94 THE OCEAN RIVER 



of his company and fell with the coast of Africa. And the 

 Moors, among whom he came, took it for a miracle and pre- 

 sented him to the King of their country and the King also 

 admiring the accident, sent him and his company unto the 

 King of Castile/' 



But the story of Atlantic discoveries for the hundred years 

 preceding Columbus is dominated by the great figure of the 

 Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator. Lloyd A. Brown, in 

 his thoroughgoing book The Story of Maps puts the Portu- 

 guese case very well: ''Several factors combined to make Por- 

 tugal the greatest maritime and colonizing power in Europe 

 during the fifteenth century. Its people comprised a mixture 

 of Moors and Mozarabs in the south, Galicians in the north, 

 and Jews and foreign crusaders everywhere. The most highly 

 developed culture was combined with the most primitive bar- 

 barity. The result was a people of unusual courage, ingenuity 

 and greed. They inherited the best in science from the Arabs 

 and acquired by purchase the navigational skill developed in 

 Italy. They were 'outside sailors.' " 



Intercourse between Portugal and other European coun- 

 tries was blocked on land by Aragon and Castile. Portuguese 

 goods, therefore, were moved by sea to England, Flanders, 

 and the Hanse towns in northern Europe. Any new markets 

 would have to face the ocean. Moreover, the crusading spirit 

 was still strong in Portugal. The Order of Christ, founded by 

 Diniz at the dissolution of the Templars, was both wealthy 

 and powerful, and the vast resources of the Order, under the 

 direction of Prince Henry the Navigator, were consecrated to 

 the maritime expansion of Christianity. 



Up to this time nothing was known of the lands and waters 

 south of the African Cape Bojador. Prince Henry determined 

 to push back the Sea of Darkness in this direction where the 

 very roots of the Atlantic Gyrol commence to move in the 

 equatorial current. By 1441, after several experimental voy- 



