PORTUGUESE AND SPANIARDS 65 



science in modern Europe. Hither came all the learned 

 of the day ; Arabs, Jews and Italians ; mathematicians, 

 map-makers, shipbuilders and practical seamen ; and thus 

 in organised scientific ways, backed by the resources of the 

 Portuguese monarchy, Henry undertook the conquest of . 

 the Ocean sea, and the discovery of a way to India. Here 

 worked Henry day and night ; " often the sun found him 

 in the same place where it left him the day before, he having 

 watched throughout the whole arc of night without any 

 rest." He never went on a voyage. Yet this " Navi- 

 gator," who stuck to his desk, and never went to sea, 

 inspired men with enthusiasm and courage, helped them by 

 his science, and " by his unconquerable industry conquered 

 the impossibilities of other men." The " oared galley or 

 weak sailing craft of an inland sea " grew into " the ocean- 

 going ship." " The caravels of Portugal," said the Vene- 

 tian Cadamosto, who sailed in one of them in Henry's 

 service, " are the best sailing ships afloat." The new 

 science of map-making, which had lately grown up among 

 the Italian seamen in the Mediterranean, was applied to the 

 ocean coasts of Africa. " The old mappae mundi," said 

 Henry's sailors, " were not true, for they only depicted 

 things at hazard ; but this which is now placed on charts 

 is matter witnessed by eyes." The instruments of navi- 

 gation, such as the compass and the astrolabe, were made 

 more serviceable by gradual improvements, memory of 

 which has been eclipsed by later perfection. And, thus 

 equipped, Henry's captains set forth to serve God and the 

 prince by cleaving a path to India. 



Voyage after voyage they groped their slow way down the Henry's 

 African coast. The Madeiras, the Azores, the Canaries, J 

 were rediscovered. Cape Bojador, hitherto " the Souther- Africa, 

 most limit of Christian knowledge " was passed ; and, to the 

 amazement of the voyagers, the sea beyond pictured by 

 Arabian geographers as boiling with fiery heat, peopled by 

 fearsome sea-monsters, and threatened by the visible hand 

 of Satan was found safe and easy sailing. They out- 

 flanked the African Moors, came to the land of the negroes, 

 and began prosperous trade in slaves, ivory and gold dust. 



W.A. E 



