16 EARLY EAST AFRICA 



Let us now glance briefly at the events in 

 Portugal which led to the discovery of an ocean 

 route to India and the East. 



Prince Henry the Navigator, son of Dom Joao, 

 then King of Portugal, was apparently the first 

 of his house to reahse the importance of establish- 

 ing communication with India by way of the Cape 

 of Good Hope. 



It was as yet only through Turkish territory 

 that the wealth of the Eastern markets found its 

 way to Europe, and this route — namely, through 

 Egypt to Alexandria and thence to Venice — was, 

 it was found, one which so enhanced the cost of 

 the silks and spices and other Oriental merchandise 

 of the period that only the wealthy were able to 

 afford them. Moreover, this route was already 

 regarded with misgiving by merchants, by reason 

 of the distant rumblings of that approaching up- 

 heaval which in 1517 was to overthrow the Mame- 

 lukes and to convert Egypt into a province of the 

 Ottoman Empire. For many years, doubtless, the 

 trains of camels laden with the luxuries of Asia 

 which crossed to the Mediterranean from the Persian 

 Gulf must have followed a route which was perilous 

 in the extreme, and this was doubtless one of the 

 most important of the reasons which drew the en- 

 terprising eyes of the Lusitanian Prince to the 

 route, whose discovery later on was to draw in 

 turn the admiring eyes of all Europe to the small 

 kingdom at the western extremity of the Iberian 

 Peninsula. Little by little his vessels groped their 

 way down the African coast until they crossed 

 the equator in 1471. Ten years later his nephew, 



