The Life of Columbus | Page 5

to the last four hundred years. The idea of the universality of the Roman dominion shrinks a little; and we begin to think that Ovid might have escaped his tyrant.[3] The ascertained confines of the world were now, however, to be more than doubled in the course of one century; and to Prince Henry of Portugal, as the first promoter of these vast discoveries, our attention must be directed.
[Footnote 3: But the empire of the Romans filled the world; and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag the gilded chain in Rome and his senate, or to wear out a life of exile on the barren rocks of Seriphus, or the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, vol. i. p. 97, Oxford Edition.]
[Illustration: Contemporary map of the world.]
[Illustration: 1490 map of the world includes only Europe, Asia and the northern 1/4 of Africa. Excludes the Americas, Greenland, and Australia.]
PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL; HIS MOTIVES FOR DISCOVERY.
This prince was born in 1394. He was the third son of John the First of Portugal and Philippa, the daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. That good Plantagenet blood on the mother's side was, doubtless, not without avail to a man whose life was to be spent in continuous and insatiate efforts to work out a great idea. Prince Henry was with his father at the memorable capture of Ceuta, the ancient Seplem, in the year 1415. This town, which lies opposite to Gibraltar, was of great magnificence, and one of the principal marts in that age for the productions of the eastern world. It was here that the Portuguese first planted a firm foot in Africa; and the date of this town's capture may, perhaps, be taken as that from which Prince Henry began to meditate further and far greater conquests. His aims, however, were directed to a point long beyond the range of the mere conquering soldier. He was especially learned, for that age of the world, being skilled in mathematical and geographical knowledge. He eagerly acquired from Moors of Fez and Morocco, such scanty information as could be gathered concerning the remote districts of Africa. The shrewd conjectures of learned men, the confused records of Arabic geographers, the fables of chivalry, were not without their influence upon an enthusiastic mind. The especial reason which impelled the prince to take the burden of discovery on himself was that neither mariner nor merchant would be likely to adopt an enterprise in which there was no clear hope of profit. It belonged, therefore, to great men and princes; and amongst such, he knew of no one but himself who was inclined to it. This is not an uncommon motive. A man sees something that ought to be done, knows of no one that will do it but himself, and so is driven to the enterprise even should it be repugnant to him.
[Illustration: MAP OF WESTERN AFRICAN COAST.]
IMPORTANT EXPEDITION
Prince Henry, then, having once the well-grounded idea in his mind that Africa did not end, according to the common belief, at Cape Nam [Portuguese for "not"], but that there was a region beyond that forbidding negative, seems never to have rested until he had made known that quarter of the world to his own. He fixed his abode upon the promontory of Sagres, at the southern part of Portugal, whence, for many a year, he could watch for the rising specks of white sail bringing back his captains to tell him of new countries and new men.
One night, in the year 1418, he is thought to have had a dream of promise, for on the ensuing morning he suddenly ordered two vessels to be got ready forthwith, and placed them under the command of two gentlemen of his household, Zarco and Vaz, whom he directed to proceed down the Barbary coast on a voyage of discovery. A contemporary chronicler, Azurara, tells the story more simply, and merely states that these captains were young men, who, after the ending of the Ceuta campaign, were as eager for employment as the prince for discovery; and that they were ordered on a voyage having for its object the general molestation of the Moors as well as the prosecution of discoveries beyond Cape Nam.
DISCOVERY OF PORTO SANTO.
The Portuguese mariners had a proverb about the Cape, "He who would pass Cape Not either