THE BAY OF HORSES. 



135 



Baldoza, over the same route, and they advanced ninety miles 

 beyond the cape with the conscious pride of being the first 

 Europeans who had ventured so far towards the fatal vicinity of 

 the equator. Though they saw no inhabitants, they noticed the 

 tracks of caravans. 



They were ordered, in 1435, to resume their discoveries, and 

 to prolong their voyage till they should meet with inhabitants. 

 In latitude 24° north, one hundred and thirty miles beyond 

 Bojador, two horses were landed, and two Portuguese youths, 

 sixteen years of age, were directed to mount them and advance 

 into the interior. They returned the next morning, saying that 

 they had seen and attacked a band of nineteen natives. A 

 strong force was despatched to the cave in which they were said 

 to have taken shelter : their weapons only were found. This 

 spot was called Angra dos Oavallos, or Bay of Horses. The 

 two vessels continued on forty miles farther, to a place where 

 they killed a large number of seals and took their skins on 

 board. Their provisions were now nearly exhausted, and the 

 expedition, having penetrated nearly two hundred miles beyond 

 the cape, returned to Lisbon. 



The Portuguese war with Tangiers now absorbed the entire 

 naval and maritime resources of the country, and the plague of 

 Lisbon stayed for a time the patriotic enterprises of Don Henry. 

 In 1440-42, expeditions sent in the same direction resulted in 

 the capture and transfer of several Moors to Portugal, and in 

 the payment to their captors, as ransom, of the first GOLD DUST 

 ever beheld by Europeans. A river, or arm of the sea, near 

 the spot where this gold was paid, received, from that circum- 

 stance, the name of Rio del Ouro. This gold dust at once 

 operated as a sovereign panacea upon the obstinacy and irrita- 

 tion of the public mind. It has been well remarked that " this 

 is the primary date to which we may refer that turn for adven- 

 ture which sprang up in Europe, and which pervaded all the 

 ardent spirits in every country for the two succeeding centuries, 



