GROWING WEALTH OF AFRICA. 
91 
The navigators, who were Phcenicians, were absent three 
years, and according to report, they accomplished their object. 
Fifty or one hundred years later, Hanno, a Carthaginian, made a 
voyage down the west coast and seems to have gotten as far as the 
Bight of Benin. 
The east coast was probably known to the ancients as far as 
Mozambique and the Island of Madagascar. 
Of modern nations, the Portuguese were the first to take in 
hand the exploration of Africa. In 1433 they doubled Cape Bojador, 
in 1441 reached Cape Blanco, in 1442 Cape Verde, in 1462 they 
discovered Sierra Leone. In 1484 the Portuguese Diego Cam dis¬ 
covered the mouth of the Congo. 
In i486 Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope 
and reached Algoa Bay. A few years later a Portuguese traveler 
visited Abyssinia. In 1497 Vasco da Gama, who was commissioned 
to find a route by sea to India, sailed round the southern extremity 
as far as Zanzibar, discovering Natal on his way. 
PORTUGUESE THE FIRST EUROPEAN SETTLERS. 
The first European settlements were those of the Portuguese 
in Angola and Mozambique, soon after 1500. In 1650 the Dutch 
made a settlement at the Cape. In 1770 James Bruce reached the 
source of the Blue Nile in Abyssinia. For the exploration of the 
interior of Africa, however, little was done before the close of the 
last century. 
Modern African exploration may be said to begin with Mungo 
Park, who reached the upper course of the Niger (1795 to 1805). 
Doctor Lacerda, a Portuguese, about the same time, reached the 
capital of the Cazembe, in the center of South Africa, where he died. 
In 1802-6 two Portuguese traders crossed the continent from 
Angola, through the Cazembe’s Dominions, to the Portuguese pos¬ 
sessions on the Zambesi. In 1822-24 extensive explorations were 
made in Northern and Western Africa by Denham, Clapperton, and 
Oudney, who proceeded from Tripoli by Murzuk to Lake Tchad, 
and explored the adjacent regions; Laing, in 1826, crossed the 
desert from Tripoli to Timbuctoo, Caillie, leaving Senegal, made in 
