326 THE LIBRARY. 



cities as large as Morocco, or Lisbon, or Seville. In 

 that country were gold mines of prodigious wealth ; 

 it was also a granary of slaves. By land it could be 

 reached in a week from Morocco by a courier mounted 

 on the swift dromedary of the desert, which halted not 

 by day or night. There were regular caravans or 

 camel-fleets, which passed to and fro at certain seasons 

 of the year. The Black Country, as they called it, 

 could also be reached by sea. If ships sailed along 

 the desert shore towards the soxith, they would arrive 

 at the mouths of wide rivers, which flowed down from 

 the gold-bearing hills. 



This conversation decided Prince Henry's career. 

 To discover this new world beyond the desert became 

 the object of his life. He was Grand Master of the 

 Order of Christ, and had ample revenues at his dis-. 

 posal ; and he considered himself justified in expend- 

 ing them on this enterprise which would result in 

 the conversion of many thousand pagans to the Chris- 

 tian faith. He retired to a castle near Cape St Vin- 

 cent, where the sight of the ocean continually inflamed 

 his thoughts. It was a cold, bleak headland, with a 

 few juniper trees scattered here and there : all other 

 vegetation had been withered by the spray. But 

 Prince Henry was not alone. He invited learned 

 men from all countries to reside with him. He estab- 

 lished a court, in which weather-beaten pilots might 

 discourse with German mathematicians and Italian 

 cosmographers. He built an observatory, and founded 

 a naval school. He collected a library, in which might 

 be read the manuscript of Marco Polo, which his elder 

 brother had brought from Venice ; copies on vellum of 

 the great work of Ptolemy; and copies also of Hero- 

 dotus, Strabo, and other Greek writers, which were 



