Liberia 



^*- 



little Island of Heme or Kerne, which was such an important 

 rendezvous for the Carthaginians. 



Why the Portuguese named this place the River of Gold 

 is not very clear, except that they were convinced from the out- 

 set of their journeys that they were going to find the mysterious 

 River or Coast of Gold reported by the Catalan and Norman 

 adventurers, and most of all by the Moors and Arabs. It is 

 possible also that in their intercourse with the Moors in this 

 little inlet, known now as the Rio de Oro (the headquarters of a 

 Spanish Protectorate), they may have met Moors returning from 

 the Sudan to Morocco with gold-dust in their possession. In 

 1 44 1 a Portuguese ship brought back from the Sahara coast 

 near Cape Blanco several Moorish captives and some gold-dust. 

 In the next year Nuno Tristam reached the Bay of Arguim 

 inside Cape Blanco. In 1444 several Portuguese ships reached 

 the mouth of the Senegal River, where they are said to have 

 found remains of the Norman forts. Cape Verde, " the 

 Green," was rounded by Dinis Diaz either in 1445 or in 1447, 

 and about the same time another Portuguese captain discovered 

 the mouth of the River Gambia. 



In 1 45 5 and 1456 Luigi Ca' da Mosto,^ a Venetian sea- 

 captain in the service of Prince Henry, visited the River Senegal, 

 discovered the Cape Verde Islands, and reached in his explorations 

 as far as the Bisagos Archipelago. Sierra Leone was perhaps 

 first attained-by the Portuguese Diego Gomez in 1460. Ca' da 

 Mosto,^ the Venetian, was certainly the first notable explorer of 

 the West Coast of Africa. Besides discovering the Cape Verde 

 Islands (in which feat he was joined by a Genoese captain, Uso 

 di Mare, who with other ships accompanied him on both these 



' His name is variously spelt Alvise, Aloysius. Ca or Ca', in the Venetian 

 dialect, is short for Casa, " house." 



^ Only twenty-two years old when he started from Venice in 1454. 



38 



