespucci. But although the work is anonymous,
the colophon has supjilied me with the means of associating
the adopter of the suggestion with the suggester himself.
The colophon runs thus : " Ex Argentina ultima Augusti,
1509. J. Griiniger (sic) imprimebat, Adelpho Castigatore."
Now this Adelphus was a physician, a native of Miihlingen,
near Strasburg, who afterwards established himself in the
latter city. But the just-mentioned re-issue in 1509, of the
" Cosmographi^e Introductio," containing the suggestion of
the name of America, appeared from the press of this same
Johann Griininger, with the following words in the colophon :
" Johanne Adelpho Mulicho, Argentinensi, Castigatore."
Mulicho simply means native of Miihlingen. The coincidence
clearly brings the suggester and the adopter of the sugges-
tion into remarkably close proximity.

The first place in which we find the name of America,
used a little further a-field, is in a letter dated Vienna, 1512,
from Joachim Vadianus to Rudolphus Agricola, and inserted
in the Pomponius Mela of 1518, edited by the former. The
expression used is '' America discovered by Vesputius."* But
although this Vadianus, whose real name was Joachim Watt,
writes from Vienna in 1512, I find that he was a native of
St. Gall, whence in 1508, being then twenty-four years old,
he went to the High School at Vienna. His learned dispu-
tations and verses gained him the chair of the Professorship
of the Liberal Arts at that school, and he subsequently
studied medicine, of which faculty he obtained the doctorate.
This attachment to the study of medicine recalls to my mind
a fact which awakens a suspicion that he may have been a
personal friend of John Adelphus, just referred to, and if
so, of the little confraternity of St. Die. Before Adelphus
established himself in Strasburg, he had practised as a phy-
sician at Schaffliausen, and this at the time when Joachim

* " Amcricam a Vespuccio rcpcrtam."
C C 2

388 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Watt was a young man, still resident at St. Gall, which is
distant from Schaif hausen seventy English miles, a distance
which would offer very little hindrance to Swiss intercom-
munication. Whether this suspicion he worth anything or
no, I advance it as a possible clue to yet further researches
which may show the process by which this spurious appella-
tion of America became adopted, through the efforts of a
small cluster of men in an obscure corner of France.

The earliest engraved map of the new world yet known as
bearing the name of America, is a mappe-monde by Appianus,
bearing the date of 1520, annexed to the edition bj'' Gamers,
of the Polyhistoria of Julius Solinus (Vienna Austr.),
1520, and a second time to the edition of Pomponius Mela
by Vadianus, printed at Basle in 1522. The earliest manu-
script map hitherto found bearing that name, is in a most
precious collection of drawings by the hand of Leonardo da
Vinci, now in Her Majesty's collections at Windsor, to which,
from an examination of its contents, I have assigned the
date of 1513-14.

I have thus endeavoured to unravel tlie intricate story of
a great and irreparable injustice. No one can deny to
Vespucci the credit of possessing courage, perseverance, and
a practical acquaintance with the art of navigation ; but he
had never been the commander of an expedition, and had it
not been for the great initiatory achievement of Columbus,
we have no reason to suppose that we should ever have
heard his name.

" To say the truth," as has been well remarked by the
illustrious, Baron von Humboldt, " Vespucci shone only by
reflection from an age of glory. When compared with
Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, Bartholomeu Dias, and Da
Gama, his place is an inferior one. The majesty of great
memories seems concentrated in the name of Christopher
Columbus. It is the originality of his vast idea, the large-
ness and fertility of his genius, and the courage which bore
up against a long series of misfortunes, which have exalted
the Admiral high above all his cotemporaries."

CHAPTER XX.

RESULTS EASTWARD.

1487—1517.

Meanwhile great things bad been doing in the East. The
grand discovery of Bartbolomeu Dias was not to remain
fruitless, although it may fairly be wondered at that so long
an interval should have been allowed to elapse between that
discovery in 1487 and the realisation of its advantages by
Vasco da Gama ten years later. Some have even added to
the reasonable inquiry, an unreasonable insinuation tliat the
success of Columbus proved to be the effective stimulus to
the second important expedition. No chimera was ever
more untenable when examined by the light of facts and
dates. Indeed the interval of five years between the two
grand discoveries of Columbus and Da Gama is in itself
sufficient to show that we must look elsewhere for an ex-
planation of the delay. It will be remembered that before
Dias had returned at the close of 1487, Payva and Covilham
had been sent by land to Eastern Africa, and that from
Cairo, in 1490, Covilham had sent home word to the King
confirmatory of the fact that India was to be reached by the
south of Africa. It happened, however, that in this same
year, 1490, King John was seized with an illness so severe
that his life was in the utmost jeopardy. This was supposed
to have been caused by his drinking the water of a fountain
near Evora, which was thought to have been poisoned, inas-
much as two Portuguese gentlemen who had drunk of it,
died. Through great care, and the pure air and han(juillity

390 PEINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

of his pleasure-palaces of Santarem and Almerino, the King
recovered ; but though his life was saved, the vigour of his
constitution was irreparably impaired. Shortly after this
partial restoration to health, the King, by order of his phy-
sicians, stayed at Santarem during the summer months for
the sake of bathing in the Tagus, when one day he sent for
his son Affonso to join him in the bath. The Prince at first
excused himself, but afterwards reflecting that such excuse
was unbefitting the reverence due to a message from the
King his father, mounted his horse and rode quickly to
repair his fault. The King had, however, entered the bath,
and Affonso proposed to his companion, Joao de Meneses, a
race on horseback. In the midst of the race a young man
crossing the path startled the Prince's horse, which reared
up, fell, and rolled over him. The injuries that he received
were such that he died that same night. The Prince was in
his seventeenth year, and by his death the succession, which
for three centuries and a half had continued without inter-
ruption in the male line, fell to the collateral line of the
Dukes of Viseu, a fearful blow to the King's peace of mind.

In 1492 the King again fell dangerously ill, and in addition
to the general infirmity of his frame, black spots showed
themselves on his body, which confirmed the belief that
some strong poison had been received into his system. To
add to the misery of this prostration, the Queen, to whom
he was devotedly attached, escaped but narrowly from an
illness with which she was attacked in 1493. It was not till
1494 that the King began to show symptoms of some return
to convalescence. The joy that pervaded the kingdom was
universal, but was soon clouded by the presence of famine,
accompanied by an epidemic which spread death and ruin
among the people. The King's most earnest attention was
directed to the remedy of these evils, when his own malady
took the form of dropsy, and he was required to dismiss from
his mind all thoughts of public business, and attend solely
to the re-establishment of his health.

Meanwhile ever since the death of Prince Affonso, who

RESULTiS EASTWARD. 391.

had married Isabella, Princess of Castile, the dominant
anxiety of the King had been to establish the succession in
his illegitimate son Greorge, the child of Anna de IMendoza,
whom he had made Diilve of Coimbra and Grand Master of
the Orders of Santiago and Aviz. He sent ambassadors to
Rome to solicit his legitimization, but to this every possible
objection was interposed by the King of Castile. The Queen
and the people moreover declared themselves in favour of
the King's cousin, Dom Manoel, the Duke of Beja, and to
their influence, as well as to the claims of legitimacy, the
King felt himself at length compelled to succumb. It will
thus have been seen that the condition of the King's health
and the personal anxieties accruing from the state of his
kingdom, together with his domestic troubles, were of a
nature to present serious obstacles to the development of
those grander schemes which had been so vividly opened up
to his ambition with respect to India. He died on the 25tli
of October, 1495, in the fortieth year of his age and the
fourteenth of his reign ; and it is hoped that enough has been
said to explain how, as stated at the close of the preceding
chapter, the momentous voyage of Bartholomeu Dias should
be the last that distinguished the reign of King Joao 11.
His successor. King Manoel, received the name of " The
Fortunate," from his good fortune in succeeding to the
throne of a sovereign who had won for himself the desig-
nation of "The Perfect Prince." The first thought of the
new King was to resume the distant maritime explorations
which had already reflected so much honour on the far-
sighted intelligence of their initiator. Prince Henry.

At length an experienced navigator of noble family was
selected, in 1496, to attempt the passage to India by the
newly-discovered southern cape of Africa. If we may trust
an historian of good repute, and the holder of an important
post in the Royal archives, this selection was the result of a
mere whim on the part of King Manoel. We are told by
Pedro de Mariz, in his " Dialogos de Varia Historia," that
the Kin;]r was one eveuin": at one of the windows of his

392 PEINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

palace, meditating on the possibility of realizing the grand
projects of his predecessor, Joao II., when Vasco da Gama
happened to come alone into the court beneath the King's
balcony. Without hesitation the King mentally resolved
that he should be the chief in command of the fleet of
the Indies.

The preparations for the enterprise were made by the King
with the greatest forethought. Four vessels, purposely made
small for the sake of easy and rapid movement, the largest
not exceeding a hundred and twenty tons, were buiJt ex-
pressly in the most solid manner, of the best-selected wood,
well fastened with iron. Each ship was provided with a triple
supply of sails and spars and rope. Every kind of needful
store was laid in in superfluity, and the most skilful pilots
and sailors that the country could furnish were sent out with
Da Gama. The largest vessel, the Sam Gabriel, he of course
took under his own command. The captaincy of the Sam
B.ap]tael, of one hundred tons, was given to his brother,
Paolo da Gama ; the Berrio, a caravel of fifty tons, was
commanded by Nicolas Coelho ; and a small craft laden with
munitions was given to the charge of Pedro Nunez, a servant
of Da Gama. It had been intended that Bartholomeu Dias
should accompany the expedition, but he was subsequently
ordered to sail for San Jorge el Mina, perhaps for politic
reasons, on a more profitable but less glorious mission. His
pilot, however, Pero de Alemquer, who had carried him
beyond the Stormy Cape, was sent out on board Yasco da
Gama's ship, and the other two pilots were Joao de Coimbra
and Pero Escolar.

It was on Saturday, the 8th of July, 1497, that Vasco da
Gama started from Restello, an ermida or chapel, which had
been built by Prince Henry about a league from Lisbon, and
m which he had placed certain Friars of the Order of Christ,
that they might receive confessions and administer the
Communion to outward-bound or weather-bound sailors.
Dom Manoel, who succeeded his uncle as Grand Master of
the Order, subsequently built on the spot the splendid

RESULTS EASTWARD. 393

Temple of Belem, or Bethlehem. As the first-fruits of the
success of that important voyage, on which Da Gama was
now starting, he transferred it to the Order of the Monks of
St. Jerome. The whole building is erected on piles of pine
wood. It is entered on the south side under a rich porch,
which contains more than thirty statues. The doorway is
double. Above the central shaft is a statue of Prince Henry
in armour.* (^See Engraving.)

Without dwelling on such details of Da Gama's outward
voyage as present no important novelty, we shall pass over
four months, and on the 4th of November we shall find the
little fleet anchored in the Bay of St. Helena, on the west
coast of Africa, where for the first time they became ac-
quainted with the Bosjesmans or Bushmen, that peculiar
race allied to the Hottentots, but so different from the
Cafiirs. Here they landed in order to take in water, as well
as to take astronomical observations with the astrolabe,
newly invented by Behaim, for Da Gama mistrusted the
observations taken on board, on account of the rolling of the
vessel, t While he was thus occupied, they perceived two
negroes, one of whom they captured with very little diffi-
culty, but were unable to make him understand them. They
therefore sent him back to his people laden with presents,
which had the efi'ect of bringing them in crowds to beg for
similar gifts. These people were yellowish in colour, small
in stature, ill-formed, ugly, stupid, and stammering in their
speech. They proved, however, so friendly, that one of the
ofiicers, Fernam Yeloso, obtained permission to accompany
them to their home to make himself acquainted with their

* The late learned ecclesiologist, Dr. Mason Neile, says, "Belem is the last
struggle of Christian against Pagan art in Portugal. The visitor M-ill be much
enchanted with the exquisite beauty of the details, more especially if he have
not previously seen the CapeUa Imperfeita at BataUia, with which Belem is not
for one moment to be compared."

t The astrolabe he iised was of wood, three hands -breadth in diameter,
formed of three pieces like a triangle. They aftenvards took out smaller ones
of latten. So humbly began the art which has since produced such mighty
results in navigation.

394: PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

country. But his errand, as it happened, proved fruitless,
for after journeying with them for some time, he was seized
with a panic, and returned to the ships without having
gained any information.

The ships remained for several days longer in St. Helena
Bay, but nothing more was seen of the inhabitants, and
Da Gama was balked in his hope of learning something
about the country and the distance from the Cape of Good
Hope. His pilot, Pero de Alemquer, who had been with
Bartholomeu Dias in the first discovery of the Cape, was
unable to inform him on that point, for, as we have already
seen, in that voyage they had sailed southward too far from
the land, and on the return voyage had sailed past this
portion of the coast by night. Besides this, the stormy
weather which Dias had encountered in the neighbourhood
of the Cape had prevented him from making such observa-
tions as would have helped Da Gama in determining the
distance of the southern point. On a rough estimate, how-
ever, Pero de Alemquer calculated the distance at about
thirty leagues.

On the 16th of November they proceeded south. At
length they came upon the open sea, but on the 19th made
their course for the desired point. On Wednesday, the
22nd of November, at noon. Da Gama sailed before a wind
past the formidable cape, to which King Joao II. had given
the undying name of Good Hope, in anticipation of the
achievement which was now about to be accomplished.

On Saturday, the 25th of November, he entered the bay
which Bartholomeu Dias had named San Bras, and where
the Portuguese had had a disagreement with the natives.
The latter were now amiable enough, and exchanged with
their visitors ivory bracelets for scarlet caps and other
articles. Their cattle were remarkable for their size and
beauty. A misunderstanding unhappily arose through un-
founded suspicions on the part of the natives, but Da Gama
prudently withdrew his men without bloodshed, and
frightened the Hottentots by tiring his guns from the ships.

RESULTS EASTWARD. 396

In this bay Da Gama set up a jjadrao and cross, but they
were tlirown down before his eyes by the natives.

They left the bay of San Bras on Friday, December 8th.
On Friday the 15th they sighted the Ilheos Chaos, or Flat
Islets, five leagues beyond the Ilheo da Cruz (the Bird
Islands in Algoa Bay), where Dias had left a padrao. On
the night of Sunday, the 17th, they passed the Rio do
Iffante, the extreme point of Dias's discovery, and here Da
Gama became seriously alarmed at the force of the
current that he encountered. Fortunately the wind was in
his favour, and on Christmas Day he gained sight of land,
to which, on that account, he gave the name of Natal.

On Wednesday, the 1 0th of January, 1498, they came
to a small river, and on the next day landed in the
country of the Caffirs, where an entirely new race of men
from those they had hitherto seen met their eyes. With
these, formidable as they were with their large bows and
iron-tipped azagays. Da Gama established such friendly
relations that he called the country the Terra da Boa Gente,
or Country of the Good People, and the river he called the
Rio do Cobre, on account of the copper which the natives
brought in exchange for linen shirts. Barros confounds the
Rio do Cobre, which appears to be the Inhambane, or Lim-
popo, with the Rio dos Reis, which the early maps make to
debouch in Delagoa Bay, and is probably the river Manice.

On Monday, the 22nd of January, Da Gama reached a
large river, where, to his great joy, he met with two richly
dressed Mahometan merchants, who trafficked with the
Caffirs, and from whom he gathered valuable information as
to the route to India. Here he erected a pillar, which he
named the padrao of Sam Rafael, and he called the river the
Rio dos Boos Signaes, or River of Good Signs (the Quili-
mane River). In an inferior sense the name was inappro-
priate, for here the scurvy broke out amongst the crew.

They set sail on Saturday, the 24th of January, and on
the 10th of March anchored off the island of Mozambique.
The people of the country told them that Prestcr John had

396 PKINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

many cities along that coast, whose inhabitants were great
merchants, and had large ships, but that Prester John
himself lived a great way inland, and could only be reached
by travelling on camels. This information filled the Portu-
guese with delight, for it was one of the great objects of
these explorations to find out the country of Prester John,
and they prayed God to spare them to see what they all
so earnestly desired. The ships of this country were large
and without decks, not fastened with nails, but with leather.
Their sails were made of matting of palm leaves, and the
sailors had Genoese compasses to steer with, as well as
quadrants and sea-charts. The viceroy of the island, whose
name was Colytam,* came very confidingly on board the
vessel with his suite, and the friendliest intercourse ensued ;
but it was afterwards discovered that treachery underlay
this seeming goodwilL In fact the new comers had at first
been supposed to be Mahometans, but the mistake was soon
discovered. A pilot whom the viceroy had given to the
Portuguese misled them, and conducted them to a place for
taking in water, where they found armed men hidden behind
palisades, who endeavoured with slings to drive them
from the water. These, however, were soon dispersed by the
Portuguese guns.

Da Gama left this coast on the 29th of March, and on
Sunday, the 1st of April, came to some islands very near
the mainland, to the first of which he gave the name of
Ilha do A90utado, or Whipping Island, because on the
Saturday afternoon the pilot they had taken in at Mozam-
bique told the captain that these islands were mainland, and
for this falsehood he ordered him to be whipped. These
islands were numerous, and so close to each other, that it
was difficult to distinguish them. These were the Querimba
islands, of which the Ilha do A^outado would be the
southernmost. On Monday they saw other islands five
leagues out at sea, the more northern islands of the
Querimba group.

* Probably (^dlytani or Sultan.

RESULTS EASTWARD. ' 397

On Friday, the Gtb of April, the Sam Rafael stranded on
some reefs two leagues from the shore, and opposite a range
of lofty and handsome hills, to which they gave the name of
Serras de Sam Rafael, and they gave the same name to
the reef.*

The day following, Saturday the 7th, they reached Mom-
baza, and were treated with great kindness by the King, who
sent them presents, and offered to supply them with all that
they might require. But having discovered a plot between
the Moors of Moml)aza and the pilots which he had brought
from Mozambique, and being besides attacked by them in
the night. Da Gama thought it wisest to continue his voyage,
and on the 12th of April he set sail, though with little wind.
The following morning, being about eight leagues distance
from Mombaza, they saw two barks at sea about three
leagues to leeward of them, and made for them, wishing to
find pilots. By the evening they came upon one of them,
and took it, but the other made for the shore. In the one
they took were seventeen men, and gold and silver, and a
quantity of maize and provisions, and a girl, the wife of an
old man of rank, who was a passenger. On the Portuguese
boarding, all in the vessel threw themselves into the water,
and the former proceeded to pick them up in the boats. On
Easter Day, the 15th of April, they reached Melinda, and
their captives informed them that they would there find four
ships belonging to Indian Christians, from whom they might
procure Christian pilots, and every necessary in the way of
meat and water, and wood, &c. On the Monday morning
Da Gama sent the old man whom he had captured to the
King, to tell him how happy he should be to enter into
peaceful relations with him. After dinner the old man

* These appear to be the Waseen reefs, which make the coast inside of Poniha
island unsafe of approach. " Although the coast is low, there is a range of hills
in the background, and occasionally in the distance may bo seen curiously
isolated mountains, which present a remarkable contrast to the general flatness
of the country. One of them, called AVaseen Peak, is about two thuusaud five
hundred feet high."— See " African Pilot," 1864, p. 20G.

398 PEINCE HENKT THE NAVIGATOR.

returned, attended by one of the King's household, and an
officer, with three sheep from the King and a message that
it would give the King great pleasure to enter into peaceful
relations with the captain, and that he would be happy to
supply him with pilots or anything that his country might
afford. Da Gama sent word that he would enter the har-
bour on the following day, and immediately sent to the King
an overcoat, two sprigs of coral, three copper basins, a hat,
some bells, and two pieces of striped cloth. On Tuesday
the King sent Da Gama six sheep, and a good quantity of
cloves, and cummin seeds, and ginger, and nutmeg, and
pepper, and also sent word that he would come to see him
on the following day. After dinner on Wednesday the King
came out in his boat to the ships, and Da Gama in his boat
went to meet him. The King proposed that they should
interchange visits, but Da Gama replied that he was not
permitted by his sovereign to land. The King asked the
name of Da Gama's King, and ordered it to be written
down, and said that if Da Gama would return that way he
would send an embassy, or would write to his sovereign.
The King then went round the ships, and was delighted with
seeing the guns fired. He spent three hours on board, and
when he departed left one of his sons and an officer in the
ship, and took with him two of the Portuguese to show
them his palaces, and told Da Gama that since he would not
come on shore that he should go along the coast the next
day to see his horsemen ride. The King brought with
him a close-fitting damask robe, lined with green satin,
and a very rich head-dress, two chairs of bronze with their
cushions, a round sunshade of crimson satin fastened to a
pole, a sword in a silver scabbard, several trumpets, and two
of a peculiar form made of elaborately carved ivory as high
as a man, to be played at a hole in the middle. There were
four ships here belonging to Indian Christians, who, when
they came on board the first time, were shown by Da Gama
an altar-picture, in which was the Virgin and child at the foot
of the cross witli the Apostles. Tlic Indians immediately

RESULTS EASTWARD. 399

threw themselves on the ground in an attitude of prayer.
These Indians warned Da Gama not to go on shore, nor
phice any faith in the joyous demonstrations that were made
in his favour, for that they were not sincere. On Suuday,
the 22nd of April, the King came on board, and Da Gania
begged of him the pilots that he had promised. The King
accordingly sent him a Christian pilot, and Da Gama gave
up the hostage that he had retained. On the 24th of April
they made sail for Calicut, under the guidance of their i)ilot,
whose name was Malemo Canaca.

On Thursday, the 1 7th of May, 1498, Da Gama first sighted,
at eight leagues distance, the high land of India, the object of
so many anxiet ies and of so many years of persevering elfort.
On Sunday, the 20th of May, he anchored before Calicut.
On the following day some boats came out to them, and Da
Gama sent one of the " degradados," or condemned crimi-
nals, on shore with them, and they took the man to two
Moors of Tunis, who spoke both Spanish and Genoese, and
the first salutation they gave him was as follows : " The
devil take you for coming here. What brought you here
from such a distance ? " He replied, " We come in search
of Christians and spices." They said, ''Why does not the
King of Spain, and the King of France, and the Signoria
of Venice send hither ? " He replied that the King of
Portugal would not consent that they should do so, and they
said he was right. Then they welcomed him, and gave
him wheatened bread with honey, and after he had eaten,
one of the two Moors went back with him to the ships, and
when he came on board said, " Happy venture ! happy ven-
ture ! abundance of rubies ! abundance of emeralds ! You
ought to give many thanks to God for bringing you to a
country in which there is such wealth." The Portuguese
were utterly astounded at hearing a man at that distance
from Portugal speak their own language. Tliis Moor, whom
Barros calls Mongaide and Castanheda Boutaibo, most pro-
bably Bou-said, proved very useful to Vasco da Gama, and
went home with him to Portugal, where he died a Christian.

400 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Calicut, the wealthy capital of that part of the Malabar
coast, was governed at that time by a Hindoo sovereign,
named Samoudri- Rajah (the King of the Coast), a name
which the Portuguese afterwards converted into Zamorin.
Gama had the good fortune to gain an audience of this
prince, by whom he was favourably received, but with very
little ultimate success, in consequence of his not being pro-
vided with presents suitable for an Eastern sovereign. This
unlucky circumstance, combined with the hatred of the
Arab merchants, whose ships crowded the harbour and who
regarded with apprehension any rivals in the rich trade of
spices, was near producing fatal results.

Da Gama thought it his duty to establish a factory, at
the head of which he placed Diogo Dias, the brother of the
first discoverer of the Cape. At the instigation of the Arabs,
Dias and his men were taken prisoners. By way of reprisal,
Da Gama kept as hostages twelve Hindoos who had visited
his vessels ; but when Dias and his comrades were allowed
to return, he sent back only six of the Hindoos and retained
the other six. When he set sail on Wednesday, the 29th of
August, several vessels came to recover their countrymen.
This De Gama refused, and warned them to keep their dis-
tance, believing that their motives were treacherous. He
told them at the same time that he meant to return as soon
as possible, when they would know whether the Portuguese
were thieves or not, as the Moors had represented them to
be. Whatever might have been the danger of Da Gama,
and doubtless it was great from the hostility of the Arabs,
this conduct was indefensible, for there appears no reason
to doubt either the integrity or the good- will of the Zamorin,
inasmuch as the detention of Diogo Dias and his companions
had been without his knowledge, and he himself not only
discharged him, but sent by him a letter to Da Gama for
the King of Portugal, written in Dias's own hand, to the
following effect: '' Vasco da Gama, a nobleman of your
household, has visited my kingdom, which has given me
great pleasure. In my kingdom there is abundance of cin-

SRESULT EASTWAKD. ' 401

namon, cloves, ginger, pepper, aiul precious stones in great
quantities. What I seek from thy country is gold, silver,
coral, and scarlet/' The only shadow of an excuse for Da
Gama's retention of the six Hindoos was that he hoped to
take them to Portugal, and bring them back again, when
they might prove of the greatest assistance in establishing
friendly relations between the two countries. That it was a
genuine motive there can be little doubt, however harsh in
its first conception, but, alas ! he was ignorant that the caste
of the poor captives would make them prefer death to their
present position, and it can only be supposed that the}'
speedily perished. They were becalmed about a league
below Calicut, and at noon, on Thursday the 30th, they were
beset by seventy boats crowded with people, whom they
kept at bay with their artillery. The contest continued for
an hour and a half, when fortunately a storm arose which
carried them out to sea, and the boats finding themselves
powerless returned, and Da Gama pursued his course. On
Monday, the 10th of September, as they had but little wind,
Da Gama put on shore one of the captives with letters to
the Zamorin, written in Arabic by a Moor who had come with
them. On the loth they reached some islets about two
leagues from the shore, and on one of them they erected a
pillar, to which they gave the name of Santa Maria, for the
King had ordered Da Gama to erect three columns, which
he should name respectively Sam Rafael, Sam Gabriel, and
Santa Maria. That of Sam Rafael had been erected at the
Rio dos Boos Signaes, that of Sam Gabriel at Calicut, and
now the last, that of Santa Maria, was placed on this islet,
and the group has since received the name of Santa Maria
from the pillar erected there. The group extends from lat.
37«'27' to n^, 19| N. ; Durreaor Deriah Bahauder Ghur in
lat. 13^ 20' N. long., 70* 40|, E., six leagues southward
from Cundapore River is the largest of the range, and pro-
bably that on which the padrao was erected. The iuhalii-
tants were pleased at the idea of the pillar with its cross
being set upon their island, as they were Christians, and were

D D

402 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

happy to meet with those of the same creed. Da Gama
then contmiied his course northward, and putting in for
water at a point of the coast opposite six little islands near
Hog Island, he became aware of the proximity of two barks
of unusual size. He hastened his men on board, and found
from the look-out at the mast-head, that eight more such
were becalmed at about six leagues distance. When the
wind arose he sailed straight for them, and they put in for
shore. One of them, however, broke its rudder, and the crew
landed in their boat, leaving the ship at the mercy of the
Portuguese. The other seven were run aground, and re-
ceived the Portuguese fire as they pulled ashore in their boats.
These they found were vessels come in pursuit from Calicut.
Thence Da Gama still proceeded north, till on Sunday,
the 23rd, he reached the little island of Anchediva,
where they drove the Berrie and the Sam Gabriel ashore to
caulk them, but the Sam Rafael remained afloat. One day,
while they were on board the Berrio, two large row-boats
approached laden with men with trumpets and drums and
banners. Da Gama found on inquiry that these were armed
pirates, who introduced themselves on board vessels under
the show of friendship, and once on board took possession if
they found themselves strong enough. When, therefore,
they came within gun-shot the Sam lia/ael ^red at them.
They called out that they were Christians, but finding that Da
Gama was not to be duped, they put in for shore, and were
pursued for some time by Nicolao Coelho. On the following
day came several with presents, asking to see the ships, but
they were coldly received. Among them, however, came
one man of forty years of age, who spoke Venetian perfectly,
was well dressed in linen, with a handsome turban on his
head and a cutlass at his side. He said that he came
originally from the west when he was a boy, that he lived
with a Moor who commanded forty thousand horsemen (in
fact the Bajah of Gou), and hearing that Franks, or people
from the west, were come, he had begged permission to come
to pny them a visit, and his master, sent word by him, that

RESULTS EASTWARD. 403

he would be happy to offer them ships or provisions, or any-
thing else in his dominions which might be of service to
them, or if they would take up their abode in his country
he would be very pleased. Meanwhile Paolo da Gama made
inquiries as to who the man was, and was informed that he
was the owner of the vessels that had come out to attack
him. When Da Gama learned this he had him flogged for
the purpose of extracting the truth from him. He confessed
that he knew that all the country was hostile, and that he
had come on board to ascertain the state of the Portuguese
defences. This man proved to be a Polish Jew, a native of
Posen, whence a cruel persecution had driven his family in
1456 to Palestine. They afterwards migrated to Egypt,
and he himself was born in Alexandria, whence he passed
by the Red Sea to India. He joined his fortunes to the Portu-
guese, and as he was an experienced and intelligent man,
Da Gama took him with him to Lisbon, where he embraced
Christianity, and at his baptism received the name of Gas-
paro da Gama. He proved of great use to Da Gama on the
homeward voyage, especially at Melinda, and was subse-
quently employed by King Manoel in different negotiations
with India, was made a knight of the king's household, and
received pensions and emoluments which afforded him an
honourable livelihood.

Da Gama remained twelve days in the island of Anchediva,
and after that he had repaired his vessels and taken in water,
set sail westwards on Friday, the 5th of October. When
they were some two hundred leagues away from land, this
same man said that he thought the time was come for him
to dissemble no longer, and confessed that while he was with
the Rajah his master, news was brought that the Portuguese
were wandering along the coast at a loss to find their way
back, and that a number of flotillas were trying to capture
them ; that his master then desired that an attempt should
be made not only to learn what strength the Portuguese
had for defence, but if possible to induce them to land, ami
that once landed he would capture them, and as they were

D D 2

404 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

courageous men, employ them in battle against his enemies
in the neig-hbourhood, but he reckoned without his host.

The passage across to Africa lasted for three months all
but three days, in consequence of the frequent calms and
contrary winds. During this time the crews were attacked
so severely with scurvy that thirt}'' men died, so that there
were only left seven or eight men to work each vessel, and
if the voyage had lasted a fortnight longer there would not
have been a soul left. The commanders were even thinking
of putting back to India, but happily a favourable wind
arose which brought them in six days in sight of land, which
was almost as welcome to them as if it had been Portugal.
This was on Wednesday, the 2nd of January, 1499. The
next day they found themselves off Magadoxo, but they
were in quest of Melinda, and did not know how far they
were from it. On Monday, the 7th of January, they anchored
off that town. The King sent to welcome them, and to say
that he had been long hoping to see them. They spent here
five happy days of rest and relief from disease and the peril
of death, receiving princely proofs of kindness and hospi-
tality from the King, who, at Da Garaa's request, gave him
an ivory trumpet to convey to the King his master, as also
a young Moor, with a particular recommendation of him to
the King of Portugal, to whom he specially sent him to
show how much he desired his friendship.

On Friday, the 11th of January, they set sail ; on Saturday
the 12th, passed Mombaza, and on Sunday anchored on the
Sam Rafael shoals, where they set fire to the Sam Rafael
herself, because they were too short of hands to work the
three vessels. The people of the village off which they were,
and which was named Tamugata, brought an abundance of
fowls to barter for shirts and bracelets. They sailed thence on
Sunday, the 27tli of January, passed Zanzibar, called in the
narrative Jamgiber, and on the evening of Friday, the 1st of
February,* they anchored off the llhns de Sam Jorge (St.

* It stands February in the text, provinij; that the references to the preceding
month liad been made to Febniarv evroneouslv instead of Januarv.

RESULTS EASTWARD. . 4f>5

George's Islands), in Mozambique, and on the following
morning raised a pillar on the island, in which they had first
heard mass on their outward voyage, though, it rained so
heavily that they were unable to light a fire to melt the lead
that was needed for fixing the cross, so that the pillar was
left without it.

On Sunday, the 3rd of March, 1499, they reached the
bay of San Bras, where they took a quantity of anchovies
and salted down penguins and sea-wolves for their home-
ward voyage, and the wind being fair they doubled the Cai)e
of Good Hope on Wednesday, the 20th of March. The
survivors had recovered their health and strength, but were
half numbed with the cold, which they attributed less to
the actual cold of the climate than to their having come
from a hot country. For twenty-seven days they sailed
before a wind to within, as they reckoned by their charts,
a hundred leagues of the island of Santiago, in the Cape
Verdes. On Thursday, the 25th of April, they found ground
in thirty-five fathoms varying to twenty fathoms, and the
pilots said they were on the shoals of the Rio Grande.
Shortly afterwards the caravel of Nicolao Coelho was sepa-
rated from that of Da Gama, but whether the separation
was the effect of a storm, or whether Coelho, who was aware
of the superior sailing qualities of his vessel, availed himself
of it to be the first to carry to Lisbon the news of the dis-
covery of the Indies, has never been satisfiictorily decided.
However that may have been, Nicolao Coelho reached the
bar of Lisbon on the 10th of July, 1499. When Vasco da
Gama reached the island of Santiago, where his brother
Paolo da Gama was seriously ill, he delegated the command
of the vessel to his secretary, Joiio de Sa. He then freighted
a swifter caravel with the view of shortening the passage
to Portugal. Meanwhile his brother died, and he put in at
the island of Terceira and buried him there.

He reached Lisbon at the end of August or beginning of
September, and was received with great pomp by the Court.
His return from a voyage in which so mighty a discovery had

406 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

been made was hailed with magnificent fetes and public
rejoicings, which by the King's order were repeated in all
the principal cities throughout the kingdom. In that im-
portant voyage he had lost his brother, more than half of
his crew, and half his vessels, but he brought back the solu-
tion of a great problem which was destined to raise his
country to the very acme of prosperity.

It has been seen in a former chapter what unsuccessful
efforts have been made in later times by the French to
establish a claim to discoveries on the coast of Guinea
before the time of Prince Henry. In like manner, it has
been asserted, that Vasco da Gama was anticipated by a
Frenchman in the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. In
the " Memoires Chronologiques pour servir a I'Histoire de
Dieppe, par J. A. Desmarquets,^' 1785, tom. i. p. 92, it is
asserted that a navigator named — ■

" Cousin sailed from Dieppe in the beginning of the year 1488.
He was the first man in the universe who had been able to take
the elevation in the midst of the ocean. This he had done in pur-
suance of the lessons of Descaliers, so that he no longer hugged
the coast as his predecessors had done. After two months he
reached an unknown land, where he found the mouth of a large
river, which he named the Maragnon. By the elevation which he
there took, he perceived that in order to reach the coast of Adra,
he must sail southwards, but bearing to the east. By doing this
he first made the discovery of the point of Africa, and gave the
name of ' Aiguilles ' to a bank which he there observed. This
young captain having taken note of the places and their position,
returned to the coasts of Congo and Adra, where he bartered his
goods and arrived at Dieppe in the course of 1489. The ship-
owners of this city agreed for their own interest to keep this dis-
covery secret, for believing that they were the only ones who
could reach India by this route, they reckoned upon deriving there-
from an immense revenue. The French Government was occupied
with intestine wars, and the Dieppese knew but too well how little
attention the Government would give to maritime commerce. They
resolved therefore to profit by their discovery to the exclusion of
all other nations, and accordingly equipped several ships for the

RESULTS EASTWARD. 407

Indies, of access to which they were assured by Descaliers, from
the facility now discovered of turning the south point of Africa."

At page 98 M. Desmarqiiets proceeds thus : —

" In order to tm-n to account the possibility of reaching India, the
merchants gave Cousin the command of three well-armed ships laden
with merchandise. Descaliers assured the captain of success, if
he attended to the observations with which he supplied him in
writing, and to the true position of India which he described to
him. Cousin had learnt his lesson too well not to conform to it.
He sailed midway between Africa and America, which he had dis-
covered, turned the Cap dos Aiguilles, reached India, where he
exchanged his merchandise to very great profit, and returned to
Dieppe, about two years after his departure."

The race begins to be exciting, and one longs to make a
more intimate acquaintance with this able liydrographer
Descaliers, to whose scientific acumen these great results
were due. M. Desmarquets speaks of him as the Abbe
Descaliers, a priest of Arques, and the best mathematician and
oMronomer of his time. Now I happen to have in my charge
at the British Museum a most superb map of the world, on
vellum, the execution of which might fairly warrant a
compatriot in complimenting its author as " the best
mathematician and astronomer of his time." The map records
the name of its author and its date thus: "Faicte a Arques
parPierres Desceliers, Pbre, I'an 1500." " Done at Arques, by
Pierres (sic) Desceliers, pj'iest,^' who with^his own hand tells
us that its date is " 1550."

Now that there should have been a Descaliers and a
Desceliers, both priests at Arques, and both super-excellent
as matkema.ticians and hydrographers, one in 1488, and tlie
other in 1550, seems so improbable, that only remarkable
accuracy in M. Desmarquets' statements in general would
induce us to give credence to it. A few pages on, when I come
to speak of the discovery of China by the sea, I shall have a
valuable opportunity of showing what reliance is to be placed,
on his assertions, when he ventures on another claim to Diep-
pese discovery in that direction. But it may be suggested that

408 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Desceliers and Descaliers were one and the selfsame person*
So I believe them to be. M. Desmarqiiets, however, who is
always remarkably circumsiantial, tells us that Descaliers
was born in 1440, which would make him in that case the
constructor of the beautiful mappe-monde in the British
Museum, at the age of one hundred and ten. This is inad-
missible, and we have only the almost impossible alternative
that there were two such prodigies in scientific excellence of
the same name, place, and priestly office, and one of them
flourishing at a period when we find not a single evidence
of hydrographic skill existing at Arques. Moreover, the fact
of there having been two such marvellous persons would call
for especial mention by M. Desmarquets, whereas he speaks
only of one, although he mentions by name the successors
of his " Descaliers " in the school of hydrography at Arques
even beyond the period of the indubitable " Desceliers ^' of
the Mupeum map. But as I pledge myself to show further
on that M. Desmarquets could commit himself to assertions
of great moment w^hich are demonstrably false, it may fairly
be concluded that the unquestionable Pierre Desceliers of
1560 has been carried back in his existence more than half
a century to give an appearance of reality to a discovery
which is not found recorded elsewhere.

In the year after Da Gama's return, at his recommenda-
tion, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a scion of a noble house of
Portugal, was charged with the command of an expedition
to Calicut, with the view of establishing commercial inter-
course with the Rajah of that country. The expedition was
a magnificent one. It consisted of thirteen ships formidably
armed with artillery, but at the same time sumptuously
provided with presents for the Rajah, and although sent out
with a purely commercial object, the boldest and most
famous seamen of the period were placed under the orders of
Cabral. Among these were Bartholemeu Dias, who fourteen
years before had rounded the Stormy Cape, Nicolao Coelho,
the alile companion of Da Gania in 1497, and the talented in-
tei})retcr Gasparo, whom Da Gama had brought home with

RESULTS EASTWARD. 409

bim from India. To these were added men of administrative
intelligence, who might be able to treat with prudence on
matters of commercial policy, it being intended to establish
a factory on the coast of Malabar. Great as the importance
of this object was, it was the fiite of the expedition to make
a discovery, before which even the results thus contem})lated
shrunk into insignificance. The expedition sailed on tlie
9th of March, 1500. After thirteen days, when off the Capo
Verde Islands, one of the vessels, which was commanded by
Pedro Dias, lost convoy, and after a short delay the fleet
proceeded without her. Various have been the reasons
assigned for the westerly course which the expedition now
took. According to Barros the object was to avoid the calms
oif the coast of Guinea, while others have asserted that the
fleet was driven westward by a storm. If, however, we take
into consideration the intensity of the curiosity excited by
the recent discoveries in the New World, and the noble
emulation which such discoveries, made in the service of a
rival nation, would inspire in the minds of men, who in
another direction had gained so many laurels in the career
of maritime enterprize, we may fairly doubt whether this
south-westerly course was not pursued by Cabral in the hope
of lighting on some part of the new-found western world.
But whatever the inducement or the cause, the result was
such as to satisfy both hope and curiosity. On Wednesday,
the 22nd of April, Cabral perceived the rounded top of a
mountain, on what he at first supposed to be an island, and
as they were then in Holy Week or in the octave of Easter
he gave the mountain the name of Monte Pascoal. It forms
part of the chain of the Aymores, in Brazil* To the country
he gave the name of Vera Cruz, or, as it was afterwards
called, Santa Cruz, which name it retained till the importa-
tion from it into Europe of the valuable dye-wood of the

* Fortunate as Cabral -was in this discovery, he had been anticijiated, as
we have already seen, in landing on the coast of Brazil, although at a widely
different part of that coast. On the 20th of January of the stime year, viz.,
forty-eight days before the departure of Cabral, Pinzon had discovered Capo
St. Augustine.

410 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

ibirapitanga, caused it to be called Brazil, from the name
which for centuries had been given to similar dye-woods
imported from India. On the 23rd, Nicolao Coelho was
despatched to examine the coast. On the 24th they anchored
in the bay afterwards named Porto Seguro. On the 1st of
May formal possession was taken of the country for Portugal,
and a large cross was set up on the coast in commemoration
of the event The luxuriance of the vegetation, as well as
the sociable demeanour of the natives, and their respectful
bearing when witnessing the solemn celebration of mass,
were matters of surprise and gratification to the discoverers.
Cabral forthwith despatched Gaspar de Lemos to the King
with the important news, which was described most admirably
in a letter drawn up by Pedro Vaz de Caminha, the second
secretary of the Calicut Factory, accompanied by an astrono-
mical diagram by Mestre Joao, the King's physician, who
had accompanied the expedition as doctor. By this means
the first information of the discovery of Brazil was brought
to Europe. Before the departure of the fleet an incident of
importance occurred. One of the natives who had come on
board the Admiral, was struck with the brightness of a brass
candlestick, and made signs to the effect that a similar metal
was found in that country. Cabral accordingly left behind him
two young degradados, or banished criminals, with orders to
make themselves acquainted with the products and habits of
the country, thus giving them the double chance of serving
their nation and retrieving their own position. One of these
subsequently became an able and respected agent of the
colony which King Manoel lost no time in establishing.
The fleet set sail on the 22nd of May, but the joy which had
been awakened by their success was soon to be turned into
mourning. The appearance of an immense comet produced
an alarm which Avas only too unhap})ily realized. A fearful
typhoon sunk four vessels, and the brave Bartholomeu Dias,
whose great achievement had converted his Stormy Cape
into a Cape of Good Hope, perished off that very cape which
for him was still to be a C;i])C of Storms.

RESULTS EASTWARD. 411

Cabral, notwithstanding, pushed on, and reached Quih)a on
the 20th of July, whence proceeding to Melinda, he renewed
with the sovereign of that country the alliance which had
been based upon his friendly treatment of Da Gama. Thence
he crossed to India, and anchored before Calicut on the 13tk
of September. Through the medium of his intelligent inter-
preter, Gasparo da Gama, he succeeded in laying before the
Zamorin or Rajah the objects of the embassy, which were
favourably received. The s[)lendid presents which he brought,
and the formidable artillery with which he was protected,,
doubtless served to extinguish the recollection of the mis-
understanding with Da Gama. Permission to establish a
factory on the coast was readily granted, and the Hajah
solemnly pledged himself to the terms of this new treaty of
commerce, in which the future interests of Europe were so
largely involved. The factory was peacefully established at
Calicut, under the direction of Ayres Correa, but within a
short time the treachery of the Mohammedans showed itself,
and Correa and more than fifty of the Christians were mas-
sacred. Cabral took ample revenge for this unprovoked
injury, and forthwith betook himself to the King of Cochin,
the enemy of the Rajah of Calicut, with whom, as well as the
King of Cananor, he succeeded in establishing peaceful
relations. Having laden his remaining vessels with a most
valuable cargo, he set sail for Portugal. Near Melinda,
however, one of the most richly freighted of the ships, com-
manded by Sancho de Tovar, foundered oil a reef. The vessel
was of two hundred tons burthen, and laden with spices.
The crew escaped with their lives, and they burnt the ship ;
but the King of Mombaza succeeded in recovering the guns,
which he afterwards turned to account atrainst the Portuguese.
When they reached Cape Verde at the beginning of June,
they fell in with a Portuguese flotilla of three ships, which
had sailed from Lisbon on the 13th of May, for the purj)Ose
of making discoveries on the coast of Brazil, on board of
which was Amerigo Vespucci.

In the letter addressed to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de'

412 PEIXCE HENRY THE KAVIGATOR.

Medici, dated from that cape on the 4th of June, and
recently discovered by Count Baklelli Boui, Vesi)ucci relates
the story of Cabral's discoveries as communicated to him by
the interj)reter Gasparo. He further mentions how, by a
curious coincidence, on that very day one of Cabral's ships,
that of Pedro Dias, which had lost convoy thirteen days
after the expedition had set sail from Portugal, in March,
1500 (see page 409), again joined the squadron to which it
belonged. It had wandered as far as the month of the Red
Sea, and worked its way back through incredible hardships.
Before it made its appearance two vessels alone remained
with Cabral out of the thirteen with which he had set sail.
The three returned to Lisbon in company. Of the wealth
brought back Vespucci gives the following account. He
says there was an immense quantity of cinnamon, green and
dry ginger, pepper, cloves, nutmegs, mace, musk, civet,
storax, benzoin, porcelain, cassia, mastic, incense, myrrh,
red and white sandalwood, aloes, camphor, amber, canne
(Indian shot, Carma Indica), lac, mummy,* anib,f and tuzzia
(or Thuja, Indian cypress), opium, Indian aloes, and many
other drugs too numerous to detail. Of jewels he knew
that he saw many diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and one
ruby of a most beautiful colour weighed seven carats and a
half,, but he did not see all.

They reached Lisbon on the 23rd of July, 1501,
where, although Portuguese historians are silent on the
subject, it may be inferred from the rewards subsequently
conferred on his family that Cabral met with the reception
due to one who had secured such important benefits to his
country. Immense, however, as had been the successes of
Cabral in some respects, it will have been seen that he had
not been so fortunate as he had wished in establishing a

* Portions of mummy that had been pi-epared with bitumen were in those
days used as a drug.

t The Aniba is an aromatic wood from Guyana, with which Yespucei may
have made acquaintance in the West, and perliapa without sufficient precision
have mentioned among tliese eastern products.

RESULTS EASTWAIIU. 4l3

factory at Calicut, although he had left some agents beliiiul
at Cochin. Nevertheless he had paved the way for eftecting
the object he had in view, which was not long in being
carried into execution.

Before Cabral's return King Manoel had sent out a noble
Galician named Juan de Nova with four vessels. He set sail
from Belem on the 5tli of March, 1501. In his voyage out he
discovered the island of Ascension, but wliich lie called the
island of Conception. It a})pears iirst to have received its
name of Ascension from Alfonso d'Albuquerque, who saw it
again in May, 1503, and mentioned it in his journal, pro-
bably by mistake, under the latter name, which it has ever
since retained. On the 7th of July, De Nova anchored at
the watering-phice of San Bras, beyond the Cape of Good
Hope. Here Pedro de Ataide, who had been separated
from Cabral in the great storm already described, had left
in a shoe, so as to be sheltered from the winds, a letter
announcing his having passed tliat way, and with what
object, and urging all captains bound for India to go by
way of Mombaza, where they would find other letters in
charge of one Antonio Fernandes. By this means .De Nova,
who of course possessed no further information of those
parts than what had been gathered from Vasco da Gama,
became aware of the existence of two friendly and safe ports
in India where he could take in a cargo, namely. Cochin
and Cauanor. At Quiloa he fell in with Antonio Fernandes,
who delivered him Cabral's letter. He then proceeded to
Cananor, where he was well received by the Rajah, who
pressed him to freight his ship with spices from that port.
From this De Nova courteously excused himself, stating
that he had orders from the King to take a cargo first from
the place where his agents had been left. He however
desired that while he went to Cochin, a certain quantity of
ginger, cinnamon, and other drugs, should be got in readi-
ness, which quantity he would deduct from the cargo he
would take in at Cochin. On tlie way he encountered the
Jleet of the King of Calicut, aud with his artillery sunk

414 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

five large vessels and nine proas. At Cochin he was re-
ceived with great warmth on account of the victory he had
gained over the Rajah of Calicut, and the King of Cochin
readily met the wishes of De Nova. The latter added six
or seven men to the number of agents already settled there,
returned to Cananor, completed the freighting of his ships
with a rich cargo, and set sail for Portugal. On his home-
ward voyage another piece of good fortune awaited him in
the discovery of the island of St. Helena, which seemed to
be providentially placed by the Almighty as a -watering
station for vessels returning from India. De Nova reached
Portugal on the 11th of September, 1502, and was received
by the King with distinguished honour for the valuable
services which he had rendered to the country.

In the next year Antonio de Saldanha, on his way out
to India, gave his name to the Agoada de Saldanha near
the Cape of Good Hope, a fact to which we shall presently
have occasion to refer; and in this year the two Albu-
querques, Francisco and Alfonso, sailed for India. The
iormer restored to the King of Cochin his territory, from
which he had been driven by the King of Calicut, and
founded the first Portuguese fort in India at Cochin, leaving
the famous Dup.rte Pacheco Pereira defender of the kingdom.
Affonso de Albuquerque, after touching on the coast of the
Terra de Santa Cruz discovered by Cabral, reached Couiam,
now Quilon, in Travancore, as yet unknown to the Portu-
guese, made terms of friendship with its King, and estab-
lished a factory there.

In 1504, Diogo Fernandes Pereira wintered at Socotra,
which had not previously been reached by the Portuguese.

In 1505, King Manoel sent out a great expedition of two-
and-twenty ships and fifteen thousand men, which sailed
from Lisbon on March 25th, 1505, under Dom Francisco de
Almeida, the first Viceroy of the Indies, with instructions
to build fortresses at Sofala and Quiloa, and to free the
Portuguese commerce in India from the dilHculties with
wliich it was oi)})ressed. Juan de Nova sailed in this expo-

RESULTS EASTWARD. 416

dition. As a proof of his success Almeida sent back, in the
beginning of the following year, eight ships loaded with
spices to Portugal, under the command of Fernam Soares.
On their way they discovered, on the 1st of February, 1506,
the east coast of the island of ]\Iadagascar, to which was sub-
sequently given the name of Ilha de San Louren^o. In his
outward passage Almeida conquered Quiloa, and dethroned
the King, who refused to pay the stipulated tribute, and
who had showed himself an enemy to the Portuguese. He
set a new King on the throne, and himself crowned him
with great solemnity. He also founded a fort there, which
he named Santiago. On his arrival in India he founded the
forts of Anchediva and Cananor. He solemnly crowned the
King of Cochin, to whom King Manoel sent a rich crown of
gold. Almeida also received ambassadors from the King of
Narsinga and other princes, with whom he had entered on
terms of alliance and friendship.

In 1505, Francisco de Almeida's son, Lourengo, discovered
Ceylon, already known by overland accounts. He entered
the Porto de Galle, and made its King an annual tributary
to Portugal of four hundred bahars (about 300 pounds each)
of cinnamon.

In this year also Pedro de Anhaya made the King of
Sofala tributary to Portugal, and laid the foundations of a
fort there on the 21st of September.

The high command which had been given to Almeida had
been intended by the King for Tiistam da Cunha, who was
prevented from accepting it by a malady in the eyes, but,
that obstacle being now removed, he was sent out on the
6th of April, 1506, with the command of sixteen vessels
and thirteen hundred men to strengthen the dominion of
Portugal in Africa and India. Affonso d'Albuquerque
went out under his orders. It was in this voyage that the
three islands bearing the name of Tristam da Cunha were
discovered. In consequence of information brought to the
King by Diogo Fernandes Pereira, the discoverer of the
island of Socotra, to the effect that the Moors had a for-

416 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

tress therein, and held the Christians in subjection, Tristam
da Cunha and Albuquerque were commissioned to take the
fortress, which they succeeded in doing.

In this year Joao Gomez d'Abreu discovered the west
coast of Madagascar on the 10th of August, St. Laurence's
Day, from which circumstance the island received the name
of San Lourenco. He gave the name of Bahia Formosa to
the bay which he first entered (apparently the bay between
Point Barrow and Point Croker). Tristam da Cunha, hear-
ing of this discover}^, visited various points of the same
coast, and reached the end of the island on Christmas Day,
and accordingly gave it the name of Cape Natal (now Cape
Amber). The ship of Gomez d'Abreu doubled this cape,
and running along the east coast reached the mouth of
a river in the province of Matatana, where he landed,
and left some Portuguese on shore. In a letter to King
Manoel from Affonso de Albuquerque, dated Mozambique,
8th of February, 1507, he speaks of the discovery of the
island of San Lourencjo.

In 1506 Affonso de Albuquerque returned to India to
succeed Francisco de Almeida so soon as the term of his
governorship should expire, and on his way explored the strait
of Bab-el-Mandeb. In this year the first elephant was sent
to Portugal from India by Francisco de Almeida. In 1507
Lourenco de Almeida discovered the Maldives. In this year
Duarte de Mello founded the fort of Mozambique. Affonso
de Albuquerque explored the coasts of Arabia and Persia,
made the King of Ormuz tributary to Portugal, and on the
24th of October laid the foundations of the fort there, which
he named Nossa Senhora da Vittoria. In 1507 Tristam da
Cunha sent on shore at Melinda three envoys charged with
letters from the King of Portugal to the Emperor of
Abyssinia. One was a Portuguese named Fernam Gomez of
Sardo ; another a Tunisian Moor named Sidi IMohammed ;
and the third a Christian Morisco named Joao Sanchez.
The friendly King of Melinda undertook to further them on
the way, ])ut found himself unable to afford them such

RESULTS WESTWAK1>. 417

security ns ho wished, and the expedition for tliat time failed.
The next year Albuquerque, having- charged them with letters
from himself to the King- of Abyssinia, landed these same
men at a point three leagues from Cape Gnardafui, and
they succeeded in reaching the court of Abyssinia, which
was then governed by Helena, the grandmother of King
David, who was in his minority. The result of this embassy
was that an Armenian named Matthew was, some years after,
sent as envoy from Abyssinia to the King of Portugal. He
first proceeded to Goa, and thence to Lisbon, where he met
with a gratifying reception from the King in the month of
February, 1514. In 1515, Matthew returned with Duarte
Galvao as ambassador from King IManoel to Abyssinia, but
the latter died in 1517, in the island of Camaran in the Red
Sea, and was unable to reach the court. Indeed it was not
till 1520 that Matthew himself gained admission into Abys-
sinia by the Port of Massowah, when he was accompanied
by Rodrigo de Lima, sent by the Viceroy as ambassador in
lieu of Duarte Galvao.

In 1508 Diogo Lopez de Sequeira was commissioned by
the King to examine the coasts of Madagascar and to dis-
cover Malacca. He discovered the islands which he named
Santa Clara ; he thence passed to Matatane, and coasted the
island till he came to a bay, which he named San Sebastian,
because he discovered it on the 20th of September, 1509.
In August of that year he sailed for Malacca. Passing the
islands of Nicobar, he went to Pedir and Pacem, about
twenty leagues south-west of Pedir, in Sumatra, and raised
pillars in both places, after having made terms of peace
with their respective sovereigns. On the 11th of September
he anchored at Malacca, the great emporium of the east, to
which were brought cloves from the Moluccas, nutmegs from
Banda, sandal-wood from Timor, camphor from Borneo, gold
from Sumatra and Loo Choo, and gums, spices, and other
precious commodities from China, Japan, Siam, Pegu, &c.
There he es-ablished a factory. Fernam deMagalhaens was
in this expedition.

E E

418 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

In the year 1510 the illustrious Francisco de Almeida, on
his way home to Portugal, was slain on the 1st of March in
an encounter with the natives in the Agoada de Saldanha,
near the Cape of Good Hope, which had been, as already
stated, discovered by Antonio de Saldanha in 1503.

On the 25th of November of this year Alfonso de Albu-
querque conquered Goa, where he built a fort, and organized
a municipal government, adopting measures of wise ad-
ministration which paved the way for this city becoming the
capital of the eastern empire of Portugal. In 1511 he
conquered the city of Malacca, the King of which had
treacherously plotted the death of Sequeira, with whom he
had made terms of friendly intercourse. He then sent out
expeditions to Siam, Birmah, and the East India Islands,
and in this year and 1512, Antonio de Abreu discovered the
island of Amboyna., and Francisco Serrao went to Ternate in
the Moluccas. In 1512 or 1513 the Mascarenhas islands are
supposed to have been discovered by Pedro de Mascarenhas,
who appears to have sailed for India in 1511, and to have
remained a considerable time during 1512 at Mozambique,
but nothing certain is known of this discovery. In 1517
Fernam Peres de Andrade sailed to China, and entered info
commercial relations with the Governor of Canton. He
also sent to Nankin as ambassador Thome Pires, who, however,
was cast into prison and died after a captivity of many years,
in consequence of his commission to the Emperor not being-
worded in conformity with the rules of Chinese etiquette,
that sovereign being addressed by the Governor of the Indites
in the same style as he was accustomed to address the Indian
rajahs who were tributary to Portugal. Andrade returned
to India in 1519.

I will here fulfil my promise to show the facility with
which the author of the " Memoires Chronologiques de
Dieppe" could attribute to Dieppese the honour of
greater discoveries than they could rightfully claim. He
tells us that the Dieppese, Jean Parmentier, •' had con-
jectured, from what some Indians had told hiin, that beyond

llESULTii EASTWAIU). 419

the Indies there must be some great islands in whicli grew
nutmegs, pepper, and cloves, and that these ishmds separated
the Indian from the China Sea. He made an offer to Ango
[a wealthy and enterprising Dieppese shipowner], who W'as
then in his prosperity, to go out to explore them. The latter
entertained the project, and entrusted two of his ships to the
charge of Parmentier, who made a successful voyage, in
which he visited these islands and reached the coasts of
China. After a navigation of two years and a half he
returned to Dieppe in 1529, with his two sliips laden witli
nutmegs, cloves, and other spices."

Now, so far is this from the truth, that we know to an
indisputable certainty that in the year 1529 this Jean Par-
mentier made a voyage to Sumatra, and in that voyage he
died. He was accompanied therein by his intimate friend,
the poet Pierre Crignon, who on his return to France pub-
lished in 1531 the poems of Parmentier with a prologue
containing his eulogium, in which in his endeavour to express
the highest praise of him that he could, he says that he was
" the first Frenchman who undertook to be a pilot to guide
ships to the American land called Brazil, and apparently
the first Frenchman who had discovered the Indies so far as
Sumatra, and if death had not jjrevented him, 1 believe he
would hate gone as far as the Moluccas." * This from a man
of education, a shipmate and bosom friend of Parmentier in
his last voyage. What then becomes of the veracity of
M. Desmarquets?

* " Le premier Fran9ois qui a entrepris a estre pilotte pour mener navires a
la terre Amerique qu'on dit Bresil, et semblablement le premier Fran9ois qui a
descouvert les Indes jusqiC a I' Isle de Taprobane fSitmatraJ et si mart ni I'enH
pas preveint, je crois qu'il eust iU jusquea aux Moloqws." (See Leon Guerin.
"Les Navigateurs rran5ais," p. 157.)

E E '^

CHAPTER XXI

RESULTS SOUTHWARD.

1613— circa 1530.

The discovery of the New World was a fertile source of
misconstruction and misnomer. Columbus to his dying day
believed that Cuba was a part of Asia. Three years after
his death the vast continent which his genius and perse-
verance had disclosed received a name which was other than
his, and when at length the great ocean which bathed the
western shores of that continent was revealed, the very
points of the compass were dislodged from their natural
position in the process of providing it a name. A glance at
the map of the world is enough to show that the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans in their general extent lie east and west
of America, yet from the simple accident that the Pacific
lay south of that part of America (the Isthmus of Darien)
from which it was first discovered, it received the inappro-
priate name of the South Sea. This designation was applied
to it even in its most northern part, and, by way of antithesis,
the Atlantic has occasionally been called the North Sea, even
in its most southern part.

From 1505 to 1507 the court of Spain was earnestly en-
gaged in the project of finding a direct route to the Spice
Islands by the west, and on the 29th of June, 1508, Vicente
Yafiez Pinzon and Juan Diaz de Solis, reputed to be the
ablest navigator and pilot of his day, sailed from San Lucar
and explored the coasts of South America from Cape St.
Augustine to the fortieth degree of south latitude, and yet
missed the mouth of the La Plata. It was not till 1513,

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 421

on the 25th of September, that Vaseo Nunez de Balboa,
who had in 1510 been placed in command of a small colony
at Santa Maria on the Gulf of Darien, perceived the Pacitic
from the ridge of the Sierra de Quarequa. Kneeling on
the scarped summit from which he gazed on this vast and
unknown ocean, he raised his hands to heaven in wonder
and gratitude at the immensity of the revelation that had
been made to him. But he had to encounter the resistance
of the natives before he reached the shore. These he
managed without much difficulty to subdue. Meanwhile he
despatched Francisco Pizarro, Juan de Escaray, and Alonzo
Martin de Don Benito in search of the shortest pathway to
the sea. Alonzo Martin on reaching the shore threw himself
into a canoe which happened to be lying alongside, and was
the first European who can be said to have navigated the
Pacific. On the evening of the 29th of September, Balboa,
with twenty-six of his companions, reached the strand, and
walking into the water knee-deep, with his sword in one
hand and the flag of Spain in the other, took formal pos-
session of the newly-found ocean on behalf of his sovereign
the King of Spain, and vowed to defend it against all his
enemies. In token of possession he erected piles of stones
on the shore. When the King of Spain heard of this dis-
covery, he sent out Pedro Arias de Avila as Governor of
Darien. Avila sailed from San Lucar with fifteen vessels
and fifteen hundred men, and by his tyranny and exactions
after his arrival sj^read desolation over the whole country
from the Gulf of Darien to the Lake of Nicaragua. A
dissension arose between him and Balboa, and in 1517 the
latter, charged with calumny against the Government, was
put in chains, tried, condemned, and beheaded.

In October, 1515, Juan Diaz de Solis was sent out with
the express purjiose of discovering a passage to the Moluccas
by the west, and in January, 1516, he entered the Kio de la
Plata, to which was originally given the name of Rio de
Solis. According to Herrera the name of La Plata, which
means " silver," was not given it till 1527, when Diego

422 PKINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Garcia found some plates of that metal, probably from the
mines of Potosi, in the hands of the Guarani Indians. The
expedition was fatal to De Solis. Having anchored in the
mouth of the river, he attempted a descent in the country,
and he and eight of his men were massacred by the natives,
and their bodies were cut in pieces, roasted, and devoured
in sight of the ships. This was probably in August, 1516.
The survivors had no heart to proceed further, but returned
to Europe, and thus King Ferdinand died without seeing
the accomplishment of the great object of his anxiety.

It was not till 1517 that Magalhaens laid before
Charles V., at Valladolid, his proposals for effecting the
great discovery, but here we have to deal with a character
and an achievement of colossal proportions, which demand
especial description in a work devoted to the " Results" of
the life of Prince Henry the Navigator.

Fernam de Magalhaens, better known by the Spanish
form of his name, Magellan, was of noble Portuguese
parentage, but we know little for certain of his early youth,
except that he was brought up in the household of Queen
Leonora, the wife of Dom Joao II. The instruction in
mathematics and geography which he would there receive
would be of an advanced kind, as at that time these sciences,
which had received large development in Portugal under the
auspices of Prince Henry, were taught by the two eminent
Jews, named Josef and Rodrigo, of whom mention has been
already made. He afterwards entered the service of Dom
Manoel. In March, 1505, when little more than twenty
years old, he joined the expedition of Francisco de Almeida,
first Viceroy of the Indies, to Quiloa, in which were Joao de
Nova, the constant rival of Albuquerque, already known to
the reader as the discoverer of St. Helena, Diego Correa, and
Magalhaens' own bosom friend Joao Serrao. We have also
seen that he was at the discovery of Malacca by Diogo Lopez
de Sequeira in 1509. His sojourn in India and his cam-
paigns in the extreme East, enabled him to gather information
on which ho afterwards basetl his memorable enterprise.

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 42^

One of his cousins, Francisco Serrao, who in 151 1 lirst went to
Teruatc, married a woman of that island, and settled there,
having- contrived to secure the good-will of tlie Malay sove-
reign. He thence communicated to Magalhaens the great
commercial advantages which might be secured by foreigners
from intercourse wath his adopted country.

Duarte Barbosa, also, the future brother-in-law of Magal-
haens, contributed by his explorations, the account of wliich
he completed in 1516, to that information which influenced
the subsequent movements of Magalhaens. After his return
from the East, Magalhaens served in Africa, and during a
razzia at Azamor, was wounded in the hnee, from wiiich
wound he remained lame all the rest of his life. In the dis-
tribution of some cattle then captured some disagreement
arose, which led to complaints against him at court, and to
much dissatisfaction. Conceiving himself unjustly treated
by the king in the matter of these complaints and the mode
of their reception, Magalhaens resolved to renounce his
nationality, and to leave Portugal. His exj)erience in navi-
gation, and his acquaintance with the geography of the
Moluccas, made him an acceptable visitor to Charles V., who
was then but just returned from Flanders. Magalhaens
arrived in Seville on the 20th of October, 1517, accompanied
by two other malcontents, Rui Faleiro, a learned cosmo-
grapher, and Christovam de Haro, a wealthy merchant, who
already possessed immense commercial relations with India.
The Papal Bull of Alexander VI. , which had determined that
a line drawn from pole to pole a hundred leagues west of the
Azores should be the boundary between the claims of Spain
and Portugal, was practically indecisive on account of the
difficulty of measuring longitudes. Nor w^ere matters im-
proved by the Convention of 1494, in which the line of de-
marcation was removed to three hundred and seventy leagues
west of the Azores, for though Portugal thereby gained in
South America, Spain became also a considerable gainer in
the East, the sea way to which had been first opened up by
Portugal. The Moluccas formed, moreover, the very garden

424 ' PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

of those spices, the commerce of which was so eagerly coveted.
Magalhaens gave it as his opinion that the Moluccas fell within
the Spanish boundary, and undertook to take a fleet thither
by the south of the American continent. The position of
Magalhaens at Seville was strengthened by his marriage, in
January, 1518, with the daughter of his relative, Diogo Bar-
bosa, with whom he had taken up his quarters, and who had
sailed to the Indies in 1501 under the order of Juan de Nova.
He was now commander of the Order of Santiago, and
lieutenant to the Alcaide of the Castle of Seville. Magal-
haens had further the good fortune to secure the friendship
and aid of Juan de Ovando, the principal factor of the
Contratacion or chamber of commerce. To the latter was
mainly owing the arrangement with the Emperor for that
great expedition which was afterwards to hold so distin-
guished a position in the history of nautical discovery.

In August, 1519, Charles V, gave Magalhaens five ships,
with the rank of Captain General, and it is remarkable that
everyone of the vessels was accompanied by a Portuguese pilot.
The Trinidad, of one hundred and twenty tons,* on board of
which Magalhaens hoisted his flag, had Stevam Gomez for
pilot ; the San Antonio, also of one hundred and twenty
tons, commanded by Juan de Cartagena, had indeed a
Spaniard, Andres de San Martin, for pilot, but he was
accompanied by the Portuguese pilot, Joao Rodrigues de la
Mafra; the Concepcion, of ninety tons, commanded by
Gaspar de Quesada, had for pilot the Portuguese, Joao
Lopez de Caraballo ; the Vittoria, of eighty-five tons, under
the command of Luis de Mendoza, was piloted by the Portu-
guese Vasco Gallego ; and the Santia(/o, of seventy-five tons,
was commanded by Joeio Serrao, a Portuguese pilot, on
whose skill and knowledge of the East, especially of the
Moluccas, of which they were in search, Magalhaens placed
great reliance.

* To produce a correct impression on om- minds of the size of these vessels,
one-fifth may be added to the recorded tonnage to make the equivalent of the
measurement of the present day ; e. g., the Triiiiddd, recorded as of one huudi'ed
and twenty tons, may be estimated at one hundred and forty-four tons.

nKSULTS SOI'TIIWAKP. 42;")

The fleet, wlucli consisted of two liuiiclivd ami sixty-tive
persons, set sail from San Lucar de Barrameda on the 2l8t
of September, 1519, and reached what is now called Rio de
Janeiro on the 18th of December. Magalliaens named it
Porto de Santa Lucia. Thence they came to the Ilio de la
Plata, where at first they supposed they had found a channel
to the Pacific ; but giving- up this hope, they proceeded
south, and on the 31st of March, 1520, entered Port St.
Julian, where Magalhaens stayed five months. The voyage,
if destined to be a great one in the world's history, was a
most unhappy one. It is not improbable that national
jealousy had much to do with the insubordination exhibited
by some of the Spanish captains on the one side, and the
extreme severity resorted to by Magalhaens by way of re-
pression. The revolt was initiated off the coast of Africa by
Juan de Cartagena, Captain of the San Antonio. Discontent
had arisen from Magalhaens having deviated from the course
previously settled in a consultation with the principal
officers, and by which deviation, unfortunately, much time
was lost. Juan de Cartagena took upon himself to remon-
strate with Magalhaens, who simply replied that it was his
duty to follow his commander, and not call him to account.
On a later occasion, this was followed by conduct so muti-
nous that Cartagena was not only deprived of his command,
but made a prisoner, and the command of his vessel — the
San Antonio — was given to a kinsman of Magalhaens, Alvaro
de Mezquita. This led to worse. On the morrow of their
arrival at Port St. Julian, which was Easter Day, the whole
fleet was summoned to attend mass on shore ; but Luis de
Mendoza and Gaspar de Quesada, the captains of the
Vittoria and Cojicepcion, absented themselves. This looked
strongly like disaffection, and so it proved. Magalhae/is
having decided to winter at Port San Julian, and finding
fish abundant, judged it expedient to retrench the allowance
of provisions. This, with the cold and barrenness of the
country, caused great murmuring, and the crews desired that
their commander would either issue the usual allowance, or

426 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

return, for they had ah'eady gone farther than any other,
and it was impossible to say what dangers lay before them.
To this Magalliaens replied that what he had undertaken he
intended to perform : that the King had ordered the voyage,
and that it was his duty to go on till he found a termination
to the land, or a strait. He reminded them that the place
where they were to winter abounded in wood and water and
fish and fowl, and he engaged that they should have no lack
of bread and wine. He further held out to them the confi-
dent hope that they should discover a world as yet unknown.
But they contended that all the spices of the Moluccas were
not worth so long a voyage, in which they had to cross the
line and coast the whole of Brazil, spending seven or eight
months in passing through so many climates, and to reach a
point so much easier of attainment in the opposite direction.
But besides these reasonings, no doubt, the being commanded
by a Portuguese was hateful to them, and they mistrusted
his loyalty to their country. The result was, that one night
Gaspar de Quesada boarded and took possession of the San
Antonio, made Alvaro de Mezquita, the captain, and Mafra,
the pilot, prisoners, and released Juan de Cartagena.

Magalhaens now saw plainly that summary measures were
more prudent than leniency. He first secured the Vittoria by
sending thirty men on board her under Gronzalo Gomez de
Espinosa, who by the commander's orders poniarded Men-
doza. At midnight it happened that the ebb-tide caused
the San Antonio to drag her anchors, and to float down the
river towards Magalhaens' ship, who supposing her to be come
with the intention of fighting, fired into her a ball, which
made its way into the cabin, and passed between the legs of
Mafra, the pilot, who was confined there. The ship was
presently boarded, and Quesada, with the rest of the muti-
neers, was captured. The Concepcion aCter this surrendered
at discretion. After a long inquiry, Quesada was con-
demned to be strangled, and a servant of his, who would
otherwise have been hanged, was reprieved on condition of
his beinu' the executioner. Juan de Cartagena was sentenced

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 427

to be put on shore with a French priest who had shared in
the mutiny. The rest by a wise policy were pardoned, and
the regulations respecting the provisions were modified.

When May set in, Joao SerrJto was sent southward to
examine the coast, and at twenty leagues distance discovered
on the 3rd of May a river, which in honour of the day lie
named Santa Cruz, but he had only passed three leagues
beyond it, when his ship, the Santiago, was driven violently
ashore by a gust of wind from the east, and became a total
wreck. The crew, who happily were all saved, contrived in
a few days, during which they had to live on herbs and
shell-fish, to make a small boat of some planks which were
driven on shore, and by this means two men crossed the
Santa Cruz and managed to reach Port San Julian, though
in a most exhausted state. Assistance and provisions were
immediately sent overland, but the weather was so severe
that they had to thaw ice for drink. The crew were rescued
and distributed among the other ships, Serrao being ap-
pointed to the command of the Conccpcion, and Duarte
Barbosa to the Vittoria.

It was not till they had lain two months in Port St.
Julian that any sign of a native appeared. At length a
man of gigantic size was seen on the beach, singing and
dancing and sprinkling dust upon his head. As this was
supjDOsed to imply friendliness, a sailor was sent on shore
to imitate his movements, which he did so well that the
giant accompanied him on board. He first pointed to the
sky, by way of asking whether they had come down from
that region. When he saw his reflection in a looking-glass,
he started back with such sudden surprise that he overturned
four Spaniards who were behind him. Other natives soon
came, the smallest of whom was taller and stouter tlian tlic
largest Spaniard. They had bows and arrows, and coats
made of skins. A kettle full of pottage with biscuit was
served to them, enough_, for twenty Spaniards, but six of
these men ate it all up. They then went on shore.

Two of them the next day brought some of tlie meat of

428 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

the animals whose skins they wore, and were much pleased
with the present of a red jacket to each in return. One of
them came often afterwards, and having been taught the
Lord's Prayer, was baptized and received the name of Juan
Gigante (John Giant). Observing that the mice were
thrown overboard, he begged to have them to eat, and took
on shore all that they could give him, but after six days
they saw no more of him. In all they saw only eighteen of
the natives. They wore shoes made of the skins of the
guanaco, which gave their feet the appearance of paws, for
which reason Magalhaens gave them the name of Patagones,
^j»ato, in Spanish, meaning a paw. After a lapse of twenty
days, four of them re-appeared, and a most treacherous plan
was resorted to in order to capture them, the object being to
carry away the two youngest and to exchange the other two
for their wives, with the view of importing this gigantic
race into Europe. After the two youngest had had their
hands filled with presents of different kinds, bright iron
rings were offered them, bat as, much as they wished for
them, they could not take them in their hands, it was
proposed to put them on their legs, and thus unsuspectingly
they were chained. As soon as they perceived the unge-
nerous trick, they struggled furiously, imploring Setebos,
their demon, to come to their help. Nine Spaniards seized
the other two and with difficulty bound them, but one broke
loose at the time and the other afterwards escaped. The
nest day seven of the Spaniards had an encounter with nine
of the natives, in which one of the former was shot ; to
avenge whose death, Magalhaens sent out twenty men to
take or slay all they might meet, but happily, though they
were eight days absent, they encountered none. The natives
were wanderers, and carried with them their huts, which
were made of light framework covered with skins. The men
were about seven feet six inches high, and remarkably swift
of foot ; the women not so tall, but stouter.

After taking possession of the country for the King of
S})ain, by erecting a cross on a hill which they named

RESULTS SOUTinVAHD. 420

Monte Christo, the ships set sail on the 24th Au^-tist,
leaving Juan de Cartagena and Sancliez de Reiuo on shore,
with a supply of bread and wine.

Finding in the river of Santa Cruz a great abundance of
fish, with wood and water, the fleet put in there till tlie 18th
of October, when they proceeded southward, and on the
21st reached a cape, from which the coast turned directly
due west. In honour of the day, which was the feast of St.
Ursula, they named the cape Cabo de las Virgenes. Magal-
haens then sent on two small ships to explore the inlet, but
not to be absent more than five days. At the end of that
time they returned with the report that while one of them
had only found some bays containing many shoals, the other
had sailed three days westward without finding an end to
the strait, and that the tide was stronger when it flowed
westward than when it ran to the east. This news was so
encouraging that the whole fleet entered the channel. The
San Anto7iio was sent on to explore, and after sailing fifty
leagues brought back the same promising account as the
others. There now remained only provisions enough for
three months, and Magalhaens wisely called a council of the
officers, at which the majority agreed with him in the
desirableness of proceeding, but Stevam Gomez was for
returning to Spain, lest they might be caught in calms and
perish of starvation. Magalhaens, however, declared that
*' even if they were to be reduced to eating the leather on
the ship's yards, he would fulfil his promise to the Emperor,
and, by the help of God, he hoped to succeed." He accord-
ingly set sail, forbidding any on pain of death to say a word
about returning to Spain, or about shortness of provisions.

In consequence of many fires being seen on the southern
shore of the strait, Magalhaens named that counliy Tierra
del Fuego— (The Land of Fire).

As they proceeded westward another arm of the sea to-
wards the south-east made its appearance and invited
examination, and the San Antonio was sent to exj)]()re it,
with orders to return in three days. As six (l;iys passed

430 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

without her re-appearance, the Vittoria went in search of her,
and subsequently the whole fleet : but as no sign appeared
of her, it was concluded that she had. sailed for Spain, as
afterwards proved to be the case. The fleet now resumed its
course westward, and on the 27th of November, 1520, thirty-
seven days after the discovery of the eastern entrance,
emerged from the strait into an open sea. The Cape which
terminated the strait at the westward on Tierra del Fuego
was named Cabo Deseado (The Desired Cape), and that in-
flexible man, whom neither danger could deter nor death
intimidate, is said to have shed tears of gratitude as he
beheld this realization of his hopes. His illustrious name,
as was only just, was subsequently given to the strait which
had thus been traversed, although at first it was named after
the Vittoria, which had first sighted the eastern entrance.

Now that the great discovery was effected, it was desirable
to make for the warm latitudes, and Magalhaens with the three
remaining ships, the Trinidad^ the Vittoria, and the Con-
cepcion, steered north-west. On their way they discovered on
the 24th of January, 1521, an uninhabited island in 16" 15' S.,
which they named San Pablo (Saint Paul), probably from
the remaining Patagonian who, dying on the passage, had
been baptized in that name. His fellow-captive had been
carried off in the San Antonio, on board of which he also
perished as he neared the warm latitudes. Two days the
ships remained off San Pablo in the hope of recruiting their
diminished stores with fish, but without success. At two
hundred leagues distance they discovered on the 4th of
February, another equally profitless, which from the number
of sharks near it, they named Tiburones. In their disap-
pointment they named the two islands, though so wide apart,
Las Desventuradas (The Unfortunate Islands), for their dis-
tress was becoming so great that they even ate sawdust
and the leather on the rigging. To save the fresh water,
they mixed one-third of salt water with the fresh to boil
their rice, which brought on the scurvy, and twenty of the
men died of that disease.

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 431

They crossed the line on tlic 13th of Fehruary, and on the
6th of March, they had the happiness of reaching some
beautiful islands, the natives of which came out to meet
them in canoes bringing cocoa nuts, yams, and rice. They
were a sturdy race with olive complexions and long hair.
They dyed their teeth red and black, and were naked with
the exception of an apron of bark.

Magalhaens would gladly have stayed here, but the })il-
fering habits of the people made it impossible. After some
contentions on this account, at length they stole a skiff,
which act Magalhaens punished by landing ninety men,
and firing their houses. Several natives were killed, and all
the provisions that could be found were carried off. The
skiff was soon set adrift and re-captured, but the event made
Magalhaens decide on leaving these islands, which from the
propensity of their inhabitants received the name of The
Ladrones (The Thieves).

From the Ladrones, Magalhaens steered W. and by
W.S.W., and on the 16th of March reached a group of
islands to which he gave the name of Archipielago de San
Lazaro, a name which was afterwards replaced by that of the
Philippines. He anchored off the island of Humunu (Jumon-
hol). On the 18th nine natives came out to him in a canoe
from the island of Zuluan. He received them cordially, and
they gave him fruits and palm wine. They afterwards brought
provisions in exchange for trinkets, and the ships remained
there nine days. These peoj^le were tattooed and went
nearly naked, but some of the chiefs wore earrings and
bracelets of gold, and a light covering of cotton, embroidered
with silk, on the head. Their weapons also were sometimes
ornamented with gold. On the 28th of March, Magalhaens
anchored off Mazagua, with the chief of which island he
entered into very friendly relations. On the 31st of ]\lar(h,
being Easter-day, mass was celebrated on shore with great
solemnity. The rajah, who was named Colambu, and his
brother were present, and when the Spaniards knelt in
adoration, they followed their example. On inquiry JNla-

432 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

galhaens found that tliey worshipped a supreme being, whom
they named Abba.

On the 5th of April Magalhaens sailed under the guidance
of Colambu himself to the large island of Zebu, the King of
which was Colambu's relation. They reached the town of
Zebu on the east side of the island on the 7th. Their
arrival at first occasioned great alarm, which was allayed by
Colambu, who represented the new-comers as a peaceable
people who wished to barter goods with the islanders. At
length all difficulties were removed and presents were inter-
changed. Here Magalhaens obtained supplies of provisions
in great abundance.

Being anxious to introduce the Christian religion, for
which the people seemed favourably inclined, Avith the King's
consent he erected a stone chapel on the shore, and it having
been duly consecrated, and also ornamented with tapestry
and palm branches, he landed on Sunday, the 14th April,
with many of his people to hear mass. The procession was
headed by the royal ensigns and two men in complete
armour. The King and a large number of natives came to
observe the service, and behaved with the greatest decorum.
By means of the interpreter, a native of Sumatra, who had
accompanied the expedition, the priest endeavoured to in-
struct them in the Christian faith, and soon the King and
the chief of Mazagua requested to be baptized. The former
had given him the name of Carlos from the Emperor.
Colambu was named Juan, and in a short time the Queen,
the Princesses, and the residents of the town followed their
example. Unfortunately, while explaining the duties required
by Christianity, the foremost of which was the destruction of
their idols, Magalhaens held out an inducement to conver-
sion which savoured much more of worldliness than of the
religion he was advocating. He assured the King of Zebu
that one of the benefits of Christianity would be the power
of easily subduing his enemies. Now the island contained
several little independent sovereignties which were often at
war witli each other, and a temptation like this was a great

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 433

provocation to his zeal. Whether resting on so insecure a
foundation it was likely to be permanent, we shall presently
see. To show the King of Zebu the value of Spanish pro-
tection, Magalhacns called a meeting of the other chiefs,
four of whom attended. These he required on pain of death
to pledge themselves to obey the new Christian Icing. They
yielded, but one of them afterwards slighting the command,
was attacked in the night by Magalhaens with forty men,
who ransacked and burnt one of his villages and set up a cross
on the spot.

Near Zebu was a small island named Matan, to the
chief of which, who was named Cilapulapo, he sent a
similar requirement that he would submit to the Christian
King of Zebu, on pain of having his town, named also Matan,
similarly destroyed. The gallant chief replied that he wished
to be on good terms with the Spaniards, and to prove his
words sent them a present of provisions, but absolutely
refused to obey strangers of whom he knew nothing, or to
submit to those whom he had long been accustomed to com-
mand. Against the advice of the King of Zebu as well as
of Joao Serrao, Magalhaens determined to punish the chief
of Matan for his contumacy. At midnight, on the 26th of
April, Magalhaens sailed for Matan with three boats and
sixty men, accompanied by the King of Zebu and a thousand
natives. It wanted two hours of daylight when they arrived,
but it was low water, and while waiting for the morning,
Magalhaens sent a messenger to the chief, proposing that if
he would then make submission, all would be forgotten.
The only answer was a defiance. The King of Zebu would
have led the attack with his thousand men, but his offer
was declined, and he himself ordered to remain quiet with
his men in their canoes and see how the Spaniards would
fight. Eleven men were left to guard the boats, and forty-
nine, including Magalhaens, landed. They first set fire to
some houses, when a strong body of Indians api)eared in one
direction, and as soon as the Spaniards had pie[iared to
attack them, another body of Indians made their appearance

F r

434 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

from another quarter. Magalhaens was thus obliged to
divide his little band into two. The battle was kept up with
projectiles during the greater part of the day, the Indians
using stones, lances, and arrows, and the Spaniards their
muskets and cross-bows. After a time it was perceived that
the fire of the Spanish musketry was not so deadly as had
been apprehended, and the islanders had further noticed
that the legs of their enemies could be assailed with greater
effect than their heads and bodies, which were covered with
armour. Moreover, Magalhaens had detached a small party
to set lire to some houses, more than twenty of which were
burnt, but two of the party were killed by the Indians. The
latter became now bolder, and approached nearer with a view
to taking the life of Magalhaens himself. His ammunition
now began to fail, and he ordered a retreat, but immediately
after received a wound from an arrow in the leg. It
was some distance to the boats, and the Spaniards lost all
order in their retreat, but Magalhaens himself bravely con-
fronted the Indians, looking back from time to time to see
if the men had reached the boats. He had just slain an
Indian by hurling back at him his own lance, when in
attempting to draw his sword, he found that a wound in
the right arm prevented him from doing so moi-e than half-
way. The islanders seeing this, attacked him boldly. A
severe wound in the right leg caused him to foil forward
on his face, and he was speedily despatched. In obe-
dience to the unfortunate order which he had received,
the King of Zebu and his people had remained in their
canoes, looking quietly on, but seeing the failing condition
of the Spaniards at the close, came to their relief and saved
many of them. Eight Spaniards died with Magalhaens, and
twenty-two were wounded.

Thus fell this great navigator, second only to Columbus
in the history of nautical exploration. Midway in the ex-
ecution of a feat such as the world had never witnessed, the
very hardihood which already had rendered that achievement
possible, had now, by degenerating into presumption, de-
l)rived him of the glory of its fulfilment.

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. i^C)

The Spaniards who escaped elected Diiavte Barbosa and
the pilot Joao Serrao, as joint Commanders-in-chief. Wo
have now to witness the hollowness of that rapid conversion
to Christianity professed by the King of Zebu, which very
natiirall}" betrayed itself so soon as the ftilse hope on which
he had depended was proved to be unfounded. The dcfciil,
of Magalhaens was the most conclusive proof that Chria-
tianity did not insure victory in battle. The friendly co-
operation of allies was now rejilaced by the basest treacher}'.
On Wednesday, May the 1st, this Christian King invited
the commanders and officers to an entertainment on shore,
in order that he might deliver to them the presents intended
for the Emperor, which were now read}^ But he plotted
their death, a threat from the King of Matau rendering it
necessary for him to prove himself their enemy. Against
the advice of Serrfio, who had his misgivings, Barbosa ac-
cepted the invitation, and by means of an unmerited taunt,
induced Serrao to accompany him. Twenty-six Spaniards
went on shore, and in the midst of the feast were attacked
by a body of armed men, who had been concealed. All of
them were murdered with the exception of the interpreter
and Serrao, who had been a favourite amongst them and was
spared. The Spaniards on board hearing the cry of the
victims, whose bodies were presently dragged to the shore
and cast into the sea, weighed anchor and fired upon the
town. The Indians now brought forward Serrao, naked
and in chains, who implored his countrymen to desist from
firing and to' ransom him; but Caraballo, the principal
officer then in command, knowing that Serriio's detention
left him without a superior, threw aside every feeling of
humanity and made sail, basely abandoning Serrao to the
mercy of the natives, who, doubtless, put him to death.

About one hundred and fifteen only now survived
of the armada, too small a number to manage the three
remaining ships. They sailed for the island of Bohol, S.E,
of Zebu, where they burned the Concepcion, which was the
oldest of their three vessels, Caraballo was elected Cora-

F F 2

436 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

mander-in-cliief, and Goncalo Gromez de Espinosa was ap-
pointed to the command of the Vittoria.

From Bohol they'sailed S. S. W., and after touching on the
west coast of Mindanao, passed by Cagayan to the island of
Palawan, and thence to Borneo.

On the 8th of July, 1521, they anchored at about three
leagues distance from the city of Borneo, and the next
morning were visited by the King's Secretary, inquiring
their business and whence they came. They sent a present
to the King, whose name was Siripada, and received from
him an invitation for two of the Spaniards to visit the city.
Espinosa, Captain of the Vittoria, accordingly landed with six
men, and was conveyed on an elephant to the King, who when
he had satisfied his curiosity, dismissed him with a present
of Chinese damask. This city was inhabited by Moham-
medans, but there was another larger one inhabited by
the earlier natives, who worshipped the sun and moon.
Both cities were built on piles over the water. As the
people continued friendly, and the Spaniards had occasion
to caulk the ships, five men w^ere sent to the city of Borneo
to procure wax to serve instead of pitch for that purpose,
but as three days elapsed without their returning, and
some large junks were seen to enter the port and anchor
near them, while a host of smaller craft put off from
the shore, the Spaniards tripped their anchors, attacked and
captured two of the junks, and with their artillery dis-
persed the smaller vessels. Two days after, the 31st of
July, they captured another junk, containing one hundred
men, and among them, one of the King of Borneo's
generals, said to be the son of the King of Luzon. This
man was sent on shore with several others to the King, to
tell him that if the five Spaniards were not restored, every
vessel coming into the port should be destroyed. Two of
them only were returned, but the Spaniards being anxious
to proceed on their voyage, set sail a few days after without
the other three ; an inexplicable proceeding, as they had so
lar<re a number of natives to o'ive in exchanire. It after-

RESULTS SOUTHWAIIU. 437

wards appeared that Caraballo had privately released the son
of the King- of Luzon for a sum of money, a ch-cumstanco
which caused his removal from the command by general
consent when the ships were ready to sail. Espinosa was
made Commander-in-chief, and Juan Sebastian del Cann,
a Biscayan, was appointed to the command of the Vittoriu.

Otf the coast of Mindanao, they captured a vessel of the
country containing some of the chiefs of Mindanao, by whose
instructions they altered their course to south-east with
the view of finding the Moluccas. In the passage their
Mindanao prisoners leaped overboard in the night-time,
and made their escape. It was on Wednesday, November
6th, 1521, that four islands were descried, which, as they
learned from one of the pilots, who being wounded coidd
not escape, were the long-souglit-for Molucca Islands, the
object for the discovery of which by a western route this
most wearisome voyage was undertaken.

On Friday, the 8th, they anchored at Tidor, and the next
day the King, whose name was Almanzor, richly dressed in
embroidered linen and silks, came on board the Capitana,
where he met with a cordial welcome, and on taking leave
embraced the Captain, expressing himself much gratified with
his reception. As at first the demand for spices was not
promptly responded to, the Spaniards thought of seeking a
cargo at one of the other islands, but when the King heard
this, he made a solemn promise to them on the Koran, to
provide them with all the spices they desired if they would
engage not to seek them elsewhere. To this Espinosa
consented, and to show his consideration for the King, at
his request liberated his prisoners and killed all the hogs
on board, the dislike of the Mohammedans to these animals
being intense. By way of compensation, the King made
the Spaniards an ample present of goats and poultry.

On the 13th of November, a Portuguese named Pedro
Affonso de Lorosa, who had come to the IMoluccas with the
first discoverers, came from Tern ate and informed the Spa-
niards that the news of their vovage had reached the

438 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Moluccas, nearly twelve months before. Francisco SerrSo,
the discoverer, had died at Ternate eight months previously.
Lorosa begged permission to return with his wife to
Europe in the Spanish ships, which was granted.

On the 25th, Almanzor having procured a large quantity
of cloves from the neighbouring islands, invited the Spa-
niards to a banquet on shore, saying that it was customary
to entertain merchants on the occasion of their first taking
in a cargo. But the Spaniards having a wholesome recol-
lection of the fatal feast at Zebu, prudently declined the
invitation with thanks.

Having laid in their stock of spices and provisions,
they prepared to sail on \¥ednesday, December 18th, and
the Kings of the islands came to pay their farewell visit,
but while the Trinidad was weighing, it was found that she
had sprung a leak. As several days were spent in vain
endeavours to remedy the mischief, or to find out where the
water entered, it was resolved that the Vittoria should sail
forthwith to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope, and that
the Trinidad^ after repairing, should sail eastward for
Panama, The Vittoria had in her forty-seven Europeans,
and thirteen Indians. The Trinidad fifty-three Europeans.
The King of Tidor sent two pilots to steer the Vittoria clear
of the neighbouring islands, and she proceeded on her home-
ward voyage.

On the 10th of January they reached Mallua or Orabay,
where they remained fifteen days to repair, and on the 26th
they came to the island of Timor, where they took in white
sandal-wood, cinnamon, and wax. Here a mutiny broke
out, in which several lives were lost. Some of the muti-
neers were executed, and others left the ship.

On February 11th they sailed from Timor, and in order to
avoid Portuguese ships in rounding the Cape, sailed as far
south as 42^ S., but with all their caution, when they passed
the Cape on the 6th of May, they approached it within five
leagues. Their sufierings must have been great, for the ship
Was h'aky and ])rovisions scarce, niul at all hazards, when

RESULTS SOUTIIWAKI), 4',V.)

they reached the Cape Verile Islands, they were compelled
to put in at Santiago, for their provisions were now ex-
hausted. This was on the 9th of July.

To prevent the Portuguese from suspecting whence I hey
came, they said that they had come from America, and thus
they procured some rice from the shore. It was here they
discovered that in sailing round the world they had lost a
day in reckoning their time, for whereas at Santiago it was
Thursday, the 10th of July, the Vittoria's account made it
Wednesday, the 9th.

Through the imprudence of one of the sailors who offered
spices in payment for what he wanted to purchase, the
remnant of this extraordinary expedition narrowly escaped
even at this late period from a ruinous disaster. The boat
was stopped, and the Portuguese made preparations to
attack the ship, but fortunately the movement was per-
ceived in time, and Del Cano weighed anchor and left the
island.

On Saturday, the 6th of September, 1522, the Vittoria
arrived at San Lucar, with eighteen survivors only of the
noble fleet which had sailed from the same port on the 20th
of September, 1519. Thus three years, all but fourteen
days, had been expended in this most eventful and wonder-
ful voyage — a miracle of resolute perseverance under incon-
ceivable hardships. It was appropriate that the only ship
which had effected this great achievement should have borne
the name of Vittoria, for a victory had been gained such as
the world had never witnessed. On his arrival, Del Cano,
the fortunate recipient of the honours which had been toiled
for and deserved by the talents and indomitable resolution
of his great commander, Magalhaens, was summoned by
the Emperor to Valladolid, and received with great distinc-
tion. A life pension of five hundred ducats was conferred
on him, with a patent of noljility. The coat of arms granted
him by the Emperor bore branches of the clove, cinnamon,
and nutmeg trees, with a globe for a crest, and the motto,
^^ Primus circumdedisti me.'"

440 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

Thus far we have had great things to record as links in
one continuous chain of magnificent discoveries. Eastward
and westward the bold hand of man had torn away the veil
from the bosom of ocean, and at length he has encircled her
waist with his grasp. One little century has transpired
since the budding manhood of Prince Henry had seen him
bent upon the investigation of the unknown paths of the
Atlantic, and now the world has been encompassed by men
whose daring was fostered by the example of his persever-
ance. A century shall not have transpired since his first
feeble but persistent eiforts had succeeded in rounding the
then formidable Cape Boyador, before another gem shall be
added to the crown of that glorious little nation, to whose
courageous efforts his genius and constancy had given the
first impulse.

The great discoveries of Francisco Pizarro and Diego de
Almagro on the western coast of South. America soon
followed.

It was not long after the completion of the ever memor-
able voyage which has been just related, before Australia,
that vast insular continent, with whose discovery we are
accustomed generally to connect the name of our illustrious
Cook, or at furthest that of Dampier, was explored both on
its eastern and western sides by the Portuguese. True, the
knowledge of this fact lay dormant till the close of the last
century, hidden in the testimony of some valuable old French
manuscript maps, whose worth and importance, nay, even
whose existence, appears to have been unrecognised till after
the gallant Cook had completed his unrivalled series of ex-
plorations.* Long previously, no doubt, the great fact had

* It is greatly to be regrettsd that Alexander Dalrymplc, at- that time Hydi'o-
grapher to the Admiralty and East India Company, to -whom England is largely
indebted for its commercial prosperity, and who panted for the glory of discover-
ing a great southern continent, should have allowed his jealousy of Captain
Cook's appointment to the Endeavour to lead him into an injurious insinuation
that the great Captain's discoveries on the coast of New Holland were the result
of his acquaintance with one of these pre-existent maps. This he bases on the
resemlilance of the names of bays and ( oasts on the map to those given by
Captain Cook to parts of New Holland which he had himself discovered. TJie

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 441

been faintly indicated on engraved maps, but in a I'asliiou
far less definite than on these yet older manuscript maps,
which, drawn before copper plates were used for cartography,
tell forth unequivocally the story of the important discovery.
The earliest engraved indication of Australia occurs on a
mappe-monde, in the third volume of the Polyglot Bil)le of
Arias Montanus, dated 1572, and is the more striking that
it stands unconnected with any other land whatever, and
bears no kind of description. It is simply a curved line in-
dicating the north part of an unexplored land exactly in the
position of the north of Australia, distinctly implying an
imperfect discovery. In the other engraved maps of the
sixteenth century, we find the Terra Australis occupying the
whole of the southern part of the globe, that portion which
lay in the real longitude of Australia being brought up to
its right position, far more to the north than elsewhere ;
thus recognising the genuine discovery of the north part of
that continent. The vast remainder was but a fancied con-
tinuation of the Tierra del Fuego, the southern point of
which not having been yet discovered, was supposed to form
a portion of a great southern land which from remote ages
had been supposed to be in existence, and as Magalhaens
had been the discoverer of this Tierra del Fuego in passing
through the strait which bears his name, this supposed great
southern continent received from its reputed discoverer the
name of Terra Magellanica. In some of these early en-
graved maps, New Guinea and the Terra Australis are united,
but no greater proof can be adduced of the fact, that Aus-
tralia was then known to be discovered, although as yet no
authenticated discovery by any given ship or navigator had
been recorded, than the fact that on other maps of this
period is found the legend, " Nova Guinea, quas an sit
insula aut pars continentis adhuc ignotum est." These facts
respecting the early engraved maps are interesting, because

unworthy insinuation met with a sensible and generous refutation from the pen
of a Frenchman, M. Frederic Met?:, in a paper printed at p. 'i'll, Vol. 47 of Za
Revue, oii Decode I'hilosojMqw, Litterairc et FoUtique, Nov., 1S05.

442 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

while utterly distinct from the earlier and more vaUiable
manuscript documents, they precede the period of what, for
want of a better word, I must call the authenticated dis-
covery of Australia, i.e.^ made hy a known ship or navigator.
The earliest authenticated discovery, in this sense of the
word, was, till recently, supposed to have been made on
the 18th of November, 1605, by the Dutch yacht, the
Duyflien^ which had been despatched from Bantam to explore
the island of New Guinea, and which sailed along what was
thought to be the west side of that country to 19|'^ of south
latitude. In the year 1861, however, it was my good fortune
to light upon a manuscript mappemonde in the British
Museum which enabled me to carry back that first authenti-
cated discovery to the year 1601, and to transfer the honour
thereof from the" Dutch to' the Portuguese, by whom the
discovery, although unauthenticated by the known name of
the ship or navigator, had been made, as I shall presently
show, some seventy years before.

On the mappe-monde in question was delineated the north-
west portion of Australia, and on the extreme north was the
following legend : '^ Nuna Antara foi descubertao anno 1601
por mano (s?c) el godhino de Evedia {sic) por mandado de
(sfc) Vico Key Aives {sic) de Saldaha {sic) :^' which translated
is : " Nu^a Antara (the local name) was discovered in the year
1601 by Manoel Godinho de Eredia, by command of the
Viceroy Ajtcs de Saldanha." Unfortunately, the map is
only a copy, apparently, as I have since discovered from a
letter addressed to Navarrete by the Vicomte de Santarem in
1835, of a map in a MS. Atlas, made in the 17th century by
one Teixeira, and hence the blunders marked by " sic." For
this reason I could only have adduced it for quantum valeret^
were it not that I am able to corroborate it by independent
evidence to which the blunders themselves are but a further
corroboration. The name Nucja Antara is shown in Sir Stam-
ford Uaflies' " Java " to apply also to the island of Madura,
north-east of Java, but, as that island is distinctly given in
this very mappu-monde, it is clear that no mistake is involved

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HKSULTS SOUTHWARD. 443

on that account ; and that the country delineated is really
Australia is proved by a second legend below the lirst,
thus: " Terra descuberta pelos Holandesea a quo chamarao
Enduacht {sic) ou Concordia," (land discovered Ijy the Dutch,
which they called Endracht or Concord). Eendraghtsland,
as we all know, was the name given to a large tract on the
west coast of Australia, discovered by the Dutch ship, the
Eendraght, in 1616. The map being a copy, it may be
objected that the important legend declaring the discovery
in 1601 may have been fraudulently inserted. But to give
such a suggestion weight a motive must be shown, the most
reasonable one being that of assigning the honour of the first
authenticated discovery to Portugal instead of to Holland.
For this purpose we must suppose the falsifier to have been
a Portuguese. To this I reply, that while all the writing of
the map is in Portuguese, the copy was made by a person
who was not only not a Portuguese himself, but who was
ignorant of the Portuguese language. For example, the
very legend in question, short as it is, contains no less than
five blunders, all showing ignorance of the language : thus,
the words " por Manoel " are written " por mano el,"
"Eredia" is written ^' Evedia," ''do" is written " de,"
*'Ayres" is written " Aives," "Saldanha" is written
"■ Saldaha," without the circumflex to imply an abbrevia-
tion.

But further, if we attribute to such supposed falsification
the ulterior object of claiming for the Portuguese the honour
of a prior discovery, whence comes it that that object has
never been carried out ? It was not till 1861 that the fact was
made known by me, and those most interested in the ancient
glory of the Portuguese nation were ignorant of the discovery
which this map declares to have been made. That it never
became matter of history may be explained by the com-
paratively little importance which would at the time be
attached to such a discovery, and also by the fact tiial tlic
Portuguese, being then no longer in the fulness ol' their
prosperity, were not keeping i]ni subject before tlieir atten-

444 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

tion by repeated expeditions to that country, as the Dutch
shortly afterwards really began to do.

Again, the speculation might be hazarded that, as this
map is a copy, the date of the discovery may have been
carelessly transcribed, as, for example, 1601 may easily
have been written in the original 1610 and erroneously
copied. Fortunately the correctness of the date can be
proved beyond dispute. It is distinctly stated that the
voyage was made by order of the Viceroy Ayres de
Saldanha, the period of whose viceroyalty extended onl)^
from 1600 to 1604, thus precluding the possibility of the
error suggested, and terminating before the period of the
earliest of the Dutch discoveries.

Moreover, if the legend in question were not a genuine
copy from a genuine ancient map, how came the modern
falsifier to be acquainted with the name of a real cosmo-
grapher who lived at Goa, at a period which tallies with the
state of geographical discovery represented on the map, but
none of whose manuscript productions had been put into
print at the time when the supposed fictitious map was
made, or the legend fictitiously inserted ?

I think these arguments are conclusive in establishins:
the legitimacy of the modern copy from the ancient map.
As regards the discoverer, Manoel Godinho de Eredia (or
rather Heredia, as written by Barbosa Machado and b}'-
Figaniere), I find the following work by him : "Historia do
Martyrio de Luiz Monteiro Coutinho que padeceo por ordem
do Eey Achem Raiamancor no anno de 1588, e dedicada ao
illustrissimo D. Aleixo de Menezes, Arcebispo de Braga ;"
which dedication was dated Goa, 11th of November, 1615,
fol. MS. with various illustrations.

Barbosa Machado calls him a distinguished mathema-
tician ; and Figaniere, a cosmographer resident at Goa. It
follows as a most likely consequence that the original map
was made by himself. The copy came from Madrid, and
was purchased by the British Museum in 1848, from tho
Sefior de Michclenay Roxas. It will be matter of interest to

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 445

discover at some future day the existence of the original map,
but whether that be in the library at IMadrid, or elsewhere,
must be a subject for future inquiry.

In a scarce pamphlet entitled '' Informaciio da Aurca
Chersoneso, ou Peninsula e das Ilhas Auriferas, Carbun-
culase Aromaticas, ordenada por Manoel Godinho de Ercdia,
Cosmographo," translated from an ancient MS., and edited
by Antonio Louren^o Caminha, in a reprint of the " Orden-
acoes da India do Senbor Rei D. Manoel," Lisbon, Royal
Press, 1802, 8vo., occurs a passage which may be translated
as follows : —

" Island of Gold. While the fishermen of Lamakera, in
the island of Solor,* were engaged in their fishing, there
arose so great a tempest that they were utterly unable to
return to the shore, and thus they yielded to the force of the
storm, which was such that in five days it took them to
the Island of Gold, which lies in the sea on the opposite
coast, or coast outside of Timor, which properly is called the
Southern Coast. "When the fishermen reached the Land of
Gold, not having eaten during those days of the tempest,
they set about seeking for provisions. Such happy and suc-
cessful good fortune had they, that, while they were searching
the country for yams and batatas, they lighted on so much
gold, that they loaded their boat so that they could carry no
more. After taking in water and the necessary supplies for
returning to their native country, they experienced another
storm, which took them to the island of Great Ende rf there
they landed all their gold, which excited great jealousy
amongst the Endes. These same Endes therefore proposed,
like the Lamacheres fishermen, to repeat the voj^age ; and
when they were all ready to start, both the Endes and Lama-

* The inhabitants of the coast of Solor are specially mentioned as fishermen
by Crawfurd, in his " Dictionary of the Indian Islands."

t This is the island of Flores. In a "List of the principal Gold-mines
obtained by the explorations (curiosidade) of Manoel Godinho do Ilcredia,
Indian cosmographer, resident in Malacca for twenty years and more," also
published with the "Ordena<;des da India," Lisbon, 1807, the same story is
told, but the island Ende is there called Ilha do Condc.

446 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

cheres, there came upon them so great a trepidation that
they did not dare, on account of their ignorance, to cross
that Sea of Gold.

" Indeed, it seems to be a providential act of Almighty-
God, that Manoel Godinho de Eredia, the cosmographer,
has received commission from the Lord Count- Admiral, the
Viceroy of India within and beyond the Ganges, that the
said Eredia may be a means of adding new patrimonies to
the Crown of Portugal, and of enriching the said Lord Count
and the Portuguese nation. And therefore all, and especi-
ally the said Lord, ought to recognise with gratitude this
signal service, which, if successful, will deserve to be re-
garded as one of the most happy and fortunate events in the
world for the glory of Portugal. In any case, therefore, the
discoverer ought for many reasons to be well provided for the
gold enterprise. First, On account of the first possession
of the gold by the crown of Portugal. Secondly, For the
facility of discovering the gold. Thirdly, Because of the
gold mines being the greatest in the world. Fourthly,
Because the discoverer is a learned cosmographer. Fifthly,
That he may at the same time verify the descrij)tions of
the Southern Islands. Sixthly, On account of the new
Christianity. Seventhly, Because the discoverer is a skilful
captain, who proposes to render very great services to the
King of Portugal, and to the most happy Dom Francisco da
Gama, Count of Vidigueira, Admiral and Viceroy of the
Indies within and beyond the Ganges, and possessor of the
gold, carbuncle, and spices of the Eastern Sea belonging to
Portugal."

Short of an actual narrative of the voyage in which the
discovery, thus newly announced by this map, was made,
we could scarcely ask for fuller confirmation of the truth
of that discovery, than that which is supplied by the above
extract. Manoel Godinho de Eredia is there described as a
learned cosmographer and skilful captain, who had received
a special commission to make explorations for gold mines,
and at the same time to verify the descriptions of the

RESULTS SOUTtlWARD. ' 447

Southern Islands. The Island of Gold itself is described
" as on the opposite coast, or coast outside of Timor, which
properly is called the Southern Coast." It is highly proba-
ble from this description that it is the very Nuoa Antara of
our MS. map, which does lie on the southern coast 0})posite
to Timor. It is still further most remarkable that, by the
mere force of facts, the period of the commission here given
to Eredia is brought into proximity with the date of his
asserted discovery of Australia. The viceroy, Francisco de
Gama, who gave that commission, was the immediate pre-
decessor of Ayres de Saldanha. His viceroyalty extended
only from 1597 to 1600, and the asserted discovery was
made in 1601, though we know not in what month. A
more happy confirmation of a discovery, unrecorded except
in a probably unique map, could scarcely have been hoped for.

But all this, though important and far from irrelevant
to our subject, is a digression from the more important
consideration of the story told by the invaluable manu-
script maps of the beginning of the sixteenth century.
It occurs in similar form on seven maps, five of them in
England and two in France, on which, immediately below
Java, and separated from that island only by a narrow strait,
is drawn a large country stretching southward to the verge
of the several maps. The first of these maps to which a
fixed date is attached, are two in one atlas, which was made
in 1542 by a Frenchman named Jean Rotz or Roty, who
came to England and dedicated his work to Henry VIII.
Another, probably older but without a date, is anonymous,
but as it bears the arms of the Dauphin it appears to have
been executed in the time of Francis I. for his son the
Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. Both this map and the atlas
by Rotz are in the British Museum. As the other maps all
tell the same story, it will be needless here to make any
further reference to them.*

The two selected will suffice for our consideration as to

* For a more detailed account of these maps see my " Early Voyages to Terra
Australis," printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1859.

448 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

what the lai-ge country is which is thus delineated to the
south of Java, who were the discoverers, and what was the
api3roxiniate period of the discovery. On the Dauphin map
this great country is called " Jave la Grande ; " on Rotz's
map '' The Londe of Java,^' and is distinguished from the
smaller island of Java itself by the latter being called "The
lytil Java."

1. The first question that naturally arises, is, how far does
this large country correspond in latitude, longitude, and out-
line with our present surveys of Australia ?

And first as respects latitude. In all of these maps the
latitude of the north of Java, which is the first certain start-
ing point, is correct. The south coast of " the lytil Java,"
though separated from the ''Londe of Java^' by a narrow
channel, has no names indicating any pretension to a survey.

The maps show plainly that it was unknown whether the
two countries were connected or not. Happily, Rotz's map
is an exception to the rest in one important respect. Where-
as the rest connect this great country with a vast continent
occupying the whole south part of the globe, including and,
as it were, springing from the Tierra del Fuego, from whose
discoverer it is called Magellanica, Rotz's map exhibits the
degrees of latitude in which both the western and eastern
coasts were supposed to cease, and by their accuracy, prove an
amount of exploration which fairly throws back the original
discovery to a period very much earlier than 1542, the date
of this map. On the western side the coast line ceases
altogether at 35*^, the real south-western point of Australia.
On the eastern coast, for the Portuguese the remotest for
investigation, there is greater inaccuracy, the line terminating
in the sixtieth degree, a parallel far exceeding in its southing
even the southernmost point of Tasmania, which is in 43^^
35', but there is strong reason for supposing that the eastern
side of Tasmania was included in this line. With respect
to lono-itude, it may be stated that while there is no other
country but Australia lying between the same parallels and
of the same extent, between the east coast of Africa and the

Cow . »ieiicr i^utw

448 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

what the lai'ge country is which is thus delineated to the
south of Java, who were the discoverers, and what was the
approximate period of the discovery. On the Dauphin map
this great country is called " Jave la Grande ; " on Eotz's
map " The Londe of Java/' and is distinguished from the
smaller island of Java itself by the latter being called " The
lytil Java."

1. The first question that naturally arises, is, how far does
this large country correspond in latitude, longitude, and out-
line with our present surveys of Australia ?

And first as respects latitude. In all of these maps the
latitude of the north of Java, which is the first certain start-
ing point, is correct. The south coast of " the lytil Java,"
though separated from the "Londe of Java^' by a narrow
channel, has no names indicating any pretension to a survey.

The maps show plainly that it was unknown whether the
two countries were connected or not. Happily, Rotz's map
is an exception to the rest in one important respect. Where-
as the rest connect this great country with a vast continent
occupying the whole south part of the globe, including and,
as it were, springing from the Tierra del Fuego, from whose
discoverer it is called Magellanica, Rotz's map exhibits the
desfrees of latitude in which both the western and eastern
coasts were supposed to cease, and by their accuracy, prove an
amount of exploration which fairly throws back the original
discovery to a period very much earlier than 1542, the date
of this map. On the western side the coast line ceases
altogether at 35^^, the real south-western point of Australia.
On the eastern coast, for the Portuguese the remotest for
investigation, there is greater inaccuracy, the line terminating
in the sixtieth degree, a parallel far exceeding in its southing
even the southernmost point of Tasmania, which is in 43^^
35', but there is strong reason for supposing that the eastern
side of Tasmania was included in this line. With respect
to lono-itude, it may be stated that while there is no other
country but Australia lying between the same parallels and
of the same extent, between the east coast of Africa and the

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 449

west coast of America, so Australia does in reality lie be-
tween tlie same meridians as the great mass of the country
here laid down.

There are also many points of correctness in contour. As
regards the west coast, a single glance of the eye is sudi-
cient to detect the general resemblance. On tlie eastern
side, as might be expected, the discrepancies are much greater,
but nothing can be move remarkable than the great number
of islands and reefs laid down along the north-east coast as
coinciding with the Great Barrier Reefs, and with the Cum-
berland and Northumberland Islands, and a liost of others,
which skirt this part of the shores of Australia.

2. It being, therefore, indubitable that the extensive
country thus laid down is Australia, we proceed to examine
who were the discoverers. All these maps are French, and
that they are all repetitions with slight variations from one
source is shown by the fact that the inaccuracies are alike in
all of them. But although the maps arc in French, there
are indications of Portuguese in some of the names, such as,
" Terre ennegade," a Gallicized form of Tierra Anegada, i.e.
" land under water " or " sunken shoal/' " Gra^al " and
" Cap de Fromose." The question then arises, Were the
French or the Portuguese the discoverers ? In reply, I pre-
sent the following statement.

In limine^ 1 have to recall to the reader's memory, that
in the year 1529 a voyage was made to Sumatra by Jean
Parmentier of Dieppe, and in this voyage he died. Par-
meatier was a poet and a classical scholar, as well as a navi-
gator and good hydrographer. He was accompanied in this
voyage by his intimate friend, the poet Pierre Crignon, who, on
his return to France, published in 1531 the poems of Par-
mentier, with a prologue containing his eulogium, in which
he says of him, that he was " semblablement le premier
Fran9ois qui a descouvert les Indes jusqu'a Tlsle de Tapro-
bane, et, si mort ne I'eust pas prevenu, je crois qu'il eust
ete jusques aux Moluques." This is high authority upon this
point, coming as it does from a man of education and m

G G

450 PRINCE HENRY TIIK NAVIGATOR.

shipmate and intimate of Parraentier himself. The Frencli,
then, were not in the South Seas beyond Sumatra before
1529. The date of the earliest of our quoted maps is not
earlier than 1535, as it contains the discovery of the St.
Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in that year ; but even let us
suppose it no earlier than that of Rotz, which bears the date
of 1542, yet we find no voyages of the French in the South
Seas between the years of 1529 and 1542. Neither the
Abbe Raynal, nor any modern French writer, nor even anti-
quaries, who have entered most closely into the history of
early French explorations, as for example, M. Leon Guerin,
the author of the Histoire Maritime de France, Paris, 1843,
8vo., and of Les Naiigateurs Francais, Svo., Paris, 1847,
offer the slightest pretension that the French made voyages
to those parts in the early part or middle of the sixteenth
century. Indeed, France was at that time too poor and too
much embroiled in political anxieties, to busy herself with
extensive nautical explorations. Had she so done the whole
of North America and Brazil might now have belonged to
her. Now we do know from Barros and Galvao that, at the
close of 1511, Albuquerque sent from Malacca Antonio de
Abreu and Francisco Serriio, with three ships toBandaand the
Moluccas ; they passed along the east side of Sumatra to Java,
and thence by Madura, Bali, Surabava, Solor, &c., to Papua
or New Guinea. From thence they went to the Moluccas and
to Amboyna. See Barros, D. 3, i. 5, c. G, p. 131, and Galvao,
translated by Hakluyt, p. 378. Now of these islands
we have some which are incorporated into the northern
portion of the Grande Jave, but that which is totally wanting
between 1511 and 1529, is the account of the various Portu-
guese explorations of the eastern and western coasts of the
vast country described under that name. That this obscurity
is mainly due to a jealous apprehension lest lands of large
extent and great importance in the southern seas might fall
into the hands of rival powers to their own displacement or
j)rojudice, may not only be suspected, but is affirmable from
historical evidence.

RESULTS SOUTHWARD. 451

It is stated by Humboldt {Histoire dc hi Geograpfiie du
Nouveau Continent^ torn. iv. p. 70), upon the autliority <>i'
the letters of Angelo Trevigiano, secretary to Donienico
Pisani, ambassador fVoui Venice to Spain, tluit the Kings
of Portugal forbad upon pain of death the exportation of any
marine chart which showed the course to Calicut. We find
also in Ramusio {JDiscorso sopra U libro di Odoardo Barbosa,
and the Sommario delle Indie Orientally torn. i. p. 287 ^),
a similar prohibition implied. He says that these books
" were for many years concealed, and not allowed to be pub-
lished, for convenient reasons that I must not now describe."
He also speaks of the great difficulty he himself had in pro-
curing a copy, and even that an imperfect one, from Lisbon.
" Tanto possono," he says, " gli interessi del principe."
Again, in torn. iii. of the same collection, in the passage
which I have already had occasion to quote from the
" Discorso d'un gran Capitano del Mare Francese del
luogo di Dieppa," &c., now known to be the voyage of Jean
Parmentier to Sumatra in 1529, and in all probability
written by Pierre Crignon, the covetousness and cxclusive-
ness of the Portuguese are inveighed against. " They seem,"
he says, " to have drunk of the dust of the heart of King
Alexander, for that they seem to think that God made the
sea and the land only for them, and that if they could have
locked up the sea from Finisterre to Iceland, it would have
been done long ago,^' &c.

At the same time, however, we know that the Portuguese
had establishments before 1529 in the East Indian Islands,
and the existence of Portuguese names on the countries of
which we speak as thus delineated on these French maps,
is in itself an acknowledgment of their discovery by the
Portuguese, as assuredly the jealousy implied in the sen-
tence just quoted from Pierre Crignon's Prologue, would
not only have made the French most ready to lay claim
to all they could in the shape of discovery, but would have
prevented any gratuitous insertion of Portuguese names

c; G 2

452 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

on such remote countries had they themselves discovered
them.

But thou2:h we have no evidence to show that the French
made any original discoveries in the South Seas in the first
half of the sixteenth century, we have the evidence that
they were good hydrographers. Crignon describes Parmentier
as " hon cosmographe et geographe," and says, " par luy
ont este composez plusieurs mape-mondes en globe et en
plat, et maintes cartes marines sur les quelles plusieurs ont
navigue seurement." It is dangerous to draw conclusions
from negatives ; but it is both legitimate and desirable that
we should give due w^eight to evidence of high probability
when such fall within our notice. If all the French maps
we have quoted are, as we have shown, derived from one
source, since they all contain the same errors ; and if Par-
mentier, who was a good hydrographer, was the only French
navigator whom we find mentioned as having gone so far as
Sumatra before the period of the earliest of these maps;
and further, if these maps exhibit Portuguese names laid
down on a country beyond Parmentier's furthest point
of exploration, we think the inference not unreasonable that
Parmentier may have laid down, from Portuguese maps, the
information which has been copied into those we have
quoted, and that the descriptions round the coast, which are
all (as may be plainly seen), with the exception of those
which bear the stamp of Portuguese, convertible into French,
have been naturally written by French map-makers, in that
language. "VVe can but throw out this suggestion for qumi-
tum valeat. All positive evidence, in spite of laborious
research, is wanting. The Portuguese names are but few, but
there they are, and bear their stubborn evidence.

Our surmises, therefore, lead us to regard it as highly
probable that Australia was discovered by the Portuguese
between the years 1511 and 1529, and to a demonstrable
certainty, that it was discovered before the year 1542.

We have now seen how, within the small compass of a

RESULTS SOUTHWAKD. 453

single century from the date of tlie rounding of Capo Boyador,
more than one-half of the world was opened up to man's
knowledge, and brought within his reach by an unbroken
chain of discovery which originated in the genius and the
efforts of one whose name is all but unknown.

The Coasts of Africa visited ; the Cape of Good Hope
rounded; the New World disclosed ; the sea-way to India,
the Moluccas, and China, laid open ; the globe circumnavi-
gated, and Australia discovered : such were the stupendous
results of a great thought and of indomitable perseverance
in spite of twelve years of costly failure and disheartening
ridicule. Had that ftiilure and that ridicule produced on
Prince, Henry the efiect which they ordinarily produce on
other men, it is impossible to say what delays would have
occurred before these mighty events would have been real-
ized ; for it must be borne in mind that the ardour not only
of his own sailors, but of surrounding nations, owed its im-
pulse to this pertinacity of purpose in him. True it is, that
the great majority of these vast results were etiected after his
death ; and it was not granted to him to affix his quaint
signature to charters and grants of territory in those Eastern

I[fFANTe] D[0m] A[NUI(iUE].

and Western Empires which at length were won by means
of the explorations he had fostered. True, he lived not to see
the proof, in his own case unparalleled, that the courageous
pursuit of a grand idea may produce consequences even
greater than that idea had comprehended. No doubt that
from Sagres no beam of light brought to his mental vision
the prospect of an America to brighten the horizon of the
Sea of Darkness ; yet enough has, I trust, been said in the
preceding pages to establish the correctness of the statement

454 . PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

with which I set out, that " if, from the pinnacle of our
present knowledge, we mark on the world of waters those
bright tracks which have led to the discovery of mighty
continents, we shall find them all lead us back to that same
inhospitable point of Sagres, and to the motive which gave
to it a royal inhabitant."

454 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

with which I set out, that '' if, from the pinnacle of our
present knowledge, we mark on the world of waters those
bright tracks whicli have led to the discovery of mighty
continents, we shall find them all lead us back to that same
inhospitable })oint of Sagres, and to the motive which gave
to it a royal inhabitant."

INDEX.

Abraham of Boja (Ralihi), pent by
Jo.lu IT., with Josrpli of Liiniogo,
to meet Covilham, 339.

Abrou (Antonio dc) discovers Ain-
boyna. \c., loll-Ti. 418, l;j().

Abreu (Joao Gomez d') discovers the
west coast of jMadas^ascar, 1506;
names it !San Lourcn(,'0, 416.

Abv.ssinia. Journey of C'ovilliam to,
1487, 340.

Tristam da Cunlia (1507) sends

envoys, 416.

Albnquir(|ue reaches the court,

1508; :\Iatthew and Eodrigo do
Lima gain admission there, 417.

Affbnso v., son of Dom Duarte, at
fourteen attains his political ma-
jority, 227.

his bi trothal to Dom Pedro's

dauiilitor, Dona Isabel, 227.

his marriage, 228.

intlnoncf.'d against Dom Pedro

by the Duke of Braganza, 228.

receives I)om Pe^lro's resigna-
tion, 229.

is induced to declare war against

his imcle, 231.

pi'omises Dona Isabel to pardon

her father, but breaks his jiromise,
231.

his ai-my meets Dom Pedro'e

near AlfaiTobeira, and Dom Pedio
is killed, 232.

his affection for his wife, 233.

grants ])ermission for her father's

bmial, 233.
his surname of " the African,"

300.

determines to attack Alcaqar

hjeguer, 301.

Kiils on the cxi.edition, 30th

yept., 1458, 301.

AfTonso V. lands at Sagrcs, where he
is received by Prince Henry, 301.

Alca(;ar surreiuliM-ed, 302.

his grants to Prince Henry and

to the order of Christ, 303.
his grief for the death of Prince

Henry. 304.
commissions Fra ilauro to con-
struct a ma])peni(inde, 310.
in 1466 grants ]irivilegcs to the

colonists, Mhich he is afterwards

obliged to restrict, 321.
in 1469 makes !in arrangement

with Fernam Gomez, that the

latter shall cause to be explored

100 leagues of coast annually, 321.

confers houoiu" upon Gomez,

• 322.

his death, 322.

Alfonso, eldest .son of the King of

C(jngo, set aside by his father in

favour of the younger brother;

recovers his rights ; his zeal for

Christianity, 333.
Affonso (Alvaro) goes with Zarco's

expedition, 73.
explores the coast of JIadeira,

74.
Affonso (Diogo") goes with Gonsalvcs

to the Kio'd'Ouro, 1445, 190.
goes with the second exjiedition

of Gonsalves to seek Fernandes at

the Kio d'Ouro, 194.
being sejiarated by a stonn, ho

reaches Cape Branco tir.st, and sets

up a cross as a signal for the

others, 194.
Affonso (Fernando d') goes out to

Ca5)e Verde with Vallarte, 224.^

returns to Port\igal after Val-
larte falls into the hands of the
natives, 225.

456

INDEX.

Affonso (Stevam) with Lan(;aroto in

his first expedition, 178.
with LanCj-arote's second expedi-
tion, 200.
his encounter with the African

at the mouth of the Senegal, 204.
Agnellus, first Bishop of Marocco and

Fez, 47.
Allude Maymom exchanges with

Gonsalves negroes and gold for

articles of trifling value, 19o.
his kind treatment of Fernandes,

197.
Alarves or Azanegues, 196.
Albergaria (Vasco IMartinez de), his

bravery at Ceuta, 35.
Albert Nyanza, described bj' Piga-

fetta, from Duarte Lopes, 1591,334.
Albino (Pietro d') confirms the story

of the Genoese vo3'age, 100.
Albino vanus, friend of Ovid, quoted,

86.
Albuquerque, Francisco and Affonso

de, sail for India, 1503, 414.

(Francisco de) restores to the

King of Cochin his tei'ritory, and
founds there the iirst Portuguese
fort in India, 414.

(Alfonso de) reaches Coulam,

now Quiloa, makes terms with the
king, and establishes a factory
there, 414.

goes with Tristam da Cunha's

expedition, 415.

in 1606 returns to India to suc-
ceed Almeida, 416.

• explores the strait of Bab-el-

Mandeb, 416.

in 1507 explores the coasts of

Arabia and Persia, and founds the
fort of Ormuz, 416.

in 1508 sends a mission to Abys-
sinia, 417.

1510, conqiiers Goa and builds

a fort there ; his wise government,
418.

1511, conquers Malacca, and

sends expeditions to the East In-
dian Islands, 418—450.

Alcaear Seguer, besieged by Alfonso
v., 301.

the surrender ; Duarte de Mene-

zcs, made governor, 302.

— — besieged by the King of Fez ;
gallant defence ; the Moors re-
pulsed, 302.

Dom Duarte (.'onetnicts the

mole, 302.

Alcaforado (Francisco) his original
narrative of Machin's discovery,
and its disappearance from de
Mello's library, 69.

was present in Zarco's expedi-
tion, 73.

Alfarrobeira, Dom Pedro killed in
the engagement near, 232.

Alfragan, effect of his opinions on
the mind of Columbus, 351.

treated of by Pierre d'Ailly in

his "Mapa Mundi," 351.

this shown not to be French in-
fluence on the mind of Columbus,
352.

Algoa Bay, piUar set up in an island
there by Dias, 344.

Aljubarrota, battle of, 16—19.

Almada (Alvaro Vaz de), Coimt d'
Avranches at the siege of Tangier,
156.

his fidelity to Dom Pedro, 229.

his proposal to Dom Pedi'O, and

their solemn vow, 231.

faithful in death, 232.

Almada (Joao Vaz de) at the siege of
Ceuta, 38.

Almeida (Francisco de) first Viceroy
of the Indies ; his expedition in
1505; discovers the east coast of
Madagascar ; founds a fort at Qui-
loa— settles the affairs in India, and
founds the forts of Anchediva and
Cananor, 415.

sends the first elephant to Portu-
gal, 416.

is slain, 1510, near the Cape of

Good Hope, 418.

Almeida (Louren^'o de) discovers
Ceylon, 1505, 415.

in 1507 discovers the Maldives,

416.

Alvares (Rodrigo) with Lan9arote on
his first expedition, 178.

Alvarez (Francisco) quoted on the
joiirney of Covilham, 339.

Amazons (mouth of) discovered by
Pinzon, 1500, 369.

Amboyna (Island) discovered by
Antonio de Abreu, 418.

America, first suggestion of name,
383.

adoption of suggestion, 387, 388.

Andrade (Fernam Peres de), 1517,
sailed to China, and entered into
commercial relations with the Go-
vernor of Canton, 418.

returns to India, 1519, 418.

INDEX.

457

Andrea Bianco (map of), 1430.

Angra dos Cavallos, 85.

Angra de Gonsalo do Cintra, 190.

Angra dos Ruivos, 83.

Angra dos Yaquciros (Flesh Bay), 343.

Angra das Yoltas, 343.

Anhaya (Pedro de), 1505, makes the
King of Sofala tributary to Portu-
gal, 415.

Annobon, statement of Barros re-
specting, 328.

discovered 1st January, 1471, by

Martin Fernandez of Lisbon, and
Alvaro Esteves of Lagos, 329.

Antonio de Lisboa (I'athcr) sent out
by Joao II. with Pedro de Mon-
tarryo, to seek the eountrj' of Prester
John by land, 338.

Arabs, early knowledge of Africa, 48.

Arguin (Island of), Barros and Azu-
rara on the name, 176.

discovered by Nuiio Tristam,

1443, 176.

situation, 178.

(Fort of), foundations laid by

the Prince, 1448, 177.

erected under Joao II., 322.

completed by Alfonso V., 317.

(Gulf) described by Cadamosto,

253.

the trade of the island farmed

out by Prince Henry, 253.

Arnold (Su- "William) died in the
battle of Alfarrobeira, 232.

Arrayolos (Count de) at the siege of
Tangier, 156.

returns to Portugal after the

defeat, 163.

Artemidorus contradicts the assertion
of Eratosthenes with regard to the
numerous Phrenician colonies on
the west coast of Africa, 90.

Astrolabe used by Da Gama, 393.

Ataide (Vasco Fernandez de) at the
siege of Ceuta, 36.

Atayde (Pedro de) leaves letters •with
directions to captains bound for
India at San Bras and Mombaza,
of which Juan de Nova avails
himself, 413.

Australia, the earliest engraved indi-
cation on a mappomonde in the
Polyglot Bible of Arias Montanus,
1571, 441.

first discovery by the Portu-
guese, about 1530, proved by a
MS. mappemonde in the British
Museimi, 442 — 447.

Australia, curliest authenticated dis-
covery by the Portuguese in 1601,
447.

Aveiro (Joao Aflbnso d'), hia missiuu
to the King of Benin, 329.

his ellbrls to Christianizo Benin;

is killed by the climate, 337.

Avc'zac (,M. d') quoted as to the true
honour due to the Portuguese dis-
coverers, 53.

his arguments in favour of dis-
coverers before tho Prince's time
considered, 99.

referred to, 146.

his observations on tho iladeira

gi'oup, 149.

on Lan(,'arote, 150.

A\-ila (Pedro Arias de) sent out by
the King of Spain as tiovernor of
Darien; his quarrel with Balboa,
421.

Azambuja (Diogo dc) commands tho
fleet sent out with materials for
building the fort of S. Jorge da
Mina, 323.

concludes a treaty with Beze-

guiche, and has an intervii'W with
Caramansa, 323 ; obtains hisTonscnt
to the erection of a church and fort,
324.

in recognition of his services re-
ceives permission from the King to
add a castle to his arms, 324.

Azancguos (the). Antam Gousalvcs'
voyage, 1441, 172.

Xuiio Tristam ; chieftain taken,

173.

Gonsalves takes back the chief,

who is ransomed, 175.

Tristam's voyage, 1443 ; finds

the island of Arguin, 170.

Lancjarote's expedition, 1444, 178.

Fernandez' account of Im sojourn

among them, 196, 197.

their food, customs, and charac-
ter, 254, 255.

Azores, Middle and Eastern groups dis-
covered by Portuguese vessels under
Genoese captains in the beginning
of the 14th century, 234.

name first given to the islands of

Santa ilaria and San iliguel from
hawks, or rather kites, being found
there in 1444, 238.

claims of the I'lemings, aa made

by Josue van den Borgo, in 1446 ;
disproved, 239.

Azurani, his " Chroniele of the ditt-

458

INDEX.

f.overy and conquest of Guinea
&c.," 1448 — 1453, \ni., xiii.

Azurara, his pathetic description of
the captives, 179.

his testimony to the Prince's

compassion for them, 182.

his evidence respecting slaves

brought to Barca for sale by the
IMoors before Prince Henry's time,
188.

his assertion respecting Nufio

Tristam, 191.

his remark on Afibnso's cross,

194.

on the conduct of the natives

with regard to giving up their
friends and relations to the enemy,
195.

gives particulars respecting the

Azanegues, 197.

quoted, ujion the number of ca-
ravels sent up to 1416. and the dis-
tance they had gone, 221, 222.

his description of Prince Henry,

306—308.

Hacon (Roger) exhibits his magnet to
Brunette Latini, 58.

Bafing, or Black river, 192.

Bahia de todos os Santos, 376.

Balboa (Yasco Nunez de) discovers
the Pacific, 1510 ; the quarrel be-
tween him and Avila ; his trial and
execution, 1517, 421.

Baldaya (Alfonso (ionsalves) goes out
with Gil Eannes, 1455, and reaches
the Eio d'Ouro, 83.

sends two young men to recon-
noitre, 83.

retm-ns to Portugal without

effecting the ca])ture of any of the
natives, 1436, 85.

Baldelli Boni, argues from the Por-
tulano Mediceo that the Gulf of
Guinea had been already dis-
covered ; refutation of his argu-
ment, 110.

on the Portidano IMedicco, 149.

his extract from the Laureutian

map, 236.

Baleo, or Black river, 192.

Balthazar goes out with Gousalvcs,
175.

returns, and is honoured and

rewarded by the Prince, 176.

Barbaciiis river, the Joal (r), 272.

visited bv Diogo Gomez, 296,

297.

Barbosa (Duarte), information given
by him to Magalhaens, 423.

made joint-commander with

Joao Serrao after the death of
Magalhaens ; murdered by the
people of Zebu, 435.

Barcellos (Count de), illegitimate
brother of the Prince, 25.

• — ■ — is with the Princes at the siege
of Ceuta, 35.

his share of the spoils of Ceuta,

39.

Barros (Joao de), an important source
of information in this volume, vi.

quoted as to the limited know-
ledge of the Portuguese at sea
before the Prince's time, 45.

his account of the discovery

and naming of Porto Santo and
Madeira, 66.

gives reasons why the Arabs

did not venture south of Cape
Corrientes, 109.

his statement concerning the

Malaguette, 114.

• referred to, respecting the namts

of Porto Santo and Madeira, 146.
statements respecting the Ilhas,

do Principe, Annabon, and St.

Thome, 328.
Bastidas (Podrigo de), his voyage,

1500-1502, and his discoveries,

369, 370.
Bataiha, Queen Philippa buried there,

31.

King Joao's burial, 79.

Dom Femando's, 165, 166.

Dom Pidro's, 233.

Prince Henry's, 304 — 306.

Batti Mausa, negro king, 280.

makes a treaty with Cadamosto,

281.

receives Diogo Gomez with

favour, 292.

Bava (Nuno Fernandez de) with
Diogo Gomez, 288.

Beccadolli - Antonio asserts that
sailors were indebted to Amalfi for
the use of the magnet, 59.

Behaim (i\[artin Von), narrative re-
lated to him by Diogo Gomez, 64.

accompanies Diogo Cam, 1484,

326.

singular train of events in his

life, similar to those in the life of
Columbus, 326.

■ his globe, 327 ; the < laims

i'oundt'd Ihoreon, 327.

INDEX.

459

Behaim (Martin Von), his statomont
respecting the Ilhas do Principe
and S. Thome, in 14S4, 328.

in 1480, renders the astrolahe

useful lor navigation, 353.

Bollefond (\'illaut de), nummary of
his narrative by Estancelin, 117 —
120.

IScmoi, Prince of the Jalolfs, his war
with his brothers ; alliance with
the Portugue.-ie ; is defeated, and
takes refuge in Portugal, 341.

his reception, baptism, and

knighting ; returns to his country,
and is basely slain by Pedro Vaz
da Cunha, 342.

Benin, between Congo and Furt 8.
Jorge da Mina ; unsuccessful nii.>-
sion ; unwholest>nie climate, 337.

Bernaldes (Jo;io) with Lan(,'arote. in
his tirst exjieditinn. 17X.

goes with (iil Eannes, 144G.

219."

Bescghichi, or BczLguiche, Diogo
Gomez, after taking him on board
his caravel, sets him free, and be-
speaks his kindness to the C'luis-
tians, 29.5.

makes a treaty with Diogo de

Azambuja, 323.

[$cthencoui-t (Jean dej, claims .set up
on his behalf, for the honour of
having passed Cape Boyador before
the Portuguese, 130.

claims refuted, 130 — 133.

his expedition to the Canaries,

14.5, 146.

preceded Prince Henry in the

capture of natives from the west
coast, 189.

Bethencourt (Maciot de) left by his
uncle Jean de Bethencourt as go-
vernor-general of his conquests in
the Canaries, 212.

gives up the government of the

islands to Pedro Barba do Campos ;
subsequently sells them to the
Spanish Count de Niebla, 214.

Bianco (Andrea) engaged on the
mappemondc of Fra JVIauro, 310.

Bisboror, nophnv of Budomel, enter-
tains Cadamosto, 2G2.

his serpent channing, 267.

Blanco (Cape) in Ibn Fatimah's ad-
venture, 98.

Boa^^sta, 279.

Boccaccio, his narrative of a voyage
to the Canaries, 141.

Boor, King of the land where Vallarte
wentun.shon.n.arCapo Venlo, 224.

Borgobil, Ex-Kititr of (Jeloft'a, 297.

Boi-nielli,Lord of the rightof theGani-
bia, 291, 292.

Boyador i^Cape), the doubling accom-
plished by Gil Kannes, S2.

Africans, driven by the winds,

passed beyond, 97.

not pa.^sed by the Genoese or

the Catalans before the Portuguese,
117.

asserted to have been passed by

thcDieppese in the 14th<-entury,'117
— I2U ; refutation of said a.-*sertion,
120—130.

a.s.sertion that it was jia.ssed bv

.lean de Bctli.iicourt, 130, 13l";
refutation of this a.ssertion, 131 —
133.

Braganza, royal house of, sprung from
tile marriagi' of King Jo.'io's ille-
gitimate son Aflbnso, Count of Bar-
cellos, and tlic daught<.'r of the Con-
.stable Nuiio Alvares Peniiii, 26.

Bragan/.a (Duke of), funuerly Count
de Barcellos, his disagreement with
Don Pedro, 227.

prejudices the King against his

uncle, and injures Dom Pedro with
the people, 228 ; ])ursueH him with
untiring malignity, 229 ; after jiro-
voking him to battle, is fearful of
the desertion of his own troo]is, and
makes his oscaj.o by night. 230.

persuades the King to declare

war again.st liis uncle, 231.

after the death of Dom Pedro,

obtains the town of Iruimanicns,
but is rejected by the i)coplc of
Oporto. 234.

Braun (Samuel) quota's negroes 133
years old to sliow that Fort Slina
was built by the French, 122.

Brazil wood, 141. 378.

Bruce quoted as giving a probable ex-
planation of the fires seen by Uauno
near Cape Verde, 94.

Bruco, a chieftain of Gomcra who
assisted the Portuguese against
Palma, 210.

Bruges (Jacques de). Prince Henry's
gnint of the captiincy of Terceira
to, 239.

Budomel, the counti-s- south of the
Jaloffs, 201.

the pc-oi)le wonderful ewimmors.

263.

460

INDEX.

Budomel, the government, religion,

and customs, 263—270.
Budomel, Lord of the country of that

name, 261.
his hospitable reception of Cada-

mosto, 262.

his domestic life, 263.

his court, 264.

his religion, 265.

Cabo do3 Corrientes, 312.

Cabo dos Mastos, 209.

Cabo Mesurado, 320.

Cabo del Monte, 320.

Cabo do Resgate, 195.

Cabo Roxo, named in Cadamosto's
second voyage, 284 ; in Pedro de
Cintra's, 319.

Cabo dos Euyvos, 225.

Cabo de Santa Anna (North), 198.

Cabo de Santa Anna (South), 320.

Cabo de Tii-a, 198, 207.

Cabot (Jolin), Nvith his brother Sebas-
tian, discovers the coast of North
America, June 24th, 1497, 374.

Cabral (Ferdinand Alvarez), his gal-
lantry at the siege of Tangier, 159.

Cabral (Gonzalo Velho), 1431, sent
out by Prince Henry in search
of the Azores, 237.

receives the command of San

Miguel, 238.

Cabral (Pedro Alvarez), his expedi-
tion to Calicut with Bartholomeu
Dias and Coelho, 1500, 408.

change of purpose ; reaches the

coast of Brazil, 409.

sends the news to the King, 410.

encounters a dreadful storm off

the Cape, in which Bartholomeu
Dias is lost, 410.

he proceeds to Calicut, and es-
tablishes a factory, but, his people
being treacherously slain, he makes
terms with the King of Cochin and
Cananor, and sets sail with a valu-
able cargo for Portugal ; off Cape
Verde he meets a fleet bound for
Brazil with Vespucci on board, 411.

the wealth brought back, 412.

Ca(;uta, one of the King of Congo's
subjects who went to Portugal with
Diogo Cam, and was baptized ; he
went back with the expedition sent
to Christiani2;e his people, 1490,
331.
Cadamosto's voyages, xiv., xv.
Cadomosto, gives information on the

commerce of the Portuguese with
the interior, 177-

Cadomosto, his testimony to the
Prince's compassion for the cap-
tives, 182.

his e%'idence respecting slaves

brought to Barca for sale by the
Moors before Prince Henrj''stime,
188.

his first voj'age ; sets out from

Venice, 1454, 246.

his interview with Prince

Henry, which results in his under-
taking his voyage of discovery, 247.

mistake in the date of first voy-
age ; Porto Santa and Madeira,
248—250.

Canary Islands, 250 — 252.

describes the cirrious traific

between the blacks of Melli and
another tribe of negroes, exchang-
ing salt for gold, 255 — 257.

reaches the Senegal, 258.

describes the countrj' of the

Jaloffs and the customs of the
people, 259—261.

is hospitably received by Budo-
mel, 262.

describes the government, reli-
gion, customs, &c., 262 — 270.

takes leave of Budomel ; joins

Uso di Mare; passes Cape Verde,
271.

he passes the country of the

Barbacins and the Serreri ; dis-
covers the mouth of a river, which
he calls the Barbacins (the Joal ?),
and ai-rives at another river (the
Joombas), 272.

arrives at the mouth of the

Gambia, 273.

has an encounter with the

natives, 274, 275.

retiuTis to Portugal, 276.

set out on his second voyago

with Uso di Mare, 278.

discovers four islands, 278.

names two of them Boavista

and Santiago, 279.

enters the river Gambra, 279.

bui-ies one of the sailors on an

island, which is named after him,
Saint Andre ; has a peaceful inter-
view with some of the natives, 280.

makes a treaty -wath Batti IMansa,

281.

describes elephant hunting, 282.

takes back parts of a young

INI^EX.

461

elephant as curiosities to present to
the Prince, 283.
Cadomosto, o'bliji;e(l to leave the
country of Batti Mansa on accoinit
of the sickness of the men, 283.

passes Capo St. Wary. Ca.sa

Mansa river, Cabo Koxo, Ivio de
Santa Anna (the Cachoo), S.
Domingo river (Kio de Jatte), and
reaches the Rio Grande (tho river
Jeba), 284, 285.

returns to Portugal, 286.

statements in the second voyage

shown to be impossible, 2SG, 287.

Calicut, Da Gama's arrival there, 399.

Cam (Diogo), 1484, passes Ca})e St.
Catherine and reaches the mouth of
a large river, which he calls Kio
do Padrfio, afterwards named the
Congo, and sets up a pilhii* on the
south side, 325.

brings some of the negroes to

Portugal to leam the language, 325.

accompanied by Maitm Behaim,

326.
re\4sits Congo, and proceeding

southwards ]ilants two pillars, one

St. Augustine, the other at Manga

das Ai-eas, now Cape Cross, at the

beginning of the counti^y of the

Hottentots, 331.
on his way back to Portugal is

received with aflfection by the Iving

of Congo, 331.
Camara dos Lobos, the terminus of

Zarco's exploration of the coast of

Madeira, 75.
Camelo (Alvaro Gonsalves de) sent to

gain information about Ceuta, 27.
Campos (Pcdi-o Earba de) succeeds

Maciot de Bethcncom-t in the

government of the Canaries, 214.
Canaga, 192, 203.
Canary Islands, or Foitunatc Isles of

the ancients, 1 34.
visited by the Portuguese before

the year 1345, 139.
nan-ative of the expedition, 141

—145.

entei-]iriso of Jean de Bethen-

court, 145.

details of explorations, 2 10 — 215.

■ the descent of Jouo de Castilha

and others upon, 210.
Cadamosto's account of the,

250—252.
Cano (Juan Sebastian del) appointed

commander of the Vittoria, 437.

Cano (Juan Sebastian del^.hifl arrival
at San Lucar, 1522; honours be-
stowed on him, 439.

Cape Braneii, Ibn Said relates tho
chance arrival of somu Aribs, 48.

Capo Dial), 311.

Cape of Good Hope. See Good Ilo/u.

Cape Lcdo, 319.

Cape Non, staled as Ihe limit of ex-
ploration by 11)11 KliaMoun, 4S.

Cape Sagres of Guinea, 318.

Capo St. Augustine, discovered and
named Cabo Santa Maria de la
Consolacien by I'inzon, 369, 37C.

Ca]H> St. Catherine, discoveiud by
Sequein, 322.

Capo St. Mary, 284.

Cape St. Koque, named by Vcsi)Ucii,
375.

Cape Verde, mention of, in llanno'.s
expedition, 92.

Cape Verde Islands, correct state-
ment of discovery, and lii'st dis-
coverer, now lirst made, 277.

Cadamosto's account tlureof in

his si'cond voyage shown tu be full
of misrepresimtations, 278 — 2SS.

Diogo Gome:i' narrative, 2!>8 —

298.

Diogo Gomez shown to l)e the

first discoverer, 1460, 298, 299.

Cape Verga, 318.

Capo de la Vela, in Gninada, uanud
by Ojeda, 308.

Caramansa, his interview with Diogo
de Azambuja, 323.

Cartagena (Juan de) with Magiil-
hacus" expedition, 424.

his mutiny, 425.

Cartier (Jacques) tho discoverer of
the St. IjawTcnce, 1535, 450.

Casa Mari.sa (river), 284.

Ca.stilha (Joao de) joins I *in(,a rote's
expedition, in a caravel beli'nging
to Alvaro Gun.-^alves de Alaydr, 200.

joins with the I'liciro, and tht^

caravel I'mm 'J'avila, in a descent
on the Islands of Palma, 210.

after having gained thi' help of

tile jjeople of Gomera in the expe-
dition, on his return ho treacher-
ously seizes about twenty of the
Gomerans, but is not all<iwcd l)y
the Prince to retain them, 211.

Castro (Dtmi Pedro <le) arrives with
reinforcements at Tangier, 159.

Cayado (Luis Ation.-w)) with Puche-
co's exi)eJition, 198.

462

INDEX.

Ceuta, siege of, 32, 43.

the Princes land there on their

way to Tangier, 155.

the treaty for its surrender to

the Moors, 161.

the Cortes refuse to give it up,

163.

Ceuta (Bishop of), his intrepidity at
the siege of Tangier, 160.

Ceylon, 1505, discovered by Lou-
ren^o de Almeida, 415.

Champollion (jun.) proves from
sculptures in the Temple of Isam-
bul, in Nubia, the early use of
negroes as slaves, 187.

Charlemagne expelled Greeks who
traded in Christian slaves, 186.

Charter granted to Prince Henry by
the Regent after the discoveries of
Gonsalves and Tristam, 174.

to Prince Henry of the Canary

Isles, 214.

appointing Dom Pedro, con-
jointly with Prince Henry, guar-
dian to the Infant Affonso, 226.

of Joao II., 1485, granting

Diogo Azambuja pennission to add
a castle to his arms, in recognition
of his services in building San
Jorge da Mina, 324.

China, 1517, Fernam Peres de An-
di'ade sailed there, and entered into
commercial relations with the Go-
vernor of Canton, 418.

Chinanda (Lake), of Pigafetta, pro-
bably Lake Chad, 334.

Chremetes (river), described by Aris-
totle as having the same source as
the Nile, 95.

Chretes (river), shown by Bochart to
be the Chremetes, 95.

Ciampi (Sebastiano) has rescued from
oblivion a narrative by Boccaccio
of a voyage to the Canaries, l4l.

Cintra (Diogo Gomez de), his testi-
mony to the Prince's compassion
for the captives, 182.

Cintra (Gonsalo de) goes out in 1445,
and, disobeying his orders, is slain
on the island of Naar, 190.

Cintra (Pedro de) sent out by Af-
fonso V. ; goes to the mouth of the
Kio Grande and to the Beseque ;
finds and names Cajjc Verga and
Cape Sagres, of Guinea, 318.

• finds the river San Vicente, the

Rio Verde, Cape Ledo, tlie iSelva-
gcns, and Sierra Leona, Rio Ro'xo,

and Cabo Roxo, 319 ; a river which
they named Santa Maria das Neves,
an island which they called Ilha
dos Brancos, the Cabo de Santa
Anna, Rio das Palmas, Rio dos
Fumos, Cabo del Monte, and Cabo
Mesurado, 320 ; and a wood which
they called Bosque de Santa Maria,
321.
Circumnavigation of Africa admitted
to be possible by Herodotus, Crates
of MaUes, Posidonius, Cleomedes,
Arrian, and Strabo ; Pomponius
Mela in the 1st century, Julius
Solinus in the 3rd, and S. Isidore
of Seville in the 7th, maintained
the same belief, 108.
Claims to prior exploration by the
Genoese, Catalans, and French-
men disproved, 261.
Cochia or Kukia, 257.
Coelho (Nicolas) sails in Da Gama's

expedition in the Berrio, 392.
goes out with Cabral's expedi-
tion, 1500, 408.

sent to examine the coast of

Brazil, 410.
Coloeus, a trader of the island of
Samos, driven by a gale of wind
beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, in
the middle of the 7th century b.c,
89.
Columbus (Christopher), his sojourn
in Portugal from 1470—1484, 347.

his marriage with the daughter

of Perestrello, Governor of Porto
Santo, 347.

he lives at Porto Santo vdih his

wife's mother, who gives him the
papers, &c., of Perestrello, 348.

incidents which confirm him in

theideaoflandtotheWest,348,349.

studies geographical authors,

and among them the Cardinal
Picri'e d'Ailly's "Imago Mundi,"
349.

i\Iarco Polo and Sir John Man-

deville, 352.

while at Lisbon writes to Tos-

cancUi, and receives from him a
chart which confirms his idea of
reaching Asia by the West, 353.
ho submits to the King of Por-
tugal his proposition, but is op-
posed by the Council, 353.

leaves Lisbon, 1484, in disgust at

the dishonest scheme of some of th(^
councillors, 354.

INDF.X.

403

Ci>luiii1)U.s (t'lii'istophrr'), the iiuliico-
lUfiits which Icil hiiii to Spuiii, '253;
thi' upiioijilioii lie meets with there,
355.

having overcome all ohstacloa,

he sets sail 3rd of August, 1492,
and eonies in sight of land on the
rith of (_)ctol.or,~3oG.

the islands he discovered ; his

return, 3oG.

his reception in Portugal by the

King and Queen, 357.

his reception in Spain, and

triumjihal entry into Barcelona, 357.

numerous editions of the de-
scription of his voyage, 357; narra-
tive-poem hy (iiuliano Dati, 357.

his second voyage and the re-
sults, 358.

- his enemy the Bishop Fonsecu's
machinations, 359.

his third vovage and discoveries,

359.

his enemies in Spain ; Bohadilla

sent out, 360.

disgracefid treatment of himself

and his brotlier, 360.

his arrival in Spain ; he is pro-
mised redress, 361.

his fourth and last voyage, 3G2 —

365.

his loyalty and magnanimity

wliile suflering fiora ingratitude
and misfortime, 365.

his death in 1506, 366.

his funeral, 366.

monuments to his memory, 366.

Columbus (Ferdinanil). liis assertion
that in Portugal the a(huiral lirst
conceived the thouglit of finding
lands westward, 34 , .

Commerce of the interior of Africa,
176.

Congo (King of), his affectionate re-
ception oi" Uiogo Cam, and great
desire to become Christian ; sends
an embassy to Portugal to beg that
priests might be sent out, 331.

his state reception of lluy de

Sousa, 332.

his baptism; his dissatisfaction

at the restriction to one wife ; his
death, 333.

Cooley, the position he assigns to the
Bay of Arguin, 50.

Corbizzi (Angelino del Tegglua dei)
with the expedition to the Canaries,
1341. 141.

Cordeyro (K. .\nti>nio\ in his " Ilitt-
toria Insulaiia," siipplirs infonna-
tion on the .\/.ores, 236.

quoted on t)i(> subject of giving

the captaincy of (Jnuio.sa, 241.

Correa (Diego) with tho expedition
of Almeida, 1505, 422.

Cortereal (.Jcronymo dTtra) claims
the comm:mil(i-.--liip of Fayul by
right of iiiht ritancc, 2 12.

Corti^real (Joao Vaz) stated liy Fatlier
Cordeiro to have discovered New-
foundland in 1463, 374.

Cortereal (Ciasiiar), 1500, discovers
Canada; iu 1501 rcai-hcH (ireenland
with two ships, of wliicli only his
consort returncil, 374.

Cortereal (Miguel) goi-s in search of
hisbrother, 1502, and isal.solost, 374.

Cortereal (Vasco Fanncs de) ])rej)are8
to follow liis brothfr.s. but is for-
bidden liy King Manuel, 374.

the first to ])ass through tho

Almina Gate at the sieg(.' of Ceuta,
35.

Corvo m(>ntionod on the Catalan map,

1375, 236.
conceded to JIaria de Vilheiia,

243.
tradition of an equestrian statuo

disproved, 244, 245.
Co.saiJuandela) sails withOJeda, 368.

helps Rodrigo de Bastidas with

his counsels, 369.

Costa (Soeiro da) with Lan(,Mroto'H

expedition, 200.
arrives ;it the Ilhii das (Jar(,as;

is knighted by Da Freita.s, 201.

his unproHtable tninsjiction at

Tidor ; returns to Lisbon, 202.

his discovery of the river at first

named after him, but now culled
Great Bassam, or .\ssiiiie Hiver, 32 1 .

Cou.sin, .statement of .M. Desmarqmts
that he sailed round the Caj)!? of
Good Ho])e, 406 ; stitement dis-
proved, 407, 40S.

Covilham (Pedro de), 14S7, sent out
by .lorio II. with Affoiiso de Payva
to find the country of Prestcr John
by land ; jiarts with Payva at
Aden; goes to the .Malabar coa.st ;
passes over to Sofala ; on hi.s way
back hears of the death of Payva ;
sends one of the King's mesScngtr!.
back, and proceeds alone to Abys-
sinia, where he remains; his joy at
seeing the embassy in 1525, 340.

464

INDEX.

Covilham (Pedro do), his letter to King
Joao proves him to be the theoretical
discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope,
339, 340.

Grignon (Pierre), poet and friend of
Parmentier, quoted on the subject
of his voyage, 419, 449.

Cross fixed by Diogo AfFonso at Cape
Bran CO, Azurara's remarks ; M.
d'Avezac's deductions therefrom
erroneous, 194.

Cunha (Pedro Correa de), son-in-law
of Perestrello, Captain of Graciosa,
240.

Cunha ( Pedro Vaz de) , in a fit of anger
basely kills Bemoi, Prince of the
JaloQ's, 342.

Cunha (Tristam da), 1506, Affonso
d'Albuquerque goes with him ; dis-
covers the three islands that bear
his name ; they take the fortress of
Socotra, 415, 416.

, 1507, at Melinda sends envoys

to the Emperor of Abj^ssinia, but
the mission failed, 416, 417.

Da Gama (Gaspare), Polish Jew
taken prisoner by Da Gama in
India as a pirate ; brought by him
to Lisbon, and baptized ; afterwards
emploj'ed by King Manoel in nego-
tiations with India, 402, 403.

goes out with Cabral's expedi-
tion, 1500, 408.

Da Gama (Paolo) sails in his brother's
expedition, in the San Rapliael,
392.

dies on the way home, 405.

Da Gama (Vasco) made commander
of the ileet of the Indus ; his ship,
the 8an. Gabriel; his pilot, Pero
do Alemquer, who had been with
Bartholomeu Dias, sails 8th July,
1497, 392 ; the Hect anchors in the
hay of St. Helena, where they
become acquainted with the Bosjes-
mans, 393.

passes the Cape of Good Hope,

394.

passes the extreme point of Dias's

discovery, and reaches Natal, which
he names Terra da Boa Gente ; Eio
do Cobre ; goes on to a river, which
ho names Eio doa 15oos Signaes,
when? he erects a jjillar, which he
calls i);idrao of San Rafael ; lOth of
March, anchors off Mozambique,
395.

Da Gama (Vasco) hears of Prester
John ; comes to the Quehrima Is-
lands, 396 ; (the San Rafael strand-
ed on reefs) on Easter-day reaches
Melinda, 397.

receives a visit from the King,

398 ; who gives him a Christian
pilot, 399.

20th of May anchors off Calicut,

399.

sends on shore one of the " de-

gradados; " curious salutation, 399.

audience with the Samondri Ra-
jah; establishes a factory, where he
places Diogo Dias ; his indefensible
conduct with regard to exchange
of prisoners, 400.

erects a pillar, which he calls

Santa Maria, 401.

his adventure with pirates, 402,

403.

at Llelinda has an interview

with the King, 404.

raises a pillar on one of the

Ilhas de Sam Jorge, 405 ; in the
retiu-n, Nicolas Coelho reaches
Lisbon first, 405.

his brother, Paolo da Gama,

dies on the way, 405.

he arrives at Lisbon, 405.

his reception, 406.

Dalmeida (Diego Lopez) sent by
Baldaya to reconnoitre at the Rio
d'Ouro, 84.

Dalrymple (Alexander), his injurious
in.sinuation against Captain Cook
refuted by M. Frederic Metz, 440,
441.

Dapper (Olivier) adduces a supposed,
but defective, date in the " Batterie
Francjoise," to show that Fort
Mina was built by the French
in the 14th century, 123, 124;
M. d'Avezac's comments thereon
refuted, 124—127.

Dati (Giuliano), his narrative of the
discovery bj' Columbus in ottava
rima, 357.

Denis (M. Ferdinand) discovers the
MS. of Aziirara, 1837, vii. ; pub-
lished, Paris, 1841 ; information
about Sagrcs, 52.

De Nova (Juan), sent out by King
Manoel, 1501 ; discovers the island
of Ascension ; at San Bras, beyond
the Cape of Good Hope, he finds
a letter left by Pedi'O de Ataide,
directing all captains bound for

INDKX.

\r,r,

India to p-o l>y way of ^loniliaza ;
guts fuitluT iiitVinnaliou from An-
tonio Feraaiiiks, and ]>roct'eds to
Cananor ; oncduntors tho lloet of
tho Kin;? cf Caliciit, 413.
De Nova (.luaii) is well nccivod at
Cocliin, and liavinjj; fivii^htod liis
ships, sets sail for Portuj>:al; dis-
covers St. Helena on tjie way
homo, and on his arrival is re-
ceived with di.stinfjiiished honour
by the King, 414.

sails in Almeida's expedition,

414.

Desceliers (Pien-e), priest at Arques,
author of the Mappemonde (1550)
in the British jMuseum ; cn-oneons
mention of lum by Desmarqucts,
406—408.

Desert of Sahara, 252.

Desmarquets (J. A.), in his " 5Ie-
nioires Chronologiques pour scrvir
a I'Histoiro de Dieppe," asserts
that a navigator named Cousin
sailed from Dieppe in 14S8, and
sailed round the Cape of Good
Hope, 400 ; tliis assertion dis-
proved, 407, 408.

— ■ — his assertion, that rarmcntier
reached tho coast of China, dis-
proved, 418, 419.

Dias (Bartholomcu), 1486, with his
brother, Pedro Dias, and Joao In-
fante, goes out in search of the
country of Prester John, 338.

erects a pillar at Angra dos

Illieos, now Dias Point, 343.

passes Cape Voltas, and is

driven south, 343.

finding no land when he steers

eastward, sails north, and finds
Angra dos Vaqueiros (Flesh Bay),
343.

' going east, he reaches Algoa

Bay ; sets up a pillar on a small
island there, 344 ; the first land
beyond the Capo trodden by Euro-
peans, 344.

finds a river, which he names

Kio do Infante, from Jorio Infante,
345.

is obliged by his crew to return,

345.
names the Cape, Cabo Tormen-

toso (Stonny Cape), 345.
on his return to Portugal, the

king named it Capt; of Good IIn),!-,

345.

Dias (Barthol(imeu) wn-s to liavc

accomiianicd the expedition of Da

Gama, but is Hiil)se<iuently onlcrtnl

to sail for San Jorge el Mina, 392.
goes out witli Cabiiil's cxjiedi-

tion, 1500, lOS.
■ pcri.shcs in a slonii nlf the Cape

of Good Hojie, 410.
Dias (Diniz), ealhd by Pmitos, Diniz
I Fernandez, 191 ; i)biainspermi»biori

to make cxiiiurations in the ser-
[ vice of Printf Ili'ury ; sails jjast the
; Senegal to tlic land" of tin; JuloU's,

the lirst rial blaek.s, 192.
! reaches Ca])o Verde, to whicli

he gives its name, 194.
! from Lisbon, joins Iian(,arotc's

exj)edition, in a caiiivel of Doni

Alvaro de Castro, 200.

I in company with ]'allen<,'o,

I makes a capture, 207 ; then with
' Kodriguoannes proeeeils to Caj)o
I Verde and tho Madeleine Islanils,
! 207.

Dias (Joao) with I,an(,arote in liis

first expedition, 178.
Dias ( Louren(,'o), with Lancjarote's

expedition, is the first to reach tho

island of Arguin, 200.
goes further south with Lan-

(jarote, 203.
■ goes out with Gil Eannes, in

1446, 219.
Dias (Pedro) aecompanics his brotlu'r

Bartholomou in the expedition in

search of Prester John's countrv,

338.
goes out with Cabral's exj)edi-

tion, 1500, but loses convoy olf

Cape Verde Islands, 409.
again joins the squadron, after

having been to thi- mouth of the

Red Sea, 412.
Dias (Vicente) tho outfitter, 202.
Dias (Vicente), the merchant, pro-
ceeds southward with Lan(,Mrote,

203.
his encounter with the African

at the mouth of the Senegal. 205.
after reaching Ca])e Verde, ho

returns to Portugal, 207.
sailing captain of Cadamosto's

caravel, 247.
Dieppe.se claims to prior diseovery set

up, 117—120; disi.rov.'d. 120- -130.
Doria (Jacopo) writes the account of

Tedisio Doria's voy;ige. 100.
Doria (Tedisio), his voyage, 99.

H H

466

INDEX.

Dornellas (Alvaro) joins Lan(,'arote's
expedition (from Madeira), 200.

his adventures at the Canary

Islands, 211.

Dornellas (Joao) goes to the assist-
ance of his cousin, 211.

Dragon' s-hlood, 139, 248.

Duarte (Dom), eldest brother of the
Prince, 30.

■ present at the Queen's death, 30.

lands with Prince Henry at

Ceuta, 34.

■ knighted by the King, 39.

takes great interest in meteor-
ology, 60.

his Leal Consolheiro, xv., xvi., 81.

testifies his satisfaction with

Prince Henry's efforts by the char-
ters of the 26th of Sei^tember, 1433,
and of the 26th of October, 1434,
giving him the islands of Madeira,
Porto Santo, and the Desertas, 81.

his personal qualities, 133.

prediction of his astrologer, 153.

new title given to his heir, 153.

gives a reluctant consent to the

attack on Tangier, 154.

applies to the Pope, but makes

preparations before receiving an
answer, and sends out the expedi-
tion, 154.

his grief at the disastrous result

and the fate of his brother Fernando,
163.

attempts his brother's rescue, but

in vain, 164.

his grief for his brother's suf-
ferings undermines his health, 166.

his death, 167.

■ his character, 167.

the Lei ]\Iental, 168.

his auxietjr to replace the royal

revenues, 168.

Edrisi, introduced the name of Niger,

192.
Edward III. of England the Prince's

great-grandfather, 4.
Elephant hunting described by Ca-

damosto, 282, 283.
Elvas (Louren(,'0 d') with Gil Eanncs,

1446, 219.
English esquires at the battle of Al-

jubarrota, 16.
English ships which joined in the ex-

]iedi1iiin against Ceuta, 42.
I'lcinaturial Nile Lakes first mentioned

l)y Pigal'etta from Duarte Loiies,334.

Eratosthenes speaks of the Phoenician
colonies on the west coast of Africa
as numerous, 90.

Eredia (Manoel Giodinho de), or He-
redia, the discoverer of Australia,
442—447.

Escobar (Pedro de), commander se-
lected by Fernam Gomez for the
expeditionbeyond Sierra Leona,3 2 1 .

discovers La Mina, and goes

thiity-seven leagues beyond Cape
Lopo Gonsalves, 322.

"Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis," MS. by
Duarte Pacheco, xiii.

Estancelin, his srunmary of Belle-
fond' s narrative of the Dieppese,
117—120.

of the claims re-asserted by Pere

Labat, 120.

Esteves (Alvaro), of Lagos, pilot in
Fernam Gomez' expedition ; re-
puted the best navigator in Por-
tugal, 321.

discovers Principe, Annabon, and

S. Thome, 328.

Eudoxus of Cyzicus, his voyages, 97.

Evora (Bishop of ) at the siege of
Tangier, 157.

Faleiro (Rui) accompanies Magal-
haens to Seville, 423.

Fayal, first donatary Jobst Van
Heurter, 240.

— question of grant discussed, 240
—243.

Fernandes (Alvaro) joins Lanc^arote's
expedition, 200.

is the first to go to the Made-
leine Islands, 208.

reaches a cape, which he names

Cabo dos Mastos, 209.

in 1446 passes beyond Cape

Verde ; is wounded with a poisoned
arrow, but recovers by the use of -
an antidote, 217, 218.

— • — reaches 110 leagues south of
Cape Verde, 219.

meets with Ahude Maimom at

the Cabo do Rosgate, 219.

is rewarded by the Regent and

Prince Henry for having gone
further south than any of l\is pre-
decessors, 219.

Fernandes (Antonio) gives informa-
tion of Juan de Nova, 413.

Fernandes ^Jotio) goes with Gonsalves
to the Rio d'Ouro, and remains
scveii months in the interior, 190.

INORX.

467

Fernaudes (Joao) found on the shoro
by Gonsalvos, 195.

tells him of the chief AhuJe

JIainiom, who barters negroes witli
him, 195.

gives the Prince au account of

his sojourn with the Moors, 196,

197.
goes with Diogo Gil to llessa,

223.
Fernandez (Diniz), misnomer by Bar-

ros for Diniz Dias, 191.
Fernandez (IMartin), of Lisbon, jiilot

in Fernam Gomez' expedition, 321.
discovers Piincipe, Annabon, and

S. Thome, 328.
Fernandez (A'aleutim), or Valentim

Aleman, liis collection of ^ISS.,

Lisbon, 1507, xv. — xviii.
his unpublished IMS., at Munich,

contaiuini:: ilacliin's story, 70.
Fernando (King), eldest surviving son

of Pedro the iSevere, and his suc-
cessor, 5.

his guilty and unhappy mar-
riage, and unfortunate reign, 6 — 8.

Fernando (Dom), the Constant
Prince, his earnest desire to make
the attack on Tangier, 154.

lands at Ceuta with Prince

Henry, 155.

but is obliged to proceed to

Tangier by sea, on account of his
health, 156.

takes part in the attack, 157 —

160.
is given as hostage, with twelve

other nobles, for the performance

of the treaty, 161.

is conducted to Ai-zilla by Zala

ben Zala, and treated with insult
by the Moors, 163.

is transfeiTed to the King of

Fez, and treated with the greatest
cruelty, 164.

■ his death, 165.

his body exposed by the Moors,

his heail brought to Portugal by
his faithful servants, and buried at
Batalha, 165.

his body recovered fi-om the

Moors, and buried at Batalha,
twenty-two years alter, 166.

Fernando (Dom), Duke of Beja,
nephew of I'rincc Henry, is ap-
pointed to conv< y his body to
Batalha, 304.

Fernando di Noronha (Island), 378.

Fernando Po. See /'o, Fernam do.
Ferreira (Gonzalo Ay res) goes witli

Zarco's e.xjieditio!), 73.
the lirst Portuguf.si' who had

children born in Mudi^ini, 73.

Sent to e.\plore the interior of

Madeira, 75.

Ferreira ^Gonzalo) sent by Diogo
Gomez irom the Barbaeins to cap-
ture De Prado, 297.

Ferrer fJaime^ his expcilitioTi to the
River of Gold, 1346, 111-113.

Fez (King of) comes to tliu aid of the
Moors at Tangier, 159.

besieges AJca(,'ar, 302.

Findlay (Jlr.), his suggestion that
Lake Tanganyika falls into Lako
Albert Xyanza, 337.

Fleuve d"Or, stated to have been
visited by floors in the 14th cen-
tury; refutation of statement, 116.

Flores, on the Catalan mai>, 1375,
236.

conceded to Maria de Vilheua.

243.

FoiTOOsa (Ilha). See Vo, Fir nam do.

Forosangoli, Prince of Gamltra, 280.

Foscariui (Doge), quotation from his
letter, 312.

Fra ilauro commissioned to construct
a mappemonde for Aflonso V.,
310.

Frangazick, negro chief, nejjhew of
Farisangul, 2S9.

Freire (Jos^), author of a life of the
Prince, 175S, Li.-ibim, vi.

Freitas (Alvaro da) with liancjarote's
expedition, 200.

an-ives at the Ilha das Garcjas ;

knights Da Costa and Da Graa,
201.

declares his intention of going

southward with Lancjarote and
Pires, 203.

after reaching Cape Verde, re-
turns to Portugal, 207.

French claims confuted on Dieppeso

evidence, 128—130.
Fnictuoso (Gaspar), his MS. history

of the discovery of the Azores, 236.
Funchal, derivation of the name, 72.

receives its name from Gon(,-alo

Ayres, 75.

Gadifer de la Salle with Beth<ncourt

in his expedition, 146.
Gallego (Goncalves) with Pacheco's

expedition (pilot), 198.

H H 2

468

INDEX.

Galvam (Antonio), his description of
the Marco Polo map, 62.

his " Treatise on the Discoveries

of the World," containing the
story of Machin, 69 ; a copy found
in De Mello's library, 69 ; sought
for in vain by Hakluyt, 69 ; lent
to the Hakluji; Society by Mr.
John Carter Brown, of Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, and edited
by Admiral Bethune, 69.

statement respecting the dis-
covery of the Ilhas do Principe
and S. Thome, in 1471 or 1472,
328.

Gambia (river), in Uso di Mare's
letter, 105.

described by Cadamosto, 273,

279, 280.

Gar9ao-Stocldcr quoted on the sub-
ject of plain charts, 54, 55.

Genoese claims considered and dis-
proved, 99—106.

Gete, Island of Arguin, 176.

Gihon (river), in Uso di Mare's
letter, 105.

Gil (Alvaro) with Pacheco's expedi-
tion, 198.

Gil (Diego) with Pacheco's expedi-
tion, 198.

goes out to Messa, 1447, to

effect an exchange of Moors for
negroes, 222, 223.

Gil Eannes, his expedition, 1433,
82.

succeeds in doubling Capo

Boyador, 1434, 82.

goes again with Baldaya, 1435,

and reaches the liio d'Ouro, 83.

with Lan^arote in his hrst ex-
pedition, 178.

with Lan^arote's second expedi-
tion, 200.

arrives at the Ilhas das Garcjas,

201.

. returns to Portugal, 202.

goes out with the nine caravels

to the Canaries, 219.

Giocondi (Giuliano) sent by Dom
Manuel, King of Portugal, to win
over Vespucci to his service, 380.

(Fra Giovanni) translated

Vespucci's letter to Lorenzo di
Pier Francisco do' Medici, from
Italian into Latin, 380.

built the bridge of Notre Dame

at Paris, 380.
( lioja (Mavio) said to be the first who

gave sailors the use of the magnet,

59.
Globe of Martin Behaim ; legend re-
specting the giving the captaincy

of Graciosa, 240.
Gold (river of), 111 — 113.
Gomez (Diogo), his narrative, xvi.,

xvii.
< his evidence as to the date of

the earliest expedition under Prince

Henry, 64.
goes out in the Ticanso, with

two other caravels, 288.
passes the River St. Dominic

(S. Domingo), the River Francaso

(Rio Grande), and the Rio Grande

(the Jeba), and comes to the Cabo

dos Mastos, 288.
reaches the River Gambia, 289 ;

and comes in sight of negroes,

who take to flight, being the same

who had slain Nuno Tristam and

his men, 289.

goes to Cantor, 290.

describes the country and people,

290—292.
■ obliged to leave, on account of

the heat and the sickness of the

men, 292.
is favom-ably received by Batti-

mansa, 292.
by wise conduct he makes peace

with Nomimansa, 293.
and obtains an interview with

him, 293.
promises to send a priest, at the

King's desire, to baptize him and

his people, 294.
— — bespeaks the kindness of Be-

seghiclii for the Christians, by

acting generously to him, 295.

returns to Portugal, 296.

— — sets out on his second vovage,

296.

arrives at Barbacins, 297.

is joined by Antonio de Noli,

297.
discovers the Cape Verde

Islands, 297.
is the tirst to land on Santiago,

which thus receives its name,

297.
relates how he v>'as supplanted

by Antoiiio de Noli, 298.
evidence in favour of his narra-
tion, 298, 299.
his description of Prince Henry's

illness and death, 304, 305.

INDKX.

4G9

Gomez (Fcmam), his contract with
AlTonso V. to cxjiloro 100 loao-uos
of coast anmially ; sends out Joao
do Santarem and Padro do Esco-
bar; they discover the coast after-
wards called La Mina, 321.

the honours ho received from

the King, 3J2.

Gomez (Stevam), Magalhaeus' jiilot,
424.

Gonsalves (Autaui) went out in 1441,
172.

is joined by Nufio Tristam ;

success iu making cai)tives ;
kniiihtcd by Tristam ; returns to
Portugal, 173.

takes back to Africa a chieftain

and two boys wlio were among the
captives, and who promised a liberal
ransom ; is accompanied by Bal-
thazar; receives the promised
ransom, 175.

gains much information respect-
ing the trafHo of the interior,
176.

receiving negroes in ransom of

the jMoors he had captured, a proof
of the existence of the trade in
negroes before Prince Heni-y's
time, 188.

goes out in 1445 with Diogo

Aflbnso and Gomes Pires to the
Kio d'Onro, 190.

finds Fernandez, 194, 195.

barters with a chief named

Ahude Slaimom for negroes ;
knights f emando Tavares ; pro-
ceeds to Tider ; returns to Portugal
with about sixty captives, 195.

receives the chief captaincy of

Lan(,'arote, 215.

goes to the Rio d'Ouro in 1447,

223.

Gonsalves (Diogo), a page of the
Prince's househdld, distinguishes
himself at the IDia das Gar(;as,
201.

distinguishes himself in the en-
counter with the natives of Palma,
210.

saves tho lives of his party b)'

his courage, 220.

in another encounter with the

natives in the island of I'alma, 220.

Gonsalves (Jorgel, 1447, goes to the

Kio d'Ouro, 223.
Gon.-v'ilvcz (Huy), the first man who

landed at C'eutii, 34.

Good Hope ((Vqie) rounded by Phcu-
nician sailors G17 to 001 h.c., 89.

erroneously KU]iiioscd to havo

been rounded in the niiddl(> ages
bcl'iiri' Prince I Iciirv's t inn', KIO —

no.

called "rav.idi Dial." on tli.-

ma]) of Fra M;iui-o, 311.

discovered by li;n-tholiimcu

Dias, and named by liim C'abo Tor-
mcntoso, 1480; received its pn -sent
name from King Joao II., 345.

re-discovcry by Da (lama, 394.

Gorillas menticiucil by Ilanno, suji-
jiosed to be chimjianzees, 94.

Gorizo (Joao) goes with Gomes Fives
to the Kio d'Ouro, 144G, 221.

Graa (Diniz Iviniu-s da) witli Pa-
checo's exjiedition, 198.

is knighted by Da Fu'itas, and

returns to Lisbon, 201.

Gralierg de Hemso, his discoveiy of
the letter of Uso di Mare among
the papers presented to the archives
of Genoa by F. Foderici, 102.

Graciosa colonised by Vasco Gil
Sodi-c, 239.

subsequently fell under tho

ca])taincv of Pedro Correa da
Cunba, 240.

Guinea, name gi\en by the Portu-
guese originally to Scnegambia,
193.

Azurara the first to make tho

Senegal the northern boujidary,
193.'

Guinea coast, as now understood,
began to be known by that name
after the constnictiou of the Fort la
Mina in 1481, 193.

Guitanye, governor of the country
where Vallarte landed, 224.

Guumi J\Iansa, negro cliief, .showed
Cadamosto a young elephant that
he had killed, 282.

and gave hiin parts of it to

take back to Portugal as curiosities,
283.

Haagcn CWillom van dcr), or Da
Silveira, founds tho city of Topo,
in San Jorge ; removes to Fayal,
240.

Hanno, the Carthagenian, his famous
exiieiliti<m, 90—90.

Ilaro ({'hristovam de) accompanies
Magalhaeus to Seville, 423.

Henry II., coiuicil of Irish bishopn,

470

INDEX.

in ■wliich it v^'as ordered that all

English slaves should he set at

liberty, 186.
Henry IV. of England, the Prince's

uncle, 4.
Henry (Prince), his parentage, 4.
desires to receive the honour of

knighthood with his two elder

brothers, 26.
■ prepares for the expedition

against Ceuta, 29.
is present at the death of his

mother, and receives her dying

charge, 30.
starts with the expedition to

Ceuta, 31.
his courage and presence of

mind, 32.

lands at Ceuta, 34.

his gallantry during the siege,

36, 37.

Imighted by the King, 39.

created Duke of Viseu and Lord

of Covilham, 42.
goes to the help of the Gover-
nor of Ceuta against the King of

Granada, 43.

his adopted motto, 44.

— — his renown in Europe, 44.
his lii'st exploring expeditions,

45.
gathers information from the

Moors in Afi'ica, 47.
his desire to further the cause

of Christianit}'', 47.
his inducements for exploring as

given by Azurara, 50.

■ takes up his abode at Sagres, 51.

establishes a school of carto-
graphy and navigation there, 53.
supposition that he established

the chaii- of mathematics in Lisbon,

60.
questions of the date of his first

exploring expedition, 64.
discovery of Porto Santo and

Madeira by Zarco and Vaz, 1418 —

1420, 66.
is exhorted by the King on his

death-bed to persevere in his

efforts, 81.
' receives by charter from King

Duarte the islands of Madeira,

Porto Santo, and the Desertas, 81.
• sends out the expedition of Gil

Eannes, 1433, 82; who succeeds

in doubling Cape Boyador, 1434,

82.

Henry (Prince), the expedition of Gil
Eannes and Baldaya, 83 ; they
reach the Rio d'Ouro, 83.

— ■ — joins Dom Fernando in urging
King Duarte to fit out an expedi-
tion to attack Tangier, 154.

lands at Ceuta with his brother

and the forces, 155.

the siege, 156 — 161.

is obliged to conclude a treat j',

and to leave Dom Fernando as
hostage, 161.

leaves Tangier, 162.

retires to Ceuta, and falls ill

with grief, 163.

hopes to release his brother, but

is diiven by tempest to the Algar-
ves, 163.

retires to Sagres, till the death

of Dom Duarte, 169.

— — is charged by the Queen to
consult with Dom Pedro and the
grandees of the kingdom, 169.

his wise conduct in the difiicul-

ties which followed, 171 ; causes
of a break of three or four years
in the explorations, 172.

sends out Gonsalvez and Tris-

tam, 172, 173.

sends to the Pope to pray for a

concession to Portugal of the lands
to be discovered from Cape Boy-
ador to the Indies, 174.

— — receives a charter fi'om the
Regent, granting him a fifth of the
produce, &c., 174.

expeditions, 175 — 177.

evidence of his compassion for

the captives, 182.

■ • he did not originate the slave-
trade, 183—189.

expeditions, 190 — 198.

■ is summoned to Coimbra by

the Regent to invest M-ith knight-
hood his eldest son Pedro, 199.

expeditions, 199—211.

expeditions, 216 — -224.

sends out Cabral in search of

the Azores, 237.

— , — gives Cabral the command of
San Miguel, 238.

■ bestows on the Order of Christ

the tithes of San Miguel and one-
half of the sugar revenues, 238.

— — his grant of the captaincy of
Terceira to Jacques de Bruges, 239.

fits out a new cara\el for Cada-

mosto, 247.

INPKX.

171

Henry (Prin(■o^ farms out the trade
of ^Vrguin, 253.

has iv fort Imilt there, 25 J.

prevents the Porlugiuse from

trading in tlie Azanegms as slaves,
254.

pivos his approhatinii to f'ada-

mosto's second voyay;e, 27S.

equips a caravel, and appoints

Diogo Gomez captain, 288.

sends the AVihot of Soto de Cassa

to Christianize Nouiimausa and his
people, 296.

receives King AfFonso at Sagrcs,

301.

is present at the siege of Alca-
zar, 301.

his decree that the Order of

Christ should receive the twentieth,
instead of the tithe, of merchan-
dise from Guinea. .''.03.

his donation of the ecclesiastical

revenues of Porto Santo and I\Ia-
deira to the Order of Christ, 303.

the Order of the Garter con-
ferred on him in 1442 — 3, 305.

— — his illness and death, 304.

his tomb, 305.

description of him hv Azurara,

306—308.
the sums he expended on e.xplo-

rations, 312.
called " Protector of the Studies

of Portugal," and " the Navi-
gator." 313.
■ — ■ — statue erected hy Dom I\Ianuel

at Belem, and monument at Sagres,

313.
Herodotus gives the narrative of the

remarkalile voyage round Afinca,

in the reign of Pharaoh Necho,

90.
his joiu-ncy into Egvpt, 443

B.C., 96.
Ileurtcr (Jobst van), father-in-law of

Martin Pehaim, first captain do-

natary of Fayal, 240.
Hipparchus, his opinion of the con-
formation of the Atlantic, 108.
Hoden, 253.
Holywood (John), his treatise "De

Spha^ra Mundi," 102.
Homem (Garcia) goes in company

with CWm.salves to seek Femandes

at the liiod'Ouro, 194.

his caravel joins Gil Eanncs,

219.

Homem (Hector) sent by Baldiiya

to reeeiuioitre at tlh llio dttiiro,
84.

Homer's MIysiuin, .Mujiposed to bo
drawn fi-om the descriptions of An-
dalusia l)rought by Pli(enieiiin ad-
venturei-8, 88.

Humbuldt, speaks of the ^Teat bank
of Ibiating seawi'eil in the Atl.intie,
about the jilace of the supjiosed
island of .\tlantis, 88.

Hydrograidiie jilane charts, early re-
cords concerning, 54.

Ibn B.atuta. speaks of Timbuctoo, 49.

11)!) Jvhaldun, his de8eripti(»n of the
Atlantic, 86.

Ibn Said, his (ieogniphy, 9".

Ilha do Acoutado, or Wliijijiing Island,
named by Datiaiua from the jpunish-
meut (d' the idiot who had deceiveil
him, 396.

Ilha dos Banco.s, 320.

Ilha Formosa. See /'", Firnam do.

" Imago Mundi" of Pierre d'Ailly,
studied by Culumbus, 349.

]iublished subsequently to ''o-

lumbus' correspondence in 1 474,350.

dates of its jiublication as statid

bj- various biographers, 350.

• — — ]>assage from, quoted by Co-
lumbus to Ferdinand and Isabella ;
a ]iiracy from the " Opus Majus"
of Roger Bacon, 351.

Infante (Joao) goes out with Bartho-
lomeu Dias, 338.

Isabel, daui^hter of Dom Pedro, mar-
ried to King Atfonso, 228.

sends notice of his danger to \u-r

father ; intercedes for him with her
husband, 231.

obtains permission for hor fa-
ther's burial ; her death imme-
diately after, 233.

Ivory earWngs at Diejtpe, oldest of
the close of the 16th century, 120.

Jacome (Mestre) sent forliy the Printo
to instruct in his school of naviga-
tion, 53.

JaloO's, the peojde on the- .south of the
Senegal, 259-261.

Jinnie, town of, 193.

Joao I., King of Portugal, father <if
Prince Henry, 4.

is the youngest and illegitimato

son of Pedro the Severe, 5.

at the age of seven made (inuid

Maattr of the Order of Aviz, 6.

472

INDEX.

Joao T., after the accession of his
hrother Fernando, his life is en-
dangered by Queen Leonora, 7.

is made regent after the death

of his brother, 9.

seeks aid from the Duke of Lan-
caster against the Castilians, 10.

succeeds in defending Lisbon

from the King of Castile, 13.

is proclaimed king, 14.

-wins the battle of Aljubarrota,

18.

his marriage with the Princess

Philippa, daughter of the Duke of
Lancaster, 21.

— ■ — • obtains peace with Spain, and
strengthens liis alliance with Eng-
land, 24.

receives the Order of the Garter,

24.

his children, 24.

entertains the idea of taking

Ceuta, 26.

sends envoys to gather informa-
tion, 26.

makes preparations for the siege

of Ceuta, 29.

is present at the Queen's death,

29.

decides not to delay the expedi-
tion, in accordance with the Queen's
dying wish, 31.

sails on the Feast of St. James,

31.

confers knighthood on his sons,

39.

— takes possession of Ceuta, 40.

makes the Count de Viana go-
vernor, and retiu-ns to Portugal, 41.

sends help to the Governor

against the King of Granada, 42

his declining health and death,

78.

his burial at Batalha, 79.

his character, 79.

the buildings he founded in

Portugal, 79.

the Gospels, the life of Christ,

and other spiritual books trans-
lated by his order, 80.

the affection of his pooiile, 80.

— — on his death-bed exhorts Prince
Henry to persevere in liis explora-
tions, 81.

Joao II. succeeds Affonso V. ; orders
the completion of the Fort of Ar-
guin, 322.

sends an expedition under Diogo

de Azambuja to build the Fort of
San Jorge da Mina, 322, 323.

Joao II. rewards Azambuja's suc-
cess with the permission to add a
castle to his arms, 324.

designs the stone pillars to be

erected by discoverers, 325.

his reception of the negroes

brought by Diogo Cam, 325.

takes the title of Lord of Guinea,

326.
he and his queen stand sponsors

for Ca9uta, 331.
is told by the negro ambassador

from Benin of a powerful monarch

in the interior, 337.

concludes that this must bo

Prester John, 338.

determines to seek this kingdom

by land and by sea, 338.

gives the name to the Cape of

Good Hope, 345.

his illness £i-om poisoned water,

389.
the death of thePrince his son, 3 90.

he sinks under his anxieties ;

his death ; his designation of " the
Perfect Prince," 391.

Joao (the Iffante Dom) goes with
Prince Henry to the relief of Ceuta,
43.

remonstrates with Dom Duarte

on the measures taken for the attack
on Tangier, 154.

• joias Prince Henry at Ceuta,

and resolves to attempt the rescue
of Dom Fernando, 163.

John of Gaunt, Prince Henry's grand-
father, 4.

King Femando's alliance with

him, 6.

his claim to the crown of Cas-
tile, 6.

arrives at Corunna to enforce

his claim, 21.

- marriage of his daughter Phi-
lippa with the King Joao I., 21.

Joombas (the), 272.

Josef (Jlestre), physician of King
Joao II., works with Behaim in the
construction of an astrolabe for na-
vigation, 326.

Joseph of Lamego sent by Joao II.
to meet Covilham, 339.

Josephus speaks of Ethiopian slaves,
187, 188.

Juba TI. sends out an expedition to
the Fortunate Islands, 136, 137.

INDKX.

478

Khalodat (Islands of), the Furtuuatc
Islands, 138.

Kukia, 21)0, 291.

Kunstnuum ( Professor), his assistance
with rof^anl to Valentin Fernan-
dez's eollection, xviii. ; List of Mo-
moil's, xviii.

opinion respecting the position

of Ulil, 50.

Ladrones (the) discovered by Jla-
galhaens, 431.

Lagos, the inhabitants appeal to the
Prince for pennis.sion to tit out a
fleet to revenge the death of Gon-
sjilo da Cintra, 109.

La !Mina (coast) discovered 1471 by
Joao de Santarem and Pedro do
Escobar, sent out by Femam
Gomez, 321, 322.

for the fort, see Mina.

Lan(;arote receives jiemiission from
the Prince to make the voyage to
Afi-ica, 177.

sails in 1444 with six caravels

and returns wnth about 200 cap-
tives from the bay of Arguin, 178.

entrusted with the command of

the fourteen caravels from Lagos,
199; thev sail on the 10th of
August, 1445, 200.

arrives at Ilha das GarQas, 201.

after the successful encounter

w-ith the natives, he assembles the
commanders of the fleet, and an-
nounces that the object of the ex-
pedition is accomplished, and they
are free to follow their own course,
202.

he proposes to go southward, 203.

reaches Cajic Verde, 205.

returns to Portugal, 207.

Latini (Brunetto), his visit to Roger
Bacon, and his description of the
magnet, its properties and uses, in
a letter to Guido Cavalcanti, 58.

Lazurac, a Moor, who, in the name
of the yoxing King of Fez, governed
that state, and treated the unhappy
Dom Fernando with the utmost
crueltA", 164, 165.

"Leal Oonselheiro" of Dom Duartc
xiii., 81.

Lemos (Gaspar de) sent by Cabral
to the King with the news of the
discovery of Brazil, 410.

Leo Africanus speaks of Timbuctoo,
49.

Leo AfricaiaiR uses the n.inie of
Niger, 192.

Leonora (^(iueun of Dom Duart*'),
her cond\ict on tho death of tho
King, 16;)— 171.

her I'niiiity to Douj Pi-dro ; her

death, 227.

Lepo (Diego de), his voyage, 1500;
observations made by him, 369.

Libri (Count), on the usu of charti;,
iV'c., on the Mediterranean at the
beginning of the 15th century, 56.

Lopes do Lima (Jose Joaquim), his
corrections of Cadamostu, 276.

Lopes (Duarte), his mi.ssion from the
King of Congo to Pope Sixtus V.
and Philip IL related to Felipe
Pigafetta. 334.

Louren(,'0 (Joao) goes out with
Zareo's expedition, 73.

Lud (^Walter), St eretary to Rene IL,
Dake of Lorraine, and canon of
the cathedral of St. Die, estiblishes
a college under tho Duke's aus-
pices, and sets up a printing-pros.s,
382.

in his work, " Speculi orbLs,"

(fcc, tlirows light on tho "Cosmo-
graphi;e Introductio " of Waldsec-
miiller, 382.

Macedo (Joaquim Jose da Costa de)
shows that the Arabs had no
practical knowledge of the Cana-
ries before tho Portuguese dis-
coveries, 139.

Machico, derivation of the n.amc,
72.

Machin (Robert), his romantic story,
07 ; e\'idence of its truth, G9 —
73.

discovery of his tomb by Ruy

Paos, 74 ; a chajiol founded on the
spot by Zarco, 76.

Madairasear discovered by yVlmeida,
1505, 415.

west coast disc(jvered by Joao

Gomez d'Abreu, 1506, 416.

Sequeini commissioned to ex-
amine the coast.s, 417.

iladeira, tho diacoverj", aa stated by

Barros, C6.
the story of ^I.arhin's discovery

now first established, 67—73.

Zareo's exjuditiun, 73.

Kuy Paes funis Machin's tomb,

74.
the island explon.-<l, 74, 75.

474

INDEX.

Madagascar, products of the island,
76, 77.

discovery in the 14th century

by Portuguese ships under Genoese
captains, 149 — 162.

Cadamosto's description, 248 —

250.

Madeleine Islands discovered by
Alvaro Fernandes, 208.

Mafaldo with Pacheco's expedition,
198.

Magalhaens (Fernam de), or Magel-
lan, his parentage and education,
422.

enters the service of Dom

Manoel, 422.

in 1505 joins Almeida's expedi-
tion, 422.

in 1509 is at the discovery of

Malacca by Soqueira, 422.

leaves Portugal, and enters the

service of Spain, 423.

gives his opinion in favour of

the Spanish claims to the Moluccas,
424.

his marriage, 424.

gains the friendship of Juan de

Ovando, 424.

— — Charles V. gives him the com-
mand of five ships, 424.

names of ships and commanders,

424.

sets sail, 1519, and reaches Rio

de Janeiro in December, 425.

revolt headed by Juan de Car-
tagena, 425.

■ the mutiny suppressed, 426.

Patagonia, 427, 428.

Tierra del Fuego, 429.

they pass the straits, 430.

the Ladrones, 431.

the Philippines, 431.

— — his quarrel with the chief of
Matan, 433.

his death, 434.

Mahonietanism professed by the
Jaloffs, 260.

by the people of Budomel, 265.

Muhonietaus among the negroes of
Gambra, 281.

Malacca, in 1508, Scqueira commis-
sioned to discover ; establishes a
factory there, 417.

Maldives discovered in 1507 by
Lourcn<,'0 do Almeida, 416.

Mandeville (Sir John), influence of
his travels on the mind of Colum-
bus, 352.

Manga das Areas (Cape Cross), pillar
set up there by Diogo Cam, 331, 346.

Mani Sono, uncle of the King of
Congo, he and his son the iirst of
the people baptized, 332.

Manoel (Dora) has a statue of Prince
Henry placed at Belem, 313.

succeeds John II., and re-
sumes the maritime explorations,
391.

makes Vasco da Gama com-
mander of the fleet of the Indies,
392.

subsequently built the splendid

Temple of Belem, 393.

receives the news of Cabral's

discovery, 410.

establishes a colonj'- in Brazil,

410.

sends out Juan de Nova to

India, 413.

receives him on his return with

great honour, 414.

sends out a great expedition

under Almeida, 414.

sends a crown of gold to the

King of Cochin, 415.
receives an embassy from Abys-
sinia, and sends one in retiu'n,

417.
sends out Sequeira to explore

Madagascar and discover Malacca,

417.
Map of Abul-Hassan Ali Bon Omar,

1230, 114.

of Ibn Said, 1274, 114.

by Marino Sanuto, about 1306,

64, 106—109.

Abulfeda, 1331, 114.

in Laurentian library at

Florence, 1351, 107, 235, 236.
by the brothers Pizzigani, 1367,

101, 107, 108, 112, 114, 115.
■ Catalan, 1375, 48, 55, 108, 110,

111, 114, ]15, 150, 235, 236.
in Monastery of San Miguel de

Murano, about 1380, supposed copy

of one brought from China by

Marco Polo, 64.
Borgia, of Arab workmanship,

about 1410, 49.
in Monastery of Val de Christo,

1413, 54, 55.
brought by Dom Pedro fi-om

Venice, showing cape now known

as Cape of Good Hope, 62, 03, 64 ;

idonlical with map in Cartorio of

Alcobai^'a, 03 ; shows Azores, 236.

INDEX.

475

Map of Andrea Bianco, 143G, CA, 236.

bv the Catilan Galniol do

Valscca, 1 139, 237.

Genoese, 1)V Bartoloninieo

rarcto, 1455, 150."

of Fra Mauro, 1459, 64, 310,

311.

by .Tohn Rotz, 1542, 447. 448.

of Pierre Dosccliers, 1550, 407,

408.

bj"- Pip^afotta after Duai-to

Lopes, .«hnwin_n; lakes Victoria and
Albert Nyanza, and Lake Tan-
ganyika in 1591, 334.

Arabic, preserved to us by I\I.

Joniard, made bv ^lobannned Ebn-
Alv Ebn-Ahmcd al Charfy, IGOO,
114.

— — of Xu(ja Antara, showing first
authoiticalid discovery of Australia
in 1601, 442. 443.

of Africa, to illustrate Portu-
guese discoveries, end of volume.

Maps, Dieppese, 122, 447, 448, 449.

Marco Polo speaks of the velocity of
the current oif the Cape, afterwards
called " Corrientes," 110.

influence of his voyages on the

mind of Columbus, 352.

Margrj^ (Pierre), text of document
produced by him ; his letter to the
author, xxxiv. — xxxviii.

concluding comments on, by the

author, xlii. — xlix.

his pretension that the di-scovery

of America is due to French in-
fluence, 350.

Marocco (King of) comes to the aid
of the Moors at Tangier, 159.

Martin (Alonzo), the first European
who navigated the Pacific, 421.

Martinez (Fernando), con-espondenco
with Toscanelli, 352.

Mascarenhas (Pedro de) supposed to
have discovered the Jlascarcnhas
islands, 1512 or 1513, 418.

Matemba {query JIatiamvo), 335.

Matthew, an Armenian, sent as envoy
from Abyssinia to the King of
Portugal ; in 1515 returns ^-ith
Duartc Galvao as ambassador from
King Jlanoel to Abyssinia ; the
latter dies, and in 1520 Iklatthew
gains admission into Abyssinia
with Rodrigo de Lima, in liou of
Galvao, 417.

Medici (Lorenzo di Pier Francisco
de'), letter of Vespucci's addressed

to, describing Ids tliird vovagc,

367,411.
Melli, in thi' empiro of the ncgroc!*,

255.
tlie trallic of the jiooido with

another tribe of negroes; exchang-
ing salt for gold, 255^ — 257.
nielli (kingdom of) in supposutl Arab

maj), 49.
I\Iell(> (Duarto de^, 1507, founded the

fort of Mozainbi(|ne, 416.
Mello (E.'itev.'io Soarez do) with

Prince Henry when ho landed at

Ceuta, 34.
Jlello (Francisco Manoel de) gives

the story of ^lachin, from the MS.

of Alcaf^.rado, 60.

bis library in the Hibliothcca

Nacional at Lisbon, fruitless search
for the MS. bv the Count do
Rilvas, 69.

his correctness vindicated, 70

—73.

Mello (Martin Alfonso de) declines
the dangerous honour of being
Governor of Ceuta, 41.

Mendez (Soeiro), conmiander of the
fort at Arguin, 317.

Mendoza (Afibnso Furtado de^ sent
as envoy to Sicily, but really to
gain information about Ceut;i, 27.

Meuendus, Jlondo, or Mongo, a
wealthy Englishman, who brought
four ships to the siege of Ceuta, 31.

Meneses (Dom Pedro de). Count di
Viana, first Commander of Ceuta,
41.

• keeps the iloors in check for

three years, 42.

receives aid from Portugal under

the command of Prince Henrj' and
Dom Joao, 43.

Meneses (Duarto de) made Governor
of Alcaf;ar; his gallant defence
against the ICing of Fez, 302.

Mercator (Gerard), his plan of im-
proving ]ilane charts, 56.

Mcssem (William) mentions the
pillar set up by Diogo ('am at Cajic
Cross ; still in good presor\'ation,33 1 .

Mina, surname given to Fernam
Gomez in honour of the discovery,
322.

Mina (Fort of S. .Jorge da) built by
Jorioir., 1482, 322, 323.

Miniature of Prince Henry, xi.

Mollien gives Hideo as the Poula
word for Black. 192.

476

INDEX.

Moluccas (the), Franciaco Serrao
went to Temate, 1511, 418.

after Magalhaens' death, the

remainder of his ships arrive there,
437.

Monomoezi, first mentioned by Piga-
fetta, from Duaite Lopes, 335.

Montucla mistaken in attributing the
invention of hj^drographic plane
charts to Prince Henry, 54.

Morales (Juan de), as fellow captive,
hears from Macliin's people of the
discovery of Madeii-a ; imparts this
knowledge to Zarco, and goes with
him to the re-discovery, 68 — 74.

Mungo Park mistaken in ascribing
to the Joliba, or Quorra, the name
of Niger, 192.

Murr (M.) the chief among those
who have sought to exalt Behaim
at the expense of Columbus, 326.

Natal, named by Da Gama, 395.

Neale, (Dr. J. ilason), his description
of Batalha, 305.

his observations on Belem, 393.

Neckam (Alexander) makes the ear-
liest allusion to the use of the com-
pass in the Middle Ages, 57.

Negro fair, 269.

Negus (the), Prince of Abyssinia,
detains Covilham in liis dominions,
and treats him with honour, 340.

Nile of the Negroes (the Senegal),
203.

Nile (equatorial) lakes first men-
tioned by Pigafetta, from Duarte
Lopes, 334.

NUe, sources of, referred to by Piga-
fetta, from Duarte Lopes, 1591,
334.

Nolli (Antonio do), his letter, 102 —
105.

is joined by Cadamosto, 271.

it falls to his lot to set an inter-
preter on shore at the Joombas,
who is killed by the natives, 273.

goes with Cadamosto on his

second voyage, 278.

joins Diogo Gomez, 297.

arrives in Portugal before him,

298.

Nombre de Dios founded by Diego
de Nicucsa 1510, 369.

Nomimansa, King of the Barbacins,
makes peace with Diogo Gomez,
293.

wislics to be baptized, 294.

Nomimansa, the Prince sends the
Abbot of Soto de Cassa to instruct
him and his people in the faith, 296.

Nova (Juan de) with Almeida's ex-
pedition, 1505, 4'22.

Nuiiez (Pedro), the mathematician,
his statement respecting the early
navigations of the Portuguese, 55.

Nunez (Pedro), servant of Da Gama,
who accompanied the expedition in
a small craft laden with munitions,
392.

Nurenibergers, their claims on behalf
of Behaim ; clainis refuted, 327.

Nyanza (Lake) ajjparently referred
to by Pigafetta, from Duarte Lopes,
1591, 334.

Gdjein,or Ougein, sacred city, whence
the Indians reckoned their first
meridian, 100.

Ojeda (Alonzo de) with Columbus on
his second voyage, 368.

quaiTcls with Columbus, and re-
ceives from the Bishop I'onseca,
1498, a fi-agment of a map showing
the admii-al's last discoveries, 368.

• he sets sail for South America,

May, 1499, with the pilot Juan de la
Cosa and Amerigo Vespucci, 368.

his discoveries, 3':^ 8.

raises a revolt in Hispaniola

against the authority of Colimibus,
369.

returns to Cadiz, 369.

Orchil, for dyeing, 138, 139, 250.

Ottmar (Johann) published at Augs-
bui-g the " Mimdus Kovus," con-
taining the description of Ves-
pucci's third voyage, in a letter
from himself to Lorenzo di Pier
Francesco de' Medici, 367.

Ouro (Hio d'), whence it received its
name, 176.

Ovando (Juan de), his friendship for
Magalhaens, 424.

Pacheco (Gonsalo) goes out with

Diniz Eannes da Graa, Alvaro Gil.

and Maflddo, 198—201.
Paes (Kuy) goes out with Zarco' s

expedition, 73.

finds the tomb of Machiu, 74.

Pajcda, or Palola, 112, 113.
Pallen(,ro withLancjarote's expedition,

200.
his adventures in company with

Dmiz Dias, 207-

iNi)i:x.

477

Panso Aquitiiiio, youncrcr son of the
King of Conifo, rojct-U* tho faith,
333.

Parmentier (Jean), of Dieppe, his
voya^o to Sumatra ; the statement
of il. Desmuniuet.-i, that he went
to China, disproved, 419.

his voyage referreil to, 449. 450.

Patagonia discovered by Magalhaena,
427.

Payva (Alfonso do) sent out with
OoAilhani hy Joiio II., l)ut after
parting with liini at Aden, dies on
the joiiiuev, 339.

Pedro the Severe, Prince Henry's
grandfather, o.

his sons, of whom King Jouo was

tho youngest, and illegitimate, .5.

Pedro (Dom), second brother of the
Prince, present at tho Queen's
death, 30.

at the siege of C'euta, 37.

knighted b}' the King, 39.

receives tlie titles of Duke of

Coimbra. (Sec., 42.

his travels, 61.

receives from the Venetians a

copy of Marco Polo's travels, and a
map, 61.

visits England, and is ma<lo

Knight of the (iarter, 62.

.shares Prince Ilenrv's studies,

62.

romon.strates with Dom Duarte

on the measures taken for the at-
tack on Tangier, 154.

theari-angement.s fur his govern-
ment of the Icingdom after Dora
Duarte's death, and duiing the
minority of his son, 169.

grants a charter to Prince

Henry in consecjueuce of the dis-
coveries of Gon.salves and Tristam,
174.

— — sends out Gomes Pires, in 1445,
v\-ith Antam Gonsalve.s, to the Rio
d'Ouro, 190.

smumons Prince Henry to

Coimbra to invest with knighthood
his eldest son, Pedro, 199.

grants the charb-r of the Canary

Islands to Prince Henry, 214.

rewards Alvaro Fernandes for

going further south than any of his
predecessors, 219.

his history taken up iium the

time of his return to Portugal,
after his travels in 1428, 226.

Pedro ;^Dom), hi.^ marriage, 226.

is appointed guardian to tho In-
fant AiVunsd, •J'Jii.

incurs the ill-will of tho Queen,

226.

is nominated Regent, 227.

his disagreement with tho Duke

of liraganza, 227.

his daughter married to tho

King. 228. '

tho continued enmity of the

Duke of Braganza, fonnerly Count
do Barcello.'', his bastard brother,
2'i8.

retires to Coimbra, 229.

tho accusations (jf his enemies

.and tho apathy of his friends, with
the excej)tion of Alvaro Vaz d'Al-
mado. Count d'Avranchue, 229.

provoked to battle by tho Duko

of iSraganza, 230.

goes to meet the King, 232.

his daughter's intercessions for

him, 232.

— — his death ; the injustice of his
euemie;?, 232.

his funeral, 2iJ3.

honour to his memory, 234.

Pegolotti mentions Malaguetto pep-
per as importe»l into Nismes and
ilontpellier in the first half of tho
14th century, 114.

Pere Labat re-a.^serts the claims of
the Diepix'se, 120.

Pereira (Diogo Fernandes), 1504.
wintered at Socotra, then tii-st
reached by Portuguese, 414.

Pereira (^Duarto Pachcco^ left by
Francis, o Alhucpienjue at Cochin
as defender of tht; kingdom, 414.

Pereira (ilartim) distinv'uisiies him-
self in an em-ounter with the na-
tives at the Madeleine Islands. 270.

Pereira (Nufio Alvarez), called the
Holy Coust;ible,his victory over the
CastiliaiLs, 11.

his important help to tho Grand

Ma.-ter after the siege of Lisbon, 13.

his high character. 14.

.ittheitattleof-Vljubarrota. 16,17.

his victory at Valvcrde. 21.

retires to the convent of Canno,

78.

Percstrello (Bartollomeii) accom-
panies Zarco and V'a/ in their ox-
j)edition to I'orlij Santo, 77.

receiv(;a the goveniorshi]) of tho

i.sland, 77.

478

INDEX.

Perestrello (Bartollomoii), father-in-
law of Columbus, 326.

Pertz (Dr.) gives the fullest account
of the Genoese exi^edition, 99.

Pezagno (Kinmauuelo) sent Ly Af-
fonzo IV. as ambassador to Ed-
ward III., 151.

Pharaoh Necho, 617—601 B.C., sent
out Phcenician sailors, who sailed
from the Rod Sea round Africa, and
reached Egypt by the JMediterra-
nean in the thii-d year from their
departure, 89.

Philosius. See Ringiiiann.

Philippa, Queen, Prince Henry's mo-
ther, 4.

arrives at Corunna with her

father, the Duke of Lancaster, 21.

her marriage with King- Joao,

21.

receives an embassy from the

Queen of Granada; her reply, 28.

— ■ — her illness, 29.

solemn leave-taking, and charge

to her sons, 30.

her deatli, 30.

■ her character, 30.

her fimoral, 31.

Philijipines (the) discovered by Ma-
galhaens, 431.

Philoponus (Joannes), his summary
of the two opposing creeds respect-
ing the conformation of Africa, 109.

Ficanqo (the), or the Wren, a cara-
vel in Lan(,'arote's expedition, 203.

joins the caravel from Tavila

and Joao de Castilha in an expe-
dition to the island of Palma, 209,
210.

the caravel of Diogo Gomez, 288.

Pico, captaincy granted to Jobst van
Heurter, 243.

Pigafetta (Felipe) publishes descrip-
tion of the equatorial Nile lakes in
Duarte Lopes' Congo, 334.

Pimeutel mistaken in attributing the
invention of hydiographic plane
charts to Prince Henry, 54.

Pinzou (Vicente Yaupz) sails from Pa-
los, December, 1499, 369.

his discoveries, 369.

with Soils, his pilot, explored

the coast of South America, 1508,
420.

Piri'H (Gomos) goes with Gonsalves to
the Riod'Ouvo, 190.

with L:in«,'aiote's expedition, 200.

arrives at Ilha das Gar(,'as, 201.

Pires (Gomes) declares his intention
to go on to the laud of the negroes,
202.

attempts to conciliate the people

at the Madeleine Islands, 205.

becomes separated fi'om the

other caravels, and returns to Por-
tugal, 206.

• goes to the Rio d'Ouro, 1446,

220, 221.

Pires (Thome) sent by Andi-ade as
ambassador to Nankin, and dies in
captivity there, 418.

Piste, a chieftain of Gomera, who
assisted the Portuguese against
Palma, 210.

and afterwards came to live in

Portugal under the protection of
the Prince, 211.

Plato, in his " Timfeus and Critias "
speaks of an island called Atlantis,
87.

Pliny, and Pomponius Mela, speak of
perpetual fires seen by Hanno in
the supposed neighbourhood of Cape
Verde, 93.

his information resjDCcting the

Fortunate Islands, 136, 137.

Plutarch, his description of the For-
tunate Islands, 135.

P6, Fernam do, discovered, 1471 or
1486, 329.

Ponta da Crux, Madeira, 74.

Ponta de San Louren9o, in Madeira,
74.

Ponta dos Gralhos, Sladeira, now Cabo
do Garajao, 74.

Pope Eugene IV., his answer to the
api)lication from Dom Duarte on
the subject of Tangiei-, 154.

issues a bull in consequence of

the Prince's request after the dis-
coveries of Gonsalves and Tristam,
174.

Pope Gregory IX., his letter concern-
ing Christian slaves, 1231, 186.

Pope Gregory XL, his apostolic
letter, 1376, on the same subject,
186.

Pope Zacharias, 748, redeemed a nmn-
ber of Christian slaves, 185.

Porto do Cavalleiro, named from the
knighting of Gonsalves there, 173.

Porto Santo, the discovery as stated
by Barros, 66.

Zarco's expedition in 1420 arrives

there, 73.

its colonization, 77.

INDKX.

479

Porto Santo, Perostn-llo niiulc (io-

vernor, 77-
Porto Seguro, 410.
Portiiluno Jloilii-co, 13.51, 149.
Pratlo yDc) taken jirisunor fur carry-

iug arms to t)io Moors, 207.

his uxecutiou, 298.

Prosier John, tlio Genoese made pri-

sonei's by his siiliject.s at a city of

Ethiopia calh^d Menam, 103.
the absurdity of the story shown,

105.
information respecting him given

to Da Gama, 39o.
Principe, or 8auto Antam (Ilha do\

statements of Hehaim, Galvao, and

Barros respecting, 328.
discovered 17th January, 1471,

329.
Provins (Guyot de), his account of the

mariner's comjiass in his satirical

poem entitled the "Bible," 57.

Querimba Islands, 396.

Quesada (Gas])ar de) with ilagol-

haens' expedition, 424.

mutinies, 425.

his execution, 426.

Quimbebo {qxcnj Kabebo), by Piga-

fetta from Duarte Lopes, 335.

Eecco (Xicoloso do), the pilot of the

expedition to the Canaries, 1341,

141.
Refoyos (Rodriguez de) with Prince

Henry when lie lauded at C'euta,

34.
llegiomontanus (Johaou Miiller),

iiehaim's tutor, 326.
his treatise on the quadr ituro

of the circle, deilicatcd to Tosca-

nelli, and his famous a.stronomical

Ephemerides, 327.
Eegras (Joao das), his able advocacy

of the claims of the Grand blaster

to the thi-onc, 14.
recummt;nds King Duarte to

proclaim the Lei Mental, 108.
is granted a disiiensation to in-
sure his daughter's succession, 169.
Reinaud (^L), his French translation

of the geography of the Arab AbQ

Al-Fida, 97.
Rene IL (Duke of LoiTaino), tho

printing press at St. Die under his

patronage, 367.

his secretary, Walter Lud, 382.

he di.scussiou aliout tlie h-ttors

said to bo addressed to him by Veii-
pucei, 382 -385.

Riboirj (JorioGoumilvoz) with Dio|{o
Gomez, 288.

lliugmaini (Miithias), or Piiilcsius,
studies at Paris at tlut sjimo timo
that Fra Gioiomli was th«ro, .{SO.

returns to his native .Msaeo,

and is subjeeted to a liriilal lussault
from rival students, 381.

is the originator of the name of

Ameri.a, 281.

— ill Paris is su])iioseil to liiive
known (Jioeondi, and from liim to
have hearil of Vesjiucci and his
achieveUH'iits, 3H1.

in 1505 ho edits an edition of

Giocondi's translation of Vespucci's
letter, with ver-ies l)y him.self, and
a Latin epistle by Jacobus Brunus
in praise of Vesimcci, 382.

becomes professor of Latin at

tho college of St. Die, and cor-
rector of the press in the printing-
olhce, 382.

Rio do Cobre, confounded by Burros
with Rio dos Reis, 395.

Rio dos Fumos, 320.

Rio Grande, so called by Cadnmosto,
supjioscd to b<! the river ■Ji'ba, 285.

Rio do Infante, Great Fish Rivir,
315.

Riode Lagos, 2H.

Rio d'Ouro, found by (iil Eanues and
Baldaya, 83.

noticed as tho jilace of a colony

in Ilanno's e.xpi'dition, 91.

sup]tosed to have been dis<-o-

vcred by tho CatJilans, 110, Kl ;
refutation of that supposition, 1 1 1
— 115.

Rio de la Tlata. 1510, di.s<over.d by
Juan Di;is do Solis, and ii.mie<i
aft<.'r him ; according to Ilont-ra not
named La Plata till 1527, when
Diego Garcia found silver th<re.
421, 122.

Rio Roxo, 319.

Rio do Santu Anna (the Cachoo),
284.

Rio do Soyxcj, in lladeini, 74.

Rio Verde, 319.

Rodrigo (.Slostre), physician of King
Joa-) II., works with Bohaiui in
tho eonstruetion of an astrolabo for
navigation, .TiO.

Rodriifiieannos with I*an(,arot<!'«» ex-
pedition, 200.

480

INDEX.

Eodrigueannes continues his voyage

southward, 203.
loses company of the other

caravels, 205.
joins Diniz Diaz ; goes to Cape

Verde and the Madeleine Islands,

207.
Eosny (Lucien de), his letter to the

author, xxxix. — xli.
concluding comments on, by

the author, xlii. — xlix.
Eujauri, or Eiver of Gold, 111 — 113.

S. Augustine at Cape Negro, pillar
set up by Diogo Cam, 33l, 346.

S. Bras, 3i4.

S. Die, a printing press established
there by a cluster of learned priests,
under the ausi^ices of Eene II.,
Duke of Lorraine, 367.

S. Domingo Eiver (Eio de Jatte), 285.

S. Felipe, pillar set up at the Cape
of (xood Hope by Bartholomeu
Dias, 316.

S. Francisco, mouth of, discovered
by Vespucci, 376.

S. G-abriel, pillar erected by Da Gama
at Calicut, 401.

S. Gabriel, (the). Da Gama's ship,
392.

S. Jorge, colonization attempted by
Willem van der Haagen, alias Da
Silveira, 240.

S. Jorge, pillar set iip by Diogo Cam
at river Zaii-e, 325, 346.

for the foit, see Mi)ia.

S. Lawrence discovered by Jaques
Caitier, 1535, 450.

S. Maria discovered in 1432 by
Gonsalo Velho Cabral, the pilot of
the ship being probably Diego de
Sevilla, 237.

S. Maria, pillar erected by Da Gama
on an island of the group that now
bears the name, 401.

S. Maria das Neves (river), 320.

S. Martin (M. Vivien de), the latest
writer on the expedition of Hanno
the Carthaginian ; adopts the date
of 570 B.C., accepted by Bougain-
ville ; and accepts in the main the
conclusions of Carl Miillcr, 90.

S. Miguel, re-discovered, 1444, by
Gonsalo Velho Cabral, 238.

S. Eafaol (Serras do), 397.

y. Eafael, pillar erected by Da Gama
at the Eio dos Boos Signaes, 395,
401.

S. Thome, statements of Behaim,
Galvao, and Barros respecting, 328.

discovered on the 2l8t Dec,

1470, 328.

S. Vicente (river), 319.

S. Vincent, his conjectures about the

Canary Islands, 136.

answered, 138.

Sa de Bandeira (his Excellency the

Marquis de), official survey of

Sagres supplied by him, 52.
at his instance a monument was

erected to Prince Henry at SagTCS,

313.

plan of Sagres given by him,

316.

Sagres, the chosen residence of the
Prince, 1.

— — discussion as to the time when
he took up his abode Ihere, 51, 52.

monument to the Prince's

memory, 313.

plan of, sent by the Marquis

de Sa da Bandeira, 316.

Saldanha (Antonio de), 1503, gave
his name to the Agoada da Sal-
danha near the Cape of Good
Hope, 414.

Santa Cruz, in Madeira, 74.

Santa Cruz, in Algoa Bay, pillar set
up on the island of the same name
by Bartholomeu Dias, 344, 346.

Santarem (Joao de), commander se-
lected by Fernam Gomez for the ex-
pedition beyond Sierra Leona, 321.

discovers Baama, and goes thirty-
seven leagues bej-ond Cape Lopo
Gonsalves, 322.

Santarem (Vicomte de), his compa-
rison of Nuno Tristam's voyage
with MS. maps, 191.

Santiago, pillar set up by Bartholo-
meu Dias, at Serra Parda (Dias
or Pedestal point), 343, 346.

Santos (Antonio Eibeiro dos), on the
Marco Polo map, 63.

Sataspes, his expedition, 470 B.C., 96.

Schedel (Hartmann), his suggestion
in the Nuremberg Chronicle that
Behaim had discovered not only
America, but the Straits of Magel-
lan before 1492, 327.

disproval thereof, 327.

Schmeller (Dr.), in 184 7, publishes the
collection of Valentim Fernandez,
XV. — xvii.

Senegal, mention of, in Hanno's ex-
pedition, 92.

INDKX.

481

.SeiK'.ujiil (rivt'r). 111. 11.^).

passed by Diiiiz Dias, 192.

Cudamosito's dcsoriiition of thi',

•loS.

Sequeira discovers Cape St. Cathe-
rine, 2" soiitli of the equator, 322.

Sequeira (Di(.i;o Lopez dc), loOS, dis-
covers the islands of Santa Clara ;
sails for ilalacca ; establishes a fac-
tory tliere ; Jlagalhaeiis in this tx-
pedition, 417.

Sirpent ehanuin^j, 2G7-

Serra (Jost? Conea da), his collection
of documents, Lisbon, 1790 — 1793,
Lx.

Scn-ao (Francisco) went to Temate
in the iloluecas, IGll— 1G12, -118.

marries and settles at Temate ;

communicates to Mag^alhaens the
i^reat advantages to be gained by
iutercoui-se therewith, 423.

discoverer of the ]\Ioluccas, 438.

Serrao (Joilo) with Magalhacns" ex-
pedition, 424.

with Almeida's expedition, 1505,

422.

joint commander with Barbosa

after the death of Magalhaens ;
his unhappy fate, 435.

Sertoriua hears of the Fortunate Is-
lands, and wishes to end his life
there, 135, 136.

Se villa (Diego de), the legend re-
specting his finding the Azores,
337.

Sierra Leona, 319.

Slave trade did not originate with
Prince Henr^-, 183.

among the Hebrews, 183, 184.

among the Greeks and Romans,

184, 185.

modified bj' Christianity, 185.

evidences of its continued use

in Chi-istian countries, 185, 186.

extreme antiquity of the trade

in negroes, 187.

proof from the relievi observed

by Mr. Champollion, jun., in the
temple of Lsambul, in Nubia, 187.

evidence of iVzurai-a and Cada-

mosto, 188.

further proof from the fact of

.;Vntam Gon.siilves receiving negroes
in ransom from the Moors, 188.

Bethencourt preceded the Prince

in capturing natives on the west
coast, 189.

the importation of negroes to

thoWestliulicsnut till li.ill a < en-
tury aller the I'rinee's time, IKll.

Soeotra distu\iTetl by Diogo FlT-
nandi'z Penini, 15(»4, 414.

Soderini (I'ietro), school-fellow of
Vespucci ; Vespucci's letter to him,
showing his coiineetinn with tJiu-
lian(3 (lioeoudi, 380.

Sodre (Va.sco Ciil) first lolonizir of
Terccira, 239.

Solis (.luan Dias de), with Pinzon,
explored the coasts of South Ame-
rica, 1508, 420; in 1516 entei-s
the Hio de la Plata, which origi-
nally bore his name, 421.

mas.s;icred by the natives, 422.

Soloeis, promont<iry of, ]preseiit CajH^
Cantin, the iilace where Ilauuo
raised an altar to Neptune, 91.

Solon, storv related to him of an
island called Atlantis, 87.

Souza (Diogo Lopez de) at tho sicgo
of Tangier, 158.

So\isa ((Jonzalo de) takes out the
expeditiim to Congo, but dies at
Cape Verde, and is succeeded by
his nejihew, 332.

(Manoel de Faria y) 'gives a

curious tnidition of the island of
Corvo, 244.

gives 1460 as the date of tho

discovery of the Capo Verde
Lslands, "299.

{liuy de) succeeds his uncle in

command of the fleet t<3 Congo ;
his rccei)tion 332 ; church built,
baptisms of the King, Arc, 333.

Souza Ilolstein (Marquis de) casts
made by his order from the statues
of Dom Joao and Queen Philippa,
79.

St^ibili (Francesco) erroneously stated
by Giustiniani to have written of
the (fenoesc^ expt-dition, 102.

Statins Sebosus gives tlie names of the
Fortunate Islands, 136.

Stevam Ailonso goes out with tho
nine caravels from I>ago.s, 219.

he and his brother liave an en-
counter with tlie natives, 220.

Strabo speaks of the Canary Lilands,
135.

Straits of Magellan, first named
Vittoria, 430.

Swimming extraordinary, 263.

Sylva (Huy Gomez da) «<'nt by the
Prince to conclude the tn aty with
the !\Ioorish king.-< at Tangier, 160.

I I

482

INDEX.

Tanganyika (Lake) apparently re-
ferred to by Pigafetta, from Duarte
Lopes, 1591, 334.

Taiigier, Dom Duarte is persuaded by
Prince Heniy and Dom Fernando
to fit out an expedition for the con-
quest, 154.

the siege, 156—161.

Tavares (Fernando) knighted by
Gonsalves at the Cabo do Eesgate,
195.

Tavares (Francisco de Sousa), his evi-
dence about the Marco Polo map,
63.

Tegazza, 255.

Terceii-a, fii\st named Ilha de Jesu
Christo, discovered between 1444
and 1450, 238.

captaincy given by Prince

Henry to Jacques de Bruges, 1450,
239.

Terra da Boa Gente, 395.

Terrestrial Paradise, 203.

Theopompus, singular mention in his
vrorks of a great unknown country,
87._

Theriack, antidote to poison, 218.

Tierra del Fuogo, 429.

Timbuctoo, ancient knowledge of, 49.

Tinoco (Aires), with one sailor and
three boys, manages to steer the
caravel of Nuuo Tristam back to
Lisbon, after the death of Tristam
and the rest of the crew, 217.

Toison d'Or, order of, established in
honour of the marriage of the
Princess Isabella to the Duke of
Burgundy, 25.

Toscanelli sends a chart to Columbus,
which confirms him in the idea of
reaching Asia by the West, 352,
353.

Trasto (Joao de), his expedition, 65.

Trevigiano (Stefano) brings to Por-
tugal the mappemondo of Fra
Mauro, 311.

Trinidad (the), Magalhaens' ship,
424.

Tristam (Nuiio) joins Antam Gon-
salves ; succeeds in making a cap-
tiire ; knights Gonsalves ; pursues
his voyage till he reaches Cape
Branco, to which he gives that
name, 173.

— — returns to Portugal, 174.

goes out in 1143.; finds an

island which he calls C!ete (Isle of
Arguim 167.)

Ti-istam (Nuno) makes a capture, and
obtains important infoiniation ;
finds the Ilha das Gar^as ; returns,
177.

makes another voyage, about

1445 ; and according to Aziu-ara,
" was the first who saw the country
of the blacks," 191.

1446, reaches the Rio Grande ;

in an encoimter -with the natives
he is slain, wdth almost all his
crew, by poisoned arrows, 216.

Ulil, 113.

Uniamuezi first mentioned by Piga-
fetta, from Duarte Lopes, 335.

Uovo or the Egg, or Santa Maria,
237.

Uso di Mare. See Antonio de
Nolli.

Valarinho (Fernando) with Gil

Eannes, 1446, 219.
Vallarte, a Danish nobleman, begs

permission of Prince Henry to go

to Cape Verde, 1448, 224.

falls into an ambush of the

natives ; his imcertain fate, 225.

Valverde, battle of, 21.
Van Eyck, his portrait of the Prin-
cess Isabel, 25.
Vai-nhagen (Senhor F. A. de), his

advocacy of Vespucci's claims, 372

—374.

quoted, 376, 377, 378, 379.

Vasques (Alvaro) with Pacheco's

expedition, 198.
Vaz (Tristam), his discovery of Porto

Santo and Madeira, according to

Barros, 66.
the northern half of IMadcira is

given to him, 76.

joins Lan<jarote's expediticm

(fi'om Madeira), 200.

his caravel joins Gil Eannes,

1446, 219.

Vedamel (river), or liio d'Ouro,
112, 113.

Vedanill, or Vedamel, 113.

Veer (Gustav de), 1864, published
a life of Prince Henry, xix. — xxi.

Venetian merchants in the 8th cen-
tury traded in Christian slaves,
185.

Venezuela, or little Venice, 368.

Vera Cruz, or Santa Cruz, 409.

Verdun, merchants of, took to trading
in slav(>s, 186.

•is; I

Vespucci (Amoripo), descriptiuii ol
his third vt)ya{;e in a li'ttor ml-
dressed liy liim to Lorcn/o di Tier
Francesco de' 5Icdici,aiid imblislud
by Johaiin Ottmar at Aufrsburg,
ill the "Mundiis Noviis," 3(J7.

tlie assertiou of fornior voyages

not made till after the death of
Columbus, 367.

ho sails with Ojcda, 1190, lor

South America, 3G8.

the arguments against liis

claims to priority of discovery, 370
—372.

the Senhor de Varnhagen ad-
vocates his claims, 372-371.

XavaiTcte's unprejudiecd testi-
mony in favour of the truth of the
third voyage, 375.

third voyage and discoveries,

375 — 377.

fourth voyage and discoveries,

377—379.
his death, 379.

his connection with the Gio-

condi family, 3S0.

explanation of tho connection

between him and King Kone II.,
383—385.

Vicente (Jlartim), 202.

Victoria Nyanza described by Piga-
fetta, fromDuarte Lopes, 1591,331.

Vieyi-a (Martin), his treachery at the
siege of Tangier, 159.

Villanueva (Don Joaquin Lorenzo),
map mentioned ])y, 54.

Tittoria (the) sails in Magalhaens'
expedition, commander, Luis de
Menduza, 424.

Bai-bosa made commander, 427.

sti-ait named after her, 430.

Espinoza captain, 436.

Juan Sibastian del Cano com-
mander, 437.

anival at San Lncar, 439.

Vivaldo (Ugolino de), his voyage, 99.

WaldseemUller (Martin), Ilylaco-
mylus, joins the circle of learned
men at St. Die, 382.

produces a work called " Cos-

mographia.' Introductio," with a
L;itin tnm.'-lation of Vesp\ic<i"s
voyages, addres-sed to Duke Kent-,
in which the name of America is
first suggested, 382.

Wiippii'us ^Troftiwor J. K.\ in isrj,
conuneiici'd a biognijihy <.f the
Prince, x.xi.

Was.cn r.-.frt, 397.

Wright i^Kdwaid) perfects Men-at*>r"«
plan of plane charts, .OCi.

Wriglit (Thomas) brought into no-
tice tho treatise of Xt-ekam, in
which the comi)ass is alludi-d to, 5".

Zaara, or desert, tho country of Uio

Azanegues, '203.
Zali ben Zala, LJovi-nior of Ccuta,

33.

fears tho result of the siege, 34.

dftenuini's on flight, 38.

at the siege of Tangii.T com-
mands the cross - bownmn from

Gnmada, 157.
his son liostago on thr siib- of

the Moors fiir the eoiiditinns of the

treaty at the end of the sit.-gi', 162.
conducts Dom Fernando to Ar-

zilla, 163.
transfers Dom Fernando to the

King of Fez, 164.
Zarco ;Joao Gonsiilvoz),his discovery

of Porto Santo and Madeira, uc-

conling to I5arros, 66.
captures the vt.-;si'l in wliich

Juan de Morales was returning,

and learns from him the di.scovcry

by ilacliin, 68.
sets sail with the pilot Moniles

in 1420, and arrives at Jladeini, 73,

74.
takes possession of and explores

tho ifland, and returns to I'ortu-

gal, 74, 75.
receivts the title of (,'ouat of

Camarii dos Lobos, 76.
returns with his family to M:i-

dcira, and n <•< ivt-s tin- govrrn-

mcnt of the Southern halt of the

island ; erects a diureli ut Fua-

chal ; seta lire to tho fon.sts, 76.
(its out a canivel for his luphew,

Alvaro Fornandes, expressly fur

discoverj-, 208.
is i'S|trcially honourcNl bv the

Prince for setting on foul tliia ex-
ploration, 209.
Ziuo , Marco), Venetian knight with

whom Cailamofto .'v'tibd, 24(3.
Zurhulin, King of S<'n< g:il, at the

tiuK of < 'adanl>>^to■.s vi^it, 25'J.

LIST OF PRINCIPAL BOOKS CONSULTED.

Abreu de Galindo. History of the Canary Islands. Glas. London, 1764.
Abu Al-Fida Ismail Bnu All Geographie. Reinaud. Paris, 1848.
Alvarez (Francisco). Verdadera informa^am das Terras do Preste Joam das

Indias. Lisboa, 1540.
Annaes Maritimos e Coloniaes. Serie 1 to 6. Lisboa, 1840, &c.
Annales des Voyages, &c. Tome 7 — 8. Paris, 1809, &c.
Arthys Gotardo. Historia Indiaj Orientalis, &c. Colonize, 1608.
Ayala (Pedro Lopez do). CoUeccion de las Cronicas de los Reyes de Castilla

desde el ano 1340 hasta el de 1396, con las emiendas de Geronimo Zurita,

por E. Llaguno Amirola. Madrid, 1779. Svo.

Bacon (Roger). Opns Majus. Londini, 1733.

Earth. Travels in North and Central Africa. London, 1858.

Barker — Webb et Berthelot. Histoire Naturelle des lies Canaries. Paris,
1842, &c.

Barros y Souza, Visconde de Santarem. Quadro Elementar das Relac^'oes
Politicas c Diplomaticas de Portugal. Pariz, 1842, &c.

Barros (Joao de). Asia. Lisbon, 1777, &c.

Beaurre (J. N.). Recherches Historiqnes et Bibliographiques sur les Com-
mencements de rimprimerie en Lorraine. St. Nicolas de Port, 1845. Svo.

Nouvellcs Recherches de Bibliographic Lorraine. Nancy, 1856.

BoiLAT. Esquisses Senegalaises. Paris, 1853.

Bossi. I negri della Nigrizia. Torino, 1838.

Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie. Illme Serie, 3 — 6, 1835-0, 1844,
1846; lllme Serie, 1857—60; IVme Serie; vols. 14—16, 18, 19.

I)URnby. Discoveries in the South Sea. Vol. i. London, 1803.

Cac^egas (L.). Historia de S. Domingos. Lisboa, 1767.

Caet.vno de Souza (Ant.). Historia genealogica da casa real Portugucza
desde a sua oiigem ate o presento com as fnmilias que procedem dos rcys
c dos serenissmos duqucs de Braganza. 1735-48. 20 vols, in 4to.

Caillie (Rene). Travels through Centi-al Africa to Timbuctoo. London, 1830.
2 vols.

Canary" Islands. Bibliotcca Islena. Santa Cruz. 1847-8.

Cardoso (Jorge). Agiologio Lusitano. 4 tom. Lisboa, 1652 — 1744, fol.

Carli. Opero. Milano. 1785.

Castanheda (Lopez dc). Conquista da India pelos Portugueses. Lisboa, 1833.

Catalogo dos Manuscriptos da Bibliotheca Publica Eborense, Lisboa, 1850.

Chronica do Descobrimento c Conquiste de Guinc, cscripta por maudado
d'El Rei D. Alfonso V., pclo chronista Gomes Eannes dc Azurara, tieimentc
trasladada do manuscripto original contemporaneo, que sc acha na Biblio-
theca I'cal dc Pariz, c dada pcla primeira vez a luz, por diligencia do vis-
conde; da Carrcira, ])reccdida de una introduai;ao, c illustrada com uotas
do Visconde dc Santarem, i.V:c. Paris, 1841.

LIST OK IMMNCirAL HOOKS (ONSlI/rEn. 4Sr)

Cladera (C) Invostipftiioms llistorica.s subic lus l>(>sciiliriiiiiont«>» tie Ion

Esimfiolos. :\Iailri(l. 17'.>J.
CoLLKcc'AO do notit'iiis jvini ;i histdria o f^cdfjniiihisi iliis ikicoch iiltiiiiniiriniiN

que vivtm iios ilomiiiioti Poiiiiifiiczi's uu llieH sPio vi/.iiili:iH, jiuMirmlii |nl!i

Aciulcinia Kwil das Scionciiis. Lishoji, 183{)-tl.
Coi,i,EC(AO dos dociuiK'iitos, cstatutos e iiu'inoriiis da Acndciuia luul dc llii«-

toria Portugiu'za. Lislioa, 1727, in ful.
CoLi-iNA (1). A.^. yopra la lUissola. Faonza, 1748.
CooLEY (W. D.). Noi^roland of tho Arabs. London, 1841.
CoKDEYUo. Ilistoria Iiisulma. iVrc. Lislioa, 1717.
CoKRE.v D.v Skura. Colli'((ao dc livros iiii'dito.s dc liistoria I'oi-topuoza, ]iuMi-

cados do ordcm da Acad. K. ilas iScienciaa do Linhoa. Litsboa, 17'.'0 —

18'24. 5 vols. fol.
Costa (Antonio ("arvalho da). C()ron:r'ifii Portupfiioza n do8(Tiii(;rio tojioirm-

tica do famoso roino do roituj^al, &v. Lislioa, 170(i. 170S. ct 171"-.

3 vols, in 4to.
Costa de ^Iaceho (J. J. dc). JL^moria sohrc as vordadiirns opochas cm quo

principiaram as nossas navifjafj-oos o dcscobriTuoiitos no Dci'ano Allantico.

Hist, o Mem. da Acad. K. das Scicncias, torn. ii. j). 2.

Momoria em quo se jiretcnde prtivar quo o.s Ambos n~io conhoronim aH

Canarias antes dos Portui^uozes. Hist, c Mem. da Acad. K. dna Scionciaa.
Sorio 2, torn. i. pp. 37- — 2G8.

Costa e Silva (Jose Maria da). Ensaio Riog^phico-Critico sobro os mel-

liorcs I'oetas Portuijuozis. I.isboa, 18.50.
Costa Uvintella. Aunaes da Marinha Portucfueza. Lisboa, 1839-40.

P'Avezac. Los Voyages do A. Vespuco. Paris, 1858.

De Buy. India» Orientalis, Pars vi. Anno 1604.

Dems (Ferdinand). Portuiral. Paris, 1846.

DEri'iNG (G. li.). Hi.stoiro du Commerce, &c. Paris, 1830. Vols. i. and ii.

Desmauqvets. Memoires Chronoloi^iqucs pour scrvir a I'Histoirc dt? J)iep|if,

kc. Pari,s, 1785.
Dos Santos (F. Manoel). IMonarchia Lusitana. Parte 8. Lisboa, 1727.
Di'AUTE. Leal Conselluiro. Santarem. Paris, 1842.

Enuisi. Geoc^raphio. Trad. Par. .TaiibcH.

EsTANCELiN (L.). Kcclicrchos sur les Voyages ct Dccouvertos dos Naviga-
teurs NoiTnands en Afriquo. Paris, 1832.

Fauia y SorsA (Manoel de). Hi.'itoria de Portugal. P.ni.M.scla.s, 1730.

Asia Portugucsa. Lisboa, 1674.

Epitome de las historias Portugucsas dividido cm ipuatro jiartcs. Uru-

si^las, 1677.

Historia del Royno dc Portugal. I?rn.'j.'*clas, 1730.

Hi.storias Portiigueza.s, i:c. Lisboa, 1673.

Feret. Notices sur Diojjpc, Arquis, Arc. Paris, 1824.

Fernandez de Navarrete (Martin). Historia do la Niiutica. Madrid,

Colleccion dc los Viagcs v Di-.'^cubrimicntos, itc. Sladrid, 1825 — 1S37.

Figaniere (F. v.). Cataiogodo MSS. Portugiuzcs no Mu.seo 15rit.iniii<o.

Li.sboa, 1853.
Fracan. Ilincrarium Portugallensium o I,usitania in Indiam, &c. 1508.
Freire (Franc. Jose). Vida do Infante D. H.nriqu.' por Candido LuHiti.iio.

Lisbo.i, 1758.
FoscARiNi (JL). Lottonitura Vencziana. Padoua, 1752.

Galvao (Antonio). Dewobriinentos. Lisboa, 1555.

486 LIST OF PRINCIPAL BOOKS CONSULTED.

Gaugao Stockler (F. de B.). Ensaio Historico sobre a origem e progressos

das mathematicas em Portugal. Parig, 1819.
Ghillany (F. W.). Geschichte des iSeefohrers Eitter Martiin Behaini.

Nurnberg, 1853.
Glas. History of the Canary Islands. London, 1764.
Goes (Damiao de). Historia geral de Portugal e suas conquistas. Lisboa.

Chronica do Rey Dom Emanuel. Lisboa, 1619.

GoMARA (F. L. de). Historia de las Indias. Medina del Campo, 1553, fol.
Graberg de Hemso. Annali de Geografia, &c. Genova, 1802.

HERcrLANO and Paiva. Roteiro daViagem de Vasco da Gama. Lisboa, 1861.
Herreka. Historia de las Indias. Madrid, 1730.

Humboldt (Alexander von). Examen critique de I'histoire du Nouveau Con-
tinent. Paris, 1839.

Indice Chronologico das navega^oes, viagens, descobrimentos e conquistas dos

Portuguezes, kc. Lisboa, 1841.
iLACOMiLrs (M.). Cosmographias Introductio. Deodate, 1507.

Jansen (J.). Histoixe Diplomatique du Chevalier Poi-tugais Martin Bchaim.
Strasb. et Paris, 1802.

Kerhallet (Philippe de). Manuel dc la Navigation a la Cote Occidentale

d'Afrique. 3 torn. Paris, 1851-52.
Klaproth (Jules). Lettre a M. le Baron de Humboldt sur I'invention de la

Boussole. Paris, 1834. 8vo.
KoNiGLicH Bayerische Akademie der Wissenchaften. Abhandlungen den

Philosophisoh-pliilolog. Classe. Vierter Band. Miinchen, 1847.

La Cl^de. Histoire Generale de Portugal. Paris, 1735. 2 vols, in 4to., or

8 vols, in 12mo.
Lambinet sur I'Origine de I'lmprimerie. Brux., 1799.
LiAo (Duarte Nimez de). Chronicas dos reis de Portugal, reformados pelo

licenciado. Lisboa, 1600.

Descripcao do reino de Portugal. Lisboa, 1610.

LiBRi (Count Guglielmo). Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques en Italie.

Paris, 1838-41.
Lopes de Lima (J. J.). Ensaios sobre a Statistica das Possessoes Portuguezas

no Ultramar. Lisboa, 1846.
LuDD (Gualtier). Speculi Orbis succinctiss. Declaratio. Argent., 1507.
LuDOLFF. Historia ^thiopica. 1681.

Maffei (J. F.). Historiarum indicarum Libri x-vi. 1593.

Manuel de Mello (Francisco). Epanaphoras de Historia Portugueza.

Lisboa, 1676.
Mariz (Pedro de). Dialogos de varia historia sobre os reys de Portugal.

Lisboa, 1594. 2 vols, in 8vo.
Marmol Caravajal. Descripcion de Africa. 1573.
Memorias de Litteratiu-a Portugueza. Tom. 8. Lisboa, 1812.
MoRELET (A.). Journal du Voyage de Vasco da Gama en 1497.

Lyon, 1864.
Mu55oz (J. B.). Historia del Nuevo Mundo. Tom. i. Madrid, 1793.
Murphy. History of the Mahometan Empire in Spain. London, 1816.

Navarkete (M. F(Tnandez do). Colleccion de Viajes. Madrid, 1825-37.
NouvELi.Es Aunak'S des Voyages, &c. Tom. 7, 8,41,42,109, 110. J\tris,
1820, &c.

LIST OF riUN< ll'AL DDUKb ((INSILTI,I>. iN?

Pasqual. Dcscubrimionto de la Apujii Niiulicn. Miuliiil. 17^'-'.

PiGAFETTA (Antoniu). ViafTf^io attonin il Moiulo, in liaiiiusio. I vol. l.O.'jd ful.

PiGAFETTA (FoHppe). Ivolatinno ihl Kcaino di Congo ct tlollo Circouviciuo

contradi', &c. Roma, 1. ')!)!.
PiMEXTEL (SI.). Arte do Nav.gar. Li.sboa, 1702.

Racztn'ski. Los Arts en Portuaral. Paris, 1846.

Ramisio. Viapri^i. Vent tia, l.iSS, I'tc.

Resexhe (Garcia de). Livro das oltraa do Garcia dc Hc.«t'ndo, que tracta <la

Wda e urrandis.simas virtudcs o hondadcs, etc., ilo oxcollcnti.sHinio I>nii

Joam ho ."^ci^undo dostc nomo. Evom, 1554. in fol.
Retratos c Eloi^ios dos Varooa o Donas ({Uc illustrain a NavHo Portugiicza.

Tom. i. Li.<l)oa, 1817.
Revista Litteraria. Tom. i. — iv. Porto, 1838.

S.\N Liiz (D. Francisco de). Obras Conipktis. Li.'^boa, 1855.
ScHOEFFER (H.). Cicschichto von Portuiral. liambiiru:, 18;{(3-'.).
SiLVA Lopes. Corognifia ou Mcmoria Econoniica, E.-^tadistica do luiiio do

Al-arvo. Lisboa, 1841.
Slane. Abd Al-Rabman. Historic des Berberes, &c. Alger, 1852-4.
Soares DA Sylva. Memorias para a Historia de Portugal. Jofio 1. Linboa,

1732.
Sprenoel. Geographischen Entdeclcungon. Halle, 1792.

Ursprung des Xogerhandels. Ilalle, 1779.

Sylva (Scares de). Mimorias para a historia de Portugal que comprehondem

o Govemo del Rey Joao I. Lisboa, 1730-4. 4 voLs. gr. in 4.

Torres Am.\t (Felix). Diccionario Critico de los Escritorcs Catalanes. l?ar-
celona, 1836. 4to.

Varxhagen (F. A. de\ Amerigo Vespucci. Lima, 18G5.

ViERA Y' Clavijo. Historia de las Islas de Canaria. ^ladiid, 1772. Vol. i.

ViLLANUEVA. Noticia del Viago Literario. Valen., 1820.

Vincent. Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean.

London, 1807.
ViTET. Ancienncs \'illes de France. Paris, 1833.

Wapp.kvs (E. J.). L'ntcrsuchungen iiber die geogra]>hi.schcn Entdorkungcn
der Portugieten unter Hcim-ich dcm .Seefahrer. CJottingiie, 1842, in fSvo.

ZiRLA (Placido). II Slappemondo di fra Slauro. Venezia, 180G.

Di Marco Polo e degli altri Viaggiatori Vuneziani. 2 i>art.s. Vmc /ia.

1818.

VIUTIK ANI> CO.. VUINTKUS, CITT m>AI», U>SIMIN.