y of the Cape of Good Hope by Diaz and the circumnavigation of the globe by the ships of Magellan. Long before this period of fruition, h

s of discoveries on the west coast of Africa, due to the energy of

rtugal was largely a matter of sentiment gathering around the sovereign. The nationality of Portugal had been created in the first place by the policy of its rulers, and preserved by them until

r, Foedera, II., 667, VII., 515-523.] This was followed in the next year by a marriage between the king of Portugal and Philippa, daughter of the English John of Gaunt and first cousin of King Richard. This "Treaty of Windsor" was renewed again and again by succeeding English and Portuguese sovereigns and remained the foundation of their relationship until it was superseded long afterwards by sti

gdom of Algarves, giving them a southern as well as a western sea-coast. [Footnote: Stephens, Hist. of Portugal, 81.] It was at Sagres, on Cape St. Vincent, which juts out into the open Atlantic Ocean on the extreme southwest of this province, that Henry, the fifth son of John II. of Portugal, established his dwelling-place in 1419, and created a centre of maritime interest and a base of exploring effort which was of world-wide influence. Henry was duke of Viseu, lord of Cavailham, viceroy of Algarves, and grand master of the Order of Christ. He had no wife or children; his private estate was, therefore, available for the expense

ring port of Lagos the most famous point in the world for the departure and return of exploring expeditions. [Footnote: Nordenskiold, Periplus, 121 A. For discussion of divergent views of Prince Henry's "school of navigation,

tler missionary ideals caused him to plan to spread Christianity into new lands, and to make connection with Prester John, the Christian ruler of the India which lay to the eastward of Africa. [Footnote: Hakluyt Soc., Publications, 1899, cvi.-cxii. Murara

er, kept him and them intent on the work of exploration. [Footnote: Bourne, "Prince Henry the Navigator," in Essays in Historical Criticism, 173-189.] Henry possessed, at the beginning of his explorations, little more than the traditional geographical conceptions of the later Middle Ages. Besides some twelve or fourteen extant fourteenth-century maps dr

her and brothers, and later when he was himself in command, he found that there were caravan routes whose termini were at Ceuta and other Mediterranean towns. From th

of merchants from the coast of Tunis to Timbuctoo and to Cantor on the Gambia, which inspired him to seek those lands by way of the sea." [Footnote: Diego Gomez, quoted in Beazley, Introduction to Azurara's Chronicle (Hakluyt Soc., Pu

anent colonization begun. Every year saw one or more caravels sent from Lagos southward to follow the coast of the main-land; but they skirted no shores that were not desert, and turned ba

ning to the coast, landed and gathered "St. Mary's roses," and took them home to the prince as a memento of the "farthest South." [Footnote: Azurara, Discovery of Guinea, chap. ix.] The greatest barrier had been pa

t and reached Cape Verd, the "Green Cape," [Footnote: Ibid., chap. xxxi.] fifteen hundred miles down the African coast, and as far from Gibraltar south as Constantinople was east. By this time the captains of Prince

oyages. Others were soon brought for other purposes. Of the two hundred and thirty-five Moors who made up the first full cargo of human freight, the prince gave away the fifty-six which fell to his share as one-fifth, althou

very different desires from those of the prince might be gratified by capturing and bringing to the slave-market of Lagos the unfortunate natives of the newly discovered coasts. Hence one expedition after another, sent out for purposes of discovery, returned, bringing tales of failure to reach farther points on the

oast was certain, even in default of the personal enlightenment and enthusiasm of the Navigator. The expeditions sent by the prince and privat

e ends of the caravan routes from Morocco, and to open up trade in gold, ivory, and the products of the Guinea coast, but to suggest that there was open sea now all the way eastward to India. The temporary disappoint

can coast. The belief became assured that "ships which sailed down the coast of Guinea might be sure to reach the end of the land by persisting to the so

g distance on the coast, and passed so far to the eastward that his sailors mutinied and refused to go farther. Diaz then suddenly realized that, notwit

t and find lands in that direction." The Portuguese were so wedded to the search for the southeast route, and it was so nearly achieved at this time, that their interest was but languid in the plans fo

l across to India, cast anchor, and secure cargo in Calicut and many other ancient ports; and to return thence safely to its port of departure. [Footnote: The First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, in Hakluyt Soc., Publications, 1898.] The Portuguese search for a new route to the lands of Eastern products was thus successful; and once found,

of the Indies were in Portuguese control- Ormuz, Diu, Goa, Ceylon, Malacca-and the enterprising little western state had trade settlements in Burma, China, and Japan. [Footnote: Hunter, Hist, of British India, I., 110-133.] The pri

of it may be obtained. "In his wish to gain a prosperous result of his efforts," says an almost contemporary historian, "the Prince devoted great industry and thought to the matter, and at great expense procured the aid of one Master Jacome from Majorca, a man s

by the German Regiomontanus, and printed at Nuremberg in 1474. He also improved the astrolabe and the staff, drew charts and made globes, and accompanied one of the West- African expeditions in 1489. [Footnote: Major, Prince Henry the Navigator, 326-328.] Diego Gomez, one of Henry's captains, remarks, in describing his voyage of 1460, "I had a quadrant with me and wrote on the table of it the altitude of the arctic pole, and I found it better than the chart; for though you see your course of sailing on the chart well en

im that Nicholas de Lyra and St. Augustine had been, without doubt, excellent theologians but only mediocre geographers, since the Portuguese had reached a point of the other hemisphere where they had ceased to see the pole-star and discovered another star at the opposite pole, and that they had even found all the countries situated under the torrid zone fully peopled." [Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle, 96.] In ship-building Henry and his navigators made positive progress. The Venetian Cadamosto testifies that "his caravels did much excel all other sailing ships afloat." Many varieties of vessels are mentioned in the records of Prince Henry's time-the barca, barinel, caravel, nau, fusta; the galley, galiot, galeass, and galleon; the brigantine and carrack. Of all these the caravel became the favored for the long, exploring voyages. It was usually from sixty to one hundred feet long and eighteen to twenty-five feet broad, and of about two hundred tons burden. It had three masts with lateen sails stretched on the oblique yards which were swung from the masthead, and was steered, at least partly, by the turning of these great, swinging sails. [Footnote: Revista Portuguesa, Colonial (May 20, 1898), 32-52, quoted by Beazley, Introduction to Azurara's Chronicle (Hakluyt Soc., Publications, 1899, p. cxii.).] John II. encouraged the immigration of English and Danish ship-builders and carried improvements still further. The greatest service to navigation done by Prince Henry and his successors was that of providing a school of sea-training. Not only were the whole group of early Portuguese explorers, Henry's own captains, "brought up from boyhood in the household of the Infant," [Footnote: Azurara, Discovery of Guinea, chap xiii.] but there was scarcely a name great in navigation in t

e terrible surf of the beaches, the cyclones of the Guinea coast, the trade-winds, which were always head-winds to the mariners returning from the south- west, the uncharted reefs and bars, all fa

the system of grants of newly discovered territory to captains or contractors who would continue its discovery or conquest, exploit its resources, and pay to the crow

ries and follow the new lines of trade, not only because of their unfavorable geographical position, not only because they were then engaged in a desperate military and economic struggle to retain their old Levantine trade conquests and connections, not only because their wealth and prosperity were deeply smitten by their mutual struggles and their common losses fr