PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES 47 



CHAPTER IV. 



Portuguese Discoveries. 



Europe, for ten centuries, durini^ the decline cf the Ro- 

 man empire, the irruption of the barbarous nations, and the 

 operation of the rude systems of feudal polity, remained 

 sunk in profound apathy respecting all objects relating to 

 science, discovery, and distant commerce. The splendour 

 of the Crescent for a short interval outshone all that was 

 brightest in the Christian world ; and the courts of Bagdad, 

 of Fez, and of Cordova were more refined and more en- 

 lightened than those of London and Paris. At a somewhat 

 early period, it is true, the Hanse Towns and the Italian 

 republics began to cultivate manufactures and commerce, 

 and to lay the foundation of a still higher prosperity ; but 

 they carried on chiefly an inland or coasting trade. The 

 naval efforts even of Venice and Genoa extended no far- 

 ther than to bring from Alexandria and the shores of the 

 Black Sea the commodities of India, which had been con- 

 veyed thither chiefly by caravans overland. Satisfied with 

 the wealth and power to which they had been raised by this 

 local and limited commerce, these celebrated republics m ide 

 no attempt to open a more extended path over the ocean. 

 Their pilots, indeed, guided most of the vessels which were 

 engiged in the early voyages of discovery; but they were 

 employed, and the means furnished, by the great monarchs 

 whose ports were situated upon the shores of the At- 

 lantic. 



About the end of the fifteenth century, the human mind 

 bugan to make a grand movement in every direction ; in re- 

 ligion, science, freedom, and industry. It eagerly sought, 

 not only to break loose from that thraldom in which it had 

 been bound for so many ages, but to rival and even surpass 

 all that had been achieved during the most brilliant eras of 

 antiquity. These high aims were peculiarly directed to 

 Ihe department of maritime discovery. The invention of 

 the compass, the skill of the Venetian and Genoese pilots, 

 and the knowledge transmitted from former times, inspired 



