140 : The Atlantic 



resumed the exploration as a royal enterprise. In the eighties his ships 

 reached the Congo River and pushed southward along the coast. 

 Whatever may have been Prince Henry's intentions it was clear now 

 to Joao that Portugal was to develop a route to India. With this in 

 mind, Pedro de Covilha was sent to India by way o£ Cairo and Aden. 

 Returning from India, he explored the east coast of Africa as far as 

 the Zambezi River. 



Progress down the West African coast had been steady rather than 

 rapid. Below Cape Verde and the bulge of Africa many navigational 

 difficulties were encountered. In the Gulf of Guinea and the Bight of 

 Benin there was always the possibility of encountering the doldrums 

 ^iind the calms extending over a wide area and with the tropic sun 

 adding its weight to the burden already borne by a becakned vessel. 

 Below the Gulf all up and down the West African coast a vessel 

 attempting to benefit by land and sea breezes would be encountering 

 the continual adverse set of the current. To the princes and the mas- 

 ters of trade in Portugal the progress of the ships against these 

 adverse conditions no doubt seemed slow. To the captains and crews 

 of the vessels time would not seem so important. The discomfort 

 and irksomeness of the voyage would be continuously offset by the 

 novelty of discovery along the shore. The men that made these voy- 

 ages would be seeing for the first time the strange products of the 

 West African coast which in those days were so unfailing and abun- 

 dant — the gold so plentiful, the great ivory tusks of the elephants that 

 then were ranging near the west coast, the exotic fruits and vegeta- 

 bles, the oil kernels and other products of the coast, the kola and other 

 strange stimulants of the tropics, the rich diversity in form and color 

 of the many Negro tribes inhabiting the coast and the interior, the 

 strange languages and the barbaric music, the mouths of the great 

 rivers like the Niger and the Congo leading into a continent that was 

 still a vast mystery. 



Possibly the traders were so busy with new sights and scenes that 

 they were not unhappily conscious of the inevitable delays, but there 

 were other men who were in a hurry to be finished with Africa and 

 on their way to India. The most important man in a hurry was Bar- 

 tolomeu Diaz. It was really he that set the crown on the great work 

 that Henry had commenced in the beginning of the century. Diaz 

 was carrying on a great tradition. He was a relative of Joao Diaz 

 who had rounded Cape Borgedor and Diniz Diaz who had discov- 

 ered Cape Verde. 



Diaz commenced his career trading for ivory on the Guinea coast. 



