• \\·\)KI.::~ I'iS["I-:I) BY nbe lbahlurt $ocietr· --0-- TIlE C 1IRO~' I CLE ur TH E DIS CO \ · ERY Ai'\J) C OKQl'E::T OF (;UIKEA. Y01 II STATU OF RINeE HENRV IN ARMOUR AT BEllO ", THE CHRO N ICLE DISCOVERY ,\~I' CONQUEST OF G UIN EA. WR1Tfl-N IIV GO~IES EANt\ES DE AZURA RA ~ ""OW fiRST DO:-lE 1:-.'1'0 E:'\GLlSH '" C! L\ RLES R \ Vl\ l o:-Jn BE:VLE\', :'ItA ., F.R.G.S" "OW'" '" ~.~"'.' t""",,,", "<,.,,",, eO""",,,,,,,,,,-,, ~r.n'R "' TUK L'""Q> UMlUUI'JI,,". '0'''''''' .\1 ;, """. . ': mu"",,,,,,.,,,, "'~".M ,,0>. !"."" ,,;~,- p, ' ...." ".'. "" L""'" ".,' ,"'III. .." , ",-"",', ,,, YOL J I. ClL\I'-1 ER.., .'..:LI :,\(.TII)_ ~ihl~ dol in ll'OOllfholl 01, l~r ll' a r !{I 1J!'ltorl} of ~frlr,lIl ~1\lIGf'lIIOll> .rar'oQl~p~!?, tlf. 1.0'\1)0:,\· I'RI"ITEt) FOK rHE H.\KLCYT SOCIETY. CQUXC IL o. TIlE II A KIXYT SOC IETY. 'ill! ('I,E\('. •~ T~ .\!.\N~I!,I.'(' K.CII F.K.'i,.l'r<'. J..'.(;.S., PR~SI"F~'f fm' K«;ln H(}~', Tu •. J~,." S'r,n'!.H 0 ... \L"':~U;Y, \"CF,'PRb,nE"T R ..... ~·.-\(»)"H.~L 'ilk \\'U.Ll"." \\·n.'HT"". KC II,. \·IC ... P~"stnn:\'. J'~'O. \1..\ CO!.ON~ '. G. E.I "L e"o.:,,' II S IR \! ,' RT'~ l"OIl1IR.1I \, ~'-"'r II, \l.lk"" ,." E, ). PH~f bo, ;-;'M CUTHRERT K PH". n.'WI J.: (;. KII"'-TH". J-:,~, II.." IIIl> 'i.W"'" liS, Ew I II.'.... \\"1.[,,,,.. I-:signed by an)' authorit), of the fifteenth century for t,ltcmCllts were put forward, assigning 1412 ,)r cn. . ll 1410 as the commencement of hi" exploring aC(l\'ny, This would take us baek to a time when the Prince WilS but sixtee ll or eighteen years old: and though it is probable enough that Fifth, counling twO childrt;1l who dit.-d in infancy, ,-\s repealed hy .\!arlin Bl'haill) (sec .\!ajor. H NII'J' X;l1'i~,'t'lr, pp. 64, 6S)· Gomez was ,\lmo\arife, or ~upcrintt:ndenl, or Ih~ Palac..: of ("inlra. INTRODUCTlO:-O. '" Portuguese vessels may have sailed out <'tt this time (as in 1341) to the Canaries or along the West African coast, it is not probable that Henry took any great share in such enterprise before the Ceuta expe- dition of '41 S. In any case, it is practically certain that before J 434, no Portuguese ship had passed beyond Cape Bojador. Gil Eannes' achicvement of that year is nlarked by Azurara and all our best authorities as a decided advance on anr previous voyage, at \cast of Portuguesc mariners. \Ve shall consider presently how far this advance was antici- pated by other nations, and more particularly by the French. Cape Non, now claimed by some as the southernmost point of l\larocco, had been certainly passed by Catalan and other shipsl before Prince Henry's day; but it had not been forgolten how rhyme and legend had long consecrated this point as a fated end of the world. Probably it was still (c. 1415) believed by mall>' in Portugal- " Quem passar 0 Cabo de Niio Ou tomara, ou n5.o." and the Venetian explorer, Cadamosto. presen'es a mel1lion of its popular derivation in Sou thern Europe from the Latin" Non," "as beyond it was belit!ved there was no return possible." T he real form was probably the Arabic Nun or " Fish.'"2 L Some of wbich bad re:\cbed at least as f~r as Cape Bojador, as depicted 011 tbe Catalan :\[ap of LSi5. 2 So Zul·nun, Lord of the Fi~h, is a term for the prophet Jonah (~I;! Burton, C\('1"11 Nile], by which he was ahle to g-ui d e till' (';(1";\\(']" he '>{'Ill out to find that l"ivcr." I t will hI" illlportilill hen:afll'r to c:x;\minc the (·I'i· d('IlCt, II hieh had 1)('('11 aCLLlInu1i1lcd (or such h(;iicf up to till' liftcenth n'11lury: now it II ill h(' (;Ilough til sa}' I I'hill Princf> Ill'n!'y lIas probably of the "',\ln~' opinion a ... tht' ontinilr)' cartogrill'lwr of his time ;d>OlIl til(' pVllinslIl;lr shape of ,\frica. 2. T hat th(; .. sh;q)(''' in question w;\s usually sali<;tinl Wilh what Ill' "hould 111)11 call th(~ \"ortlH'rn half of the COI1- tlllt'nt, making' tlll' Southern COit,>l of" Cllim:a" COIl- lintl(' dl!'!Ttly to th(· 1·~,lStI·l'Il, ,\bpsinian. or Indian OCI·;IIl. 3. 1 hat tra~k had now ((. r 4 r 5) J,('en long- I11dinl;tirwd b(:[I\(TIl this" (;1.1111('<1 (.:O,I'It" and thc '\leditvIT,lIh.:a ll ... t·ahOMd chit·tl), by \ loorish cara- \ ,(IlS derm,,> lh(.: ~;Ih;\r;l. 4. Th.1l sonH'thin.~·, thou;,!h Irttk,. W;t,> kn"I\11 in \\ '('<; (('rl1 Chri'l(vndorn aho!lt Ilh' Chris(iilll Clith ;tnd king of .\hyssinia; for "]>I'(· ... t('l" John' ..... ston ill the fit'tt'l'11lh celltury had n·.tll) ],e(OI1H.: : . v Cen tral (Kt'storian) Asia and Eastern (Abyssini fllr rknr)"s explora- t ions ,til turn upon thi s, Thc Prince desired to find out the full streng-th of dlC ;'Iloors in Africa, "said [() hc ITry much gn.:at<:r t han communI)" SLlJlP,):-;cd," .. becausI' e\'t.'r} \\'ise Illan" dc'>ires "it knowl<:dge of tht: pO\\'t:r of hi:-; t: t1l'Ill),," J Ic ,tlso .. sough t to know if tlwn' II ('I"(' in those pans all)' Christian princcs" who w()u\{l aid hilll ag-"inst the enemies of the faith, . \11lL la ... t1y, Iw dc:-;i(('d to "Illake increase in tht: faith o f Jesus Clll'ist. and to bring' to llim all the souls that should be sa\'ed." It ha:-; oftl'n hCI'n p()inlt'd out hnw the [nfant was ;li(kd in his work by the tendencies of his time .uld coulltr)'; how in him tht:: spirit of media,::"a1 J:-;"T/{OOUCTION, vii rai th and the spirit or material, even or commercial, ambition, were united; how be was the central representati\'e or a general expansive and exploring movement; and how he look up and carried on the labours or various predecessors, At the same time it must be recognised that his work forms'an epoch III the histor)~ of geographical, commercial, and colonial ad\'ance; that he gave a permanence and a vitality to the cause of maritime disco\'ery which it had never possessed before; that e\'en his rediscoveries of islands and mainland frequentl}' had all the meaning and importance of fresh achieve- ments; that he Illade hi" nation the pioneer of Europe in iu: conquest of the outer world; and that without him the results of the great forty years ('480- [520) of [)iaz, Columb'us, Da Gama, and l\ Tagcllan must have been long, might have been indefinitely. postponed, Barros (Decade /. i, 2) tells us a story, probable enough, about the inception of the I nfant's plans of discovery. He relates how one night, after much meditation, he 1<1)' sleepless upon his bcd. thinking over his schemes, till at last. as if seized with a sudden access of fury, he leapt up, called his servants, ano ordered some or his barcns to be im- mediatclr made readr for a voyage to the south along the coast of ,',{aracco. II is court was astonished, and attributed this outburst to a di\'ine revelation. I t was natural enough-the resolution of a mall, wea ry with profound and anxious thought. to take some son of decisivl.! action, to embark without Vil1 TNTRQDUCTtON. further delay on the reali sation of long-cherished schemes. To summarise the course of the Prince's life, from 1415, before entering on any discussion of special points: After the Conquest of Ceuta ht..: returned to Portugal; was created Duke of \ riseu and Lord of CO\'ilham (I..p 5). having alrea(~}' received hi s knighthood at "Septa": and began to send out regular exploring yenturcs down the \Vest Coast of Africa- " twO or three ships" every year beyond Capt: :\011, Nun. or Nam. In I.p8 he successfully went to the help of the Governor of Ceuta against tht: :'Iloor.., of i\ larocco and Granada. 1 On this second return from Africa, when in 14 19 he was creatcd Governor of the Alga rve or south most pro\"ince of Portugal. he is supposed by some to h:J\'e taken up his residence at Sag-res,~ near Cape St. \'incent, and to have begun the establishment of a school of cartogral)hv. and n~l\'i"c fation there, 1\11 this, hO\n:\'cr, is disputed by Others, as is the I On this oc("asion h~ p1ann~d, bUi did nOi attempt, th~ ~eil.ure of ('ihraltar. 7 Sagles, rrOlll "Sacrum Pronlonioriulll," the ordinary name of Cape ~t. \'inCcnt in the ]ak'r cla"ical Geography. "a 91 Kilom, Ouest de F:J.ro, ~ur un cap, it 4,500 metres L.~.E. dll Cap St. \,inc{'nt"' (\'il". St. ;\1:lT\in). The harbour is sandy, protected rrolll the X.-\\". winds. .\ Druid telllp!c stood there, and the ]herian~ of the Koman lime a~semhled then! at night. It \\"a~ a li3rren cape, its only natural \e;.;ctation a fell jllllipt'rs. (). ;\ I arti!l~ (Hllw$ ,/~. D';"')"i, p, 77), ~ugg"'ls that the name of .~;lgns did nOt come intq ordinary lI~e till arler the Prince's death, T4 60. INTRODUCTION. IX tradition of his having- established Chairs of l\Jathc- maties and Theology at Lisbon.l In I.p8-20, however, his captains, Joao Gon- 'falvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz Teixeira, certainly re-discovered Porto Santo and l\Tadeira. 2 In '427, King John and Prince Henr), seem to have sent the royal pilot, Diego de Sevill, to make new dis- coveries in the Azores; and, in 143 [-:?, Gon~alo Velho Cabral made further explorations among" the same; but the completer opening up and settlement of the .r\rchipclago was the work of later years, especially of 1439-66. \\Te shall relUI'Il to this matter in a special discussion of Prince Ilenry's work among the Atlantic islands. To the same 1 In 1431 he is said to have purchased Iwuse-room for the Uni"ersity of Lisbon; on \larch ::!5th, 1448, to have e~tablished there a prof.. ..s sorship of theology; and on September 22, 1460, to have confirmed this by a charter dated from his Town at Sagres. The Professor was to have 1w elve marks in silver every Chrislnl:lS from the tithes of the Island of ,\!adeira (see ,\I.UTarn, GuinUl, c. q. .\~ to the Chair of :-'fathernatics, we only know that it cxi~ted in 1435; that the Infant was intere~ted in this study; and that tr~dition connected him with a somewhat similar foundation at Sagres. The houses purchased in Lisbon for the Uni"ersity were bought of jooo .\nnes, the King's .\rmourcr, for 400 crown,. H cnce, according to some, came the Prince's titlc of ,. Protector of Portuguese Studie~. c O. i\lartins thinks thesc island di;;CO"eries were a surprise to Ilenry, who at first only contemplated disco\-cry along the main- land coast South and East to,,·ards India. Wc do not believe in this limitation of \io,:w (see Barros, Du. I, Lib. I, c. 2, 3). The prcyious ,"opgc of the Englishman :-'Iacham to the" ble of Wood" (" l.egname" on the fourt ... enth-ct:ntury Portolani) IS another controversial matter which mu~t he taken separately. x INTRODUCTION. we mLlst refer the traditional purchase of the Canaries in 14-24-5 and the settlement of i\ladcira in the same year, I confirmed by charters of 1430 and 1433. King Juhn, (,.'ll hi s death-bed. is said to have exhorted Ilenry to persevere in his schemes. \\hich he was ;It this ver)' lime pursuing by means of a fresh expedition to round Ca pe Bojador, under Gil Eanncs (1433). Azurara from thi s point bl'COI1H':S our chie f authority ,Jown to the year 1448, and this and lh(: subsequent voyages arc fully described in hi'> pages. Gil E anlH.:s, unsuccessful in 1-133,' under the stimulu"i of the Infant's reproaches 1. 1149). Finally. it i'> rccorc\(:d that "the Navigatllr" SOI1H whal n·co\l·I"(·11 tlw militarr honour he had c(llllprnmi""'d ilt Tangier, b} hi') su{"c~·sses in tht! , "l"e,hlli(·;III)· "kingdom. The" \lafOrtll 4 ·;\lIIp:lign<· ,,( '·1' S, LUi, 1158, l"lf"., were ;11'1~1relltl) t""Il~id'.·!ed 1'1' Princc' Ilt-nry as only :H1oI1ll'r ~,d~· of hi~ HJ'lstl!l).: \·\pIOr;\lhll" ;ll1d projecled ronque'ls. 1I:\\ing tJIl·n 1111 id .. d of the ,·ntJrIlIOU~ SUIlIJwrJy I'roj.·t"lion of Afri,·a, he I'rvh.lhl} a'l'ir,·d tn .1 PorIng"'·' .. ~<)rlh .\rriLI1l dominion, whid, ~h()ul'l "',ntTO'] th,· (·0111111"11l. 1'1)1 (;uil1,,;], 111 the i,ll-as o( the \l11]e, \\a,; .... lIl)lll()lIly MlppO't'd [I) lot" quite rillS,· to \larOtTU on Ilw MlIltll W'·~I other dignities, ;\lastcr of the Onll'r of Christ, which, as the direct SUCt:l'..,sor of till' Tl'rnplars in Portugal, held a very hl"o h rank, and \\as, b)' its "artificial ;\Ilcestr.v ," as ! \nhlJ('s would h;l\'t' said, O1\e of the 1110,>t ancien t OrllNs in Chrisu.:mlo11l, 1 knry's father, King John, hild 1>(,('11 also ilt one lime Head of an Order of Chi\-alry, tlw Knights of ,\\·iz; but on coming to the thron{' ht, h;td obtained a dispensation from his vO\\ of c(,\ib<1q itS :-'I: in its name ht, required till' aid nf Pope Eugenius IV; Ite; spcciili dut)" llliiilM) onkr as It \ras m ongm- .... hOliid ha \·l' hl'('11 to spread the Christian faith in :-'lo .... !t-m and Iw,lthl'n ,\friGL: perhaps it,> work was c(\l1sidl'n'~i to ;'xtcnd only to the !>\a)'in,(r of \\o. .. kms, or \\oortlH'n, and the bring-ing back 1 It ha, l><;el1 ~Ul .:c~\t·d., ,b) ",ir (., \lark ham, that the por· trait 01 the l11l.11lt in 111"urllil1~ ,lrc'" I'rdhcd to the J>'1Ti~ \IS, of .\fur,It.1 h·l,r<,. h IS 1" 111,1]" m""· likel)· a n;;lrk of ~orrow for n. h.Tt\:11lon, n. F ernando, and partir by F ernando's son, D. io. l anuel. VO\'\CE~ OF \'](INl:l HES1{\"" SEA'IEN ALONG THE \\'l'ST .\FRtCAN COAST. (J\~'f rrrordtd t:,· A;/Ir,/rll.) Princl:' I \(ollry',.; work waO:;, above all. justified by its pennant'nc('. U Illi!.;v earlier ancient and media:val aw.:mpts at \\'(,st .\frican exploration, his movement i<;sucd ill c01l1pktl! sUCC('SS. f\zurara gi\'cs us, no douht, a fairly complete aCCollnt of the earlier st.lges of thdt lll()\ (;1ll('lll, but it is probable that even his record ()1llits S01llV of the \'entures undertaken froll1 Portll;.:'al alpn~ til(' \\-es{ c\frican mainland; wbile it is <.:ert,lin that Wl' must look e\s("I\ here for a CP1llp\('tcr picture of t1w Infant's idered in relation to that \\'estwanl route to India which Columbus advocated and commenced, I t has ;dread), been stated that although r\zurara's Chronicle officially ends in '453, and appears to record nothing lat~r than the e\'ents of [448, yet \'cry important expeditions were sent forth in the last years of the Princ(:'s lifl;:, espcciallr those of Cadall1ostoL and [)iego GonH':z, An attempt has been madc to I)ro\' c that the second \'o\'aO'e of Cadamosto, , 0 on which he claimed to have disco\'ered the Cape \'erde Islands, is ulltruly reportcd and may be dismissed ;IS (;lbliloUl;, But thcl'c Scems no sufficiellt ground for thi!;, "[n t:rg, [n 1516 Jpp.,:ared in P:lTis a Fr",nch lersion by :'\Ialhurin dLi Redoun "~cn~uyt Ie nouI'eau monJe, ,." .\ good many discrepancies orcur in these larious edition.> and translations, ~ ~ce I'P, xcii':l.CI'i of this Introduction, XXII 1N 'I'I(()!lUCl' ION. l\losu/ was iI )'olln).! Venetian (a noble, according to soow) who had ellllJ.lrk<.:d un ,\ltg-ust 8, 1454, with l\!dreo Z('no on a cOJlllllcrcia l \'enturc,~ and was dvla),etl by storm ncar Cape St. Vincent while on hi" YU), ;l~ ('omm3n,ler, to clI'luire ;tbou! the good~ of \l'lIell;\ll ~llbj,'n~ bl\\I~d 111 1·:III;I," :l ES-, the rhers Barb;\~illi, Ca~amans.1, Santa Anna, 51. Domingo, and Cape Ko,t:ially pp. .\ Iv, etc. INTROOUCTION. XXVII native produce; the other WdS under Antonio Noli, of Genoa. Soon after. Gomez and Ferreira seized an interloper, one De Prado, who had come to Cape Verde without permission to dispose of a rich cargo, as Gomez was informed by a "caravel from Gambia." It is noticeable how the \Vest African trade had now increased, and how man)" expeditions arc inciden tally mentioned in this one record of Gomez. He concludes by stating that he and Noli left the mainland coast, and after sailing twO days and one night towards Portugal. "sighted islands in the Ocean," which are described in terms very similar to Cadamosto's. T hese were certainly the Cape Verde Islands of modern geography, which arc first mentioned in documentary history in a Portuguese Decree of December 3rd, 1460. Gomez makes no re ference to an}' previous visit or claim of a prior discovery of these islands, but that is natural enough. \\'as such a previous visit made ~ Around this point, and the consequent prior claim of the Vene- tian, a long controversy has been waged, which is briefly discussed in the section of this Introduction on the" Atlantic Islands" (especially pp. xcii-xcvi). T he second voyage of Diego Gomez was pro- bablyamong the last venlures of which the Prince recci\'cd an)' account. He must have died soon after the second return of the explorer, who seems to have attended him in his last illness (13th N"o\'em- ber, 1460). But it is probable that before his end he had prepared for the expedition which Pedro de XXVlI! INTRODUCTION. Silltra carried out in 1461, alld which is described by Cada1Jlosto, apparcntlr befor!;: the close of 1463. \ 'OYAl;(S OJ· TlIl. PORTL"(.U::-'E CO~II'LETIXG P1U:\ 1..1. III:\·I,Y'S \\'ORJ.::. A WllrcJ must be added on th e completion of Prince llenry·s work after his death, and br agents whom in many cas~·s he had trained. King Affonso V, thoug-h rathe r more of a tournament king than a true successor of the great Infant, such as John II. had ret caught en0ugh of his uncle's "'pir!t to ]lush Oil stl:'ldily. though slowly. lhe ilCh·'lIlCl.." roulld ,\fri ca. In q6J he repaired the fon ill the Bight of .\rguim ilnd sellt out Pedro de Sintra ' to survc} th e coas t lJl:yond Cadamosto's furthest POJllt. I k Sintra proceeded 600 miles I This vopf'e i~ de~l"ribed hy (·adamo~to a"i an app.~ndix to hi~ own ,·oy,lges. i\ young I'ortu.;u~.e who accompallied ne Sinlra desnibed 10 CauanHhto the ~tret('h of coa~t nOli" dis· co,~re\! beyond the Rio (;r.ltlue, the anrhorage~ of the fleet. and the nanlt:, t;i'·cn to poinh on Ihe ~hore. .. Thi~ account, without any rhdoric.li cntbd1i~hrncnt, i~ of special in\cre,t as a specimen of a Portuguese ,ailin):·din' ('llon from a "iai!or of Henry the Xa,·igator·~ ~tho()r· ('\onh Il,kjv!d, P,·n/,ll/i, I ~ I). !)e Sintra reach"d 5 further South than any b...·fore him. Ilis nomenclature 51i!! ~uni\e' al man)" points ".'.;., ("ape Y"rga. Sierra Leolle, Cape ~anta .\nn:l, (·J!'e dd :\\onte, Cape ;\k~urado. Capc Sa;;H"~, <. the high".,t l,romolltoT)· Ih"y had ",·cr seen,·· between Cape \'erga and ("apt: ! .... do, h,,, been re·named. De Sintfa al~o noli<.:ed "sl'et·i.li!y a "gl"l·at grl·~·n ror,,~t" .. Bosque de 51. ~!aria, in 5 30:\. lal. (?) anll n·,al" his fmlll"..;1 pOilU (at Rio do~ l"U\llO~) an illllllell~t: qU~IHilr of ~ll1oke from nail'·'" tir<.:s. IXTROOt:CTION, XXIX along the "southern coast of Guinea," passed a mOUlHain which was called Sierra Leone (accord- ing to one account) from the lion-like growl of the thunder on its summits, and turned back at the point afterwards known as St. George La .'-lina, l Soon after (probablr in 1462), Sueiro da Costa followed De Sintra, ~ but without an)' new results, and it was not till 1470 that a fresh advance was made,3 In q6g King ,\ffonso leased the \\'est .. Urican trade to Fernam Gomez, a citizen of Lisbon, for five rears, Gomez paying 1,000 ducats a rear. To this lease was annexed the condition that Gomez should make annual explorations along the unknown \\'est coast of Africa for 300 IIl1glia, counted from Sierra Leone, "where Pedro de Sinlra and Suciro da Costa turn ed back,"1 Accordingly, in 1..1-70, Cornez sent out j050 de Sant; cOllr>;,· to I·a<;t. ,lilt! il"i no land appeared drter tin· days. ttl Illlrth. III thi>; last cOllr.,t tht POrt ugul'"t' r(·;lt"h(:d ;:J bit) \\ hl'n: c,lul(: \\"l'n' fl"t~dill~-. Ilamed b) tht· I'cwtug-U(''iC \ngra do-; \ 'il<[uC'ifo-;. nuw Flesh Bay.2 .\fter IHltting" ashore t\\O nati\'es ? Di:ll I'oint, at the S~rm Pardn or " D:lrk Hills" of Ruros. ~ Some \\'a) beyond Cape Aguthn~, :lnd imrnedi::tteJy to the C:lst of the Ril<:r Gaunt/.. ,\'\'1\' I NTROUt'C1'11 ):\. . (probably some of those late l} carr ied fro l11 COIl J.;"O to Portugal, a nd sen t Oll l again to act as scou ts fo r the Eu ropea n explo rers). O iaz conti nued east to ::-t sm"ll island still called" Santa Cruz," \ V. o f ou r POrt E lizabeth, and (:;\,(: 11 further to a river called, aftl'r his partner, Rio do I ((aIlLt;, 110W tlll.: Gn.:at Fi sh Rin;r, in.F 23' S. lat.. aod midwa), betwee n the prl'S(;nt Purl E lizabeth Intrndlldion on tht: n.\t!:tmic b!:md>, 6[JeciaUy J.>p. ~'iil-('\! XXX\'1 INTROf)UCT[O~. plain, Oil the Olher hand , thal the Infant's work produced a new interest in the world-5cience of geography throughout Christendom, and so was indirectly respons ible for quite as much as it directly aimed at accomplishing. , \II{](, A~ E XI'J.ORAT 10:'\ I'fidc the Straits. Erato,>thenes refers to I'hooni- cian (or Canhaginian) sNtlemen ts already existing eHl whal is nOlI' the coast of J\larocco, both in side and outside thl' " Pillars:" this new expedition under llanno was intended to strengt hen the aIel, as wdl .IS to found new planta tions. \ t is often cOll1pal't~d with it ..,im ilar \'tntllrt', "to (,xplore the I Haod. ii, 158.<) , jl-, .F. The,e m:Hiner~ tOok tlu.:c yeaN 011 their \'o)"age: landed, sowed n0l-i~, ,mel lil'l'd 011 the h~r\'(.!SI during ~ea,on~ un{al'ourahh; \0 nal'igation (t"l'ecially :lutUl1l1l) i tlurlng part of th.:ir journey Ihe}' were a'toni,h~-d to find the ~Ul1 on their ri~ht h;Uld. INTRODUCTION. XXXVll outer coasts of Europe," undenaken by Himilco, probably about the same time. 1 Ilanno! sailed from Carthage, according to our authoritr. with sixty penteconters, rarrying 30,000 (?) people, colonists and others. first to (erne,' which was as far distant from the Pillars of Hercules as the Pillars were from Carthage. T hen he ascended lhe river Chretes4 to a lake. Twelve days' vo),age south of Cerne he passed a promontory with lofty wooded 1 This is first noticed by Aristotl~, "On .\lanellous Narrat;\'es," § 37 : by ;\Iela, j)~ Situ Orbis, iii, 9, and by Pliny, Xalllral History, ii, 67, § 167-170, and elsewhere. The Ptriplus of Himi1co seems to have been worked up by .hicnus (r. 400 A.Il.) in the firM 400 lines of hi;; poem, " IJt Om .. llaritima."' ~ One account of Hanno's vorage was preserl'ed on a Punic inscription in the temple of "Kronos,"" Saturn," or ./IIoloch, at Carthage: the inscription was translated into Crcek by an unknown hand, probablr about 300 II.C. ; and this ,ersion of the Ptripllls still remains to us. See Pliny, Ilisl . • '~l/., ii, 67; \". I, 36; "i, 31 j Soft/IllS, 56: Pompolllil$ ,lfdll, iii, 9. rhe first edition of the Greek text is by Gelenius, Basel 1534, the best b)' C. ~[uller, in 6't'lgr"plti Grllui .If/nares. Cf. also an editioLl br Falcon{"r. London, 1f97; an edilion by Kluge. Leipsig. 1829 ; Rennell, (;,·ot;r"plt)· 0/ 1I~rodotlls, i19i45, 4to ed .. Bunoury, AJlcI(I{f &'togr"pll)', i, 3! 8-335 : \\'a1ckcnaer. Rtdlo'dlfS fIIr" Gtograplu( dr I'Ap·iqlu,p. 362, etc.: Yi\i~n de '"it. "lartin, L~ .Nord dt I'A/riqllt d,IIIS I Alltlqllifr, pp. 33°-4°0: Major, Ilmr)" lVat'lglllor, 90, etc., 1868: Charton, V('yagellrs AI/C/(!IS, i, "5, Ed. of 1882; Gossel· lin, / captured by the ~eam .. n, hardly ~c<'m to allo\\" of this restriction . . \ nciCIlI entcrprisc was far morc salisfactory than :1ncicnt ob~eTl·ali('n, and the inaccuracies of the [alter ~hould nOI mnko us deny the former. Here the ini tial measurem<;)nl, of the di~tance from Ccrnc to th" Pillars as being equal to Ihe distance from the Pillar-. to Carthage, because the tinle occupied in sailing was equal, seems not onl)" too ,·ague a reckoning, but inaccmate as ignoring one great d ifference. Inside the straits, Hanno's duty was simply to ~ail fO Tl,·ard: outside, he had to plant coloni~ts at suitable spots,-along a coast, moreon:;r, not so well known as that of Korth Africa to the C,·Hthaginian~. INTI{ODUCTION. XXXIX reached far beyond the Straits of Gibraltar-farther than anr venture of the earlier Middle Ages, or of the classical period-may be regarded as reliable, and some position on the Sierra Leone coast may provisionally be taken as its ultimate point of advance. The African voyag-es of Sataspes under Xerxes. and of Eudoxus of C)'Zicus under Ptolemy Euer- getes I f. cannot be regarded as of much importance. Neither probably reached Cape Verde (even if we are to :mach any belief to their narratives). SataspesL declared that his ship was stopped by obstructions in the sea at a point where lived 0]1 tht: ocean shor~ lIill>. in Sim/>f), ii, J, *" l:udo\U' mad" Ihrel: ,·nyag.'" (see also Pliny. lIisl. •\ '111. ii, 6j. who bascs his statement, like Mela, iii, 9, on C:orncliu~ Nepos): in the first two he sailed to India and \\"a~ dril'cll to point' 011 th" East African coast. on tho:! third he aucmptl!d In ,ail round .\(rica to India by thl! \\"l!~t. xl IN1"R:ODUCT ION. sai led so far, first along' the eastern and then, along the western, coasts of Africa, that he practically circumnavigated the Continent; but aU the details with which we are favoured go to disprove his claim. For instance, he implies that the Ethiopians reached by him on his farthest point S. W. "adjoined l\lauretania," On the eastern coast he picked up a ship's prow from a vessel which he was told had been wrecked coming from the westward, and which mariners of Alexandria identified as a ship of Cades -a \'ery unlikely story in the face of the Cl]rrenlS OJ} the East African coast. According to Pliny,l Polybius the historian also made a reconnaisancc down the 'vVest coast of Africa. in the lifetime and under the order of Scipio .tEll1ilialllls. H(' seems to have passed the termination of the Atlas chain, but Pliny's language does not warrant us in going any further.~ He inter- but evidently did nOI reach any di~tance beyond S.\\·. i'lJaure!ania (near C. 1\on). His flrstl'o)":lge mu"t havc been beforc B.C. 1!7 (d. of J'tolemy EU<:rgeles II , Phpeon), his other twO subsequent to that renr. The llnrr;\I,,'C of Eudoxus "as exaggerated by Pliny and I'Vlllp011ius 1>1eln into thl;! ~torr thnt the na\"igntor had actually accomplished, in hb oll"n per"on. thc "opge round Africa from the R..::d Sca to Cade" : but hi" achievemem" may be limited thus: Two I"oyages from Egypt to India ; a short distance of African coasting beyond Guardafui, probably not as far as Zanzibar ; a short di5tanc..:: on the I\"..::,t coast be)"o11d the S. W. coast of our i'llarocco, prohably not beyond Cape :;\011, or at furthest Cape Bojador. ! His!. ,"at., 1", i. ~ The lex! h<.'fC is "CT)" confused and difficult, but the best editors gil"c Ihe following text for Pliny's words: "He (Poly us) lX1'RODUCTION. xli weaves in his narrati\'e the voyage of Polybius with the great measurement of the Roman world under Augustus by Agrippa, which is perhap!'> in part commemorated by the Peutinger Table. and which evidently took into its view the llesperian Promon- tory.! and the Chariot of the Gods. Some have c1aimeu for Polybius a voyage a!'> far as the latter point, but lhis, if understood in the sense of Sierra Leone, is highly improbable. \\'e must not here delay over classical attempts at African continen tal exploration; but it will be right to notice briefly: '] hat in the age of Pliny, as shown by the Pt:ripills 0/ tht: l!'Y)'thraca/l Sea (c, 70 .\,Il.). and in the age of Ptolemy, as shown in his (;eo),:raphy (c. [39-[62 i\.D.). the knowledge of the Gr. xliii ~ile rise in "'estern i\[auretania. did similar work in the time of Auguslus; and that ~ I arinus preserved some original records of Roman expeditions which crossed the Great Desen.1 apparently from Tripoli and I'ezzan to the neighbourhood of the Central Sudan States. As the Roman E mpire broke up, geographical knowledge natural1y suffered. and Africa shared in this loss. But a considerable recovery was effected through the work of the Arabs. to whom the Infant Henry owed much. Confining our attention to Continental exploration, we may remark among otht;r particulars: (I) That the Arab ll1igration~ to the East coast beyond Gu;\n idol, Iler,· nOI complde1y rooted out till [4i5. (S) Jenn!'! was, in the :'Iliddle !\ges, the greatest emporium of the We~tern Sudan, far outshining Timbuktu, which owed ib foundation in part to Jenne. (6) Jenne \\"a~ also a chief centr!;! of :;iuuanese Isbm. Its great :\Io~<]ue, built in Ihe elen.'nth century, p.:lTlially de~tro)'ed in 1830, \\"a~ the linest ill all X!;!groland. (7) Its contTol of th!;! salt and gold trade, a. w.:ll as of most Olher branche, of Sud:mese merchan· dise, was ~uch Ihal il gale Ihe name of Guinea 10 a I·ast region of \Ye.t .\lrica, especiall)' along the coast. (S) But Timbuktu, [XTRODCCTlOl\ . already made liS way into many parts of the S;')hara. With the Moslem fa ith came th e Moslem civilisation . T he caravan trade across the desert now COrll- geographically, stood between Jenne and Barbary, and ~Q between Jenni alld Europe, and prevented Jenne from becoming famous in Christendom, (9) Jenne wa~ connected primarily with a migration from East 10 \\'CSI; Tilllbukm, with a migration from XOrth to SOUlh , (10) Tim buklu wa~ founded l«J by the Tuareg, who owed their ne ll' energy ill part to illoslem migrations from Spllin, c, 1100 (1077 accordin:.; to some authorities); [8], b)' merchanh from Jennt', who made it an emporium ill the twelfth centur)', (II) In Ihe tll'elrth centUTY, \\'alat:l, or Gana, in the gre.:t t bend I)f the Niger [?dominated by Jenne] was Ihe most prosperOlI, commerci:ll di~trici of \\'est Soudan; but in the thirteenth century the conquests of the Kings or il l .. lli frlared hy Ihe~e amhorities \\T~t,south,\\t~t of Tlmouktu, to Ihe lIonh of the L'p[\c'r \,igl'r] di~lllrhed the old track rOlllc~, and uilertcu commerce to Timbuktu; which, howe"er, \\'a~ nCI'er itself vcry populous, and served chiefly as a place of p;tSs.1ge and com, mercial rend<:/Ioll', (I 2) From 1330 to !.j3.j the Kings of il ldli were usually l1la~h::r~ of Timbuktlt, II here they built ;t pyramid Illin~ret for the cbi<::f l1lo~qut:; but at lea,t during: some y<::~rs of the fourt~cnth century, Timbuktu was conquered by :tn imasion from :'Ilos~i. (IJl hom 1434 to 1469, the Tuareg re~ain<::d po~ses~ion of T imbuktu, and drove out the I\£dinki ; hUI in 1469 Ihc Sonf,.::ha), took Ihe town, and held it for morc Ihan 100 years, (q) In the fourteenth century the Kin~' of \Jelli built a ~reat palace in Tim buktu, which did not disappe3r till the ~ixleenlh ce,lIury, (15) From the fourteenth cen !lIry T imbuktu lI'a, the intellectual capital 01 Ihe Sudan, l'his was due to the Spanish-Moorish inAuenct:, (t6) The patron _aint and dOl'tOr 01 Timbuktu, Sidi \'ahi~, wa~ practically COll- temporal'\' (ljjj-I..6!) "ith I'rilKe Hellr~ thl' :\al'igatnr, (Ii> rhc 10\\11 of "uku, Kuka or Kok;:!, in the W, "udan, melltioned IJ)' medixI'al :I!oslem tral eilers, was prol)3bl)- either ~ cit)' 011 or lI<::ar tht" :\Ig'er, immediatel), ,Quth of (iao, the SOllghay ('a[Jit~1 ur else Gao itself, which is ,ometime, calle.1 Kuku or Cogo, elen thi, pIau" \\"l~ conquered by illdli, in the fourteenth \:-OTRODl:CTlO:-O. xlvii mcnccd between :\egroland and the ~lcditerranean: .. Timbukw" was founded by ~Ioslems, probablr drJI H,I/II111 ([l~fl<:'mu.l' and ~'lngumctti). iv, 395, .. p1·2: ~I~o Oppli. /)". rdi,·,i'.~ 1"I'I"lillliHt 'i'Or1 ..If r ikll , Zcitschrifl of lkrlin ( ;eog. Soc .• '\'\'i. ,RRj. 2 Sec Otto Hlau. Chr,mik 7'1", /:"1"1111. p.';2 ~ .z . D. :'II. G., vi, IS5~ . . T ht: more nUllpkt~ hl:imi~inf.: 01 Wadai. lhrfur, and H:Jghirmi did nOI t;l i;c pl:in' till Ihe ~i\tll'nth '1m! ,cI·cntccnth t::(: l1luries. ';ce ~btin l':bh:J, h 'l"( (/Ild .\;<"".,/ ill SOlld,lII, PI'. 38-.P; T. 'r. . \mold, Fr",dll·/I,~ ,1 1';,,111. diS. II·, \i . ["'TROlICe-TION. Ii spread of Moslem scltlements fr0111 l\lagadoxo SOu thward. Isbm was very slow in penetrating the in terior. H ere the Arabs chiefly dpvoted them- selves to maritime commerce, and for a long time their intercourse with the inland tribes was not of a kind to open up the country. Caravans with sla\·es and natural products came down to the coast towns. but the merchants of the latter seem to have been content with waiting and receiving. But on this side of .\frica was a Christian kingdom. which was now In Prince Henry's days - becoming more familiar to Europe: J\byssinia, the kingdom of Prester John. as the Portuguese of later time identified it. T he; original se;at of the Pricst~l(jng, as described (chidl)" from Neslorian information) by Carpini. Ruhrl1qui s, l\Iarco Polo. and other Asiatic traveller·s of the lhineenlh century, was in Centra! .r\sia. but the .·\b)"ssinian state offered so close a paralle!' that it was naturally recognised by many as the true realm of Prester John. when the first c\('ar accounts of it came into ;\1 ediahl) tlw 1)(~J.!itlnitlgs ,i thi,,; Ilalian intercourse with Abyssinia may I){' pldccc\ as (ar back as tlw li(('1;n1(' o( PriIl C(' 11 (·my (r. 11.'i0). T he Chri ... ti;lnilY o( N llbia. which dated (rom the (ourth (,(·ntury like th;!t o( .\hys"inia i1st·lf, was still \'igorolls in tll(' ll\'(·lfth.1 but (mm thatlinH: it bcg-an (0 (;(il h('fol'(' tl1I' i1lc(·..,sall1 alld dcu'rmine::d pn'ssure of !sl.Ull. I hll- Halula.' about 1330-40, (ound that 1h(' I\:in,!,( of [)()ngola had just b('('OlllC ;\ i'lloslem. Fdtlwr ,\1v;m:l. in 15:!0-7. con..,ide::rcd that tiw Nubi'lll Christianity which had once:: t:xtcnded up tl1l' Nili- (rolll the fir"L C;\taract ttl Sl'l1n;tar had becotll(' (',Lilln : 1holl,!,(h Iw would nOl allow that the mass of tlw :\uIJian,,; had adOpl(·d een 150 dHlrdlt' .... ' Ihlt. ill (h~· ('0111'-;(' of lh(' ... iXlt:Clllh and SI'\"(' llIITlllh n·nlllric .... all Nullia cmhr;\c\;d Islalll: ;11111 l'\TI1 iIlIS;).l. I\illlldd (;rag'IH·. Killg' q( ,\de\. in Oll{' or hi s .lll.ltks lipon , \hyssini.l. i ... said to hav(' had 1S .(X)() N UiJi;1I1 all i(·s. apparell t1)' .d I ;\ I nhammcdalls.' 1 LS~- ~ Ruin~? ,'i,,·:':,-!.)Nini, 1f/l,"/I//lIIIII C"II,!"""!! RIII/f,/"", Rome IS')1 (l1.d. '['l"n~1. Inn1l ATah '\I~.). INTROllVC'T10N, liii In Prince H enry's day. th('I1, we may fairly assume that the old Christianity of East Africa was prac- tically limited to Abyssinia: but wh('11 Azurara tells us of the Inl~lIll'S dcsirv "to know if there \\'cre in those parts) any Christian Pri[Jces."~ and ag-ain more explicitly ... to h;l\-e knowledg-e of the land of Prester John;'" it is possible that some dim acquaintallce with the old tradition of an isolated African (as \\"ell as of an isolated ,\siatic) Church, was at the root of his endeavour. At the end of the twelfth ccntury, Islam had already bel-!un to encroach upon the coast of what is now Italian" Erythraea:" and about 1300 A.1). a i\lusulmall arm}' attacked the ruler of . \mhara. At this time the realm of the :\Iegus seems to ha\'e been completely cut off from the Red Sea: -I but it was 1I0t till the carl)' sixtl.!l.!llth century that Abyssinia was in serious danger of becoming a province of Islam, from the attacks of Ahmad Gragne (1528- I 5.1-3). which, howe\-er, ended III complete failure. To return to the North coast of Africa. llere. by the capture of Ceuta, Prince Ilenry gained a starting-point fur his work. here he is said (probably with truth) to han: g;)ined hi:, <:arliest knowledge of tbe interior of .\frica: here especially he was brought in contact with those Sudan ami Saharan ) Africa. ~ .I;ur.lediterranean coast, brought news, to those who sought it, of the Senegal and Niger, of the Negro kingdoms beyond the desert, and panicularl)' of the Gold land of "Guinea." Here also, from a knowledge thus acquired, he was aLle to form a more correct judgment of the course necded for the rounding or circumna\' i~ation of Africa, of the time, expense, and toil necessary for that task, and of the probable support o r hindrance his mariners were to look for on their routc. \Ve must, however, qualify in passing the state- ments of Azurara, in ch. vii, which would imply that Christianity had fo r ages been utterly extinct in North Africa. .. As it was said tbat the power of the ;'d oors ill r\fri ca was .. greater than com- mOllly supposed, and that there were no Christians among them," "])uring the om:-and-thirty years that he had warred against the ;""oors, he had nc\'cr found a Christian King nor a lord outside this land,! who for thl: love of, . Christ would aid him."'2 The old :'Xonh .\frican Chul"ch, tbough constantly declining. sun'in:d tht· :\ lusulman Conquest of lhc se\'elllh and eiglnh CCl1lurics fOI" nearly 800 ! PortugaL ~ To find ~u("h a ., Chri~ti:1I1 Lord'" in th..:: person of Pre~tcr John was ,aid to haw he..::n one of the {'hk·f objects of D. Pedro's tralels. Thi~ ohj.·u Pedro al'owed in Cairo; and with thi~, among other aims, he I'isi!nl no! only Eg)"p! but Sinai and the Rcd St;a (st;e i\[artin~, OJ hI/it'S, pp. 83, 97. 121-2, etc., and pp. xI'ii-"l"iii of this IO[UI11C). IN TRQnJ.:CT10l'o:. Iv years. True, its episcopate, which could still muster 30 members in t1w tenth century, was prac- tically extinct br the time of Hildebrand 1 (Pope Gregory VI I), and in 1:q.6 the Franciscan mission- ary bishop or F(:1. and Morocco was the only Christian prdalc in "Barbary": but a number or native Christians still lingered on, though without .\postolic succession. In [t59, the .\lmohade con- quemr. •\ bdu-'I ;\lu'min ben .\Ii, on subduing T unis. compelled many of these to change their faith; but all through the next centuries, down to 1535. a certain number of Tunisians preserved their ancient religion so far that, whcn Charles \. gained posses- sion of the city in the abon:·llar11(:cl year (1535), he congratulated th<.:se persevcrant;; all their steadfast- ness. The same fact is (:yitknccd by the tolerant behaviour, as a rule. of the ;\lediac\'al Barbary States towards Christians. both n Leo ,\fricalll1s noun's, was not ill(: ari'>(' for our special pur- po'>(' from this sU lllmary of th e media;val pmgrL;ss ,ulll IIfH'('rlth,cl'lllury St,ltus of I slam in .--\f1'icl), pp. ~~\'iii· \\\n. In Ihi, <"onn,·,·tion "<: 11M) noli!"<: on,· or two \llh~r lr;le<:~ 01 InCn<""«t,e hetlH"n the 'In,k-ms 0\ (jr.,nada and thme of .Uri';I, t .• ;'. (,) 11m B,lllll,,-' mUllion (>1 lb" tomh of the pO~'1 _\Im hll.l\.." s,lhdi, h"rn in {,r,Ula,I,I. di,,1 anu huric:d in "1"1111' hu\"W,I.Hh. (2) 1,,<> _\fric.;,lIlu,· "otin of th,· _lOne lIIos'II1C and 1',IIaU' ((\ T!lnhuktu, tiK' \\llr\.. 0\ .111 Irdliln·t trom (;r;IIM,b in the titt,·(·nth ,<:ntur~. (In Timlmktu, ~e,-" lion JI.11Ul.1 (lId. and San.), II, .VIS, .ph,l3o-~, I eo .\Ir. (11.lklU)1 S,ll.), 4, 1~4. !!8, 'JJ-4, 'If" '7.1.155.3°(1, ,,,8, .s~o,lI.~'l -"-I: r:-\TRODCCTlOi'i. I\' i i \\'as this ,. :".Ioorish '. information so \"aluable as to account. in any great degree, for the Prince's per- seV('r,UlCC and success in his task? To thc former query it may be replied: I. That thc ... \rabs and i'doors" of the eiu-Iy fifteellth century could give the Infant detailed and co rrcct informa- tioll. llot only about the Barbary states and the trac\(:- routes of th(· Sahara, but also about many of the \\'estcrn and Central Sudan countries. and about the gClwral course ;mcl direction of the 0< Guinca coast" both to the west and south of the grc.Ioslem world and so to any Christians com'erSts to reach the Far E ast br st;a from the .\tlamic and :\I(:.ditt~rrancan coasts. It \\-'[s not till the 1t years of Prince I 1( :lI ry '5 life that ('t be takel1 of those \'entures I Raymond Lulli l"(,ll.ull"] is thought hy some to have made the flr~1 ddlllil~ ~ugge'tion (lr this rOllle in th..: cenlral !lIedixval period. Thi~ "dOllor il1\llllinatu~' "a~ horn .11 Palma in )IajorGI, 1~,,5, LcC:lllIC.1 J"r,llll"i,~all ·1\:r1i.lr)· in 1~(16, ,Illd died IJI5' We may perh;l]>~ '''lined him with til<; \cr.l carl)' ~choo! of pOr(o!ano-duughbm;\mhip in tht: !bl",arit" S<':l' :'\bp "cction or lhi~ Introduction. tSTROOU(,T10S. Ixi which immediately prepared his way. Lea,-ing out of si~ht, for another section as far as possible. the '-oya~es which arc concerned only \\'ith the .\tlamic islands, or aim in a ['uclimentary way at finding a \\'estern rOUlt' to ,\sia. it is possible to mention se\'eral genuine attempts l\) anticipate the POrtu- guese along the Eastern or African mainland course. T he first of these. as far as known. is the voyage of Lanc:elOl \lalocello, of Genoubjects of Prester John, who held them captive. 1\OI1C ever returned, but Usa di ;\Iare himself spoke with the last surviving- descendant of those Genoese. 2 :'Iltnam, he concludes, was on the sea coast, near the river Gihon. 3 I t is difficult to attach great' weight to L'so I "fhi, ~tJ.telllent, it ha~ been conjectllred, was intended fOT \i'1: in a .. forthcoming globt: or T113p.' Uso di ;\Iarc'" St3tement wa~ firsl noticed by (;dberg af Hem,i). St:e Peschel, Erdlml/dr, p. 179 (Ed. of 1865): ;\Iajor, 1I00r)' .\"~·I~"'ll)r, 99'106 (Ed. of 1868),1' .. \mal di S. Filippo, Slrllii b/".I{T(/t1<"1~ etc. (Ed. of 1882), I, p. ii, for reccnt ~Iudie~ un the o",neT,11 qU""lion of the Genoese \'oyage of 1291, .md L'so di ?I[aTc'~ lettt:r. The earlie,t modern nOlice of the a~'count or this loyagc in the Pllblic :\nnals of (;eno.1 was by G. II. PeTti, in his memoir, " Der :theste \·er.uch Illr E:nld<:ckullg des See\\"egs llach (htindicn"", orrcTed to the ROjal .\("adem)" of Sciences 3t ;\[ullit'h, ~larch 28th, 1859 (",",tsd/rift, B",rlin, 1859). The (;en()e~[' .\nnals r",j<:rred 10 are J. {'oUlinu;\tion or th<: Chronicles of Carraro. i\lllr3tori ha~ printed ;In abSlTac1 of Iht: n3rrali",!. ~~'" .11'0 l\"ordenskjold, P,-rip/II:; (1897), PP, '1.1, J 16; AomdltJ AIIIIlI/rs drs lil.1'rIgu (d'.\H"7ac), vol. (-'Iii, p. 4i. ~ In 14.55? Nile, I NTRonUCTION. lxiii di 1\Iarc's letter, which looks like an atlempt to amuse his creditors with interesting adventures; but the voyage of 1291, with or without the sun·ival of 1455, is sufficiently remarkable. J t is the first direct attempt of Europeans in the :\Iiddle Ages to find a sea-route to India around Africa; its far-reaching design contrasts forciblr with the more modest projects of nearly all similar attempts before Prince Henry's time. and it is not improbable that some of its work survived. though officially unrecognised.l The Hispano-Italian voyage of 1341 appears to ha\"(' been solely occupied with the explora- tion of the Canaries. which were now becoming pretty well known, and we leave over any further notice of this for the present; but the Catalan expedition of 1346 was to some extent similar, both in object and method. to the C(,lloese expedition ()f 1291. "The ship of Jaymc Ferrer." according to the Catalan :\Jappe mnndc of 13i 5. .. started for the River of Gold~ on Sl. Lmrcnce's Day, 13+6."3 To the same effect the Ceno(:'sc archi\·es· assert .. On 1 Thus it has becn pointed out that two (,r Tedisio Dori.~·s glllcy~ were regi~tt:red in :I kgal docum"nt of 1291, under tho! n:lmes of 5t ..\ ntonio and .\lkgran("ia, and that the name .\lle- glanll, applied for some time to onc of the Canarie<. W;lS perhaps derived from this ship. Either from this or from '\falocello's \·cnturc of l!iO, the i,Jand~ of 1~'1n,;.1rotc ;Ind \Ialoxdo in the same group prooahly Io.lok their lIall1(". i.anr,:arote \\.lS marked wilh the red nos, of Genoa on mo"t 1'0rtobni down to a lat, period of Ihe si.\t<.-cnth ccntur~ l I.~., euinca. loth .\ugust. ~ ::let: l'a~r' pre'il'llted \(l .\rchi\"e> of (;cnoa l>y Federico Fderici. 1660. Reference disC<)v<.:rcd hy (;riberg af HcmsO. Ixiv r \'THOI)vCTrO". the Feast of St, Law rence there went forth from the cit) of the i'I[ajorcans olle galle)" of John F erne the Catalan, with intent to go to Rujaura,l Of the same nothing has since been heard,"" And on the ~bp of 1375 already noticed, upon the third sheet. is depicted off Cape Boj:ldor th e picture 3 of the ship in question adjoining the legend above-quoted. \\'e may notice, however, that Guinea, th e gold land of .Africa, and not India , \\'as the objective of this vorage although Cuinea was the first step on the Afric;)n route to I ndia and that the venture, as .\!ajor says, was apparently designed only for the disco\'cry of the supposed J\cgro river in which gold \\';)5 collected: a gucss of ;\It;diterranean merchants' from the information of ;\loori5h middlemen. Beg;nnin~ witfl the year [364, the F'rench also claimed to ha\'e made important advances along the African coa'>t route, The.men of I)ieppe, it is said. repeatedly sailed beyond Cape \'erde, and c\'('n Sierra Leone, and founout Christm.ls they n':.lched C. Verde, and anchored bcforc R!o Frc~co, which in 1669 W.1S still called "lhic de France." .\flcrwards Ihe)' weill on to a place the)' Gllled ,; I'etit ])ieppe," and the l'ortu;.;ue~e ,. Rio 5est05," beyond ~it:rra Leone; for objects of small 1.1lue they gained gold, ivory, and pepper; returning in 13l>S thc)' reali~ed great wealth; and in S-epkmh..:r of the same year the merchants of Rouen joined with tho~e of Ilie]lpc to fit uut four ~hips, two for trade betll't:en I NTRODUCTION. Ixvij some time shortly before 1668, inspected buildings and collected traditions from the natives on that shore which alone would- prove these later expedi- tions, if they were not confirmed by several docu- ments in Ramusio, Temporal, and I lakluyt.1 Equally Cape Verde and Pelil DiepJlC, the other two fOf exploration of the coast beyond. One of the~e last stopped at Grand Seslcre, on the Malagueue coast, and 10a(iL-d pepper; the other ship traded on the Ivory Coast, and went on as far as the Gold Coa.;,t, and depOt~ were fixed at Petit Dieppe and Grand Sestere, which was re·named Petit Paris. Factories or "Loges" were established to prepare cargoes for the ships. The native languages long retained French words, as was found in [660. III 1380 the Company sent OUl lVotre .Dame de bOil Voyage, of [50 ton5, from Rouen to the Gold Coast (September). At end of Deo:embcr the)' reached the same landing where the French had traded fifteen years before. III the slimmer of [38, the ./ITIJtre .Dame rt:ttlrned to Dicppe richly laden; in 1382 three ships ScI sail 100.;ether, September 28th, viz, La VierGe, u Sai1l! .,vie/w/as, L'Espi'rallu. La Vierj;e stopped at La Mine, the fir~t place discovered on the Gold Coaot. The St. JVicholas traded at Cape Corse and :1.[ Moure helou 1...1 Mine, and L'ES/,trllnce went as far as Akata, trading al Fanting, Sabon and Cormentln. Ten months after, the expedition re· turned with rich cargoes. Thr.:!: more ships wcre sent out in 1383, one to go to .\kara, the others to build all outpost :1I 1_. )Iint:; there they left ten or twclve men, and returned after ten month~. A church was afterwards built for the new colony, and in 1660 Ihis still pre.~en·ed the arms of France. .\ftef the acce,;sion of Char!t:~ VI, \heAfrican trade was soon ruined. Befor.: 14/0 La "line was abandoned, and until after [450 the Normans, it is believed, abandoned maritime e ..I :pl"rations. I SL'e De Bry's Col/Uii tier,as &- s(!io'I(}s qu~ SOil p(lr d IIm",/" &- ir las S(llalls &> a,lI/lIS 'II/( hall ((Id" tl""a &- sdioril1 /'0' S)' &- d( los TtJ·U &0 &/;(}I"(S quI' los prQUuII. This was lost sight of till 1870, when il was found by illarcos Jimenez de la Esp;l.da, who publbhed it in the .8(>I(li" dt la Sueidad Gtog,aphiCluvia1ia. <. The Inac- cc;~ib1t:" is po,sibly Teneritfe. Canaria and the hIe of Juno arc of cours,;: identical with Juba's nomenclature. INTRODUCTION. lxxv western extremity of these. after the example of Marinus. he drew the first meridian of longitude.! The Arabs seem to have lost all definite know- ledge of the Atlantic islands, an impossible posses- sion to it race with such a deep horror of the Green Sea of Darkness. l\Tasucli, indeed. tells liS a story. already noticed, of one Khoshkhash, the young man of Cordova. who some years before the writer's time~ had sailed off upon the Ocean, and after a long interval returned with a rich cargo; but nothing' more definite is said about this venture. Some tradition of the Canaries or the 11adeira group seems to have been preserved among l\loslem geographers, under the name of Isles of Khaledat, or Khalcdad, but we have only one narrative from the collections of these authors which suggests a l\Iussul- man visit to the samc. This is found in Edrisi. in its earlicr form. and must refer to some time before '147, when Lisbon finally became a Christian city. I t probably belongs to a rear of the c\c\'enth century, and has perhaps left its impression in the Brandan legend as put forth in the oldest 1\15., of about 1070 . The Lisbon \\'anderers, or l\Taghrurin, from l\loslem Spain, commemorated by Edri~i and by lbn- I Ccrne, so import:!n! a mark in HaIlIlO'sl'(rI/luf, he places in the Qee:!n J. from the m:!inbnd, in clear opposition to the Carthaginian authorities whom some h:!\"c thought he possessed and used. ('erne is ill btitude z5 40', and cast longitude 5 on Ptolemy's mlp. 2 C . •\ .D. 950. lxxvi INT RODUCTION. al-Wardi. did not apparently ventu re to the South of Cape Non, but they seem to have reached the l\ Iadeira grou p as well as the Canaries. T he ad- \'enturers were ciglll in number, all related to one another. After ele\'en days' sail, apparently from Lisbon, they found themselves in a sea duel \Vest of Spain, where the waters were thick, of bad smell. and moved by strong currents.! Here the weather became as black as pitch. F caring for their lives they now turned South, and afte r twelve days sighted an island which they called EI Ghanam. the Isle of Cattle,S from the sheep they saw there wi thout any shepherd. The flesh of these callie was too bitter for eating, bu t they found a stream of running water and some wild figs. Twelve more days to the SOllth brought them to an island1 with houses and cultivated fields. Here they were seized. and carried prisoners to a city on the sea- shore. After three dars the King's interpreter, who spoke Arabic, came to them, and asked them who they were and what ther wanted. Ther replied. they were seeking the wonders of the Ocean and its limits. At this the King laughed. and said: "i\ly father once ordered some of his slaves to venture upon that sea, and after sailing it for a momh. they found themselves deprived of sun-light ilnd n.:turned without any result. " The 1 The)' ~t3.rted ,lith a full east wind. J t.Jadeira? • One of the Canaries? INTRODUCTION, lxxvii \Vanderers were kept in prison till a west wind arose, when they were blindfolded and turned off in a boat. After three days they reached Africa. They were put ashore, their hands tied, and left. They were released by the Berbers,l and returned to Spain, when a ., street at the fOOL of the hot badl in Lisbon took the name of 'Street of the \Vanderers,' " El Ghanam has been identified by Avezac and others with Legname, the old I talian name for Madeira, and their description of the" bitter mutton" of that island has suggested to some the" coquerel" plant of the Canaries, which in more recent times gave a similar flavour to the meal of the animals who browsed upon il. 2 Some have conjectured that the" White 11an'::; Land" and "Great Ireland," which the Norsemen of Iceland professed to have seen ill 983-4, 999, and 1029, was a name for the Canaries, rather than for any point of America, but this appears entirely COIl- jectural-though it is probable enough that some of the Vikings in their wanderings may have visited these islands, In I [08-9, King Sigurd of Norway meets a Viking Reet in the Straits of Gibraltar I .AI a point namt.'": B":thencOlln·s ch:lplains, ch. xxxii; :lnd :-'Iajor's note, pp. 55.6 of the Haklllyt Society's edition of this Chronic!t:. I Ships frolll Ponu)!;:l1 (according to Sant:lrem, CI/snwgrapnit', i, 215, copied by Oliveira ;\Iartins, Filn()l de n. /oJ(), i, 68), visited the C3narit:s under ,\ffonso 1\', between f3Jf and 1344. l't:rhaps this is only a loo,;e rdt:rence 10 the expedition of 1341. j Clement \' 1. Major, }',/nr,lh",y, 140, and C()nqllut of C;'rIll",itJ (Hak!u)'t Soc.), ).i, has :lpp:lrently confllsed matters, gi\'ing the date of 1334 (in the Pontificate of Benedict XII), and impl)'ing a grant by Clement \'1. lxxx INTRODUCTION. F ortunate Islands, in fief to the Apostolic See, and under a tribute of 400 gold florins, to be paid yearly to the Chair of St. Peter. The Pontiff also wrote to various sovereigns, among others to the King of Portugal, Affonso IV, recommending the plans of Don Luis to their support. To this Affonso replied (February 12, 1345), reminding the Pope that he had already sent expeditions to the Canaries, and wou ld even now be despatching a greater Armada if it were not for his wars with Castille and with the Saracens. As early as 1317, King Denis of Portugal secured the Genoese, Emmanuele Pezagno (Pessanha), as hereditary admiral of his fleet. Pezagno and his successors were to keep the Portuguese navy sup- plied with twenty Genoese captains experienced in navigation and the earliest Portuguese ventures were almost certainly connected with this arrangement. This was shown in the expedition of 1341, which Idt Ponu;;al for the Canaries under Gcnoese pilotage, and quite independently of Don Luis, as far as we know. It was composed of two vessels furnished b)' the King of Portugal, and a smaller ship, all \\l,;ll-armed, and manned by Florentines , Genoese. Castilians, Portuguese, and .. other Spaniards .. '! ! The account that has come down 10 us is by Hoccaccio (?) (db(;OH'red in 18~7 by ~ebastiano Ciampi, who identifiL-'d the handwrilingi, and W.h prt)fessedlr compiled from letters written to Florence by certain Florentine men:h:ults residing: in Seville . . \mong these, '.\ngdino del T egghia dei Corbiai, .l cousin of the ,on~ or l;h(;lardino (;ianni.· is cspc(.:i:llly ll1(.:ntioned. INTRODUCTION. Ixxxi They set Ollt from Lisbon on J lily I. 134 I; on the fifth U) dar they disco\'ered land: and in November ther returned. They brought home with them four !latin!!), many goat and seal skins. dye-wood. bark for staining. red earth, etc. :\'icoloso de Recco, a Genoese. pilOl of the expedition, considered these islands nearly 900 miles di'>tant from SC\·ille. The first I discO\'cred was supposed to be about [50 mites round; it was barren and stony, inhabited by goats and other animals. as welt as by naked people, absolutely santge. The lH.;xt1 visited was larger than the former. and contained many nati\'es, most of them nearly naked. but some covered with goats' skins. The people had a chief, built houses, planted palms and fig trees. and cultivated little gardens \\"ith vegetables. Four men swam out to the ships, and were carried off. T he Europeans found on the island a sort of temple, with a stone idol, which was brought back to I.isbon. From this island seve ral others were \"isibJe- one remarkable for its lofty trces,~ anotl1('r contain- ing- excellent wood and water. wild pigeons. falcons, and birds of prc)'.l In the fifth visited were immense rock}" mountains rcaching ~nto the clouds.- Eight other islands were sig-hted. In all. fin: of the ne\\'- 1 :'Ibjor {"onjeclur~~ Fucrlt:\·cntura. ! (;r:md Canary? S ;\I:tjor here sug!-,:es\'; the pillfS of Ferro. t Gomera? ~ Probably T<:nerifft:. Palma has abo been suggested, with le,-; likelihood. Ixxxii IN"TRonUCT ION. found lands we re peopled. th e rest not. None of the natives had any boats, and there was no good store of harbours. On one island was a mountain, which they reckoned as 3°,000 feet high, and on its summit a fonrcss·like rock. with a mast atop of it ri g"gcd with a yard and lateen sail-a manifest proof of enchantment. No wealth was found in any of the islands, and hence:: perhaps the venture of 134 I was not follo wed up by Portugal for many years; but it is probable that the results of this year are comnH::morated in the delineation of the F ortunate Isles upon the Laurentian Ponolano of 1351 .1 Nothing. so far <1<; we know, was done for the further exploration o f the Canaries (after 13,P) t ill 138:2. when one Captain F rancisco Lopez, while on his way from Se\·jlle to Galicia, was driven south by storms. and took refuge (J une 5th) at the mouth of the Guiniguacla. in Crand Cl11ary. Il ere he landed with twelve of his comrades: the strange rs were kindly treated. ilnd p~raJ>h}'; aho \r;lppau" Ifdnridl Jrr Saj"hr(r, pp: 1;"'5. INTROtl{JCTlQX. lxxxiii the latter (? in 1390-5), another Spaniard, Ah.aro Becarra. visited the islands,! and it was (according to one authority) from information directly supplied br him and two French ad\·enturer:; who accom- panied him, that I)e B~lhenc()urt was induced to undertake his expedition. The Lord of Crainvil!e set out with a body of followers, among whom the knight Gadifer de la Salle was chit:f. from Rochelle. on May 1St, 1402. Eight days' sail from Cadiz, he reached Graciosa. Thence he wt~nt to Lant:rarote, where he built a fort called Rubi con, Going on to Fuerteventura, he was hampered by a mutiny among his men. and by lack of supplies, lie returned to Spain. procured from Henry [[ I of Castille what he needed, and reappeared at Lan\arote. During his absence, Gadifer, left in command, accomplished a partial ex- ploration of Fucrte\'entura, Grand Canary, Ferro, Gamera and Palma. T he" King" of Lan<;arote was baptised on February 20th, 140-1-; but after this. Gadifer quarrcJ!t::d with his leader and returned to France. All attempts to conquer the Pagans of Grand Canary were fl'uitless, ami I)e Bcthencourt finallr quitted the islands. appointing his nephew \Iaciot~ to be go\·crIl0r in his place or the four I Ayala, Chr,JlIli:/r ()/llmr)' IfI f Cutil/r, a~scrts that in 1.'19.3, marinl:l'< or Bistay, (;UipU/XO;l, 3nd ~t:I'ilh:, \i~itt:d the C:UJ3rie~, and brought bad< ~I'oib. Tl'llcritTc thl'.I' called the Isle of Hell ( In ferno), from ih volc3no. Th .. y 31,0 landed on other i'iland, or the group whith they called Ll:ncastrl:, (;racio,;a, Fortcl'entur3, Palma, and Ferro. Sec also :'Ilartins, 0., Fill/tJsd, fl. JO,}(1 I, p. 68, ¥ Sn' .\tlImm, (;/(IIIM. c "n', In;". etc. ," '' Ixxxiv INTROI,ucrro:>.·. Christian colonies in Palma and Ferro, Lan'f\ola of 1.]01>011. This ,,~~ dis· cov~Tt::d by Rcbdlo in thc Torrc do Tumbo, ;1.ctin~ on a hint gil"cn by Er!l~sto do C;"In\On. Before this. the .\bcham ~tor~ II'as attacked b}' Rodriguc/. d'.hc\"cdo, in 18i')' sc~ tlu.: Saudndti dt- /tun of Dr. G. huctuQ'Q, pp. J48-.p<). lxxxvi INTkO/)L"l TION. 135 I ; \ and when the [nranl sent (Jut COIl\alo Cabrdl~ in this din.::ction hI.:! wa:; aided, it is said. by an Italian ponolano. on which the aforesaid islands were depictecl. 3 But no record or an)' voyage then.:w ('arlier lhan that or Dil.:!go de SevilJl (q2i) bas be(:n preserved; nor did anyone before the Prince's time attempt, as rar as is known, the coloni:;alion or compll.:!te exploration of the Azor(;s. To thest" however. like the other Atlantic \ It i~ nol ,\1 ,Ill certain, as :\\:tjor as~ullle s (PriM': 11(11ry, 1868, I). ~.\5), that this group was !irst discon: rcd by·' I'ortllgllru ",~s,;cb under Geno..:,e pilotage." ! In q,;T. etc. ;j S..:e Xorden,kjold. Prriplus, lI S .\; al,o 1' ..\ mat di S. hlippo, J t'tri .S("/,rit,,ri d(/le i5"fc Azorr, hnL Geo~. Soc. lJolktino, t89~ . • \\e kJrn awul the ,-oyage of ~e\il! from Ihe Catnbn :\lap of (;;Ibrid Yalse{"(a, exel'utcd bctll<:en l.!3-t and 1.139. "hidl (() gi\'es ;\ l er)' bir n;pre,entation of several of the .\ l.Or<.'s, under the names: rib (k Oescls (St. :\Iary), ',l1a de huydols (!-it. :\Iichnd). rIb de Inferno (Tereeira), Ylla de (;uatrilb Uit. Gemge), rlla de !-ip<:rto (l'ieo), and another of which the nam;: ha~ l)<.:ell dfa~ed (~) Iklrs the in~eription: The,;ei~lallds were ("und uy I)iego oe Sevill, pilot of the I.::ing of Portugal. in ( -t~7' L~ome hl\e tried to reld the !lIS, dlle l," t-t3~ (,\\.,>ii for ,>,>\ii) hUi Ihe It'>t is again~t them]. I n the :\ledinulIl, or l,aur~,ntian Potlol;H1o, Ot" 135', SI. )Ltrr and 51. \Iithad arc laid d,,\\'n a~ l n~lJle de Cahrefa: St. (;cor<,;e, l'-a)'istcr, thc Duchess of Burgundy. lie had married illto a noble Portug-uese family. and had previousl}' rcmkrcd sOl11e services to the Infant. Graciosa was colonised by Vasco Gil Sodr~J a Portuguese, who had been under Princ(: Henry's orders to Africa. and at first intended to join in the settlement of Terceira. but afterwards passed oyer to Graciosa. The captaincy of this i::;land he di"ided for some time with his brother-in-law, Dliarte Barreto. San Jorge received its nn;l inhabit;tnts through a ventllre of \\-illern van dt~r Haagen,' one of Jacques I "lie '-l:u:msrhc Eylanucn. So on .\m,terdam nlJP~ of 16:2 (Waghcnacr), 16~7 (Blal'UI\'S /.aspit.,·d) and otht'r", such as the .\tla~ \lajar Bla"iana, I', .\mstcrUafll. 1662, p. 104. " I.t., Jo~ua V:lIl dcr Berge. In 144'). accon.ling to Gnlv,l!1o and B:HrOS (I, ii, I). King AtTon\o ,- formally snnCliont:d Ihe rolOlli~atiull or th~· . \/on~,. xc INTRODUCTION. de Brugcs' companions: Van clef Il aagen brought twO shiploads of people anu plant from F landers. but afterwards abandoned the cit)' ht.: had founded there, and transferred himself to the more fertile island of Fh from tithe and customs. (J).\ ,imilar chal'ln of ,\pri! 20, 1447, e.tabli~hing the ~amt: exemption fl,r the i,lnn!! of S\. ;"Ikhad, granted to tht: lnfant I). Pedro. (4).\ ~i1llihlr t'hartcr of 'larch, 1449, to the Inf:lnt I). Henry, 1in'n~ing: him to people tht: :-;el'cn hbnds of the .\Lores. (5).\ similar (hartt.·r of January ~O, 1453, grant- ing the Island of Con'o to the I luke of Ura;,:allla, (6).\ donation of September 2, 1460. from the Infant D. Henry to his adopted ~on, the Infant Dom l'erll:lIldu, uf the hle~ ot Jesu~ Chri~t and (;raciosa. [To which may be' added, .\ royal ehant!r of DecemOcr 3, 1.160, tran,rl-rring to the Infant D. Ft:rnando, Duke uf \'i~l'O, thl' .:r:ml of Ihl' .\r(hipcl.,go_, uf ;\Iadeira and tht: ,\l.Ore" I'acant hl' the dc.llh of I). Hcnr).] :-;cc .-lrdlii'o d,!s .-If,'reJ, i, J. 5, 6. i, 9, I I :'IJ.lTtil1~, (h l·illll'_' do n . .f'''''' pp. !(u ~ (\\here Ihe (bll' 01 (;uIH~al(' '-dIm Cabrars diseol-cry of the Formig'" i~ g1lcn ;\~ 14J5): /Jo(lilllOlh in Torrc do "l"omho, Can:!;') 15, ;"Ia~o 16, :\0. 5. of :-;qllemhcr [6, 15j I XCII INTIWDUCT!ON. likewise aftcr the death of Prince Henry. It is said that Van der i-Iaagell,l when he moved from S. Jorge to Fa)'al, did so at the invitation of Jobst van [l eurter, who had been there four rears, and now promi5cd him a part of the island. The twO quar- relled, howe\'er. and ,. Silv(;ira" left Fayal and went to T erceira, Some time after this he \'isited F land(;rs, and returning to the Azores by way of Lisbon, became the guest of 0, \'ilhena, who had receiv~d a grant of Flores and Corvo, She now proposed to Van der Ilaag-en that he should colonise and govern these islands for her, which he did for seven yeal'S, Next, ;IS to the Cape \ 'erde islands, Ther~ is no posiri\'e grollnd for supposing that any Euro- peans discovered or colonised these before Prince ! [enr)" The ancient Gorgacles, Hesperidcs, and so forth have bcen iti<'lltified with them by some, but all this remains in the statc of guess-work gueo;s-wQrk which has no g reat probability behind it. But as to the di'ico\'ery of the Cape \'erdes in the Infant's lif~time, a COlll rO\'ersy exists between the claims of Cadamosto and I )ie~o Gomez, which must be shortly noticed. It is happily beyond contro- versy that five at lea<;l of the Archipelago were disCO\'cred \\'ithin tht! Prince's o\\n "period," as their names oCClir in a document of December 3, !460, hcreaflcr noticed, 1 " 11;1 Silveir;l." Sec :lbo\c, p. h:\\l~, INTlW[)U("T10:;.; . XCIII Cadamosto\ claim to the discovery of the Cape Verde islands has been dcniec]l on the following grounds: l. A mariner sailing from Lagos in early :'.Iay could not anchor at Si.lntiag-o on 55, Philip and James' day play 1 st), <1$ stated by Cadamosto, 2. Cadamosto dro,'(' three days before the ,,-inel from Cape Blanco \\'.X,\\,. to Hona"ista. llut this lies 100 miles S.\\'. of Cape Blanco. 3. Cadamoslo claim'> tn have seen Santiago from Bonavista, which is impossible. 4, Cadamosto is wrong in speaking of any river in Santiago as a ., bow-shot wide," or of salt and turtles as found in the island. To thi,; it has been replied: I. The first point is probably founded on a mlsprrnt. As a correction, d',\vezac'i! has suggested that Santiago wa,> so calk:d because tbe expedition set out on )Olay 1St. It has also been noticed that the German and French v<.:rsions of Cadamosto's Italian text (which contains this mistake) gi,'e :'.[arch and not .\ Iay as the month of sailing, while the translation in Temporal's llisloirc de I'Ll/rique has July. Oncc mor<.: tlw f{':-;li\'al of St. James () uly 25th) has bc<.:n suggest<.:t!. in exchange for that of I <,.1{. By \!:ljnr, F,/lu( !{;-""', ,1;('8, p. ~S6-~, h'-bed on LOPl'S de LimJ.'s EflSIIll'J r,,/>,( a SI",i,I/;'" d,u Pfj,.,y ,if Cnt,· /'erd,. If{allds (paper of 15 pages, .ce c>pccially 9.12). xciv I NTRODUCTION. 55. Philip and James. In supf.lort of this. the most likely alternative to a simple blunder, caused by haste, carelessness, and lapse of lime, it is pointed out that Cadamosto seems to have arrived at the islands durinror the rain)' s(.!ason ; that this season pn:vail s from mid-June to November: and that the ft:st i\'a l of St. James would a~ree with the time required for a yoyage from Lagos. even if com- mencing not in i\ larch or i\Iay, but as late as the beginning of July . This date is apparently confi rmed by the earliest known official document which n::lates to the Cape Verde Islands. viz .. a decree, dated December 3rcl. 14-60. issued just after the death of Prince Henry.1 J 11 th is is given a list of seventeen islands discovered by the I nfant>s explO!'ers, beginning with the ~Ltdcir"s and ,Azores. and ending- with five of the Cape \\:rdes, S. Jacob<:: (5antia~o). 5. F ilippe (Fo~()). De las .\Iayaes (.\laio), Il ha Lana (Sa \ ?), anu S. Christo\·ao (probably Bonavista). The on1y fc'>tival of St. Christophel' in the Calendar Ldls on the day of ~t. Janw,>. or July ~5th. \\·e may notice thitt in the (;arli~'st map cOlllaining these i. . blltls.~ Cadamosto's naille of Bonl ... so as to weather and hug the wind for two dars and three ni~hts." That is. th{~ contrary wind met with after lcaying Cape Blanco did not turn the ships back. as they managed to sail close to it.' I t is probable. however. that the text is corrupt. ancl it is only too common in records of this time to have mistakes as to points of the compass creeping into the record of voya~es performed some time before, J n any case. it is surd}" not enough to upset th e whole of CadamoslO's narrati\'e, 3. Il e re Catlamosto seems to haye made no mis- take. in hi s first printed text of 1507. The islands have never been properly surveyed. but Prof. C. Doelter. in his \Votl~ Ueber die f(apL'crdCl! !lack dem Rio Grande (1884-), sl)eaks of seeing Bona\'ista from the Pico d'r\ntonioOIl Santiago. tog-ether with all the rest of the group. (~\'l'n the more distilnt Sal and St. \'incent. It is therefor(: C]uitc probahle that Cada- \ "E b. nocte wqucnt~ lie ' f:HO JII temporal dt garbin cum vento forte, ole, cliche per non :nrnm in dril-do t<,gllc~~emo la volta di ponente c mais!ro sail") cl nero per ripafar c co,tll:n cl tcmpo doc noetl' e III zorni. Oldh.lnl, /"c. cit. II . .: Oldhalll adds; .< If no,k U,/lItllt· m. )11~, a~ it would secm. '.he night of the day following thai on whkh Cape Blanco was p."ls~~d. the ships would han: h,l(\ tim" to rt:;\ch :!. point from which:!. \\"1;5t or \\·cst·south·wc,t rOUfSC' would Inri to Bnna\";'t:!.. :-'Ioreo\"cr, the I.:l.tin text j.:i'·l·' th:' "iml :I~ South. XCV] !NTROIJUC"TiO;\". mosto's sailors did see Santiago from Bonavista, and this feat was certainl), possible, 4, I n this once morc CadamoslO is clearly right, "nd the attempt to discr,:dit him ridiculous, Salt is so abundant in the Cape Verdes, cspecial1r in the western g"roup, that these were at one time called the .. Sail islands," Turtles are also common enough in the rainy season, and are mentioned by plcnty of visitors 'and residents, I Lastly, the ri\'er in Samiag-o, "a bow-shot across," does not conc- spond to an)' fresh-water stream foulld there, but by this (;xprcssion may bc intcnded an inlet of the seil, like the Rio d'Ouro of Princc Ilenr)"s sailors. north of ,\ rguim. Curiously enough, this ver), express]()!) "a bow-shot wid e" is employed by I )appe l' of the Estuary at Ribcira Grandc in Santiago: while Blaeuw's Atlas (Amsterdam. 1663) speaks of tht.: same point in exactlr similar terms: "3 son cl11bouchure largc d'enviroll un trait d'arc," Thirdl)" the attempts of Prince Il enr), to acquire possession of the Canaries for Portugal may be n{lticec\. [n 14 I 4. i\ laciot de Bcthellcourt, nephew and heir of the famous John, "J ean lc Conqucrant," h;I\'ing, under threat of war from Castille, ceded the islands to Pedro Ihrba de C\l1lpOS, Lord of C;\stro FortC', sailed away to l\bdeira: and in [4 IS. according to ;;0111(: authorities, he made iI sale of the "Fortullatae" to Ilenr), of Portugal. This was XCVII not enough for him. as aftcn,"ards he made a third bargain with the Count of ;\ iebla; while meantime Jc an de Bcthcllcourt himself left his conquests by will to his brotlH.:r Reynaud. Pedro Barba de Campos soon parted with his new rights, which passed successively to Fernando Perez of Seville, and the Count of :\"iebla" But the latter" though now uniting in himself all Spanish claims to the islands. did not cling- to them. but made o\'(:r e\·erything to Guillclll de las Casas. who passed on his rights to Fcrnam Peraza. his satl- in-law. \\"hil<.: this transferencc \I"aS going on in Castille and in Fnnce. Ilenr)". in the name of Portugal. aw::mpled in I.P4 to settle the question by sending- out a flcet under l:crnanc!o de Castro. with 2.500 foot and 120 hon;e. \\'ith this force he would probably have cOllqu('I"ccl the Archipelago. in spite of the costliness and trouble of the under- taking, if the protests of Castillc had not led King John I to discourag(: the scheme and pcrsuade his son to defcr its cxecution. J n 1445.1 sevcn of the Prince's car,n·els \isited the isbn&;, rccci\"ed the submission of the chiefs Bruco and Pistc in GOl1wra (who had already experienced [he Infant's hospitality and become his .. grateful sen"itor ... "). ilnd made s\a\"c-raids upon the islanders of Palma" Ah"aro Gon~<1h-cz de .-\.tarde, Joao de Castilh,l. ,:\I\"aro l)ornellas, Affonso -'lana" and the 1)rince Ilenry bestowed the captaincy on his son-in-law. Pedro Correa da Cunha, inlrw;t for the 11rst Covcfllor's so n l3artholcm(:w, \\'ho was still a minor. nil CUllll.Ial\"oisic2 grape, intro- duced from Crete, throvc cxcellcntly, and at last produced the i\ladeira of comm(;;rce. When Cada- Illosto visited the island, in 1455, he found vine culture alrerto S;Ullc) and .\h.deir:l on Ihe Onh.:r of Chri,1. the temporalilie, on King ,\O'on,o \'. and his succes~ors. It lll11q Ill' taken in connection Iluh th ... Charters of June 7th. qS4. I kcember ~8th, qS8. and :--cl't~'mb ... r t sth. Q48, all re· tlting to the trade of Guin..,,,, and Ihe fir,! !II"O conferring ~p..,cial pri\"ikt:~,~ 011 th.., Order o( Chri,t, or r~'lbill~ ,l1ch pr;l·ih.:gcs alrc:1dr grantcd; seC the C"'I,di(1II of Pedro .\h·arez. Part Ill, fob. 1]-18; \[ ajar, PrillC( /I,'lIry, 30.)' ] ~T R()] 1\ ·'T](H;. CII I in t er{'~t. Did t hi~ \\"l'~ t \V been translated· (I) "Genuine isbncl di~tant 1,500 mik~ to Ihe west." (2)" (ienuint: island, [ ,500 miles long to tile" 11·(:~t." (3)" Genuine island ext<:nd, [,500 miles to the west." 1\1~0, rending .. a (=e] In sob otintiehn. (,,)" Is the only genuine "(The first line being altogether separnte in ~cn~e from what follows· ·"xe longa," elc.) Once more, suppl}'ing- "questa cnrtn," (5) "Thi, map is the only genuinl' one," leaving the second line unin· telligible. (6)" (ienuinc islnnd, ~trdching 1,500 miles Wbt- ward~, tt:n miles hrond." .\nd lastl)", reading .-\millia for Otinticha, (7)" Island of .\nti11ia .. · etl". (This "'ould explain the difficult)" of th,: .\ntiliin Isle l!("in~ otherwise absent from the q-t8 Bianco.) See ])c~illloni, in ./It; adl,: .SlKid,i ligurr di S((>ri" palrill, ,864, 1'01. iii, \'. ("\1\'. Canale, in Sloria dd COllllllrrcioarg/" II,/klfll; 1866, p. -455. Fischer, S"11I",ltlll.::. IVdl· utla Str·J,.·"rlrf/ i/,,/iol/sc/lrn Unprll1,g,. "enk-e, 1886, p. ~09. Pr"{(lditlg.,· R G. S., London, \larch 1895, pp. 2·21-~40' Wh:lle"er the c\pl:in:nion, it m\l~t be rClllcmbert:d that this \lap and insniption were n(\'er produced hy Portug:tl as el'i- denc.:: of a Pre·Columbian discovery, ~'ithl'l in q<)~-3, or later, in formal negoti:llin!1s with Spain 'IS at ihdajl)l. in 15!". It is Jlos~ihle thnl Ihe delineation ~nd kgend in (lubtioll were ;ldded hr a la ter hand; ~nd it is pmhnhlc that, if renlly ins~rl<"d by Bianco himself, the reference is tt' one of the kgcndary .\tlanllc !N TI(o[)UCTION, mitted, IS qlliLC lacking in demonstrati ve ev idence. howevcr possiblc in itself. Yet once more, the ,. accidental" discover), of this same Land of the lloly Cross hr Cabral in ! 500 has been urged to much the same effect. J"or, if really accidental, a similar ('vent might \\'(:11 have happened in earlier years e5peciall)' from the time of the Azores settle- ment of !..j.J2. etc,; or if not accidental, it was based on information obtained from older navI- gators. who reached the same countr)'.) Such older n,l\·igators towards the wCSt were said to have been ])iq..('o de T eivc and Pedro Velasco, \\'ho in 1452 claimed to have saikd more than 150 leagues we5t of F;\);tl; C;on~i1lo Fernandez de T il))lI'd Ill\!' 11I1'>1l(·,·(·,,<;flll v('nlttl'l' ;tl Ihi., lin)!', ,mol ill 117.1 In;lo Val. da COS!; I ( ont'n"d II"" )"I·p0rll·d, II) .I nOli ('splodl'd It·g-,·nd. t'l h.ll!" .1("[II,dl), cli.,coll·l"\·d 1'\"\\'IiIUlHlIand, '1111 .. SI IIIUIL (H SA(,ltl',.,," 1,1'('. h'w thing., ill ("OIlIlI'('tlOIl II ilh tlw lif/· of llenr) tilt" N.tvi;":,ltl)l· ,m' Illon' illl"rl'''lillg tl);ll1llw tradilion oj hi., l·dIlCoilillll,d .11111 illklll'cIII;tI work, e'ipecially f"r till" it II 11l1'),lI\' ,. (oJ ;":1'llgl·.ll'h), ill Ilw allL'g-ed Seil/iol II( S,I),.:"·" ,llltl /llhl') ... lIPI)(I'i'·ll flHlll1Llliull'" /lllw)II"Lltli"Il". Lllllo!"lIlIl.lII·I), t his II'Mliti!)1l is IH)[ .1', \ k,II'l) ,· ... t.dJli ... hl·d ,10., il Inighl Iw. ;tilt! it 1).1 ... IW('1l Ill, III,· n\lI)'I ' IIill111111 II) (1111.,1,1I11 ,·,\'I~,:gl'r;tli()n. N(IL l'lIill'lll II It It .1·, .. ,'rtlllg Ih.ll till" Inf.lI11 .lil1l1"d ill dr;1\1 lIl;.: tile' 11I)1I111,')", I' 01 (.lIli, ;lilt! CI'tH.) II illlolil )'C(k'lIl1l1),.: nllt,·) 1I11,· .. , 111'111'1'1"" n'Tti 11111 call.,(, 1111,' tl' HIli 111111 .IIlI.IIWr l'\t)l'IlH·. ,"111 tll·ny that :--',t~I"'" hl·lolill •. dllllll~~ till' 1;1111")' 1);)11 Ill' llt'llr~ ' ... Iifl', ""1'''' I.dll 11'1>111 I US '" II!'" d .. ,nlt, tilt· lTl1lrl' "t" Ih,· I'\pltlrill!--: In"I"llll'llt .1I1.llh ..... , lI"1l1111t' ... ttld\ Ilhi("h till' 1111.1111 ill"II)!"d \1 SoI)..:)'I· .... 1 .IITordillg ttl IS,'" 1,III,lt,'. (,11/""', II 1".11"", /,/,/.11,,'.1,1. I, I, II" 1 NTROlll'f"TlON. CVIl what may he called the older view-which, resting- mainly upon Barros. is adopted by 7'.lajor. de \'eer, \\'auwermans, and ev('n \Iarrins Prince Hem), usually resided, not merely during- the last years of his life. or after his n·turn from the Tangier expedi- tion of 143;, but from the time of his reappearance in Portugal aftcr the rt"lief of CCllta in LP8. At firsl. however (I.J. I S· 143R) it was called Tercena' :'\abal. or Naval Arsenal. ,tfter it emerged from the stage of a liuie harbour of refuge for passing ships; and only afterwards did it become (from 1438 onwards) the Villa do Iffantc ... mr town," from which some of Prince I-I enr}"'s chartcrs are dated. Shortly before the completion of ,\zurnl(,r\". indudin,.: buildings (:\1 oorish?l at lc:lSt as old as thc Xllh n·ntury. Tho: headland m,·<,~urcs ani} one kilometre in circuiL half" kilollll"trc in ib c\trcmc lenbth. Prince Ht'nr\"s will rcfln !IJ II,c ('hurch (If ~l. Catherine, and thc Chapel of SL :\br)' ,ee th, .I/S. (;(>//.r~' ("ape proPI;T, hUI "un peu en a\"~n\ quand ()n lien! de rOue,1 (\'. :-;\. '!.Htin). ) J~('oh or J:-tllle" "ho, :-tccording 10 one tr:-tdition, c:-tme to Ihe Inf:-tnt's "Coun .. ,horlly :-trier thl; dbas\er of Tangier, in or auout JIJS. To Ihi, l1aml; the Yi~~'ount de Juromenha in his notes to Rackl)"nski, lr> _-/"/$ til f'{)rluK,d, 205, adds Iha! or .\b.ster Peter, Ihe r:Htographic arti~t of the Infanl, whn ilIuminaled his maps in col()uTS and ~JOTf)ed them with legend, and pictures. The e"is- tence or this l'dcr re~h lIpOl1 a documenl al Ibt.,lha discoI'ered h)' Juromcnha. Sec alsu O. '\1:lTlin~, Hlho) dl' J)./{!,h/ J, p. i3. , \\'au\\"erlllan~, Jlmri II' .'il'·';';I1I(111" d 1".-!;ploralioll • it~ mo~t useful por- tions are devoted to tracing the connections between gcographical study in Portugal and the Netherlnnds, 1 Nordenskjilld, P.:riplur, 121 A. INTROOUCTION. special researches some important observations. He believes that in the La Cosa map of 15001 we have work which was based UPOll the observations of the Infant's captains, who, as shown in these resulls, Ilere evidelllly able to keep reliable reckoning and tal.::e fairly correct al tiLUdes, .. Further, the extension of tl1'..! normal or typical ponulano ;don~ the \ \ 'est coast of ,\ frica, as on the portolanos of Benincasa and others of the latter part of the fifteenth century, is shown by the legends of the same to have been based on observations made during the marine expeditions of Princ(~ llenr),. " No charts or other productions of the "Sagres Schaul," in any definite sense of this term, no geo,'4rapilical or astronomical works emanating from thl: .. Court " of the Infant, are now extant. But it 111dY reasonably be inferrcd from passagl:s in .\zurara\ ("rollirle of (;ltillm that such charts lI"er<: not only draughted under the Prince's orde:rs, but used by his sailors;~ Cadamosto tells liS of 1IH' chart he kept on his voyag"e of 1455, probably by direction of the [nfant; while it is probably true that the: .. ex tension of the porto- \;UlOS beyond Cape Bojador, in Henincasa,3 for instance, as well as ill Fra ;\lallro's work of 145;-9, I I'lale, "Iiii and "Ii,- of:"onh:n,kjuld's l~'rii'l/{s. ~ Sec .\/!lura, Gilille(l , ch, I\\\'iii: "orden~kjuIJ, Ptri/,llIs, I ~ I; Santarelli, Esstli SlJr c,'sm",,'''''flll(, \'01. iii, p. lix. .\lTolI~o Ccrwira, .\lurara's prCd, I-:~pe!;i;\ll)' ill hi, \\ork~ Orl,I('i'!> ;Iud 14il. INTRODUCTiO:-.'. eXl depended on information given by native and foreign skippers" $ent out by Henry. Of course, it is ob\·iou,;, in the light 'Of present knowledge, that neither he nor his school in any sense invented the portolano type: although the llH.!1ltion of :'II aster Jacome of l\lajorca reminds us of I)lle of the earliest centres of the new scientific ca1'lographrl (which was probably first made effective br Catalan skippers and drauglllsmen), and suggests lilat the I nfant was in tOllch with the best map-science of the time. "Neither is it correct to say that he introduced hydrographic plane charts or map graduation in accordance with geographical cO-01'dinatcs." But his life was almost certainly not without direct influcnce in the improvement of cartography. and the t:xtension of the scientific type of map beyond its fourteenth-century limits- ';lIl improve- ment which we see in the great map of Fra :'IIauro executed shortly beforc the Infant's dcath. Also, he made his nation take a rea! interest in geo- graphical disco\"ery, broke down their superstitious fear of ocean sailing. and made a beginning in the circumnavigation of Africa" I It: altered the condi- tions of maritime cxploration by gi\'ing permanence, organisation, and governmental support to a move- ment which had up to this time prm"ed disap- pointing for lack of these \"cr)" means" .\11t1 he certainly illlpro\"cd the art of shipbuilding. which I In the Bai.:aric j,I~,. S .111'1.11 . /I , '0 til<" I'luid "I Ih, " " 1.11,IV'+' III ' ,(j' l' rll1l 1l 110 11 .·1)" ""[ 1\'Ilh .. ll [ d.n,l, ( ,111.11110 ,> [11, Illll" "11, IhHllg ll III" d. ',1 ri III' , dll"l11 ,I ', till ' 111"' " ".Iilill ~: " hip" , I[ '.1', 1 III hI " 1111\1' , tI,.,. " 11.,1 g l \l " ;111 )' tld •• I).." 11111 h Oll! "lI wr ',Hlln 1''11 II 1'1 P'" ', 11 111 ' 10 lonl! .,1111H' 111 " ,1 .,1 1II,·i, IU 'I IIII,11 ["011111(" '>. 1 111 ')' Wl'I"!" ,1 ,>11,111 ), JII,lO 111. 111 '., IIIlI g, II X 111, ' 1)'1 ", III 11II ·,,, ltll, Ilel'! I'qlllpp, ·d \I illi d I ll '" 111. 1',1", WIIIIIJIlI ri gg lll l--: lOp" , or ), oIld ,,; ,I lid 11.1.1 10111'1 ' 11 '" Ill .. ',III ' " h, ·" 111'"11 1(111 )..: "I ,Ii( IIII ' l"tll "', 1 I. III g ill ~: " 11 " 111' 11111 '1 1 fnJIll th" 111.1-,1 itl ' .111 1 11, ,,,1'" 11'111 );1'" .11111 '1," II'h"1I Ih. ,il' 11'1,"1)..:111.11' ',.Iii " 11, ' 1 " ,11\ ( 1' ' '11 11' ,\11. g i ,u,',1 II I" ~: IIIIII"k III Ih" 1 ,11.1 1'1' 1. till P'"II1 " IIl' llI l llI g ill Ihl ' , iii .I("ll"dill).! I" II ", 0111" 1 111'" 1.1 III< 1~ lIlo1 . ' I hi ')' lI '> II ,dl ), 1'.111 \lllh ,ill tI\I'li -,. ,d , IIIIIIIII )~ by 1111' ,111 ', o j ii , .lIlt! '101ilil1 g ', I L II ): 11l "1 '0 11 .I 1,( ,"· II IH' , dl i\ lI lg h,' I(lI'I ' llll' willd , 's" ( h'II", 11.1", /,il," ,I'd ,,1/1 1/,/I/"rI, I, I' " II 0 , ,\1. ,,1111 /I, /,d}"" d,' /1 /",/" /, I' 1~ .!tullllo, 1 ',, 11 ,',1, (//11.1,1/ ( ,,1.1/• • /It ,,/ "" \',1, ,If l 'f"I//I,'" ,'/ , KKK ,., I','I//I.~''', " l In" "" .\h,Io,(,,1 ,I t", 111111. "t ,111,,111 ',II,"') 'II' .11", II ... pLIO,", 11, 11 I ', .. 1\1'1" I',,, II,' /.m I,'/'{", .'Ii,1 11". .11 (1' II' '" Ih, ' "', "I" n"f)1 fI" I,' 'n/,';, \1.,\ - Ih, , :-ill~, 1'1' ,\I 5 t n (Il<" I" ,1'11'11" .I ,,(1,,11, ,d", h I I'" 1,llh "",(hi "I '"'(1' ,', \\1' h,ll, " ,"l.llkd .",,,,"11 "I ( I ) II" /1.",,/, (,) tl ... /1,/1('/(/, (\) rhl' , ',,,,,,,/, ( 1) 1[" \,111, "1,,,1> .", ,I.,. ,,I,, '/01,"", ,I"~, ,/,',,"'11 II/,.d,'" 10,11,,,,,'[ 1,\ Ih' '/ "" .I,., , ,./.:""1,/,, II" (~) II ,,· /"01,,, ((,) tl" ("/'", I, Irh, 1. ... ",./'" ,l, 1"")11,,1, (X) tI " ( '''/,.(' )) II l1" ("dl"I", ( I ") I II. /"'/',,/'dl''', ( I ') I I", 1.,,/,./(./, (, J) Il l<' /j'l,".·', ( , I) I'" ~ 1,',,1,,1,', ( , 11 II II' 1 ','/1.,,,, 111 .. , 11 .'111' '' ', " I ~ " I, ,\ , (, ~. (', II, , ", .)n .1 ' ,( ,II .... !dl d INTRODl!CTlON. CXlll \Vhen they wished to change their course, it was enough to trim the sails. It wa') with this type of vessel that the Madeira and Canary groups were ,. gained from the secrets of lhe Ocean;" that the Azores, at a distance of twenty-two degrees west of Portugal, and in the heart of the Atlantic, were di scovered and colonised: and tiMt open sea navigation of almo5t equal bold- ness was successfully employed in the finding and settlement of the Cape Verdes. Before the end of the year 1446, according to Awrara's estimate, the I nfant had sent out fifty. one of these ships along the mainland coast of Africa, and they had passed 450 leaguesl beyond Cape Bojador. which before the Prince's time wa5 the furthest poim "clearly known on the coast of the Great Sea." A]so, the work of the" Schoo! of Sagres" may perhaps be recognised in Azurara's further claim that" what had before been laid down on the :,\Iappil :'\Iundi was not certain, bu t only by guess- work," whereas now it was .. all from the survey br the eyes of our seamen," and that" all this coast to- wards the South with many poinls our prince com- manded to add to the sailing- chart." I t bas been noticed that I). Pedro, according to thl: Portuguese tradition, prl:sented Henry with a. copy of l\larco Polo's travels. and a map of the sante, pit her drawn by the explorer himself or by one who knew hi<; works, and belonged to his own I I'~ I II' /I Lv, t4<' q, 1.,ld III' w,.d ,.1,,'1 l ,d·l)d W" "'HI I, 1111 fl,' "d ,'I,d j ",lv,n'H ~!lKH'" tI," Ihl "'IfI \N,I I 1",11 III , ~ 1.H, /lId Il,.d II ",11111, .. d ""'il t' """1 ,01, 11111 ,I/In, I,,,nllll' 1.1 1.'11 I dhl'," HI' I 111,.,. "I I, IH'" WI,Ii",1 ."tll""O "I,Y "/1"0' 1.1, III' d,.,1 II 1'1 d,,, J'II '1111 d Iii 1,1/,1111 I Will. ,111/111 ""']' ,,11 0 .1.,1,1 \I,d 111.,,' ,1/,,1 ~"JI tI" 1111"11 "I 1""1i 1',"1,.01, do 1',oIIIIdili "I I 'MIl' III ' ,,,, ,11111 I,,, J, III' ,,, " II ,," 11111 Ilill, I IIIIU 'tt 1111 ·dl/ll,.,. '" 1111 f"I'1I1I ,,,11"11"/1 ,,1,,101 111"1' Ilf 1111 11111" )1'" ill/ dl',,"Y " I ~" IId,.1I1 (I II i 11111 till "~II '\ 11111 .' '" ,1,/ II·nllll{ • II "II! 01 ' II 11" 111 1' 111 f Iil ld III III' I 1,.01 II '"lill 1.1111 I. I'~II' ~ Ir/. I h.d,,'1 Ifll.II~liI .1 1t1"I' 1",1, 1,.,'I"IIII'~"IIH!I'd II", 1I,I>lII""Ii •• oI III~ .IHI',,' I. , 0.11'"1 " ·,11,01 II" II"" "II 1.'11 'III' II, II " .d., II.~ "'I" "I, ",I j " '1" ~I"I II" I ,.., I ,, ' \111'.' I 1,11" I " d, '.Iichael on :'IIay S, '4H· Prince Henry's connection with the Coimbra- Lisbon University (founded by King Oinis in 1300) opens another side of the same question. \Ve have already mentioned the tradition that in 1431 the Infant provided new quarters in the parish of St. Thomas. In Lisbon. fm the t(';.Lchers and students. and afterwards established Chairs of r heolll~~ ilnd :>.Iathematics. This has been called by sOllle il .. Reform of i\ ncicnt Schools" under his intiucnce and direction, 1 and recent enquiry 2 has ~'ndca\'oun'd to prove that the Protector of POrtu- guese Studie .. \\',15 also the founder (in 1431) of a Chair of :>' lcJicine. and th(' donor of a room or lecture-hall in which wa .. painted by his order a picture of Galen. I n I HS the I nfant subsidised the Chair of Thcologr by a ltrant of twelve marks of 1 Set 0. \ Iartin', "'"III1I.lt D.jo,1(), 1., pp. 63-4. - Cr. \ Iax. [..cillO' .• 1 IIItd,d"II till /''''''11,(<1/, 1881 I , cxvi JNTI{OfH 'C'TJON. si lver annually fmlll the revenues of i\ladei ra,l It is perhaps noteworthy that thc Prince does not appear to have found ed any lectureship, 01' made any bene- faction to promot(~ directly the <;tudy of geography, th ough ancient text '> bearing on thi !> !>ubject were now beginning" to attract con<;iderable attention, It may be open to C[uc!>tion how far it university would then have welcomed an instruc tor in prmanship; hu t students would have probably listetlt'cI to lectures upon Ptol(,Ill)" or Strabo, 0 1' other classical geographers, and tlwrcby it great impctu'i might have been given to the new explori nJ..:" '>pir it, Thu'i in general we nM)' fairly conclud(' th at, so far a,> th e Portuguese Scall1t'n or Ihe next generation, Barlholemew J )ial., Da Gam !"a th!.:r th an by university lecturt;:rs whom he had appoin ted , I J, S, Ribeiro, ilislari" doJS nt"bd. s{liulifit, litt, t! "rl, de PtJrlllgd/, i, p. ,~ l , INTRont:CTION, CX\'1l 1\IAI'. .. , Ar\1I SC\I::l\T1HC GEOGRAPHY l'l' TO AND OliRING PRI ...· CE HEi'\R\,\ LItE, Ancient maps were not without high merits in certain cases, and a liltle after Prince Ilenry's time the kcnaissilnct! editions of Ptolemy played a verr important part in geographical history. But in the first part of the fifteenth century neither the \rQrk of the Alexandrian astronomt:r and cartographer, nor the ancient road maps of the Roman Empire and sllrroundinJ.{ lands! seem to have been suffi- ciently known f()r tbe exercise of much influence in the progress of discovery or of geographical knowledge. The same result follows, for different reasons, in the case of almost all the earlier medi,(;val maps ,lnd Ch75'391. -, E,.~'_, ill the Carte Pisano.: ~ncl the work of Gio\'ann de CangnarJo, CXVlII INTRODUCT ION. that a fully-de\'eloped example from the middle of the thirteenth century may yet be discovered. "A sea-chart probably a portola no-is men- tioned as earl}' as the account of the Crusade of St. Louis. in !270. "1 So in Raymond I.ulli's Arbor Saclltire, written about 1300, we have reference to compass. chart and neL:dlt:. as necessary for sailo rs. ~ Once again, it is probable that Andrea Bianco's planispherc of 14363 is onl}' are-edi tion of a thirteenth-century work. when the "Normal Portolano" was just ill process of making. but had not reached even the comparati 1'(: perfection of lhe Carte Pisane, Carignano, or Vesconte examples. T he earliest dated pOrlolan is thal of 1311, br Petrus Vcsconte; and from this time the maps of this class, whose central ft:ature is all accurate .\IediterranC4-1; (hb may ha\'\: 0et;1l a younger rdatile. CXX!1 INT ROD{;CTION". in 1882, and usually ca lled arter him, is believed by Nordenskjold to be a "slightly altered copy or the normal portolano in its original form ." In N. \\T. Arrica it only gives us the shore-line as rar as Salle, with a series or names, beginning at Arzilla.! (4) i\larino Sanudo the E lder, to his work, Liber Secretor'ltJJl jidctiuJJl Crucis, written bctween 1306 and 13 21 , added an atlas or ten maps. Among these, I-V rorm an ordinary portolano, corresponding espccially with Vescontc's work,~ but giving us no special inrormation upon Arrica; while No. \"I is the ramous lIlap or thc world orten reproduced. Here a thorough ly conventional Arrica is laid down, or the "Strabonian" or "i\ lacrobian" type : its length, from east to west, traversed by the Negro Nile rrom near the i\Jountains or the \loon to thc Atlantic. is equal to rully twice the breadth from north to south. The deep in let ill the \Vest Arrican coast penetrating east to a "Regia V1I \Iontium" immediately south or the Negro Nile. is a prototype or the similar reature in fra i\lauro, and is perhaps on ly an exag- geration or the Sinus H esperius or Ptolemy. This map was probably known to Prince Henry, like the book it accompanied, which contained many important particulars or rourteenth -century trade and navigation. The i\Iappemonde is a compro- mise between, or combination or, the ponolano and ! No Atbntic islands exist on the Talllll1ar Luxoro porto!an. ~ Konrad Kretschmer believes Sanudo's maps to have been draught ... d entirely or principally b>' Yesconte. I/.;TRODt:CTlON. CXXIlI the :\ledic he may have owned; many of them he probably in'>pected 10 person or by deputr· I t is probable enough that he was acquainted with some of the pre-scicllliflc or .. theoretical" designs, such as those of the" Bealus" type from the eighth and ~;ubscquent centuries; those which are to be found illustrating manuscripts of Sallust, Higden, :\I<1tlhew Paris, Sl. Jerome, or ;\Iacrobius' Com- mentaryon the" [)ream of Scipio ;" and those of Arabic gcog-raphers like Edrisit-to name only a few examples ·but he can hardly have derived much assistance frnm them. The great thirteenth century wheel-map pictures as, for instance, those we know as the l lcl"eford or Ebstorf J\lappc- monclcs expressed the vcry antithesis of his spirit; and the same must be said of the greatCl" part of the ).Icdiacvill cartograph) before the appearance of the portolani. From certain books of trand, such as those of Carpini. Rubruquis, Odoric, Peg-olotti, or )'larco Pulo, he mar, however. ha\'e recei\'cd great assist- ance. The merchants and missionaries who opened so much of Asia to the knowledge of Europe during the Crusading period, furnished the most direct !.timulu'i for the disco\'ery of a direct ocean route to the treasures of the East. \nd to find such a route by the circllmna\'igation of ,\frica was, as we have cxxx INTI these two works, Giroldis has left others of lcss importance, \·iz" h), a Portolan atlas of 1443, consisting of six maps; (S), a Portolan atlas, also of six maps, dated 1446: (e n, a Portolano, unsigned, in the Bibliotheca Am- urosiana at F lorence, which is perhaps his work. Passing by the (for our purposes) less important Portobns of Bauista Becharius, or Beccario, of Genoa, executed in Lp6 and 1435; of Francisco de Ccsani of \'e nice (,-\-21), of Claudius Cla\'us~ (1427), of Cholla de Briaticho (1430), there arc only about ten maps or atlases belonging to this period which have still to be noticed, and which with some proba- hility may be connected with the work of Prince Henry. These arc· ·not counting the lost map brought back by I). Pedro frum Venice in 1428,- (17) T he Atlas of 1435-1445. by Gratiosus Ben- mcasa, of ,\ncona. (18) Tht! so-called Andrea Bianco of 1436. (19) The Andrea Bianco of q.~8. (20) The Portolano of 143+-39 by Gabriele de \'alsccca. of Majorca, tOgether with one of 1447 by the same drauoo -htsman, , Thl' ~amc is the case with the Atlantic Islands, but though gi\'in" us ft;wt:r actual isles, it supplies more namt:s to paims tht;rcin thirty-two in al1. .\n iml'nrtant cilart for X Europt':ltl carto~r.1l'hy, and r.:Jr tht; lact that it i ~ onc of the c.1rli of I'IIS alld 1.152, by C,io' vallni l ,«,;trdo (I ,(';lnlus), IJf VI'nit"(\ (23) ' I ll«' pLlllisplwn" of r 155, hy Bartolommco P,lI'I'to, of (oI'noa ; and (2,1) The pl;Jlli"iplwn~ of l.iS7'9, by Fra " Iauro of the ClIlI;tld.)!t·"it' CO[\\'I'lll of \Iurano, in Venice, As 10 rlWSl', II'" lwl,d oilly rel11;lrk ; No. (17) i"i tht, I·arlit·q known work of Cracioso Ikll iIW;\'iOl, ('tHl:->i'itsofsixt)' t\IO maps. and hl'lollgs lO it \IS. ,:..:iling sailing din·("tinlls, ('LC, Its \Vest Africa tim's not (';t)) ror .... pl·cial 1"I'lllark. tho(1),{h lhe )attl' dis(·O\·t'r·il'" (If Pl'ill("(, J I {'111'is lifelimc arc admirabl> i))u .... tralt,d ill tlw same drallghtsman's work of 1.)68, 1'1i I. d e. ;\!o. (I X) ("oll"ists o(tvlllllaps, indulling a g-md Ll:Ltcd 1)(ulvlIl.(ic 1lliIJ1]I("11l11IHJt., and a circular lI'odd,map. "nI11l'\\ haL n's\'mblillg' \\'SCOIlIC, probably copied and 1'\' ('dill·d (1'0111 a V{'I'Y ('ad), ponol;ul. with a ccrtain Ihc'(ll"l"Ii("a) ~"l('nsi(lI1,1 'I'll\' origin;)) of this is sup' po. ... t·d by s(Jlm' 10 hav~' blTll a lOll(: thirteenth, CI'IHury \\"ork; its \\'("S[ ,Hriean names and d<:tailt:d clurling elld at Cl))(' Xun an incredibly back, \\;11"11 poillt fllr Ill(' [ill\(' of rt'l'i"ioll, viz., A.n. 1436. ,\ ship is. hll\l~'\'l'r, llt'pie[t'll ill full sail filr dO\\11 lhe IIT ... t ('(hIS' · of a ( ' olltim'lll whos(' general shape is ! ~~,~, I 111'11'11, ll,ddu)1 ~,)~. 1"<1.1'''1. i, \!,Ip \0. I at c"nd of H)llIlI\c', I, lhis an ;Hhlili"lI 01 thc l:dl1tlr 10 Ining i{ up to (\Jt~,? I'h" I~'I'N'I nHl~1. h"''''ll'I, h,lle' ,n! the enigmatical inscription in the S.\V., which some have construed into a Portu- guese discovery of South America about this time. l Besides the interest of this colltroversy, and of the iact that it was aile of Ihe first scientific maps drawn in England. thi!> chart gives us in West .\frica some of the earliest indications of the new Portuguese di:-;coverics. Thus, beyond Cape Bojador, or 13uyedor, we have on the mainland shore-line twenly -s(; \'en names rcaching to Cape Roxo or Rosso, and including Rio d'Oro, Pono (:om:spond :I.l all to Ih, "/If thirteenth (:cnlury, but agree bctter wilh the fiftecnth; thou~h ror q36 Russia se<:lll~ unduly magni- licd. JmperiulII 7llrtar"rl/J}/ appear~ inullcJiatdy north or the Se:l of .\~.o\. The :\Io,km prince ncaT the HOSjlhorus is pro· ballJ)" meant for the OllOUllll Sultan. l Sce pp. ciii·C\"i. CXXXIV INTROUUCTION. do Cavalleiro (" Pro Chavalero"), the Port of CalC (" Pedra de Gala"), Cape Branco, Cape St. Anne, and Cape Verde. This example has oft ell been spoken of as the earliest map-register of Prince Ilcnry's discoveries, but 11(.! rein it must yi(;ld to No. (20), the Valsecca (Va llcsccha) of 1434-9, which l1lClllions the discoveries of Diego de Sevill ill the J\ l.ores in r 'P7,! grajiu in flati;:. . v i I1II)~l d us(, I) upo n ti l{' I n f;ult· ... n; plo ra lio lls; and we' 11M) 111'1'( ' SUIIHllan ~(' till> l: vidcllcc of L1 \(: sa nl(' a ... to 1Ill' ;tdV,1I1CC o f knowlc·dj.(l: along the \\ 'cst A fr icall coast a lit! amollg Lht' A tLulli c h;l all(k At lht' bl'gi llil ing of 1IH' (ou rl(:(:nth ccnltlry, as \1\ ' h;(v{' seCIl , Lh (:I'C' is 11 1) carto~raJlhicH I (:v idcll(;(: tl f kll owlc'dg't· cx t(·ndillg f.lI · I)('yo lld th e S tl'iliLS of Cil )l. . dtar ei ther do wn lIlv lIl;ti nland shore or 1',.,,(. 'Iillllllllll' /'1t.1·')I'" • l!l Alii tldl" ",<"1(/,1 hi.:ltl'( tli slo";" /,,,fri,,, I·, (:"1111.1, 1!i67 K KHh' hlll..:r, ,J/,ll'ill" Silllllll(l ,It,. Alf,'I(, 111 /rilldllljf II. (;(S. j Jil'tlkIJII,k, Berlin, nli, 11191, I I Slm'IU~ll1cl, ill . \ '("/Iff Al'dll1' /10' "Ikl"( tlmf,d/( 6'(fdlidlfS~·lIl1dr. Iii, "I~" i.lllr PII U. Clc, 11.1l1l1oll"r. IlIlil; J.:. T. II .1my, /." 1I1r1/,/,tl/l",,,lt ,/'./11).:"'11111 /)IIII'("/'f (Hull. (:~·og. II i~t. et llv,n., I I'!S/, 7), II,,,J , 10 "'t.~·/II"J iI,' I" CIIl'flWI"II/,lli( tit I'AII!"!}/,t SI'tkJilt/rlllllk, dlli.'\; il,i(\., ('''''''I"t, 1" ./11/1("11, ml/r SIl l' Itll I:~",~I,,/,I/" /til! mlt';"11 110' I" //11 '/11 .'/f·.' .1Ii'd,·, I iI,) I ; Jom:1rd, /f/,,, (" ,11'1/1111111"1110 ,f( III (;"'~~I'I'ld, ,.1/""" d,llI' 1" .,rdi,'/I,II' (,,,'.. ... "'/'111 ..., 1',\fIs, 1.'\$'1 \1';:>' 11,,,ilil-ll1), l"II<",i.dh I" '1; 1..-1"11<"1, (,"""",,/,llIr tlr .l/'~ ' rII .I.~", l'~I"'l'I.rll) l·fil'·.<'/I(, 1'1" II'i rX.J, Iltlh'l'b, 1~57; I'!;u-idu turl,\, /I .1/<1/,/,'''''11'''/'' ,Ii h" .II,,,,,.,, (',11//,,/,1,,\.\1', \·,·nin. . , So() , \. 1 ~"ld'l1,kj"ld. I·""illlil.- 'f/II', Sto,khvlm, ,S8b; /'O'ltIIlJ, ~;I,',·kl1<,lm. 1 tl'17. !XTIWIJt':CTlOX, CXXX\·l1 among the I slands in the Ocean. But on Dulcert's Portolan of 1339, and on other productions of the same epoch, such as the COllos~ilJliC1110 of abolJt ' 330, we meet with some of the l sland~, and with the Continental coast as far as Bojador. Thus, in the COlll)s~imiento and the Laurentian Portola no of 135[, "the most important of the Azores, til(' Madeira group, and the Canary Islands, are denoted, by the names they still bear," or by the prototypes of these names. 1 The same )'ledicean or Laurentian map of 135', the Pizzigani of 1367-1373, the Catalan:! of '375, and others, "bear inscriptions even beyond C. Bojador"-inscriptions, ho\\'e\'er, which do not in their scattered and half-fabulous character give any decisive evidence of actual exploration to the south of this point before Henry' s time,3 i\loreover, the shape of Africa in the "Atlante )\tcdiceo" of 135[,1 suggests though it can hardly be said to pro\'e- actual observations far berond Cape Bojador made by the crews of storm-dri\'en or India-seeking ships, But, after all, the map knowledge shown of Africa to the sOLLth of latitude 26 N, was so incomplete and so vague-perhaps even in the Laurentian Portolan the engrafting of a great theory on a tiny plant of fact-that the claim of fir:;t discover}' ill E . .I:-, u.'gn:l.llle for ~I:tdeir:l, "The Isle of \\'ood," We must note that the ship of the (':l.\abn e.xpiorers, with the accQl\l(lanpng legend commellloratil·c of the expedition of Ij46, i~ depicted in this map ,/J 'I'd/lo Ih( .'''lIlh oj Dly·ad",. , I"hough ~ordell~kjbld ~eems to think Qth"rwi~c. 1 S~C ,·/;/Im"" vol. i, Plate I,:n enJ ofYolume. CXXXVll l INTRODlJ(;TION. more southern regions cannot well be re fused to G il Eannes, Dinis D iaz, Caclamosto, and the othe r explorers of the I nfan t's school. On the other hand, all the Atlantic groups, except the Cape Verdes and some of the Azores, were evidently known in whole or part to some of the fourtcenth.cen tury navigators and draughtsmen . • A good deal of hearsay knowledge about the interior of Africa is also indicated, as we have seen, in SOI11{! of these maps, especially the Dulcert of 1339, and the Catalan of 1375; and in this con- nection we must refer to what has been said upon the trade-routes of North Africa; but these elaborate pictures of moulltain ranges, l\loslem kings, traders with their camels, and towns on eminences, have little more pretence to scien tific accuracy than the Negro Nile of so mall)' old geographers, which is probably a mistaken combination of the real but separate cou rses of the lk:nue, the Niger, and the Senegal. Once morc we have seen that the first two portolani plainly inlluencec\ by Prince Henry's discoveries are the V .. lsecca i of 1..J-3..j.-9 and the 1448 map of Andrea Bianco, drawn in London; and that the 1.!36 Bianco is probabl}' a copy 1 The \'alsecca Map delincale~ Ihe II 'cst .Hrican co:l5t to Cape Bojador (c. de Bujett:der). !le)'ond thi" the outline of the CO:1.~1 is "suggested" for a di~lance about :IS great:lS from the Stmits to Bojador, but with no nanll;s or legcnds except "Plagens :lrcnOS:lS," "T<1mral," "BlljctcuCf," and <11 the C~lre!llC soulh, " Tisilgamc." 1:\1' 1(()l>I)CTlON. cxxxix of a thirtcemh-century work, showing no clear evidence of the new explorations. As to the Bianco of 1448, we may here add a word to what has been already said. On this example we find the west coast of Africa end sudden1)' with Cape Rosso, or Roxo. immediatelr sou th of Cape Verde, and "from this point the coast is drawn straight east- ward in a style which indicates that the country beyond is unknown ;" the "outline of this southern shore of Africa being delineated according to the maps of the l\lacrobius t)"1'e." The work of 1448 is frequently copied in following years; as, for example, on several designs of Gratiosus Benincasa (1435 to 1481), wherein the west coast of Africa, from Ceuta to Cape Verde, "has the same con- tours and the same names. "1 All of these charts are believed by Nordenskjo1d to be copies of the same Portuguese original. On the other hand, "Benincasa's Atlas of 1471 is widely divergent as regards the legends, and extends much further south. 2 It reproduces tht.: discoveries along the coast down to Pedro de Sintra's voyage of 1462-3, and seems in part to be based on direct information froPl Caclamosto."J 1 This is eSIJI..'(:i:l.lly true of the Iknine:l.sa of 146;. Norden· skjold gin:s twenty.eight p:lralleJ names from this and the Bi:l.l1cO of 1..\48 between Bojador and Capes Yerde and Rosso. ~ To Rio de Palmeri, immediatel}' beyond Cape St. .·\nne. J Thb may be seen, as ioiorden~kjold ,uggests (Perip/uf, p. 12 7), by comparing th.: names on the lower part of Benincasa's ,rest .Hrica II ilh the rollolling names occurrillg in Cadamosto's account cxl IXTJ(OI)UCTlO~ Lastly, a more special notice must be taken of the great map of Fra l\lauro, 1..1-57-9· In this undertaking1 ,\ndrea Bianco is said to ha\'(~ ass isted, and the work was (e ither originally or in copy) executed for the Portuguese Government, and assisted by the same, King Affonso V supplied the draughts men with charts on which tbe recent disco\'eries of Prince Henry's seamen were laid down. Payment was libera l (12 to ! 5 SOLIS a day to cvery one of the common art isans and copyists); and thc Doge Francesco Foscarini, "when he witncssed the plan and the beginning of r.lauro's \\'ork," trusted that Prince ll enry would find therein fresh reasons for pressing on hi s explorations. T he completed mappemondc was sent to Portugal, in charge of Stefano T l'ev ig iallo, on April 2+th, 1+59· T his was based, perhaps. in part on the map, or maps, illustrating the voyages of Marco Polo, in the Doges' Palace in \'cnice, apparently on one of the wj>/lIll'J//d" di 1'i'" )Itlllro, \'enezia, 1806, p. 6~; IlumIJ.oIJt'~ !.:rilf"!!,, l'/Iknllc!ttlll:;m, i, p. ~i4: Ongania and :;:mtarem's Reproduclion~ of tbe ~1ap ibdf' Nonienskjold's f ',rtt/IIS, I ~7'S, I \"Tl<.QI}CCflO:-'-. cxli East. In ;-':.W. ,Uric,t, Cape Veroe and Cape Rosso are marked, and near the 5, \\', coast of the Continent is a long inscription about the Portuguese voyages, stating that the lauel' "here gave new names to rivers, bays. harbours, etc" and thai they made new charts. of which he (F ra :'I lauro) had had many in his posses- sion, :\t the extreme south point of .\frica is the name" Diab, " with a legend telling how an Indian junk was said to have been storm-driven to this poim in about I..p:o, and (without reaching land) to have saik~d further westward for 2,000 miles during forty days. Afttr this the Indians turned back, and after se\"(!llly days' sail, r('turlH..'d to elVa di Diab. where they found on shol"e a huge bird's egg, ;)S large as it barre!' 1 Fra i\Iauro bad also himself spoken with a trusl\\'orth) person, who said that he had sailed from I nelia pasl Sofala to "Garbin," a place located in the middle of the west coast of Africa close to "Oafur." "Fundan," again, a little south of Cape Rosso, may represent some Portuguese coast-name which has not elsewhere sUr\'i\'ed. Yet, apart from these references, there is but little c\'idence of the new discO\'eries forthcoming. and, from a critical point of view, Fra ;-"Iauro's planisphere is somewhat disappointing. True it is in certain regions (its :'.Iediterraneall and Black Sea, (or instance), of the panola no type, but in the more outlying parts of the \\'orld, and even in much I Egg ul the Rukh, or Roc? cxl ii [N'TRODU(TION. of Africa, it is far more similar to one of the old l\Iacrobius type of wheel-maps (continued in such fifteenth-century specimens' as the "Borgian" de- sign of c. 1430), than to a specimen of enlightened cartography like the" Laurentian" example of [35 I. The traditional centre at Jerusalem is not taken, but a poin t sligh tly north of Babylon sen'es instead. I n Africa numerouS tribes and cities are marked e\'en beyond the Equator. in regions inscribed as .. I nhabitabi les propter calorem;" but the general shape of the west coast is hardly satisfactory. F ra i\lauro knows nothing of the great beno of the Guinea coast; N.\V. Africa appears not as a great projection, but only as a gently-sloping shoulder of land; Cape Verde is not the wcsternmost point of the Continent. This position is given to the tradi- ti onal "Promontory of Seven i\ !ountains" (north of the \\'es tcrn Nile), which we have mCl with in earlier examples. T o the sou th of the Green Cape appears a 10110' and narro\\' inlet of sea,2 which can hardl)' be o supposed to represent in any way the South coast of .. Guinea" frol11 Sierra Leone to Benin, but perhaps is a combination and exaggeration of the great estu- anes so recently \'isited by Henry's seamen-the Gambia, the Casamansa, the Rio Grande or Geba, I Cpo also the elliptical F10remine example of Lt-li (Norden. skjold, Fllaimilt AII\'t"n lhe polarity of the I cxlvi INTRODUCTION. magnet, was first discovered in Europe. \ Ve may. however, nOte the fol lowi ng evidenc(! : (!) Alexander N eckam, an Eng lis h monk of Sl.Albans(born 1157.d ied 12 17), who had stud ied for some lime in lhe University of Paris, refers more than once to what we may suppose was a compass need le, placed on a metal point. I T his, be implies. was then in common usc among sailors. and was not men'!l)' a secre t of the learn ed. For," when th e mariners cannot see the sun clearly in murk), weather or at night. and cannot tell which way their prow is tendi ng . they put a needle above a mag net, wh ich revol ves un til its point looks North and then stands still. " These words were probably written bet ween I 1 90- I 200. (2) Gu yot de Provins, a satmst of Languedoc, in his poem. La Bible. written about 1200. wi shes the Pope would morc nf!a rl y resemble the Pole-sta r.Y which al ways stands immovable in th e firmament and gu ides the sailo r. E ven in da rkness and mist I Cf. Ncckam's refercnce,. (a) In his work, Dr Ulmsi/dms: " ( ~ui l'rgo Illunilam .'ull haucrc na\'CIll, . habcat ~liam aeum jaeulo superposilam; rOlabitur eoim ct cirrunl\'oh'ctur, donee cl1spi~ :Jrus re~pidal ~cptcnlrionem, ~icque compreh~ndent quo Il'nfil'rc debeant nautac, dUll Cynosu ra la tct in aeri;; turbat ionc, quanll'is ca occa~utll nunquam Icnc:J1 propter circuli brel'i to. tC lll, " (p) [11 his De lV"furis Rerum, c, 98: ., N:Julae . mare kg-elite" Cllm bCllcficium darila tis solis ill Icmporc Iluoilo non senliunt, aul Cllm c:thginc , , . tCllcurarum mundus nb\ohitur. acum ~upcr 1l1:'1gnctem pon unl, quac circulo.ritcr {'iTl'ullwuh'ilur usque dum l·jUS mOIU ct;ssan1t:, euspis i PMU~ Seplcl1triona[clll Plag:am rcspici:lt," , " [~'l. trcsmonlainc," INTRODUCTiON. cxlvii can the Pole-star make itself felt. For the mariner has only to place in a vessel of water a straw pierced by a needle which has been rubbed with a black and ugly stone, that will draw iron to itself; and the point of the needle unfailingly turns towards the Pole-star. (3) Jacques de Vitry, the French historian· bishop, writing about 12! 8, in his f-listoria Orientalis. speaks of "the iron needle which always turns to the North Star after it has touched the magnet" or "adamant. "I (4) .' An unknown singer of the same period" spt!aks of sailors to Friesland, Venice, Greece or Acrt!. finding in the Pole-star a sign-post in hea\'en. Even in darkness and mist the Slar can still help them, for it has the same power as the magnet of attracting iron. So mariners attach an iron needle to a piece of cork and rub it with a black lodestone. The cork and needle are then put into water. and never fail to poin t to the north. (5) Brunetto Latini, writing about 1260, tells how Rogcr Bacon showed him2 a magnet. a stone black and ugly, and explained its use. I f one rubbed a needle with it, and then put tht:: needle, fixed to a st raw, in Willer. the point of the needle always turned towards "the Star." By this the sailor I ".\cus ferrea, postquam adamantem contigcrlt. ad stt;>llam scptcntrionalem ... semper convertitur; unde \'a!dc necessarium cst na\'igantibus in mari." , In O~ford, ,\.1), lzS8. This is not a vt;ry certain tradition. cxlviii If\TROUUCTtON. could hold a st raight course, whetil(;r the stars were visible or no. (6) I n the L(uuinamabok. or Icelandic Book of Scttiemelll, the main text of which was finished befure [ [48. there occurs a passage, probably added about [300,1 which describes a voyage of the nimh century (c. 868) to Iceland, and explains the use of rdvens to direct this early course-" for at that time the sailors of the nonhern countries had not yet any lodestone." (i) The.A rabic author of the Badal.! d Kibjaki, or .. Handbook for l\lerchants in the Science of Stones," rdates ho\\", in [242, on a voyage from T ripoli to Alexandria, he himself witnessed the use of the polarized needle. ! Ie adds that i\loslem merchants 'Sailing to I ndia, instead of the magneHleedle altached to a straw, tube or cork. used a hollow iron fish which, thrown into water, pointed north and south . .. Sl1bsequenti), the instrument was impro\'ed b)' degrees, till it assumed the shape of a box, containing a needle moving freely on a metal puint, and covered by a compass-rose." It is here probably that the share uf . \maltl is to be fOl1nd,~ and it may have been Flavio Gioja. or SaInt! other 1 Sec NordO;ll~kjoJd, Pfrip/tIJ, S0. "Tht: La",lnalllll/lok wa5 wrino;n uy .\rc Torgilbon Frode, who dicd in 1148;" but "the pa~~ago; here in quo;~lion fir,t occurs in a copy or revision by I [,luk Erbnd~son, who li"ed at the end of the thirleenth century and.the beginning of the fourlt:t:nth." ~ '"I'nma dedit naulis usum magnetis Alllalphis." INTRODUCTION. cxlix cltlzen of the oldest commercial republic of Italy. who first fiued the magnet i!llo the box. and con- nected it with the compass-card, thus making it generally ilnd easil}' available. l This it certainly was not in Latini's time. .. No mariner could use it (the polarized magnet). nor would s;lilors venture themseh·es to sea ... with an instrument so like one of infernal make." In the latter part of the thirteenth century. and not before. its use seems to have crept in among Mediterranean pilots and captains. and in the course of the four- teenth century it was almost universally accepted. A mistake has been made on one point. The first scientific (or ponolano) type of map is gene- rally associated with the first scientific use of the magnet; but portolan i beg-an while men had not advanced beyond the use of the primitive water- compass above described; and "accurate determi- nation by means of this" must have been very difficult on a tossing sea. "A comparison of the contours of the r..lediterranean, according to various ponolanos, with a modern chart, shows that the normal pOrtola no contained no mistake due to the misdirection of the compass. ·'2 l\' or do the earliest portolani contain an)' compass- roses or wind-roses. Gradually these were introduced into the new I Such a compas~·bo~ is figured on the margins of some MSS. of Dati's S/,htra of the early ftfteenth ccntUT)'. See Nordenskjold Ptripills, p. 45. ! P(rlplus, p. 47. cI INTRODUCTION. charts. e.g. , they are found in the Catalan Atlas of 1375, in the Pinelli of 1384. and in many fifteenth 4 century portolani; but not till the s ixteenth century do we have a number of these roses drawn on the same map-sheet. The use of the quadrant by Prince Henry and hi s sailors is expressly mentioned br Diego Gomez; but neither in this case, nor in that of the compass , are we warranted in assuming (as some authori ties have done) that to the Infant is due the first use of astronomical instruments at sea. C. R AYMOND BEAZLEY. (3, TIlE PAR,\GON, BL.ACKIIEATH. Ala rdl 27111, 1899- F ,\ CSIMIU; OF PRII'CE Ht:NRY 'S INIT .... [. S'Cl'iATURE. [I. D. A. = lffame 1)001 Antique. " .. [ - TU=-___. J.J~ (ALGERIA) MOROCCO ...... ""'" TIJIIKt:U 111 A lR A J T l' ,\ R E C -;. .~ 5 ",.' N G /I .\ \. l ""s u D A N I " DA IJ()MF.Y fAPj: VERD I' -' 0;- t o ! C o c E A N , - " --, .Q. AZU R A R A'S C IIR ON IC LE OF Til" DISCOVERY AND CO NQUEST OF GUINEA. CIL\PTER XLI !low (her took the ten 1I100r5. OR that night there wa~ no other agreement, save that each one took all the rcst he could: but on the next day they all j'Jincd together to ad\'ise what they ought to do, for it was not a suitable place in which to take prolonged repose. And the capt,lins, falling to talk about the matter, agreed among thcmsch-cs that they should enter inlo their boats with certain of their people, and Luis ;\rfonso Carado as captain (who was to go along the shore), and that he should land with some of his men, bwing with the boats another in hi~ place. Then he was to make his war by land with those men whom he took with him, and the boats were to follow after him a short war from the beach, while the caravels came two leagues behind, so as not to be discovered. ,-\nd as they marched in this order they fell ill with the track of ;'o.loors who were going into the Upland, and ther went in doubt whether they should K IJO AI\JltAI1A'''' ( Il L<.ONICLi': 0 1' Till foil,,\\! \\Ial [ .. ad, alld 1-\0 ;lrkr tl ll'm, ho\dill l{ that it 1I1;\..(hl b~' ,\ lH'ril()!I~ IIl.l11pl 10 !'n!1'r ~o fM inLo the cOIll1l!"}' Wlll:(C 11\l'}' h .• /I 1)1'I'n 1111\\1 d;~l"'\' nod, ,h they did lIot kn/Jw Ilw Jll'opk ,hal lIlil-(hl Ill" ill tilt" l;ul(\ lIul 111I:i ( will, whiLh waS 110\\ hm llilll{ I" ,l( nllllplish till" ,,flail, kit IHI pla(;c to haH: 1,',hOIl, ;tlld \\illl(,ul IWIIO" 11-;0 1" llwy IVI"nl fonlan ltiH the)' .IIl i \'l'11 .t\ ,I 1'\oItl' ,11'''111 lllll"t' k;L~:II~'~ furllll.:r on \\hnt' th"'I' \\'I"(t' ~()IIW kw Mwu ,>. tlu' II'hich lIul 1m I}' \a<:kcd ("1>111',1\.:" to ,1. 'kl1l l ,ht"l1h"\Vt'S, bllt t"\TII the h e MI to ny. ,\IU\ thew 1\('1'" ill .111 It'il, lOlllllill1-( lIIen, \\'OIl)L' II , l' 1'"11 1\ \ 01"" h,(,1 I)(,(,I( hnlllj,,:hl (,rr 10 lilt' ,,\1,(\,,+,. , \11,((11 V,,~qlll'l. lil 'l' " Illall (Of Iloble hirth, he ing Ih'~il"wj I" ~ h'I\I' I" " II Ill<' ,)llwl's Ihnt he 1, ,vcI1 the ~I, r vicl' (d' hi~ 10,,<1. "pol l.! ' 1IIIh 1IIIIi s 1· ,lIll1)C~.I'J IIIw1ll '1 1'jll.' l\;lil \l'd IIII' ,Ii,II\:" of Ih,' ~:"\'l'1 1I1Ih'1l1 fill llMI d,I}', .. aring Ih ,\I it "PIH'oI,,'d 10 hlill " J.:",,,llhillg In IJrdl'l II", people 10 1-(0 f"llh, ,illl" IllI'il r()lllIll\-: 11"111 111<'il' 01111 C.lIl1ltl}' lI'a,> 1'11111 II',dl) I", Ib,il I'nd, .. II!)II 1,111 )'I,ll ;,,1.," ~aid Hillis 1':,"1111'.," Ih.,1 II" ~h"lIlt l ,'~;Iill s,,\I}' to' l lh \1 litre II't· han: h""11 ~",,1\l11. jlh',lIllli 1. Iholl ,.11 Ihi " 1alld h,,~ h,ld \1;\IlIilll-: (Of "m 111l.\'11< I'l \1\.1 "I' \11<' Ihillg~ Ill\' ,,\"'Illl'lh \h.lt Olle \,,,"ld II,Itll"'Il, "11111'111\' .. h ,,"1t1l1ol ligh' IIJlon illl)' ~ I "or" ,,, I.d.,' .III,I} , til ",' ,h,,"1.1 \'111011111,,\ S(O IIMII)' Ihill il ,\1.111.1 I ... '(".! lli11 lk' DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF GUINEA. 13t with that resolve, one part of the night being already passed, Alvaro Vasqucz, still constant to his first design, came again to Dinis Eannes, and begged him to let him go on shore and entru~t him with the charge of his captaincy, for that he knew many would go with him of right good will. "Inasmuch as thi s sally pleaseth you so greatly," ~aid Dini..; Eannes, " I only ask rot! that in your going you take good advisement that you bring no harm on yourselves nor sorrow un the rc~t of us." Thcn Ah"aro Vasquez callcd Dicg-o Gil, that other e~quirc of whom we spoke before, for he knew him for a brave man and one of his own upbringing; and they went through the olher caravels in such wise that they gathercd together those persons whom they thought sufficient for their safety. And all together they went on shore-there being yet somc part of thc night left for their march-but ere they had pressed on any farther, Alvaro Vasquez, wishful to admonish them, spake unto them thus. "Friends and Gentlemen, although [ am not onc of Ihos!! three principal captains whom wc brought wii:h us from our kingdom. let it sufficc th,lt I am committcd to you a~ captain by him who had the chargc to command you. .:"nd because want of order is often a greater obstacle· than the multitude of thc enemy, [ desire first to know of you if it please you to havc me for captain ill th is affair, that I may command you a<; men well pleased to reccil"c governance; for much bctter were it that you should tell me now at this present, where we cannot IVcll rcceive any harm, than when wc arc away from here, in somc place where rour di~' I look at them, the more it seemeth to me that I am right, and ifrou look narrowly rOll will sec that , 38 AZURARA'S CIl RQN ICLE OF TH E they arc moving." And the captain ordered the boats to stop still a littie, whereat the Moors concluded that they were discuvered, and forthwi th they discovered themselves to the number of fifty men, apparelled for fighting, though with no other anTIS than lances. A nd when all had thus come forth, l\lafaldo made his boats approach near to the shore, a t which the Moors showed great pleasure, some wading into the water as high as their necks, and others lower, all of them desirous to get at the Christians. And when Mafaldo Stili' them thus on the beach, displaying a countenance of such hardihood, he signed to the other boats to draw ncar to him: and when they were all together he made them stop rowing, and began to 5peak to them in this wi~e: .. Friends, you knoll' the end for which we came forth from our coun try; how it was for the s("rvice of God, and of the Infant our lord, and for the honour and profit o f ourselvcs, wherein by the grace of that great Lord who created all things, we have had a good enough profit o f our booty without any danger to ourselves; yet all our honour i~ in being 500 leagues from our country in unknown lands. increa,;ing our past yictories with new ad\·cmures. And ::; incc God knoweth 0111' good wills, He hath appointed us a place and time in the which we may gain an honourable victory; for yOll sec before you those l\Ioors with such pride, as if they held us in siege with great advantage to themselves and without hope of succour, provoking us, like men secure of \'ictory over things already vanquished . . \nd although they arc more in number than we by a third, yet they arc but l\ioors, aud we are Christians. one of whom ought to suffice fo r t\\'o of them. For God is He in whose pOll'er lieth victory. and He knoweth our good wills in J Ils holy service. But if we do not join battle with them it would be to our greatdbhollou r, and we should make them full of cOllrage against allY others of our Law. Wherefore my counsel is, that the boats should all three DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF GUINEA. 139 togcther row ~traight among them, and then that each one should do the bc~t he can." "'·our purpose," said thc other~," is good enough and full of profit, but what are we to do if many more of their peoplc arc lying hidden? For ju~t as these lI'ere lying in wait, so thcre may now be ambu~hcd a much greater number of them unknown to us, and if thcre is a snare laid and we land, our perdition is assured." Others did not ~eek to correct these matters, but began to complain, saying that if they were always to reason thus, they would never do a single brave deed. " Is it right," said they, "to sec our honour before our eyes, and to leave the matter thus through fcar of a hap so doubtful? ,\11 the men oppo~cd t'.l us are not sufficicnt to withstand Icn of ours in a fight. For thc)' arc but a handful of !'Iloorish knavcs, who havc nc\'er learnt to fight except like beasts, and the first man to be wounded among them will frighten all the others, so that they will not know how to face our arms any longer. Bold indeed would be the men that havc their armcd ships in the Strait of Ceuta, and th rough all the Levant Sea, if they were to dread such a hostile gathering as this." These last reasons were Ildl in accord with the will of the captain, and those that spake them wcre much praiscd of him. \\'hereforc he commanded that in each boat three men ~hould place themsekes in the prow with lances and shields to protect themselves and those that rowed, if perchance they "hould be shot at by the i\loors j and as soon as they should have rowed thc boats ashore, these men were to leap ou t at unce with their weapons. And he commanded the cross- boll' men to keep their cross-bows charged, ordering their ~hOb in 5uch wise that their bolts should be emplo)'cd to the best advantage. And after this hc had the boats rowed as vigorousl)' as possible, tellillg them to go boll' forward among the !'Iloors as had been before determined; the which matter was straightway put in actioll, and all AZURARA'~ CHRON ICtE OF TilE shouting with a loud voice, "St. George," "St. J ames," " Portugal," leapt out upon them as men who fearcd little the valour of their enemies. And as if in a matter which God Himself willed to ordain, the ~ roors at the first onset at once discharged their anTIS, from which no Christian received any dangerous hurt; but. on the contrary, they pro\'ed of llse lat er on, for our men possessed themselves of these arms and llsed them as if they had been their own. CHAi'TER XLVI. Of the baule that ther had, and of the ;\[oor5 that they took. \\'11£:\ the :'l oors had lost their arms the Christians con- sidercd the vi ctory as \\'on, a nd began to strike their enemies \"cry brbkly like men burning with the first wrath,· and when some had fallen dead upon the ground, the o thel'S began to fly. And you can imagine what haste the}' 'I'ould be in ; but al though the swiftness of the tll'O p;lrties \\"a~ unequal by reason of the arms that our men carried , and although tllC)' were not so used to running. ret the lI"ill, that often iTlcrea~eth the power,t made them eq ual to their enemy, so that four or fi\e of those ;\loor5 became utterly wear)", and when our men came up with them they sought the last remedy for their safety, and they threw thcm~eh'es on the ground as though they besought mercy . . \nd this they obtained, more c~pecially becau~e if our men had killed tllem the profit would not have been so g reat. .. \nd tlLOse in front awaiting the other~, who were coming on behind, spake with them, saying that it would be well ne\'erthe1cs~ to folloll' up those :'Ioors; for it cou ld not be but that they had wives and children thereabouts ; and that • Of battle. t Of combatants. DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF GUINEA. 141 their journey should not be towards an}' othe r part except where thc)' had left them; for thou gh thcy were wearied thcy could not be so weary but that if they could catch ~ight of those women and children they would take a great part of them. And so, leaving some to guard those captives, they went fOlward, quickening their forces as much as possible. And the ]\"iONS, beforc they arrived at their habitation, began to givc tongtle, though they were wearied, as men who called or warned other people whom they perceived to be near them, and this made the Christians percei\'e that their lodgment could not be far off. For that cry of theirs was nothing else but their warning of their wh'es and sons, that they might be able to place themselves in safety before they reached them. And at their crics the women came out of the settlement, and because the land is \·ery !lat they sa\\" how swiftly their hu~bands were hastening along, folloll"ed br our men. For which reason all of thcm began to take up their children on their necks, and others in their arms, and others before them, guiding them so as best to escape; and ~o flying, each their own wa)" through that plain, the (hrh,tians caught sight of them and thcir children, which wa'i the principal part of their sati .. faction. And they waxed bold in hope that their strength 1I"0uld not diminish or prevent their following up the pursuit; and though they were already weary enough, they nOli" quickened their pace like men who desired to come where their lI"ills led them. But since the distance was great and the), were already n·r)· much weakened, the Moorish women also ha\·ing but fre~hl)' ,tart ed, the}' were not able to folloll" \'ery far: so that after taking a few thc)" could not go forward an}' more; nay, it was needful for them to await the other:> who \lere coming behind, and tell them of their weakness, which had rcached such a point that they fdt without the strength so much as to return. \\·herefore they Ai'.UIl,' I(A'~ ("III(f/NrC'/. 1 0 1" Ti l l' dcridt'd II) I tll"11 had!, ~t'(' iTl f{ th,lt they COIII,I (10 no In OI"C; bil l fir~l of all t hey to