CHAPTER IV 



PORTUGUESE EXPLORATIONS 



HENRY, the third son of Joao (John) I. of Portugal, was 

 born \w 1394. When he was only about twenty-one 

 (in 141 5) he took part in a Portuguese expedition sent 

 to capture Ceuta, on the north coast of Morocco.^ At Ceuta 

 he gathered information from Moorish prisoners and merchants 

 as to the fertile and gold-bearing countries beyond the Great 

 Desert, on the Western Coast of Africa. He also desired to 

 find for Portugal lands to colonise, and possibly the discovery 

 of a short sea-route round Africa to the Indies. After his 

 return from Ceuta the Prince was made Governor of the southern 

 province of Portugal, the Algarve.^ From the year 141 8, at 

 any rate, if not a little earlier, the ships dispatched by him on 

 southern voyages of exploration rediscovered Porto Santo and 

 Madeira, and later on visited the Canary Islands on a series of 

 profitable raids. But in 1434 one of his captains, Gil Eannes, 

 stuck more closely to the Morocco coast and rounded Cape 

 Bojador. By 1435 ^^e Portuguese had reached the narrow inlet 

 which they named the Rio do Ouro, or River of Gold (see p. 17). 

 At the head of this gulf, as already mentioned, is situated the 



^ It is interesting to note that English and German merchant vessels assisted 

 the Portuguese in the siege of Ceuta. 



2 Algarve was simply the Portuguese softening of the Arab Algharb — the 

 (Land of) Sunset, the Extreme West. 



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