Our Place in History. 169 



Southern Italy, and thundered at the gates of Vienna, where at that 

 time was the boasted strength of the white man? What was the 

 aristocrat of the human race but a cowering and unwarlike inferior 

 fighting in desperation to save central Europe from the conquering 

 hordes of Asia and of Africa ? 



The salvation of Europe lay in maritime enterprise. The life- 

 work '^f Henry the Navigator was consciously directed to the over- 

 throw of Mohametan power. Portugal V)eing freed from her Moorish 

 lords. Prince Henry had seen the futility of campaigns in the rugged 

 fastnesses of the Atlas mountains. The strength of Islam lay not 

 merelv in religious fervour f.r militarv prowess, but still more in the 

 wealth which the Turks and Arabs obtained by taking toll of all 

 trade between Asia and Europe. To attack this power he resolved 

 to circumnavigate Africa and take the foes of Christendom in the 

 rear. Long years of toil, of studv and of disappointment were needed 

 to achieve even the first steps on this arduous road. When the 

 Prince died he had made a beginning of the great work which was 

 to make his name immortal. He had recovered the lost knowledge 

 of Greek geographers, he had sent his ships to the Canaries and to 

 the Gambia River ; but, above all, he had trained crews and captains 

 to the work of ocean navigation. The next half century saw the 

 work of Christopher Columbus and of Va.sco de Gama, and it is 

 hard to decide which of these men did the greater work in securing 

 to the white man the lordship of the earth. The gift of the splendid 

 continents of America gave to Europeans a new and unassailable 

 future, while the mastery of the Indian Ocean sapped the prosperity 

 of Islam and opened to white merchants the markets of half the 

 human race. 



South Africa is intimatelv concerned with the period in which 

 Almeida and Albuquerque planted their stations at the strategic 

 points of the Indian Ocean, and forbade any ship to sail its waters 

 •without their licence. Africa was the obstacle overcome by the 

 explorers ; Asia was their prize, and from Asia, the African coast 

 was administered. Thus Mozambique received its orders from the 

 Governor at Goa, as did Cape Town afterwards from Java. 



This lordship of the ocean was the distinguishing work of the 

 1 6th centurv. To Portugal belonged the Avhole Indian Ocean, and 

 to Spain the Pacific, while the arbitration of Pope Alexander divided 

 the Atlantic between the two southern powers. On his accession to 

 the Portuguese throne, Philip II. became the Emperor of all the 

 oceans, and none but his subjects might sail them. We all know 

 that Britannia rules the waves, but in her wildest flights of fancy 

 she has never desired to annex all the salt water. Her trident has 

 been but the policeman's truncheon of the deep, expelling pirates 

 and evil-doers and keeping the highway clear for all nations. Beyond 

 the three mile limit no country now claims any lordship of the sea. 



It was not to be expected that the northern nations would lorig 

 acquiesce in the extravagant claims of Spain and Portugal. Nor did 

 thev do so when another generation had grown up, familiar with 



