142 



HISTOEY OF THE SEA. 



eastward of the great southern cape, which he had passed with- 

 out seeing it. Ignorant of this, he still kept on, amazed that 

 the land should now trend to the east and finally to the north. 

 Alarmed, and nearly destitute of provisions, mortified at the 

 failure of his enterprise, Diaz unwillingly put back. What was 

 his joy and surprise when the tremendous and long-sought pro- 

 montory — the object of the hopes and desires of the Portuguese 

 for seventy-five years, and which, either from the distance or the 

 haze, had before been concealed — now burst upon his view ! 



Diaz returned to Portugal in December, 1487, and, in his nar- 

 rative to the king, stated that he had given to the formidable 

 promontory he had doubled the name of "Cape of Tempests." 

 But the king, animated by the conviction that Portugal would 

 now reap the abundant harvest prepared by this cheering event, 

 thought he could suggest a more appropriate appellation. The 

 Portuguese poet, Camoens, thus alludes to this circumstance: 



"AtLisboa's court they told their dread escape, 

 And from her raging tempests named the Cape. 

 'Thou southmost point,' the joyful king exclaimed, 

 'Cape of Good Hope be thou forever named !' " 



Successful and triumphant as was this voyage of Diaz, it ' 

 eventually tended to injure the interests of Portugal, inasmuch 

 as it withdrew the regards of King John from other and im- 

 portant plans of discovery, and rendered him inattentive to the 

 efforts of rival powers upon the ocean. It caused him, amid 

 the intoxication of the moment, to refuse the services and re- 

 ject the science of one who now offered to conduct the vessels 

 of Portugal to the Indies by an untried route. It caused him, 

 as we shall soon have occasion to narrate, to turn a deaf ear to 

 the proposals of Columbus, who had humbly brought to Lisbon 

 the mighty scheme with which he had been contemptuously re- 

 pulsed from Genoa. We have arrived at the Great Era in Navi- 

 gation,— the age of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan. 



