GROWING vVEALTH OF AFRICA. 91 



The navigators, who were Phoenicians, were absent three 

 years, and according to report, they accompHshed their object. 

 Fifty or one hundred years later, Hanno, a Carthaginian, made a 

 voyage down the west coast and seems to have gotten as far as the 

 Bight of Benin. 



The east coast was probably known to the ancients as far as 

 Mozambique and the Island of Madagascar. 



Of modern nations, the Portuguese were the first to take in 

 hand the exploration of Africa. In 1433 they doubled Cape Bojador, 

 in 1 44 1 reached Cape Blanco, in 1442 Cape Verde, in 1462 they 

 discovered Sierra Leone. In 1484 the Portuguese Diego Cam dis- 

 covered the mouth of the Congo. 



In i486 Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope 

 and reached Algoa Bay. A few years later a Portuguese traveler 

 visited Abyssinia. In 1497 Vasco da Gama, who was commissioned 

 to find a route by sea to India, sailed round the southern extremity 

 as far as Zanzibar, discovering Natal on his way. 



PORTUGUESE THE FIRST EUROPEAN SETTLERS. 



The first European settlements were those of the Portuguese 

 in Angola and Mozambique, soon after 1500. In 1650 the Dutch 

 made a settlement at the Cape. In 1770 James Bruce reached the 

 source of the Blue Nile in Abyssinia. For the exploration of the 

 interior of Africa, however, little was done before the close of the 

 last century. 



Modern African exploration may be said to begin with Mungo 

 Park, who reached the upper course of the Niger (1795 to 1805). 

 Doctor Lacerda, a Portuguese, about the same time, reached the 

 capital of the Cazembe, in the center of South Africa, where he died. 



In 1802-6 two Portuguese traders crossed the continent from 

 Angola, through the Cazembe's Dominions, to the Portuguese pos- 

 sessions on the Zambesi. In 1822-24 extensive explorations were 

 made in Northern and Western Africa by Denham, Clapperton, and 

 Oudney, who proceeded from Tripoli by Murzuk to Lake Tchad, 

 and explored the adjacent regions; Laing, in 1826, crossed the 

 desert from Tripoli to Timbuctoo, Caillie, leaving Senegal, made in 



