ABYSSINIA. 255 



IV. 



Struggle of Abyssinia against the invasion of the Mussul- 

 man tribes of Arabia and the coast of Africa. Its 

 alliances with Portugal. Before and after the dis- 

 covery of the Cape of Good Hope. 



Prince Henry, son of John L, King of Portugal, 

 jealous of the greatness of Venice, which owed its 

 prosperity to the trade with India, discovered another 

 means of communicating with the East, and that was 

 by sailing round the famous cape then known as the 

 Promontory of Tempests. 



He had to combat the prejudices of the whole 

 nation, but he had learned from history that the 

 voyage had already been accomplished by the Phoe- 

 nicians, during the reign of Necos in Egypt, and 

 afterwards by Eudoxius under Ptolemseus Lathyrus. 

 Eudoxius passed round the southernmost point of 

 Africa and arrived at Cadiz. 



But there are always plenty of people who, inca- 

 pable of achieving any great thing themselves, are 

 ready to criticise the enterprise of others, and these 

 people declared that the sea was continually raging 

 and boiling around these arid shores, and that the air 

 was so heated by the sun that all men who went 

 through it would come out quite black. These argu- 

 ments, industriously circulated by the Venetians, 

 would have sufficed to prevent Prince Henry's project 

 being carried out if King Edward, instead of being 



