68 EARI-Y ]'ORTUGUESE DTSCOVERTES IN AFRICA. 



have given a simple and abridged review of the travels and lives 

 of some of those who transformed the world in the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth centuries, you will forgive the pride of the Portu- 

 guese, who are rather inclined to recall their history when oppor- 

 tunity offers. 



I have used portraits of the men whom 1 shall refer to, 

 taken from old engravings, to illustrate my remarks. 



I have also done my best to obtain copies of old paintings 

 and etchings of the landing of explorers at the various harbours 

 and of their reception by the native tribes and Arab rulers. 

 Valuable and abundant literature of this kind certainly exists, 

 but unfortunately I have been unable to procure the desired 

 material within the short time at my disposal. It is also but 

 fair to mention that I have gathered some of . ni}' notes from 

 early Portuguese works as well as from Dr. M'Call Theal's 

 excellent " History of South Africa." 



When, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, 

 Portugal, by the initiative and will of one man, sent 

 her navigators across the ocean in search of new coun- 

 tries, and gradually became the greatest maritime power 

 of the time, the Atlantic was looked upon by Euroi^e as an 

 insuperable barrier, in front of which the aml)ition and greed of 

 mankind had to stop. Hercules' Columns, as ancient history 

 called the two promontories on either side of the Straits of 

 Gibraltar, were the limit of the Greek hero's marvellous deeds. 

 Nothing, westward of these Columns, was known to Antiquitv. 

 The ['h<enicians, whose enterprise and commerce were so great, 

 did not know more than the European and African shores of 

 the Mediterranean, and, although they passed through the Strait^ 

 of Gibraltar, they never went any further than Cadiz. The 

 Canary Islands, caUed in former days the Fortunate and 

 Atlantic Islands, were so little known that for a long time they 

 were held to be a myth like Solomon's Land of Ophir which, 

 even at the present date, still remains a subject of controversy. 

 It was common belief that the earth was divided into five zones, 

 only two of which, the temperate zones, were habitable. The 

 others were not accessible because of the intense cold prevailirig 

 therein in the south and of the intense heat in the middle zone. 



Ignorance and superstition went hand in hand to frighten the 

 boldest in any attempt to explore the African water-?. The 

 o-reater activitv of the waves and winds round the capes of 

 North Western Africa, which were after all nothing I)ut a 

 natural phenomena, was regarded as a sure sign of the inhospi- 

 tality of the South Atlantic waters. The belief was so current 

 that" one of the first African capes was called " Cape No," thus 

 indicating that Nature and Providence had combined there to 

 tell mankind : " No, you shall not go further." The man who 

 (hsbelieved the tradition and determined to unveil the secrets of 

 the sea was the Infante Dom Henrique, better known as Henry 

 the Navigator, fifth son of King lohn I of Portugal, and of Queen 



