The Life of Columbus | Page 7

justify
their fears.
This outstretcher (for such is the meaning of the word Bojador) was
therefore as a bar drawn across that advance in maritime discovery,
which had for so long a time been the first object of Prince Henry's life.
POPULAR OBJECTIONS.
For twelve years the prince had been sending forth ships and men, with
little approbation from the public--the discovery of Madeira and Porto
Santo serving to whet his appetite for further enterprise, but not
winning the common voice in favour of his projects. The people at
home, improving upon the reports of the sailors, said that "the land
which the prince sought after was merely some sandy place like the

deserts of Libya; that princes had possessed the empire of the world,
and yet had not undertaken such designs as his, nor shown such anxiety
to find new kingdoms; that the men who arrived in those foreign parts
(if they did arrive) turned from white into black men; that the king, Don
John, the prince's father, had endowed foreigners with land in his
kingdom, to break it up and cultivate it, a thing very different from
taking the people out of Portugal, which had need of them, to bring
them amongst savages to be eaten and to place them upon lands of
which the mother country had no need; that the Author of the world
had provided these islands solely for the habitation of wild beasts, of
which an additional proof was that those rabbits which the discoverers
themselves had introduced were now dispossessing them of the island."
There is much here of the usual captiousness [Transcriber's note:
Finding trivial faults.] to be found in the criticism of bystanders upon
action, mixed with a great deal of false assertion and assumed
knowledge of the ways of Providence. Still, it were to be wished that
most criticism upon action was as wise; for that part of the common
talk which spoke of keeping their own population to bring out their
own resources, had a wisdom in it which the men of future centuries
were yet to discover throughout the Peninsula.
MISGIVINGS OF PRINCE HENRY; GIL EANNES.
Prince Henry, as may be seen by his perseverance up to this time, was
not a man to have his purposes diverted by such criticism, much of
which must have been, in his eyes, worthless and inconsequent in the
extreme. Nevertheless, he had his own misgivings. His captains came
back one after another, with no good tidings of discovery, but with
petty plunder gained as they returned from incursions on the Moorish
coast. The prince concealed from them his chagrin at the fruitless
nature of their attempts, but probably did not feel it less on that account.
He began to think, was it for him to hope to discover that land which
had been hidden from so many princes? Still he felt within himself the
incitement of "a virtuous obstinacy," which would not let him rest.
Would it not, he thought, be ingratitude to God, who thus moved his
mind to these attempts, if he were to desist from his work, or be

negligent in it? He resolved, therefore, to send out again Gil Eannes,
one of his household, who had been sent the year before, but had
returned, like the rest, having discovered nothing. He had been driven
to the Canary Islands, and had seized upon some of the natives there,
whom he brought back. With this transaction the prince had shown
himself dissatisfied; and Gil Eannes, now entrusted again with
command, resolved to meet all dangers, rather than to disappoint the
wishes of his master. Before his departure, the prince called him aside
and said, "You cannot meet with such peril that the hope of your
reward shall not be much greater; and, in truth, I wonder what
imagination this is that you have all taken up--in a matter, too, of so
little certainty; for if these things which are reported have any authority,
however little, I would not blame you so much. But you quote to me
the opinions of four mariners, who, as they were driven out of their way
to Frandes or to some other ports to which they commonly navigated,
had not, and could not have used, the needle and the chart: but do you
go, however, and make your voyage without regard to their opinion,
and, by the grace of God, you will not bring out of it anything but
honour and profit."
GIL EANNES' SUCCESSFUL VOYAGE.
We may well imagine that these stirring words of the prince must have
confirmed Gil Eannes in his resolve to efface the stain of his former
misadventure. And he succeeded in doing so; for he passed the dreaded
Cape Bojador--a great event in the history of African discovery, and
one