220 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



emancipation from the awful scourge of the Arab 

 invasion of Europe and the counter-invasion of Asia 

 by the Crusaders, sea-traffic gradually grew and ex- 

 tended its ancient limits until in the fulness of time 

 Columbus, the Genoese, set sail from Spain to find 

 India by going westward, and Bartholomew Diaz 

 sailed southward for the unknown limit of the great 

 African continent. It was as if weary of the incessant 

 clash of arms, the futile slaughter of each other on 

 land, men turned wearily for relief to the great 

 mysterious ocean in the hope that there they should 

 find the room for peace which was denied them on 

 land. 



Thus it came about that, groping almost blindly in 

 the mysterious ocean solitudes, Italians, Spaniards, 

 and Portuguese rediscovered America and India, and 

 laid the foundation of the inter-ocean traffic which we 

 see to-day. Still, their voyaging was quite timid and 

 tentative, for the advance in the science of navigation 

 had not kept pace with the courage and enterprise 

 of the navigators. But one great step had been taken, 

 perhaps the greatest possible one, at any rate, that 

 more than compensated for lack of navigational know- 

 ledge. It was that men had lost their fear of the 

 ocean. They no longer dreaded sailing over the edge 

 of the world into space, or into a region of darkness 

 from whence there could be no return. They had 

 become so far familiar with those apparently illimit- 

 able breadths that they put forth in all confidence 

 that they would fetch somewhere or another, and that, 

 wherever it might be, it would be well worth visiting 

 and annexing, for, after all, conquest and subsequent 

 gain was the root motive of these voyages. 



