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HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



which aimed at changing the route of Eastern commerce. John 

 next applied to the Pope for an increase of power, and obtained 

 from his holiness a grant of all the lands which his navigators 

 should discover in sailing from west to east. The grand idea of 

 sailing from east to west — one which implied a knowledge of the 

 sphericity of the globe — had not jet, to outward appearance, 

 penetrated the brain of either pope or layman. One Christopher 

 Columbus, however, was already brooding over it in secret and 

 in silence. 



It had hitherto been customary for Portuguese navigators 

 to erect wooden crosses upon all lands discovered by them. 

 John II. now commanded them to employ stone pillars six feet 

 high, and to inscribe upon them, in the Latin and Portuguese 

 languages, the date, the name of the reigning monarch, and that 

 of the discoverer. Diego Cam was the first to comply with this 

 command ; he set up a column at the mouth of the river Congo, 

 at which he arrived in 1484. An ambassador was sent by the 

 chief of the territory to Portugal, where he embraced Christianity 

 and was baptized by the name of John. The anxiety of the 

 king now increased in reference to interference by other nations : 

 he therefore sent to King Edward, of England, an earnest request 

 that he would prevent the intended voyage to Guinea of two of 

 his subjects, John Tintam and William Fabian, with which request 

 Edward saw fit to comply. The Portuguese monarch now care- 

 fully concealed the progress of his navigators upon the African 

 coast, and on all occasions magnified the perils of a Congo 

 voyage. He declared that every quarter of the moon produced 

 a tempest ; that the shores were girt with inhospitable rocks ; 

 that the inhabitants were cannibals, and that the only vessels 

 which could live in the waters of the torrid zone were caravels 

 of Portuguese build. Suspecting that three sailors who had left 

 Portugal for Spain intended to sell the secret to the foreign 

 king, he ordered them to be pursued and taken. Two were 

 killed, and the third was broken upon the wheel. "Let every 



