The Life of Columbus | Page 5

a scimetar shape of it, by running a slightly curved line from Juba on
the eastern side to Cape Nam on the western. Declare all below that
line unknown. Hitherto, we have only been doing the work of
destruction; but now scatter emblems of hippogriffs and anthropophagi
on the outskirts of what is left on the map, obeying a maxim, not
confined to the ancient geographers only: "Where you know nothing,
place terrors." Looking at the map thus completed, we can hardly help
thinking to ourselves, with a smile, what a small space, comparatively
speaking, the known history of the world has been transacted in, up 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