Chapter XX: The Results of Prince Henry's Work

Henry's own life is in one way the least important part of him. We have seen how many were the lines of history and of progress--in Christendom, in Portugal, in Science--that met in him; how Greek and Arabic geography, both knowledge and practical exploration, was as much a part of what he found to work with as the memoirs of Christian pilgrims, traders, and travellers for a thousand years; how the exploring and expanding energy which the Northmen poured into Europe, leading directly to the Crusading movement, was producing in the Portugal of the fifteenth century the very same results as in the France and Italy and England of the twelfth and thirteenth: and now, on the failure of the Syrian crusades, the Spanish counterpart of those crusades, the greatest of social and religious upheavals in the Middle Ages, had reached such a point of success that the victorious Christians of Spain could look out for new worlds to conquer. Again we have seen how the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth century progress in science, especially in geographical maps and plans, the great extension of land travel and the new beginnings of ocean voyaging during the same time, must be taken into any view of the Prince's life and work. We have now to look for a moment at the immense results of that same life which had so vast and so long a preparation.

For just as we cannot see how that work of his could have been done without each and every part of that many-sided preparation in the history of the past, so it is quite as difficult to see how the great achievements of the generation that followed him and of the century, that wonderful sixteenth century, which followed the age of Henry's courtiers and disciples, could have been realised without the impetus he had given and the knowledge he had spread.

For it was not merely that his seamen had broken down the middle wall of superstitious terror and had pierced through into the unknown South for a distance of nearly two thousand miles; it was not merely that between 1412 and 1460 Europeans passed the limits of the West and of the South, as legend had so long fixed them; not merely that the most difficult part of the African coast, between Bojador and the Gulf of Guinea, had been fairly passed and that the waterway to India was more than half found. This was true enough. When Vasco da Gama was once round the South Cape, he soon found himself not in an unknown and untraversed ocean, but embarked upon one of the great trade routes of the Mahometan world. The main part of the distance between the Prince's farthest and the southern Cape of Good Hope, was passed in two voyages, in four years (1482-6).

But there was more than this. Henry did not only accomplish the first and most difficult steps of his own great central project, the finding of the way round Africa to India; he not only began the conversion of the natives, the civilisation of the coast tribes and the colonisation of certain trading sites; he also founded that school of thought and practice which made all the great discoveries that have so utterly eclipsed his own.

From that school came Columbus, who found a western route to India, starting from the suggestion of Henry's attempt by south and east; Bartholomew Diaz, who reached and rounded the southernmost point of the old-world continent and laid open the Indian Ocean to European sailors; Da Gama, who was the first of those sailors to reap the full advantage of the work of ninety years, the first who sailed from Lisbon to Calicut and back again; Albuquerque, who founded the first colonial empire of Modern Europe, the first great out-settlement of Christendom, the Portuguese trade dominion in the East; Magellan, who finally proved what all the great discoverers were really assuming--the roundness of the world; the nameless adventurers who seem to have touched Australia some time before 1530; the draughtsmen who left us our first true map of the globe. So it is not in the actual things done by the Prince's efforts that we can measure his importance in history. It is because his work was infinitely suggestive, because he laid a right foundation for the onward movement of Europe and Christendom, because he was the leader of a true Renaissance and Reformation, that he is so much more than a figure in the story of Portugal.

There are figures which are of national interest: there are others which are less than that, figures of family or provincial importance; others again which are always dear to us as human beings, as men who felt the ordinary wants and passions and lived the ordinary life of men with a brilliancy and an intense power that was all their own; there are other men who stand out as those who have changed more or less, but changed vitally and really, the course of the world's history; without whom the whole of our modern society, our boasted civilisation, would have been profoundly different.

For after all the modern Christian world of Europe has something to boast of, though its writers spend much of their time in reviling and decrying it. It is something that our Western world has conquered or worsted every other civilisation upon earth; that with the single exception of China, it has made everyone of the coveted tracts of Asia its own; that it has discovered, settled, and developed a new continent to be the equal of the old; that it has won not a complete but a good working knowledge of the whole surface of the globe. We are at home in the world now, we say, and if we would know what that means, we must look at the Europe of the tenth or even the fourteenth century, look at the theoretic maps of the Middle Ages, look at the legends and the pseudo-science of a civilisation which was shut up within itself and condemned for so long to fight in a narrowing circle against incessant attacks from without and the barbarism which this state of things kept alive within. Then perhaps we shall take things a little less for granted, and perhaps also we shall begin to think that if this great advance, the greatest thing in Modern History as we know it, that which is the distinction and glory of the last three hundred years, is at all due to the inspiration and the action of Henry of Portugal, an obscure Prince of the fifteenth century, that obscure Prince may possibly belong to the rank of the great civilisers, the men who have most altered society and advanced it, men like Alexander and Cæsar and the founders of the great world religions.

It may be as well to trace out very shortly the evidence for such a claim as this and to see, how the Prince's work was followed up, first on his own lines to south and east; second, on other lines, which his own suggested, to west and north.

1. King Affonso V., Henry's nephew, though rather more of a hard fighter and tournament king than a man who could fully take up his uncle's plans, had yet caught enough of his inspiration to push on steadily, though slowly, the advance round Africa. He had already done his best to get the great map of Fra Mauro finished: this, which embodied all the achievements of the Navigator and gave the most complete and perfect view of the world that had ever yet appeared, had come out in 1459, just before Henry's death, the last tribute of science to the Prince's work.

Now, in 1461, left alone to deal with the discovery and conquest of Guinea, Affonso repaired Henry's fort in the Bay of Arguin and sent one Pedro de Cintra to survey the coast beyond the Rio Grande, the farthest point of Cadamosto in his first voyage, as generally known. Pedro went six hundred miles into the Bight of Benin, passed a mountain range called Sierra Leone from the lion-like growl of the thunder on its summits, and turned back near the point afterwards known as Fort La Mina (1461). Some time in the next few years, another courtier, one Sueiro da Costa followed Pedro de Cintra to Guinea, but without any new results; when Cadamosto left Portugal (Feb. 1, 1463), he tells us "there were no more voyages to the new-found parts."

The slave-trade nearer home was now, indeed, absorbing all energies and Affonso's main relation with African voyaging is to be found in his regulations for the security of this trade.

But in 1471 there was another move in the line of further discovery. For exploring energy was not dead or worn out, but only waiting a leader. Fernando Po now reached the island in the farthest inlet of the Gulf of Guinea, which is still called after him, finding as he went on that the eastern bend of Africa, which men had followed so confidently since 1445, the year of the rounding of Cape Verde, now ended with a sharp turn to the south. It was a great disappointment. But in spite of this discouragement, at the very same time two of the foremost of the Portuguese pilots, Martin Fernandez and Alvaro Esteeves, passed the whole of the Guinea Coast, the Bights of Benin and of Biafra, and crossed the Equator, into a new Heaven and a new Earth, on the edge of which the caravels of Portugal had long been hovering, as they saw like Cadamosto, stars unknown in the Northern Hemisphere and more and more nearly lost sight of the Northern Pole.

In 1475 Cape St. Catherine, two degrees south of the Line, was reached and then after six more years of languishing exploration and flourishing trade, King John II. succeeded Affonso V. and took up the work, in the spirit of Prince Henry the Navigator.

Now in six short years, exploration carried out the main part of the design of so many years, the southern Cape of Africa was rounded and the way to India laid open. For the time had come, and the man, John, added a new chapter to discovery by the travellers he sent across the Dark Continent and the sailors he despatched to the Arctic Seas to find a north-east passage to China.

He died just as he was fitting up the expedition that was to enter upon the promised land, and the glory of Da Gama's voyage fell to one who had not laboured, but entered upon the fruits of the toil of other men, the palace-king, Emanuel the Fortunate. But at least the names of Diaz, and Diego Cam, and Covilham, the rounding of the Cape of Storms, the first journey (though an overland one), straight from Lisbon to Malabar, belong to the second founder of Portuguese and European discovery, John the Perfect.

Less than four months after his father's death, John, who as heir apparent, had drawn part of his income from the African trade and its fisheries, sent out Diego de Azambuga with ten caravels to superintend three undertakings: first the construction of a fort at St. George da Mina, to secure the trade of the Guinea Coast; second, the rebuilding of Henry's old fort at Arguin; third, the exploration of the yet unknown coast as far as possible. For this, stones, brick, wood, mortar, and tools for building were sent out with the fleet, and carved pillars were taken to be set up in all fresh discovered lands, instead of the wooden crosses that had previously done duty. Each pillar was fourteen hands high, was carved in front with the royal arms and on the sides with the names of the King and the Discoverer, with the date of discovery in Latin and Portuguese.

Azambuga's fleet sailed on the 11th of December, 1480, made a treaty with the chief Bezeghichi, near Cape Verde, and reached La Mina, on the south coast of Guinea, on January 19, 1482, after a year spent in fort building and treaty making with the natives of north-west Africa. Fort and church at La Mina were finished in twenty days, and Azambuga sent back his ships with a great cargo in slaves and gold, but without any news of fresh discovery. John was not disposed to be content with this. In 1484, Diego Cam was ordered to go as far to the south as he could, and not to "wait anywhere for other matters." He passed Cape St. Catherine, just beyond the Line, which since 1475 had been the limit of knowledge, and continuing south, reached the mighty river Congo, called by the natives Zaire, and now known as the second of African rivers, the true counterpart of that western Nile, which every geographer since Ptolemy had reproduced and which, in the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Niger, the Portuguese had again and again sought to find their explanation.

Cam, by agreement with the natives, took back four hostages to act as interpreters and next year returned to and passed the Congo, and sailed two hundred leagues beyond, to the site of the modern Walvisch Bay (1485).

Here, as the coast seemed to stretch interminably south, though he had now really passed quite nine-tenths of the distance to the southern Cape, Cam turned back to the Congo, where he persuaded the King and people to profess themselves Christians and allies of Portugal. Already, in 1484, a native embassy to King John had brought such an account of an inland prince, one Ogane, a Christian at heart, that all the Court of Lisbon thought he must be the long lost Prester John, and the Portuguese monarch, all on fire with this hope, sent out at once in search of this "great Catholic lord," by sea and land.

Bartholomew Diaz sailed in August, 1486, with two ships, first to search for the Prester, and then to explore as much new land and sea as he could find within his reach. Two envoys, Covilham and Payva, were sent on the same errand, by way of Jerusalem, Arabia, and Egypt; another expedition was sent to ascend the Senegal to its junction with the Nile; a fourth party started to find the way to Cathay by the North-east passage.

Camoëns has sung of the travels of Covilham, who first saw cloves and cinnamon, pepper and ginger, and who pined away in a state of confinement at the Prester's Abyssinian Court, but the voyage of Diaz hardly finds a place in the _Lusiads_ and the very name of the discoverer is generally forgotten. Vasco da Gama has robbed him only too successfully.

John Diaz had been the second captain to double Bojador; Diniz Diaz, in 1445, had been the discoverer of Senegal and of Cape Verde; now, forty years later, Bartholomew Diaz achieved the greatest feat of discovery in all history, before Columbus; for the Northmen's finding America was an unknown and transitory good fortune, while the voyage of 1486 changed directly or indirectly the knowledge, the trade, the whole face of the world at once and forever.

Sailing with "two little friggits," each of fifty tons burden, in the belief that ships which sailed down the coast of Guinea might be sure of reaching the end of the continent, by persisting to the south, Diaz, in one voyage of sixteen months, performed the main task which Henry seventy years ago had set before his nation.

Passing Walvisch Bay and the farthest pillar of Diego Cam, he reached a headland where he set up his first new pillar at what is still known as Diaz Point. Still coasting southwards and tacking frequently, he passed the Orange River, the northern limit of the present Cape Colony. Then putting well out to sea Diaz ran thirteen days before the wind due south, hoping by this wide sweep to round the southern point of the continent, which could not now be far off. Finding the cold become almost Arctic and buffeted by tremendous seas, he changed his course to east, and then as no land appeared after five days, to north. The first land seen was a bay where cattle were feeding, now called Flesh Bay, which Diaz named from the cows and cowherds he saw there. After putting ashore two natives, some of those lately carried from Guinea or Congo to Portugal, and sent out again to act as scouts for the European colonies, the ships sailed east, seeking in vain for the land's end, till they found the coast tend gradually but steadily towards the north.

Their last pillar was set up in Algoa Bay, the first land trodden by Christians beyond the Cape. At the Great Fish River, sixty miles farther on and quite five hundred miles beyond the point that Diaz was looking for so anxiously, the crew refused to go any farther and the Admiral turned back, only certain of one thing, that he had missed the Cape, and that all his trouble was in vain. Worn out with the worry of his bitter disappointment and incessant useless labour, he was coasting slowly back, when one day the veil fell from his eyes. For there came in sight that "so many ages unknown promontory" round which lay the way to India, and to find which had been the great ambition of all enterprise since the expansion of Europe had begun afresh in the opening years of that fifteenth century.

While Diaz was still tossing in the storms off the Great Cape, Covilham and his friends had started from Lisbon to settle the course of the future sea-route to India by an "observation of all the coasts of the Indian Ocean," to explore what they could of Upper Africa, to find Prester John, and to ally the Portuguese experiment with anything they could find of Christian power in Greater or Middle or Further India.

As King John's Senegal adventurers had been exploring the Niger, the Sahara caravan routes, the city of Timbuctoo and the fancied western Nile, so the Abyssinian travellers surveyed all the ground of Africa and Malabar which the first fleet that could round the Cape of Storms must come to. "Keep southward," Covilham wrote home from Cairo after his first visit to Calicut on one side and to Mozambique on the other, "if you persist, Africa must come to an end. And when ships come to the Eastern Ocean let them ask for Sofala and the island of the Moon (Madagascar), and they will find pilots to take them to Malabar."

Yet another chapter of discoveries was opened by King John's Cathay fleet. He failed to get news of a North-east passage, but beyond the north coast of Asia there was found a frozen island whose name of Novaia Zemlaia or Nova Zembla still keeps the memory of the first Portuguese attempts on the road where so many Dutch and English seamen perished in after years.

The great voyage of Vasco da Gama (1497-9), the empire founded by Albuquerque (1506-15) in the Indian seas, were the other steps in the complete achievement of Prince Henry's ambition. When in the early years of the sixteenth century a direct and permanent traffic was fairly started between Malabar and Portugal, when European settlements and forts controlled the whole eastern and western coasts of Africa from the mouth of the Red Sea to the mouth of the Mediterranean, and the five keys of the Indies--Malacca, Goa, Ormuz, Aden, and Ceylon--were all in Christian hands, when the Moslem trade between east Africa and western India had passed into a possession of the Kings of Lisbon, Don Henry might see of the travail of his soul and be well satisfied.

The supposed discovery of Australia about 1530, or somewhat earlier, and the travels of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto in Japan and the furthest East, the opening of the trade with China in 1517, and the complete exploration of Abyssinia, the Prester's kingdom, in 1520, by Alvarez and the other Catholic missionaries, the millions converted by Francis Xavier and the Jesuit preachers in Malabar, and the union of the old native Christian Church of India with the Roman (1599), were other steps in the same road. All of them, if traced back far enough, bring us to the Court of Sagres, and the same is true of Spanish and French and Dutch and English empires in the southern and eastern world. Henry built for his own nation, but when that nation failed from the exhaustion of its best blood, other peoples entered upon the inheritance of his work.

But though he was not able himself to see the fulfilment of his plans, both the method of a South-east passage, and the men who followed it out to complete success, were his,--his workmanship and his building.

Da Gama, Diego Cam, the Diaz family, and most of the great seamen who followed the path they had traced, were either "brought up from boyhood in the Household of the Infant," as the _Chronicle of the Discovery_ tells us of each new figure that comes upon the scene, or looked to him as their master, owed to the School of Sagres their training, and began their practical seamanship under his leave and protection. Even the lines upon which the national expansion and exploration went on were so strictly and exclusively the same as he had followed, that when a different route to the Indies was suggested after his death by Christopher Columbus, the Court of John II. refused to treat it seriously. And this brings us to the other, the indirect side of Henry's influence.

"It was in Portugal," (says Ferdinand Columbus, in his _Life of the Admiral_, his father,) "that the Admiral began to think, that if men could sail so far south, one might also sail west and find lands in that quarter." The second great stream of modern discovery can thus be traced to the "generous Henry" of Camoëns' _Lusiads_ no less plainly, though more indirectly, than the first; the Western path was suggested by his success in the Eastern.

But that success had turned the heads of his own people. When Columbus, the son of the Genoese wool-comber, who had been a resident in Lisbon since 1470, submitted to the Court of John II. some time before 1484 a proposal to find Marco Polo's Cipangu by a few weeks' sail west, from the Azores, he was treated as a dreamer. John, as Henry's disciple and successor, was, like other disciples, narrower than his master in the master's own way.

He was ready for any expense and trouble, but no novelty. He would only go on as he had been taught. He had reason to be confident, and his scientific Junto of four, Martin Behaim of Nuremburg among them, to whom Columbus was referred, were too much elated with their new improvements in the astrolabe, and the now assured confidence that the Southern Cape would soon be passed. They could not endure with patience the vehement dogmatism of an unknown theorist.

But as he was too full of his message to be easily shaken off, he was treated with the basest trickery. At the suggestion of the Bishop of Ceuta, Columbus was kept waiting for his answer, and asked to furnish his plans in detail with charts and illustrations. He did so, and while the Council pretended to be poring over these for a final decision, a caravel was sent to the Cape Verde islands to try the route he had suggested,--a trial with the pickings of Italian brains.

The Portuguese sailed westward for several days till the weather became stormy; then, as their heart was not in the venture, they put back to Europe with a fresh stock of the legends Henry had so heartily despised. They had come to an impenetrable mist, which had stopped their progress; apparitions had warned them back; the sea in those parts swarmed with monsters; it became impossible to breathe.

Columbus learned how he had been used, and his wife's death helped to decide him, in his disgust for place and people. Towards the end of 1484, he left Lisbon. Three years later, when he had become fully as much disgusted with the dilatory sloth and tricks of Spain, he offered himself again to Portugal. King John had repented of his meanness; on March 20, 1488, he wrote in answer to Columbus, eagerly offering on his side to guarantee him against any suits that might be taken against him in Lisbon. But the Court of Castille now became, in its turn, afraid of quite losing what might be infinite advantage; Columbus was kept in the service of Ferdinand and Isabella; and at last in August, 1492, the "Catholic Kings" sent him out from Palos to discover what he could on his own terms.

What followed, the discovery of America, and all the subsequent ventures of the Cabots, of Amerigo Vespucci, of Cortés and Pizarro, De Soto and Raleigh and the Pilgrim Fathers, are not often connected in any way with the slow and painful beginnings of European expansion in the Portugal of the fifteenth century, but it is a true and real connection all the same. The whole onward and outward movement of the great exploring age was set in motion by one man. It might have come to pass without him, but the fact is simply that through him it did, as a matter of history, result. "And let him that did more than this, go before him."

INDEX.

A

Abulfeda, 28

Adelard, of Bath, geographical postulates, 9, 10

Adelard or Athelard, 84

Affonso, comes of age, 257;
marries his cousin Isabel, 258;
forces Pedro into revolt, and declares war against him, 258, 259;
sends out Gomez with a large caravel, 296;
has the body of Prince Henry laid in chapel at Batalha, 305;
carries on the work of his uncle, Prince Henry, 312, 313;
is succeeded by King John II., 314

Africa, shape of, 13

Albateny, determined problems of astronomical geography, 19

Albertus Magnus, geographical postulates, 9, 11

Albuquerque, 125

Albyrouny, work of, 21

Alfarrobeira, battle of, 260

Alfred the Great, credit due to, for discoveries, 72;
efforts in exploration and religious extension, 74

Al Heravy, life of, 26

Almada, the Hercules of Portugal, 184;
stands by Pedro, 259;
dies, 260

Almamoun, age of, 18

Almanack, Arab, Latin translation of, 21

Ant islands discovered, 160

Antoninus the Martyr, an older Mandeville, 34;
legends of, 35

Arctic colonies checked, 59

Arculf, 42;
travels of, 43

Arguin, fort built in the bay of, 205

Arim, "World's Summit," 8;
taken as measure of places, 10;
twofold, 11

Armada of Lagos, 228-239;
"the third," 247

Athelard, or Adelard, 84

Aviz, House of. _See_ John, the King of Good Memory.

Azambuga, Diego de, 315

Azaneguys described by Cadamosto, 269

Azores, colonisation of, 251;
the entire group found, 254

Azurara, chronicler of voyages of Henry, 157

B

Bacon, Roger, geographical postulates, 9, 11

Baldaya, Affonso, sent out with Gil Eannes, 173;
his second voyage, 174-176

Batti, King, 285, 286

Batuta, Ibn, 27

Beginnings of the art and science of discovery, 145

Benjamin of Tudela, 88

Bernard, "the French monk," route of, 46

Bezeghichi, meets Gomez, 295;
makes a treaty with Azambuga, 315

Bjarni Herjulfson driven to new country, 56

Blanco, Cape, visited by Cadamosto, 267

Boa Vista, 284

Bojador, southmost point of Christian knowledge, 170;
legends concerning, 171;
doubled by Gil Eannes, 173

Bruges, Jacques de, receives a grant of Captaincy of Terceira, 254

C

Cabral, Gonzalo, discovers Formiga group of islands and Santa Maria, 169;
Captain Donatory in St. Mary's Island, 251;
settled in Western Isles, 252;
sent in search of land beyond St. Mary, misses it, and is sent
again, 252;
discovers St. Michael, 253;
returns to St. Michael with Europeans, 253

Cadamosto, record of his two voyages, 250;
his narrative, 261-288;
is presented to the Prince, 263;
visits Madeira, 264, 265;
goes on to Canaries, 265-267;
to Cape Blanco, 267-269;
reaches the Senegal, 269;
describes Azaneguys, 269;
pushes on to land of Budomel, 275-278;
reaches Cape Verde, 279;
describes people beyond, 280;
explores the Gambra, 281, 282;
goes back to Portugal, refits, and sails on second voyage, 283;
explores islands off Cape Verde, 283, 284;
names Boa Vista and St. James, 284;
sails up the Gambra and names St. Andrew, 285;
visits Battimansa, 285, 286,
and Gnumimansa, 287;
returns to Lisbon, 287;
leaves Portugal, 313

Camaldolese chart of Fra Mauro, 301

Cam, Diego, 315;
reaches the Congo and Walvisch Bay, 316

Canaries, visited by Cadamosto, 265

Cantor, visited by Gomez, 291

Cape Cod, reached by Scandinavian migration, 65

Cape St. Vincent, modern name for "Sacred Cape" and Sagres, 160

Carpini, John de Plano, 90;
his _Book of the Tartars_, 92

Ceuta, King John plans an attack on, 148;
situation, 150;
left in command of Menezes, 155;
safe in Christian hands, 156

Chart of Fra Mauro, 301

Christian pilgrimage begins with Constantine, 32

Cintra, Gonsalo de, 197;
sets out for Guinea, 218;
is killed by Moors, 219

Cintra, Pedro de, 313

Columbus, influenced by _Imago Mundi_, 11;
at Portuguese Court, 322;
at Spanish Court, 323

Constantine, Christian pilgrimage begins with, 32

Corvo, 254, 256

Cosmas Indicopleustes, 34;
theory of, 37;
interest to us, 40

Costa, Sueiro da, 313

Covilham, 316

Crossness, place called from dead chief, 59

Crusades and land travel, 76;
results of, 144

Crusading movement, results of, 78

Cruzado, the, 300

D

Daniel of Kiev, Abbot, 85

Death, Black, in Portugal, 127

De Prado, taken captive, 297;
martyrised, 298

Diaz, Bartholomew, 316;
makes greatest discovery in all history before Columbus, 317

Diaz, Diniz, enters mouth of the Senegal, 220;
reaches Cape Verde, 221;
heads a part of the fleet sent from Lagos, 229;
reaches Cape Verde, 236

Diaz, Lawrence, 230

Diaz, Vincent, 233

E

Eannes, Gil, makes a voyage to the Canaries, 170;
rounds Cape Bojador, 173;
sails with Lagos fleet, 229

Edrisi, Arabic Ptolemy, the, 21;
birth and life, 22;
account of voyage of Lisbon "Wanderers," 23;
"Traveller's Doctorate," in time of, 25;
map superseded, 27

Edward, eldest son of King John, 136;
becomes King, 172;
dies, 188

Emosaid, family, 24;
establish themselves as traders, 25

England, Vikings first landed in, 52

English-born travellers, first of, 45

Eratosthenes, geography of, 5

Eric the Red, renames Greenland, 55;
leads colonists, 56

Esteeves, Alvaro, crosses the equator, 314

Europe, compacted together in spiritual federation, 76

European development, pilgrim stage of, 42

European expansion, beginnings of, 50

Europeans, first landing of, on coasts of unknown Africa, 175;
break in upon Moslem trade, 204

F

Farosangul, King of Gambra, 285

Fayal, 254;
first Captain Donatory of, 255

Ferdinand, fourth son of King John, 136;
revives scheme of African war, 180;
goes by sea to Tangier, 182;
is left as hostage, 185;
dies a captive, 188

Ferdinand the Handsome, last of House of Burgundy to reign in Lisbon, 131

Fernandez, Alvara, commands the caravel of his uncle, Zarco, 229;
is again sent out with the caravel, 243;
the voyage, 243-245

Fernandez, Joan, left as hostage at Bank of Arguin, 219;
taken home, 223;
his story, 223, 224

Fernandez, Martin, crosses the equator, 314

Ferrer, Jayme, explorer, 108

Fidelis, the monk, travels of, 46

Flores, 254, 256

Formigas discovered by Cabral, 169

Frangazick, nephew of Farosangul, 290

Freitas, Alvara de, 232

Freydis, daughter of Red Eric, tries to colonise Vinland, 62

G

Gama, Vasco da, 125

Geographical record, last before age of Northmen, 47

Geography, first Christian, 33;
of Christendom from eighth and ninth centuries, 41

Gerard of Cremona, geographical postulates, 9, 10

Gnumi, King, 287

Gog and Magog, wall to shut off, 13

Gold dust, first ever brought by Europeans direct from Guinea coast, 203;
effect, 217

Gomez, Diego, 251;
sets out in command of the caravel the _Wren_, 289;
his narrative, 289-298;
visits Cantor, 291;
converts Nomimansa, 293-295;
meets Bezeghichi, 295;
returns to Lagos, 296;
is sent out by Affonso and goes to the land of the Barbacins, 296;
discovers Santiago, 297;
returns to Portugal, 298;
describes last illness and death of Prince Henry, 304, 305

Gonsalvez, Antam, sent out by Henry, 193;
his voyage, 193-195;
takes the first captives, 195;
is knighted by Nuno Tristam, 198;
goes back to Portugal, 199;
goes back to Africa with the captive prince, 202;
exchanges two boys for ten prisoners, gold dust, and ostrich eggs, 203;
applies for command of ships, 222

Graciosa, 254;
settled, 255

Greenland, sighted by Gunnbiorn and renamed by Eric, 55;
colonised, 56

Green sea of darkness, 13, 14

Gregory X., Pope, 93

H

Harold Hardrada, 68;
type of all Vikings, 69

Helluland, or Slate-land, 56

Henry, the Navigator, special interest of the life and work, 29;
author of discovering movement, 30;
preparation for work of, 80;
predecessors of seamen of, 107-112;
first voyage, 112;
maps used by, 117-122;
Hero of Portugal, 123;
inspires his countrymen with love of exploration, 125;
his brother Pedro his right hand man, 136;
birth, 138;
his aims, 139;
tries to find a way round Africa to India, 139;
his work of exploration a foundation of an empire for his country, 141;
a crusader and a missionary, 142;
sets the example for systematic exploration, 144;
the teacher and master of more successful explorers, 145;
sends out caravels past Cape Non, 147;
brings Portuguese fleet into harbour at Ceuta, 150;
anchors off Ceuta, 151;
leads in the attack on Ceuta and is reported dead, 152;
is made a knight, 153;
begins coasting voyages, 154;
is sent to relieve Ceuta, 155;
plans to get possession of Gibraltar, 156;
returns to Court, 156;
is made Duke of Viseu and Lord of Covilham, 157;
reasons for exploring Guinea, 158;
Sagres his chosen home, 160;
is made Governor for life of the Algarves, 160;
his buildings on Sagres, 161;
his scientific work, 162;
results of settlement on Cape St. Vincent, 163;
sends out men and ships to colonise Porto Santo, 164;
colonises Madeira, 166;
directs captains to Azores, 169;
impatience at superstition and fears of navigators, 172;
receives charter for Madeira, Porto Santo, and the Desertas, 173;
sends out Gil Eannes, 173;
despatches Baldaya, 174;
engaged in politics, 179;
reverence paid to him, 179;
plans and organises African war, 180;
sets sail for Ceuta, 181;
pushes forward along inland routes, 182;
attacks and blockades Tangier, 183;
raises the siege, 184;
signs a truce with Moors, 185;
shuts himself up in Ceuta, 186;
is recalled to Portugal, 186;
made one of the guardians of Affonso V., 189;
arranges a compromise between Pedro and Leonor, 190;
sends to the Holy Father for treasure to aid in crusades, 200;
gives grant to sail to coast of Guinea to Lançarote, 206;
his motives in slave trade, 207;
keeps buccaneers in check, 216;
differs from West Indian planters, 217;
gives a caravel to Gonsalo de Cintra, 218;
permits Lagos to equip and send out a fleet on a Guinea voyage, 229;
takes special charge of widows and orphans left by Nuno Tristam's
expedition, 242;
gives a reward to explorers, 246;
his wonderful knowledge shown in correcting Cabral's course, 252;
grants captaincy of Terceira to Jacques de Bruges, 254;
account of him in narrative of Cadamosto, 261;
absorbed in new Holy War against the Infidel, 299;
his last appearance in public service, 300;
makes set of charters, 303;
makes grants to the Order of Christ and to the Crown of Portugal, 304;
his illness and death, 304, 305;
his body is laid in the chapel at Batalha, 305;
his personal appearance, 305;
his character, 306;
results of his life, 309-312, 321, 323

Heravy, Al, life of, 26

Hereford _Mappa Mundi_, 120

Heurter, Job van, notice of first settlement of Azores, 255

Hippalus, discovery of monsoon, 17

Hope, country re-named, 60

I

Ibn Batuta, 27

Iceland, sighted by Nadodd, 54;
colonised, 55

_Imago Mundi_, influence on Columbus, 11

Isidore of Seville, belief of, 40

Italian, merchants, first, who opened Court of Great Khan to Venice and
Genoa, 90;
age of South Atlantic and African voyages, 107

J

Jacome from Majorca, 161

Japan discovered by Kublai Khan, 99

Jerusalem, loss of, 90

John de Plano Carpini, first papal legate to the Tartars, 90;
gives first genuine account of Tartary, 91;
first real explorer of Christian Europe, 92

John, fourth son of King John I., 136;
succeeds Affonso V., adds a new chapter to discovery, dies, 314

John, the King of Good Memory, transition figure, 133;
personal work and its results, 133-135;
sons of, 136;
plans attack on Ceuta, 148;
speech when he hears of death of his two sons, 152;
dies, 160

Jordanus, 104

K

Karlsefne, Thorfinn, greatest of the Vinland sailors, 60

Keel-Ness (Kjalarness), 58

Kublai Khan, 93-98

L

Labrador, possible discovery of, 56;
reached by Scandinavian migration, 65

Lagos equips and sends out a fleet, 229

La Mina, 315

Lançarote, obtains grant to sail to coast of Guinea, 206;
his voyage, 212-214;
landing at Lagos and sale of slaves captured by, 214;
admiral of fleet sent out from Lagos, 229;
holds a council of his captains, 231;
decides to go on to the Nile, 232

Latini, Brunetto, describes the magnet, 116

Leif, a son of Red Eric, starts for discovery, 56

Leonora Telles, evil genius of Ferdinand and Portugal, 131;
marries King of Portugal, 132;
people rise against, 132

Leonor of Aragon, attempts to be regent, 189;
yields to persuasions of Henry, 190;
dies, 257

Lion, first one brought to Portugal, 247

Lisbon, capture of, 128

M

Machin, Robert, 110

Madagascar, first known to Europe, 102

Madeira, discovered and named by the Portuguese, 165;
nature of island, 166;
visited by Cadamosto, 264

Magellan, 125, 310

Magnet, earliest mention of, 115

Magnus the Good, 68

Mandeville, Sir Henry, 105

_Mappa Mundi_, Hereford, 120

Maps, of fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, 118

Marabout, or Prophet Bird, 230

Markland (Woodland), 57

Massoudy, visited various countries, 19;
discussion of problems, 20;
greatest name of first age of Arabic geography, 21.

Masts, Cape of, 238

Mauro, Fra, Camaldolese chart of, 301

Melli, negro empire of, 270;
salt trade in, 271

Menezes, Edward, 300

Menezes, Pedro de, is left in command of Ceuta, 155

Meymam, Ahude, 223, 224, 245

Mythology, geographical, gradual development of, 7

N

Noli, Antonio de, sails with Gomez, 297;
gets the captaincy of Santiago, 298

Nomimansa converted by Gomez, 293-295

Norse, discoveries, 50, 51;
early settlements, 54;
farthest point of Northern advance in Europe, 55;
race, type of, 69

Northern, advance, lines of, 53;
effects of invasions, 74

Northmen, countries made known to Europe through, 67;
definite advances into the unknown, 72

O

Odjein, Aryn, or Arim, 8

Ogane, 316

Ohthere, 70;
service of, to western geography, 72

Olaf Trygveson, 68

P

Pacheco, Gonsalo, unlucky expedition of, 225;
meets Diaz on homeward voyage and turns back, 230

Papal Court sends missions to convert Tartars, 90

Payva, 316

Pedro the Traveller, 136;
joins in attack on Ceuta, 148-153;
is knighted, 153;
is made Duke of Coimbra and Lord of the Principality, 157;
returns from travels, 168;
becomes regent, 190;
gives a charter to Henry, 201;
gives a reward to explorers, 246;
resigns the regency, 258;
takes arms against Affonso, 259;
marches on Lisbon and is killed, 260

Philippa, Queen, character and death, 149

Pilgrims, primitive, 34;
pioneers of growth of Europe and Christendom, 76

Pilgrim stage of European development, 42

Pires, Gomes, goes on toward the Nile, 232;
attacks natives, 234

Po Fernando, 313

Polo, Marco, makes journey to the East with uncles, 94;
made commissioner of Imperial Council, 96;
memoirs of, 96;
heard and wrote of Madagascar and Zanzibar, 102;
Herodotus of Middle Ages, 103;

Polo, Nicolo and Matteo, traders to Crimea and Southern Russia, 93;
make second journey to farthest East, 94;
consulting engineers to Mongol Court, 96;
dismissed, 101

Pope, decides question of reviving African war, 181

Portolani, superseded map of Edrisi, 27;
drawn with aid of compass, 121

Portolano, Laurentian, 118

Portugal, chief points in story of, 123;
guide of Europe into larger world, 125;
mediæval history of, 126-133

Portuguese give a value to the art and science of discovery, 145

Prado De, 297, 298

Prophet bird, or marabout, 230

Ptolemy, chart of, 2;
"Habitable Quarter" of the world, 12

R

Rio Grande, 246;
passed by Gomez, 289

Rubruquis, William de, 92, 93

S

St. George, 254, 255

St. James, 284

St. Michael, island of, discovered, 253

St. Silvia, of Aquitaine, travels of, 33

"Sacred Cape" of the Romans or Sagres, 160

Sæwulf of Worcester, 81;
pilgrimage of, 82;
classes of pilgrim-crusaders in time of, 84

Sagres, chosen home of Henry, 160;
systematic study of applied science founded anew at, 162

Santa Maria discovered, 169

Santiago discovered by Gomez, 297

Sanuto, Marino, Venetian map of, 118

Senegal, reached by Cadamosto, 269;
region about the gulf described by him, 273-275

Sinbad Saga, 19

Slate-land or Helluland, 56

Slaves, beginning of trade in, as a part of European commerce, 207;
description of sale of, 214, 215;
treatment of, 215;
excuse for trade in, 216

Strabo, geography of, 5

T

Tagaza, or the Gold-Market, 270

Tangier, siege of, 183

Tarik, the rock of (Gibraltar), 156

Terceira, sighted, 253;
Jacques de Bruges becomes captain, 254

Theodosius, early pilgrim, 34

Thorfinn Karlsefne, greatest of the Vinland sailors, 60

Thorstein, third son of Red Eric, puts to sea, 59

Thorvald Ericson, puts to sea, 57;
voyages of, 58;
death, 59

Timbuctoo, inland route of merchants to, 270

Tristam, Nuno, meets Antam Gonsalvez, 196;
assists in capturing natives, 196-199;
continues voyage and returns to Portugal, 199;
sets out on another voyage, 204;
sails into bay of Arguin, makes captives and returns, 205;
makes a third voyage, 219;
reaches Cape Palmar, 220;
arms a caravel and sets sail, 240;
is killed by Blackmoors, 241

Trygveson, Olaf, 68

V

Vallarte, his expedition and fate, 247

Vaz, Tristam, sets out to explore as far as the coast of Guinea, 163;
is rewarded, 166;
heads three ships from Madeira in Lagos fleet, 229

Vergil, Irish missionary, 40

Vikings, highest type of explorers, 31;
Norse, discoveries, conquests, and colonies, beginning of European
expansion, 50;
voyages of, 52;
struggle with Esquimaux, 58;
rename places visited, 65;
work on south and south-west not one of exploration, 66;
type of all, 69;
credit due, for discoveries, 72;
their principalities in time of Alfred, 73

Vinland, discovery of, 57;
renamed, 60;
visited and abandoned by Thorfinn, 61;
recolonised by Freydis, 62;
fragmentary notices of, 63

W

"Wanderers," Lisbon, account of, 23

William de Rubruquis, sent by St. Louis on errand of conversion and
discovery, 92;
interest of his work, 93

Willibald, 44

Wulfstan, 70;
tells of voyages, 71;
service of, to western geography, 72

Y

Yacout, the Roman, _Dictionary_ of, 26

Yang-Tse-Kiang, 96

Z

Zarco, John Gonsalvez, sets out to explore as far as the coast of
Guinea, 163;
his voyages, 164-166;
returns to Madeira, 166;
sends his caravel under his nephew with Lagos fleet, 229;
the voyage, 236-239;
same caravel sent out again, 243

The Story of the Nations.

MESSRS. G. P. Putnam's Sons take pleasure in announcing that they have in course of publication, in co-operation with Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, of London, a series of historical studies, intended to present in a graphic manner the stories of the different nations that have attained prominence in history.

In the story form the current of each national life is distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their philosophical relation to each other as well as to universal history.

It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes to enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and struggled--as they studied and wrote, and as they amused themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with which the history of all lands begins, will not be overlooked, though these will be carefully distinguished from the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions.

The subjects of the different volumes have been planned to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in the great STORY OF THE NATIONS; but it is, of course not always practicable to issue the several volumes in their chronological order.

The "Stories" are printed in good readable type, and in handsome 12mo form. They are adequately illustrated and furnished with maps and indexes. Price, per vol., cloth, $1.50 Half morocco, gilt top, $1.75

The following volumes are now ready (Jan., 1895):

THE STORY OF GREECE. Prof. JAS. A. HARRISON.
" " " ROME. ARTHUR GILMAN.
" " " THE JEWS. Prof. JAMES K. HOSMER.
" " " CHALDEA. Z.A. RAGOZIN.
" " " GERMANY. S. BARING-GOULD.
" " " NORWAY. HJALMAR H. BOYESEN.
" " " SPAIN. Rev. E.E. AND SUSAN HALE.
" " " HUNGARY. Prof. A. VÁMBÉRY.
" " " CARTHAGE. Prof. ALFRED J. CHURCH.
" " " THE SARACENS. ARTHUR GILMAN.
" " " THE MOORS IN SPAIN. STANLEY LANE-POOLE.
" " " THE NORMANS. SARAH ORNE JEWETT.
" " " PERSIA. S.G.W. BENJAMIN.
" " " ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. GEO. RAWLINSON.
" " " ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J.P. MAHAFFY.
" " " ASSYRIA. Z.A. RAGOZIN.
" " " THE GOTHS. HENRY BRADLEY.
" " " IRELAND. Hon. EMILY LAWLESS.
" " " TURKEY. STANLEY LANE-POOLE.
" " " MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. Z.A. RAGOZIN.
" " " MEDIÆVAL FRANCE. Prof. GUSTAVE MASSON.
" " " HOLLAND. Prof. J. THOROLD ROGERS.
" " " MEXICO. SUSAN HALE.
" " " PHOENICIA. Prof. GEO. RAWLINSON.
" " " THE HANSA TOWNS. HELEN ZIMMERN.
" " " EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. ALFRED J. CHURCH.
" " " THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. STANLEY LANE-POOLE.
" " " RUSSIA. W.R. MORFILL.
" " " THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W.D. MORRISON.
" " " SCOTLAND. JOHN MACKINTOSH.
" " " SWITZERLAND. R. STEAD AND MRS. A. HUG.
" " " PORTUGAL. H. MORSE STEPHENS.
" " " THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C.W.C. OMAN.
" " " SICILY. E.A. FREEMAN.
" " " THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. BELLA DUFFY.
" " " POLAND. W.R. MORFILL.
" " " PARTHIA. Prof. GEORGE RAWLINSON.
" " " JAPAN. DAVID MURRAY.
" " " THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF SPAIN. H.E. WATTS.
" " " AUSTRALASIA. GREVILLE TREGARTHEN.
" " " SOUTHERN AFRICA. GEO. M. THEAL.
" " " VENICE. ALETHEA WIEL.
" " " THE CRUSADES. T.S. ARCHER and C.L. KINGSFORD.

Heroes of the Nations.

EDITED BY

EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD.

A series of biographical studies of the lives and work of a number of representative historical characters about whom have gathered the great traditions of the Nations to which they belonged, and who have been accepted, in many instances, as types of the several National ideals. With the life of each typical character will be presented a picture of the National conditions surrounding him during his career.

The narratives are the work of writers who are recognized authorities on their several subjects, and, while thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present picturesque and dramatic "stories" of the Men and of the events connected with them.

To the Life of each "Hero" will be given one duodecimo volume, handsomely printed in large type, provided with maps and adequately illustrated according to the special requirements of the several subjects. The volumes will be sold separately as follows:

Cloth extra $1.50 Half morocco, uncut edges, gilt top 1.75 Large paper, limited to 250 numbered copies for subscribers to the series. These may be obtained in sheets folded, or in cloth, uncut edges. 3.50

The first group of the Series comprises the following volumes:

Nelson, and the Naval Supremacy of England. By W. CLARK Russell,
author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc.

Gustavus Adolphus, and the Struggle of Protestantism for Existence.
By C.R.L. FLETCHER, M.A., late Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Pericles, and the Golden Age of Athens. By EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A.,
Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.

Theodoric the Goth, the Barbarian Champion of Civilisation. By
THOMAS HODGKIN, author of "Italy and Her Invaders," etc.

Sir Philip Sidney, and the Chivalry of England. By H.R. FOX-BOURNE,
author of "The Life of John Locke," etc.

Julius Cæsar, and the Organisation of the Roman Empire. By W. WARDE
FOWLER, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford.

John Wyclif, Last of the Schoolmen and First of the English
Reformers. By LEWIS SERGEANT, author of "New Greece," etc.

Napoleon, Warrior and Ruler, and the Military Supremacy of
Revolutionary France. By W. O'CONNOR MORRIS, sometime Scholar of
Oriel College, Oxford.

Henry of Navarre, and the Huguenots in France. By P.F. WILLERT,
M.A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.

Cicero, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. By J.L. STRACHAN
DAVIDSON, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.

Abraham Lincoln, and the Downfall of American Slavery. By NOAH
BROOKS.

Prince Henry (of Portugal) the Navigator, and the Age of Discovery.
By C.R. BEAZLEY, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.

Julian the Philosopher, and the Last Struggle of Paganism against
Christianity. By ALICE GARDNER, Lecturer on Ancient History in
Newnham College.

Louis XIV., and the Zenith of the French Monarchy. By ARTHUR
HASSALL, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church College, Oxford.

To be followed by:

Saladin, the Crescent and the Cross. By STANLEY LANE-POOLE.

Joan of Arc. By MRS. OLIPHANT.

The Cid Campeador, and the Waning of the Crescent in the West. By
H. BUTLER CLARKE, Wadham College, Oxford.

Charlemagne, the Reorganiser of Europe. By Prof. GEORGE L. BURR,
Cornell University.

Moltke, and the Founding of the German Empire. By SPENSER
WILKINSON.

Oliver Cromwell, and the Rule of the Puritans in England. By
CHARLES FIRTH, Balliol College, Oxford.

Alfred the Great, and the First Kingdom in England. By F. YORK
POWELL, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church College, Oxford.

Marlborough, and England as a Military Power. By C.W.C. OMAN, A.M.,
Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Frederic the Second, the Wonder of the World. By A.L. SMITH, of
Balliol College, Oxford.

Charles the Bold, and the Attempt to Found a Middle Kingdom. By R.
LODGE, M.A., Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford.

Alexander the Great, and the Extension of Greek Rule and of Greek
Ideas. By Prof. BENJAMIN I. WHEELER, Cornell University.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST.

LONDON 24 BEDFORD ST., STRAND

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

A footnote for the anchor next to the "List of Maps" was not
found in the print edition.