364 DISCOVKRV OF THE CAPE. 



of this paper, involving, as it did, some years of study, has been 

 a great pleasure. In the wide range of historical studies, there 

 are no figures more fascinating, no characters more stimulating 

 to our own weak endeavours, than those of the great explorers 

 and discoverers. Bartholcmeli Dias remains a little wrapped in 

 the mists of age ; we cannot always see the man himself as 

 clearly as we would, and there are gaps in his life which we 

 cannot fill. 'But we have the solid fact to go on that he 

 discovered more leagues of new coast than even da Gama, who, 

 as soon as he reached Mozambique, was once more in known 

 waters, and we remember, too, with reverence that Dias left his 

 boiles in our own seas. Early in May, 1500, Dias, then a 

 captain in Cabral's fleet, left the coast of Brazil to sail to the 

 Cape. Some three weeks later came the dreadful storm which 

 was to give to the Cape its sinister name of Tormentoso.* Of 

 the last moments of Dias we know nothing; but we can be quite 

 sure, from what we can gather of his life of patient service of 

 his King, and his splendid enthusiasm, that when his water- 

 logged caravel disappeared beneath the waves, the Commander 

 was on deck, looking eastward to the land of Good Hope. 

 " Cujus animam curet Dens una cum animis omnium nautarum 

 fidelium." 



Note. — The quotations from de Barros and the " Roteiro " 

 are taken from the '* Cape of Adventure," by Ian D. Colvin ; 

 those from Perestrello from Dr. Theal's " Records of South- 

 Eastern Africa." I have generally, for the sake of clearness, 

 given the place-names in the forms previously used in my article. 



* De Barros' story that Dias originally gave this name to the Cape, 

 and that it was changed bv King Joao II. is now generally rejected. 

 The early writers credit Dias himself with the touch of poetic genms 

 which produced the beautiful name. Cape of Good Hope. It seems that 

 the story has undergone a process of inversion not very rare in history, 

 and that the real origin of the name Tormentoso is to be found in the 

 disaster that overtook Cabral's fleet; Dias had fair weatlier in roundmg 

 the Cape. 



