GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA;
NOW FIRST DONE INTO ENGLISH
BY
CHARLES RAYMOND BEAZLEY, M.A., F.R.G.S.,
fellow of merton college, oxford; corresponding member
of the lisbon geographical society;
and
EDGAR PRESTAGE, B.A.Oxon.,
knight of the most noble portuguese order of s. thiago; corresponding
member of the lisbon royal academy of sciences,
the lisbon geographical society, etc.
VOL. II.
(CHAPTERS XLI-XCVII).
With an Introduction on the
Early History of African Exploration, Cartography, etc.
BURT FRANKLIN, PUBLISHER
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Published by
BURT FRANKLIN
514 West 113th Street
New York 25, N. Y.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY
REPRINTED BY PERMISSION
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
COUNCIL
OF
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B., F.R.S., Pres. R.G.S., President.
The Right Hon. The Lord Stanley of Alderley, Vice-President.
Rear-Admiral Sir William Wharton, K.C.B., Vice-President.
C. Raymond Beazley, Esq., M.A.
Colonel G. Earl Church.
Sir Martin Conway.
Albert Gray, Esq.
F. H. H. Guillemard, Esq., M.A., M.D.
The Right Hon. Lord Hawkesbury.
Edward Heawood, Esq., M.A.
Dudley F. A. Hervey, Esq., C.M.G.
Admiral Sir Anthony H. Hoskins, G.C.B.
J. Scott Keltie, Esq., LL.D.
F. W. Lucas, Esq.
Vice-Admiral Albert H. Markham.
E. J. Payne, Esq.
Sir Cuthbert E. Peek, Bart.
E. G. Ravenstein, Esq.
Howard Saunders, Esq.
Charles Welch, Esq., F.S.A.
William Foster, Esq., B.A., Honorary Secretary.
PREFATORY NOTE.
This Volume continues and ends the present Edition of the Chronicle of Guinea, the first part of which was published in 1896 (vol. xcv of the Hakluyt Society's publications). Here we have again to acknowledge the kind advice and help of various friends, particularly of Senhor Batalhaȧ Reis and Mr. William Foster. As to the Maps which accompany this volume: the sections of Andrea Bianco, 1448, and of Fra Mauro, 1457-9, here given, offer some of the best examples of the cartography of Prince Henry's later years in relation to West Africa. These ancient examples are supplemented by a new sketch-map of the discoveries made by the Portuguese seamen during the Infant's lifetime along the coast of the Dark Continent. The excellent photograph of Prince Henry's statue from the great gateway at Belem is the work of Senhor Camacho. As to the Introduction and Notes, it is hoped that attention has been given to everything really important for the understanding of Azurara's text; but the Editors have avoided such treatment as belongs properly to a detailed history of geographical advance during this period.
C. R. B.
E. P.
April 1899.
INTRODUCTION.
n this it may be well to summarise briefly, for the better illustration of the Chronicle here translated, not only the life of Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed the Navigator, but also various questions suggested by Prince Henry's work, e.g.āThe history of the Voyages along the West African coast and among the Atlantic islands, encouraged by him and recorded by Azurara; The History of the other voyages of Prince Henry's captains, not recorded by Azurara; The attempts of navigators before Prince Henry, especially in the fourteenth century, to find a way along West Africa to the Indies; The parallel enterprises by land from the Barbary States to the Sudan, across the Sahara; The comparative strength of Islam and Christianity in the Africa of Prince Henry's time; The State of Cartographical Knowledge in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and its relation to the new Portuguese discoveries; The question of the "School of Sagres," said to have been instituted by the Navigator for the better training of mariners and map-makers.
I.āThe Life of Prince Henry.
Henry, Duke of Viseu, third[[1]] son of King John I of Portugal, surnamed the Great, founder of the House of Aviz, and of Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt and niece of King Edward III of England, was born on March 4th, 1394.
We are told by Diego Gomez,[[2]] who in 1458 sailed to the West Coast of Africa in the service of Prince Henry, and made a discovery of the Cape Verde islands, that in 1415 John de Trasto was sent by the Prince on a voyage of exploration, and reached "Telli," the "fruitful" district of Grand Canary. Gomez here gives us the earliest date assigned by any authority of the fifteenth century for an expedition of the Infant's; but in later times other statements were put forward, assigning 1412 or even 1410 as the commencement of his exploring activity. This would take us back to a time when the Prince was but sixteen or eighteen years old; and though it is probable enough that Portuguese vessels may have sailed out at 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 expedition of 1415. In any case, it is practically certain that before 1434, no Portuguese ship had passed beyond Cape Bojador. Gil Eannes' achievement of that year is marked by Azurara and all our best authorities as a decided advance on any previous voyage, at least of Portuguese mariners. We shall consider presently how far this advance was anticipated by other nations, and more particularly by the French. Cape Non, now claimed by some as the southernmost point of Marocco, had been certainly passed by Catalan and other ships[[3]] before Prince Henry's day; but it had not been forgotten how rhyme and legend had long consecrated this point as a fated end of the world. Probably it was still (c. 1415) believed by many in Portugalā
"Quem passar o Cabo de NĆ£o Ou tornarĆ”, ou nĆ£o."
and the Venetian explorer, Cadamosto, preserves a mention of its popular derivation in Southern Europe from the Latin "Non," "as beyond it was believed there was no return possible." The real form was probably the Arabic Nun or "Fish."[[4]]
Prince Henry's active share in the work of exploration is usually dated only from the Conquest of Ceuta. Here we are told in one of our earliest authorities (Diego Gomez) he gained information, from Moorish prisoners, merchants, and other acquaintance "of the passage of traders from the coasts of Tunis to Timbuktu and to Cantor on the Gambia, which led him to seek those lands by the way of the sea;" and, to come to details, he was among other things, "told of certain tall palms growing at the mouth of the Senegal [or Western Nile], by which he was able to guide the caravels he sent out to find that river." It will be important hereafter to examine the evidence which had been accumulated for such belief up to the fifteenth century: now it will be enough to say: 1. That Prince Henry was probably of the same opinion as the ordinary cartographer of his time about the peninsular shape of Africa. 2. That the "shape" in question was usually satisfied with what we should now call the Northern half of the Continent, making the Southern coast of "Guinea" continue directly to the Eastern, Abyssinian, or Indian Ocean. 3. That trade had now (c. 1415) been long maintained between this "Guinea coast" and the Mediterranean seaboardāchiefly by Moorish caravans across the Sahara. 4. That something, though little, was known in Western Christendom about the Christian faith and king of Abyssinia; for "Prester John's" story in the fifteenth century had really become a blend of rumours from Central (Nestorian) Asia and Eastern (Abyssinian) Africa.
In Prince Henry's work we may distinguish three main objectsāscientific, patriotic, and religious. First of all he was a discoverer, for the sake of the new knowledge then beginning. He was interested in the exploration of the world in general, and of the sea-route round Africa to India in particular. Dinis Diaz, returning from his discovery of Cape Verde (Az., ch. xxxi.), brought home a "booty not so great as had arrived in the past," but "the Infant thought it very great indeed, since it came from that land", and he proportioned his rewards to exploration rather than to trade profits. Nuno Tristam in 1441 (Az., ch. xiii.) reminds Antam GonƧalvez that "for 15 years" the Infant has "striven ... to arrive at ... certainty as to the people of this land, under what law or lordship they do live."
Azurara, though always more prone to emphasize the emotional than the scientific, himself assigns as the first reason for the Infant's discoveries, his "wish to know the land that lay beyond the isles of Canary and that cape called Bojador, for that up to his time, neither by writings nor by the memory of man, was known with any certainty the nature of the land" (Az., ch. vii.).
Again, Henry was founding upon his work of exploration an over-sea dominion, a "commercial and colonial" empire for his country. He desired to see her rich and prosperous, and there cannot be any reasonable doubt that his ideas agreed with those of Italian land and sea travellers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He and they were agreed in thinking it possible and very important to secure a large share of Asiatic, especially of Indian, trade for their respective countries. By exploring and making practicable the maritime route around Africa to the Indies, he would probably raise Portugal into the wealthiest of European nations. Azurara's "second reason" for the "search after Guinea" is that "many kinds of merchandise might be brought to this realm ... and also the products of this realm might be taken there, which traffic would bring great profit to our countrymen."
Thirdly, Prince Henry had the temperament of a Crusader and a missionary. Of him, fully as much as of Columbus, it may be said that if he aimed at empire, it was for the extension of Christendom. Azurara's three final reasons for Henry's explorations all turn upon this. The Prince desired to find out the full strength of the Moors in Africa, "said to be very much greater than commonly supposed," "because every wise man" desires "a knowledge of the power of his enemy." He also "sought to know if there were in those parts any Christian princes" who would aid him against the enemies of the faith. And, lastly, he desired to "make increase in the faith of Jesus Christ, and to bring to Him all the souls that should be saved."
It has often been pointed out how the Infant was aided in his work by the tendencies of his time and country; how in him the spirit of mediƦval faith and the spirit of material, even of commercial, ambition, were united; how he was the central representative of a general expansive and exploring movement; and how he took up and carried on the labours of various predecessors. At the same time it must be recognised that his work forms an epoch in the history of geographical, commercial, and colonial advance; that he gave a permanence and a vitality to the cause of maritime discovery which it had never possessed before; that even his rediscoveries of islands and mainland frequently had all the meaning and importance of fresh achievements; that he made his nation the pioneer of Europe in its conquest of the outer world; and that without him the results of the great forty years (1480-1520) of Diaz, Columbus, Da Gama, and Magellan must have been long, might have been indefinitely, postponed.
Barros (Decade I, i, 2) tells us a story, probable enough, about the inception of the Infant's plans of discovery. He relates how one night, after much meditation, he lay sleepless upon his bed, thinking over his schemes, till at last, as if seized with a sudden access of fury, he leapt up, called his servants, and ordered some of his barcas to be immediately made ready for a voyage to the south along the coast of Marocco. His court was astonished, and attributed this outburst to a divine revelation. It was natural enoughāthe resolution of a man, weary with profound and anxious thought, to take some sort of decisive action, to embark without further delay on the realisation 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 he returned to Portugal; was created Duke of Viseu and Lord of Covilham (1415), having already received his knighthood at "Septa"; and began to send out regular exploring ventures down the West Coast of Africaā"two or three ships" every year beyond Cape Non, Nun, or Nam. In 1418 he successfully went to the help of the Governor of Ceuta against the Moors of Marocco and Granada.[[5]] On this second return from Africa, when in 1419 he was created Governor of the Algarve or southmost province of Portugal, he is supposed by some to have taken up his residence at Sagres,[[6]] near Cape St. Vincent, and to have begun the establishment of a school of cartography and navigation there. All this, however, is disputed by others, as is the tradition of his having established Chairs of Mathematics and Theology at Lisbon.[[7]]
In 1418-20, however, his captains, JoĆ£o GonƧalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz Teixeira, certainly re-discovered Porto Santo and Madeira.[[8]] In 1427, King John and Prince Henry seem to have sent the royal pilot, Diego de Sevill, to make new discoveries in the Azores; and, in 1431-2, GonƧalo Velho Cabral made further explorations among the same; but the completer opening up and settlement of the Archipelago was the work of later years, especially of 1439-66. We shall return to this matter in a special discussion of Prince Henry's work among the Atlantic islands. To the same we must refer the traditional purchase of the Canaries in 1424-5 and the settlement of Madeira in the same year,[[9]] confirmed by charters of 1430 and 1433. King John, on his death-bed, is said to have exhorted Henry to persevere in his schemes, which he was at this very time pursuing by means of a fresh expedition to round Cape Bojador, under Gil Eannes (1433). Azurara from this point becomes our chief authority down to the year 1448, and this and the subsequent voyages are fully described in his pages. Gil Eannes, unsuccessful in 1433,[[10]] under the stimulus of the Infant's reproaches and appeals passed Cape Bojador in 1434;[[11]] and next summer (1435) the Portuguese reached the Angra dos Ruyvos (Gurnet Bay), 150 miles beyond Bojador, and the Rio do Ouro, 240 miles to the south. Early in 1436 the "Port of Gallee," a little North of C. Branco (Blanco), was discovered by Baldaya, but as yet no natives were found; no captives, gold dust, or other products brought home. Exploration along the African mainland languished from this year till 1441;[[12]] but in 1437 the Prince took part in the fatal attack on Tangier, and in 1438 the death of King Edward caused a dispute over the question of the Regency during the minority of his young son Affonso. Throughout these internal troubles Henry played an important part, successfully supporting the claims of his brother Pedro against the Queen-mother, Leonor of Aragon. All this caused a break of three or four years in the progress of his discoveries; but the colonisation of the Azores went forward, as is shown by the license of July 2, 1439, from Affonso V, to people "the seven islands" of the group, then known.
In 1441[[13]] exploration began again in earnest with the voyage of Antam GonƧalvez, who brought to Portugal the first native "specimens"ācaptives and gold dustāfrom the coasts beyond Bojador; while Nuno Tristam in the same year pushed on to Cape Blanco. These decisive successes greatly strengthened the cause of discovery in Portugal, especially by offering fresh hopes of mercantile profit. In 1442 Nuno Tristam reached the Bight or Bay of Arguim,[[14]] where the Infant erected a fort in 1448, and where for some years the Portuguese made their most vigorous and successful slave-raids. Private venturers now began to come forward, supplementing Prince Henry's efforts by volunteer aid, for which his permission[[15]] was readily granted. Especially the merchants and seamen of Lisbon and of Lagos, close to Sagres, showed interest in this direction. Whatever doubts exist as to the earlier alleged settlement of the Infant at Cape St. Vincent, it is certain that after his return from Tangier (1437) he erected various buildings[[16]] at Sagres, and resided there during a considerable part of his later life. This fact is to be connected with the new African developments at Lagos.[[17]]
In 1444 and 1445 a number of ships sailed with Henry's license to "Guinea," and several of their commanders achieved notable successes. Thus Dinis Diaz, Nuno Tristam, and others reached the Senegal. Diaz rounded Cape Verde in 1445,[[18]] and in 1446 Alvaro Fernandez sailed on as far as the River Gambia (?) and the Cape of Masts (Cabo dos Mastos). In 1445, also, JoĆ£o Fernandez spent seven months among the natives of the Arguim coast, and brought back the first trustworthy account of a part of the interior. GonƧalo de Sintra and GonƧalo Pacheco, in 1445, and Nuno Tristam in 1446,[[19]] fell victims to the hostility of the Moors and Negroes, who, perhaps, felt some natural resentment against their new visitors. For, in Azurara's estimate, the Portuguese up to the year 1446 had carried off 927 captives from these parts; and the disposition and conversion of these prisoners occupied a good portion of the Infant's time. He probably relied on finding efficient material among these slaves for the further exploration and Christianization of the Coast, and even of the Upland. We know that he used some of them as guides and interpreters.[[20]]
One of the latest voyages recorded by Azurara is that of "Vallarte the Dane" (1448), which ended in utter destruction near the Gambia, after passing Cape Verde. The chronicler, though writing in 1453, does not continue his record beyond this year, 1448; his promise to give us the remainder of the Infant's achievements in a second chronicle seems never to have been fulfilled; and his descriptions of Madeira and the Canaries, in the latter part of the Chronicle of Guinea, are unfortunately of only slight value for the history of discovery. Yet, before the Prince's death in 1460[[21]] and in the last six years of his life, several voyages of some importance prove that Azurara's silence is merely accidental. Cadamosto's two journeys of 1455-6, and Diego Gomez' ventures of 1458-60, advanced West African discovery almost to Sierra Leone. The former, a Venetian seaman in the service of Prince Henry, also explored part of the courses of the Senegal and the Gambia and gained much information about the native tribes. One of his chief exploits, an alleged discovery of the Cape Verde islands, has been disputed in the name of Diego Gomez, who in 1458-60 twice sailed to Guinea, and on the second voyage "sighted islands in the Ocean, to which no man had come before." We postpone this point for further examination, only adding that we believe Cadamosto's prior claim to be sound, although the islands in question do not appear in any document before 1460.
Meanwhile the Prince, when his explorations (from 1441) first began to promise important results, obtained from Pope Eugenius IV a plenary indulgence to those who shared in the war against the Moors consequent on the new discoveries,[[22]] and from the Regent D. Pedro he also gained a donation of the Royal Fifth on the profits accruing from the new lands, as well as the sole right of permitting voyages to these parts. The Infant's work, was moreover, recognised in bulls of Nicholas V (1455) and of Calixtus III (March 13th, 1456). In earlier lifeāapparently soon after the capture of Ceuta and the embassy of Manuel PalƦologus asking for help against the Turksāhe had been invited, Azurara tells us, by a predecessor[[23]] of the Pontiffs above-named to take command of the "Apostolic armies," and similar invitations reached him from the Emperor of Germany,[[24]] the King of England (Henry V or VI)[[25]] and the King of Castille.[[26]] We may also briefly notice in this place, referring to a later page for a more detailed treatment of the subject, that the Infant, in 1445 and 1446, repeated his earlier attempts (in 1424 and 1425) to secure the Canaries for Portugal, both by means of purchase and of armed force; and that, from 1444-5 especially, he colonised, as well as discovered, and traded with increased energy in the Madeira Group, the Azores, and (if his experiment at Arguim in 1448 may stand as an example) even on the mainland coast of Africa.
The Infant's share in home politics was considerable, but this is not the place to discuss it at any length. It is probably a correct surmise that his ultimate ambition on this side was to detach Portugal as far as possible from Spain and Peninsular interests, and by making her a world-power at and over sea, to give her that importance she could never of herself acquire in strictly European politics. We have already noticed that after the victory of Ceuta he seems to have been made Governor for life of the Algarve province[[27]] of Portugal, by his father King John (1419); that he was a leading promoter of the scheme for the Tangier campaign of 1437;[[28]] and that after the death of his brother King Edward (Duarte), the successor of King John (September, 1438), he supported the claims of his eldest surviving brother, Pedro, as regent and guardian of the young Affonso V, and by his wise counsels effected a reconciliation with Affonso's mother Leonor, acting for a time as partner in a Council of Regency with Pedro and the Queen. Further, it must be said that, in 1447, when a long succession of differences between D. Pedro and his royal ward ended in an armed rising of the former against "evil Counsellors," Henry stood by the Sovereign, and took, if not an active, at least a passive part in overthrowing the insurrection, which was ended by the battle of Alfarrobeira (May 21st, 1449). Finally, it is recorded that "the Navigator" somewhat recovered the military honour he had compromised at Tangier, by his successes in the African expeditions of Affonso V, especially at the capture of Alcacer the Little in 1458; in this last year he received his Sovereign in due form at or near Sagres, before sailing for "Barbary." His traditional but on the whole credible work as Protector of the Studies of Portugal has been alluded to already, in connection with his alleged foundation of professorships of mathematics and theology in the University of Lisbon, and of a school of nautical instruction and of cosmography at Sagres. This point, however, will be reconsidered in a following section.[[29]]
It is perhaps in his connection with the fall of D. Pedro that the severest criticism has been passed upon Henry the Navigator. "Genius is pitiless" it has been said; and the action of the younger brother has been blamed as a piece of ruthlessness and ingratitude, though extolled by Azurara as a proof of loyalty under temptation. It may have seemed to him impossible to support any rebellion, however justified, against royal authority, or even to take the position of a neutral, when the central government of his country was on its trial. Our sympathies are usually with Pedro, as the most wise, liberal, and learned of his peopleāwith one exceptionāand as the victim of the intrigues of courtiers, especially of King John's bastard son, the Count of Barcellos and Duke of Braganza; but the Governor of Algarve parted for ever from his favourite brother when he took up arms to right himself; and perhaps he was not more wrong than the people of England in refusing to allow the nobles of the Tudor time to dictate to even the most despotic of our more modern English sovereigns.[[30]]
The Infant was, among his other dignities, Master of the Order of Christ, which, as the direct successor of the Templars in Portugal, held a very high rank, and was, by its "artificial ancestry," as Hobbes would have said, one of the most ancient Orders in Christendom. Henry's father, King John, had been also at one time Head of an Order of Chivalry, the Knights of Aviz; but on coming to the throne he had obtained a dispensation from his vow of celibacy as Master, a dispensation which his son never required. The banner of this Order seems to have floated over most if not all of Prince Henry's African expeditions; in its name he required the aid of Pope Eugenius IV; its special dutyāmilitary order as it was in origināshould have been to spread the Christian faith in Moslem and heathen Africa: perhaps its work was considered to extend only to the slaying of Moslems, or Moormen, and the bringing back to Europe of heathen Africans who could be reared as Christians in Portugal. No mission to preach the faith seems to have been undertaken by the Fraternity. Upon this Order the Prince bestowed the tithes of the Island of St. Michael in the Azores, and one half of its sugar revenues; also the tithe (afterwards reduced to the twentieth) of all merchandise from Guinea, as well as the ecclesiastical dues of Porto Santo, Madeira, and the Desertas. The Prince's nephew, D. Fernando, succeeded him (in 1460) in the Mastership of the Order of Christ.[[31]]
It has sometimes been said that the Infant Henry was also titular King of Cyprus. This assertion is derived from Fr. Luiz de Souza (Historia de S. Domingos, Bk. VI., fol. 331) and JosĆ© Suares de Silva (Memoirs of King JoĆ£o I.), who tell us that the Prince was elected King of Cyprus. But this "Kingdom" remained in the posterity of Guy de Lusignan till 1487; and the mistake has probably arisen from a confusion of Henry, Prince of Galilee, son of James I., King of Cyprus, with Prince Henry of Portugal.[[32]]
In prosecuting his explorations, Prince Henry incurred heavy expenses. His own revenues were not sufficient, and he was obliged to borrow largely. Thus, in 1448, he owed his bastard half-brother, the Duke of Braganza, 19394Ā½ crowns of gold, to pay which he had pledged his lands and goods; and this debt was afterwards increased by 16084 crowns, as stated in the declaration of the Duke of Braganza, November 8, 1449, and in the will of the same nobleman. These debts were partly paid by his nephew and adopted son, D. Fernando, and partly by Fernando's son, D. Manuel.
[1] Fifth, counting two children who died in infancy.
[2] As repeated by Martin Behaim (see Major, Henry Navigator, pp. 64, 65). Gomez was Almoxarife, or superintendent, of the Palace of Cintra.
[3] Some of which had reached at least as far as Cape Bojador, as depicted on the Catalan Map of 1375.
[4] So Zul-nun, Lord of the Fish, is a term for the prophet Jonah (see Burton, Camoƫns, iii, p. 246).
[5] On this occasion he planned, but did not attempt, the seizure of Gibraltar.
[6] Sagres, from "Sacrum Promontorium," the ordinary name of Cape St. Vincent in the later classical Geography; "Ć 91 Kilom. Ouest de Faro,... sur un cap, Ć 4,500 metres E.S.E. du Cap St. Vincent" (Viv. St. Martin). The harbour is sandy, protected from the N.-W. winds. A Druid temple stood there, and the Iberians of the Roman time assembled there at night. It was a barren cape, its only natural vegetation a few junipers. O. Martins (Filhos de D. JoĆ£o I, p. 77), suggests that the name of Sagres did not come into ordinary use till after the Prince's death, 1460.
[7] In 1431 he is said to have purchased house-room for the University of Lisbon; on March 25th, 1448, to have established there a professorship 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 twelve marks in silver every Christmas from the tithes of the Island of Madeira (see Azurara, Guinea, c. v). As to the Chair of Mathematics, we only know that it existed in 1435; that the Infant was interested in this study; and that tradition connected him with a somewhat similar foundation at Sagres. The houses purchased in Lisbon for the University were bought of JoĆ£o Annes, the King's Armourer, for 400 crowns. Hence, according to some, came the Prince's title of "Protector of Portuguese Studies."
[8] O. Martins thinks these island discoveries were a surprise to Henry, who at first only contemplated discovery along the mainland coast South and East towards India. We do not believe in this limitation of view (see Barros, Dec. I, Lib. I, c. 2, 3).
The previous voyage of the Englishman Macham to the "Isle of Wood" ("Legname" on the fourteenth-century Portolani) is another controversial matter which must be taken separately.
[9] Zarco and Vaz became Captains Donatory or Feudal Under-lords of Madeira, as Bartholemew Perestrello (whose daughter Columbus married) of Porto Santo.
[10] It has been shewn, e.g., by the British Admiralty Surveys, that the old stories of dangerous reefs and currents at Bojador, "such as might well have frightened the boldest mariner of that time," are unfounded, like the old belief in strong Satanic influence at this point.
[11] 1432, according to Galvano (see Barros, I, i, 4).
[12] Till 1440, according to the opposition chronology of O. Martins.
[13] O. Martins dates Porto do Cavalleiro, 1440; C. Branco, 1442.
[14] Aliter, 1443 (Barros, I, i, 7) or 1444 (Galvano, who apparently dates the discovery of the Rio do Ouro 1443). See, in this connection, Affonso V's Charters of October 22, 1433, and February 3, 1446, granted to Prince Henry. In 1442 the Infant was created a Knight of the Garter of England. He was the 153rd Knight of the Order; and his collar descended, through many holders, to the late Earl of Clarendon.
[15] Necessary by decree of the Regent Pedro, for any "Guinea" or African voyage (Azurara, Guinea, ch. xv).
[16] Especially a palace, a church or chapel, and an observatory.
[17] Which seems to have shown the way, in this respect, to its greater sister, Lisbon.
[18] 1454 in O. Martins.
[19] 1447, according to Barros (I, i, 14) and Galvano.
[20] Cf. Azurara, Guinea, chs. xiii, xvi.
[21] Aliter 1462 or 1463 (Galvano and Barros, who also date the discovery of C. Verde and the Senegal by "Dinis Fernandez," 1446: Barros, I i, 9, 13); but this date is certainly incorrect.
[22] Barros and Galvano make Prince Henry obtain Indulgences from Pope Martin [V, who reigned 1417-31] in 1441-2, by the embassy of Fernam Lopez d'Azevedo (see p. xv).
[23] Martin V?
[24] Sigismund?
[25] Henry VI made the Infant a Knight of the Garter, and is more likely than the conquering Henry V to have asked a foreign Prince to aid him against the French.
[26] John II.
[27] Technically "kingdom."
[28] The "Marocco Campaigns" of 1418, 1437, 1458, etc., were apparently considered by Prince Henry as only another side of his coasting explorations and projected conquests. Having then no idea of the enormous southerly projection of Africa, he probably aspired to a Portuguese North African dominion, which should control the Continent. For Guinea, in the ideas of the time, was commonly supposed to be quite close to Marocco on the south-west and west. Apparently, soon after 1437, Henry was just starting on another Moorish expedition, when the King and Council "hindered the voyage" (see Az., ch. v, p. 20 of our version).
[29] "School of Sagres," etc.
[30] It has been suggested, e.g., by Sir C. Markham, that the portrait of the Infant in mourning dress prefixed to the Paris MS. of Azurara represents him immediately after the death of D. Pedro. It is perhaps more likely a mark of sorrow for D. Fernand, the Constant Prince, who died in his Moorish captivity, June 5th, 1443, and whose heart was conveyed to Portugal, June 1st, 1451, and buried at Batalha, Prince Henry joining the funeral procession at Thomar.
[31] Already, in 1451, Henry had designated him as his heir.
[32] Santarem corrects this; see note in Major's Henry Navigator, p. 306. So Azurara's allusion, "No other uncrowned prince in Europe had so noble a household,"āGuinea, ch. iv.
Voyages of Prince Henry's Seamen Along the West African Coast.
(Not recorded by Azurara.)
Prince Henry's work was, above all, justified by its permanence. Unlike earlier ancient and mediƦval attempts at West African exploration, his movement issued in complete success. Azurara gives us, no doubt, a fairly complete account of the earlier stages of that movement, but it is probable that even his record omits some of the ventures undertaken from Portugal along the West African mainland; while it is certain that we must look elsewhere for a completer picture of the Infant's activity among the Atlantic Islands and in the Great Ocean. These additional sources of information must be examined in turn. First of all, it will be advisable to finish the chronicle of West African coasting down to the Navigator's death. After that, the triumphant prosecution of this line of advance to the Cape of Good Hope will call for a brief notice. And, thirdly, something must be said about the progress of discovery and colonisation in the archipelagos of Madeira, the Canaries, the Azores, and the Cape Verdes, especially considered in relation to that Westward route to India which Columbus advocated and commenced.
It has already been stated that although Azurara's Chronicle officially ends in 1453, and appears to record nothing later than the events of 1448, yet very important expeditions were sent forth in the last years of the Prince's life, especially those of Cadamosto[[33]] and Diego Gomez. An attempt has been made to prove that the second voyage of Cadamosto, on which he claimed to have discovered the Cape Verde Islands, is untruly reported and may be dismissed as fabulous. But there seems no sufficient ground for this. "In an account of travels, printed long after its author's death, some contradictory statements, possibly arising through copyists' errors, do not justify such a conclusion." And the mistakes contained in the assailed narrative are not serious or unexplainable enough for rejecting it as a whole.[[34]] Luigi, Alvise, or Aloysius, da Ca da Mosto[[35]] was a young Venetian (a noble, according to some) who had embarked on August 8, 1454, with Marco Zeno on a commercial venture,[[36]] and was delayed by storm near Cape St. Vincent while on his voyage from Venice to Flanders. He now heard of the "glorious and boundless conquests" of Prince Henry, "whence accrued such gain that from no traffic in the world could the like be had. The which," continues the candid trader, "did exceedingly stir my soul, eager as it was for profit above all other things, and so I made suit to be brought before the Infant"āwho was then at the village of Reposeira, near Sagres. Cadamosto was easily persuaded to sail in the service of Portugal,[[37]] and set out, with Vicente Diaz, on March 22, 1455. He visited Porto Santo and Madeira, and at Cape Branco began a "peaceful exploration" of the interior, for the study of its natural conditions, inhabitants, trade, and so forth. Proceeding to the Senegal, he continued his investigations; which were extended to the Canaries as well as to Madeira. He notices the fort built by the Prince's orders in the Bight of Arguim (1448), and the new start lately made by Portuguese trade with the natives. This trade at Arguim had included nearly a thousand slaves a year, so that the Europeans, who used to plunder all this coast as far as the Senegal, now found it more profitable to trade. Slave-raiding among the Azanegue tribes north of the Senegal had ceased, "for the Prince will not allow any wrong-doing, being only eager that they should submit themselves to the law of Christ."[[38]] Before passing Cape Verde, Cadamosto met with two ships, one commanded by a Genoese, Antonio, or Antoniotto, surnamed Ususmaris or Uso di Mare,[[39]] the other by an unnamed Portuguese in Henry's service. The expeditions united and sailed on together to the Gambia, where they were unable to open intercourse with the natives, and so returned to Portugal. Cadamosto gives very full descriptions of the life, habits, government, trade, etc., of both the "Moors" (Azanegues) and Negroes (Jaloffs) of Guinea, which have been often noticed,[[40]] and sometimes paraphrased; and which show a great development of commercial interest and statesmanlike inquiry on anything recorded in Azurara. At his furthest point the explorer noticed that the North Star was so low that it appeared almost to touch the sea, and here he seems to have seen the Southern Cross.
In the next year, 1456, Cadamosto sailed out again with Antoniotto Uso di Mare, made straight for Cape Branco, and found, three days' sail from this point, "certain islands" off Cape Verde "where no one had been before."[[41]] The explorer then, in his own as well as in the official, "Ramusian," or Venetian, account, proceeded to the Gambia, opened trade successfully with the natives, and explored the coast "about 25 leagues" beyond this river as far as the Bissagos Islands, or some point of the mainland not far distant.
Cadamosto's account of his two voyages is rightly praised[[42]] as "detailed and vivid." He certainly compiled a map of his journeys, for in noticing the river Barbasini beyond Cape Verde, he says: "I have named it so on the Chart which I have made." The interesting suggestion, that some of Benincasa's portolanos (especially that of 1471) were based on Cadamosto's descriptions and plans of the West African shore-land, is hardly susceptible of proof, but it is not without some corroborative evidence, as may be seen elsewhere.[[43]] Also, "the journeys of this Marco Polo of West Africa were undertaken in a more scientific spirit, and were more free from chivalrous outrages," than most of those who preceded him along this coast.[[44]] This is not merely due to himself. It appears from his express statements that the Infant now discouraged slave-raiding, and urged his captains to something of higher value than seal and sea-calf hunting. The value of Cadamosto's work was mainly in his observations and descriptions. He advanced only a little way beyond some of the Prince's earlier explorers (e.g., Alvaro Fernandez), except for his discovery of the Cape Verde islands, but he seems to have named[[45]] and mapped out more carefully than before a good many points of the littoral beyond Cape Verde, and his writings surpass in geographical value anything to be found in Azurara. His notes are also of high value for ethnology and anthropology, and give a better account of the trade-routes, etc. of North-west Africa than any Christian writing of the time. Finally, he is more reliable than many subsequent and more pretentious travellers, and his narrative is as picturesque and effective as it is reliable. For "one inquisitive person shall bring home a better account of countries than twenty who come after him."
A little subsequent to what we may suppose was the second return of the Venetian adventurer from Africa, in 1456, the Infant sent out Diego Gomez with orders to "go as far as he could." The explorer passed a "great river beyond the Rio Grande," when strong currents in the sea alarmed him and caused him to put back. Like Cadamosto, however, he trafficked and conversed with the natives, especially of the Gambia, and gained some useful information about their trade, politics, and geography. Some of the facts he related about wars among the negro states of the interior were confirmed by a "merchant in Oran," who corresponded with the Prince.[[46]] As a result of Gomez' first voyage, the Infant seems to have sent out, in 1458, a mission to convert the negroes of the Gambia "with a priest, the Abbot of Soto de Cassa, and a young man of his household named John Delgado." Two years after this (i.e., in 1460) Gomez went out again. Near the Gambia he fell in with two shipsāone under GonƧalo Ferreira, of Oporto, who was trading in horses with the negroes for native produce; the other was 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 West African trade had now increased, and how many expeditions are incidentally 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. These were certainly the Cape Verde Islands of modern geography, which are first mentioned in documentary history in a Portuguese Decree of December 3rd, 1460. Gomez makes no reference to any previous visit or claim of a prior discovery of these islands, but that is natural enough.
Was such a previous visit made? Around this point, and the consequent prior claim of the Venetian, a long controversy has been waged, which is briefly discussed in the section of this Introduction on the "Atlantic Islands" (especially pp. xcii-xcvi).
The second voyage of Diego Gomez was probably among the last ventures of which the Prince received any account. He must have died soon after the second return of the explorer, who seems to have attended him in his last illness (13th November, 1460). But it is probable that before his end he had prepared for the expedition which Pedro de Sintra carried out in 1461, and which is described by Cadamosto, apparently before the close of 1463.
[33] 1507 (Vicenza) Edition, is the earliest text of Cadomosto's Voyages, printed in "Paesi novamente retrovati et novo mondo da Alberico Vesputio Florentino intitulato." This was republished at Milan in 1508; and in this year two versions appeared: 1. In Latin, by Madrignano, "Itinerarium Portugallensium ...," Milan. 2. In German, by Jobst Ruchamer, "Neue unbekanthe landte," NĆ¼rnberg. In 1516 appeared in Paris a French version by Mathurin du Redouer: "Sensuyt le nouveau monde ..." A good many discrepancies occur in these various editions and translations.
[34] See pp. xcii-xcvi of this Introduction.
[35] House or Family (Casa) of Mosto.
[36] In 1454 the Venetian Senate ordered three galleys to be equipped for the voyage to Flanders and England; and ordered Marco Zeno, as commander, to enquire about the goods of Venetian subjects landed in England.
[37] The Prince was said especially to wish for Venetians to enter his service, as they knew more about the spice trade than anyone; and he was convinced that his expeditions would ultimately find spices (i.e., in India). As to Vicente Diaz, cf. Azurara's Guinea, chs. lx, lviii, etc.
[38] Cf. Azurara, Guinea, end of ch. xcvi.
[39] This seems one of the earliest notices of non-Portuguese craft in these waters. But Uso di Mare was almost certainly in the Prince's service, like "Vallarte the Dane," and "Balthasar the German," noticed in Azurara, Guinea, chs. xvi. and xciv. Uso di Mare's letter to his creditors of December 12, 1455, seems to show that the expedition had returned before Christmas.
[40] As in the collections of Ramusio, Temporal, Astley, and Stanier Clarke; in Major, Henry Navigator, chs. xv.-xvi.; and in "Heroes of Nations" life of Prince Henry, ch. xvi.
[41] Of these two were "very large," and on these they landed, finding no inhabitants but plenty of animal life. Five more isles were sighted in the distance, but not visited. They called the first discovered "Boa Vista," and the largest of the group "St. James," from the day of the discovery. This is, of course, the Santiago which forms the centre of the Cape Verde archipelago.
[42] See Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 120, and Map section of this Introduction; also pp. xcii-xcvi of the same.
[43] See p. cxxxii of this Introduction.
[44] The same change is observable in the narrative of Diego Gomez. Cf. his treatment of the Chief Bezeghichi, whom he freely releases when in his power, in order to make him less "bitter against the Christians."
[45] E.g., the rivers Barbasini, Casamansa, Santa Anna, St. Domingo, and Cape Roxo.
[46] An allusion of high importance. See the section of this Introduction, "Preliminary African Exploration," especially pp. xlv, etc.
Voyages of the Portuguese completing Prince Henry's Work.
A word must be added on the completion of Prince Henry's work after his death, and by agents whom in many cases he had trained. King Affonso V, though rather more of a tournament king than a true successor of the great Infant, such as John II, had yet caught enough of his uncle's spirit to push on steadily, though slowly, the advance round Africa. In 1461 he repaired the fort in the Bight of Arguim and sent out Pedro de Sintra[[47]] to survey the coast beyond Cadamosto's furthest point. De Sintra proceeded 600 miles along the "southern coast of Guinea," passed a mountain which was called Sierra Leone (according 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 Mina.[[48]] Soon after (probably in 1462), Sueiro da Costa followed De Sintra,[[49]] but without any new results, and it was not till 1470 that a fresh advance was made.[[50]] In 1469 King Affonso leased the West African trade to Fernam Gomez, a citizen of Lisbon, for five years, Gomez paying 1,000 ducats a year. To this lease was annexed the condition that Gomez should make annual explorations along the unknown West coast of Africa for 300 miglia, counted from Sierra Leone, "where Pedro de Sintra and Sueiro da Costa turned back."[[51]]
Accordingly, in 1470, Gomez sent out JoĆ£o de Santarem and Pedro de Escobar, accompanied by the two leading Portuguese pilots, Martin Fernandez and Alvaro Esteves, as "directors of the navigation." On the 29th December, they discovered St. Thomas island, and on 17th January, 1471, the Isle of St. Anne, afterwards Ilha do Principe, both close to the Equator on the open side of the Bight of Biafra.
Another voyage seems to have been made, under Gomez' auspices, in 1471. Fernando Po now reached the island in the angle of the Central African coast which is still called after him; and men began to find that the Eastern bend of the continent, which had been followed since 1445-6 with some hope of a direct approach to Asia, now took a sharp turn to the South.
In spite of this disappointment, Fernandez and Esteves in 1472-3 passed beyond the furthest of earlier travellers, and crossed the Equator[[52]] into that Southern Hemisphere on the edge of which the caravels had long been hovering, as mariners like Cadamosto saw ever more clearly stars unknown in the Northern Hemisphere, and ever more nearly lost sight of the Arctic pole. In 1474-5 Cape Catherine, two degrees South of the Line, was reached, and here the advance of exploration stopped for a time till the accession of John II in 1481.
Now, in six years, the slow advance of the past sixty was exceeded.[[53]] Less than four months after his father's death, John, who as heir apparent had drawn part of his income from the African trade and its fisheries, sent out Diego de Azambuga, who in 1482 built under the King's orders the celebrated fort at St. George La Mina. He trafficked with success, but made no great advance along unknown Africa, even if he commenced a new era in the permanent colonisation of the Continent. King John was not disposed to be satisfied with this. In 1484, Diego CĆ£o was ordered to go as far to the South as he could, and not to "wait anywhere for other matters." He penetrated to the mouth of the Zaire or Congo, where he erected (at Cape Padron?) a stone pillar in sign of possession,[[54]] and brought back four natives to Portugal. These he took out with him in his second voyage (1485); on this expedition Martin Behaim was (wrongly) said to have accompanied him. CĆ£o claimed in this year to have reached 22Ā° S. lat., half way between the Congo and the Cape of Good Hope; but this is probably an exaggeration;ā18Ā° S. lat.[[55]] perhaps marks his furthest point, rather than Walvisch Bay, as in the old tradition.
After CĆ£o's return, King John renewed his efforts with fresh energy. Already, in 1484, a negro embassy to Portugal had brought such an account of an inland prince, one "Ogane, a Christian at heart," that all the Court of Lisbon thought he must be the long lost Prester John, and men were sent out to seek this "great Catholic Lord" by sea and land.
Bartholemew Diaz sailed in August 1486, with two ships, to try his fortune by the sea-route, and even if he could not reach the Prester's country, to discover as far as possible on the "way round Africa." Two other envoys, Covilham and Payva, were sent out by way of "Jerusalem, Arabia, and Egypt," to find the Priest-King and the Indies; yet another expedition was to ascend the Negro Nile, or Senegal, to its supposed junction with the Nile of Egypt; a fourth party started to explore a road to Cathay by the North-East Passage.
Bartholemew Diaz, accompanied by JoĆ£o Iffante, rounded the southernmost point of Africa, and passed some way beyond the site of the modern Port Elizabeth. The picturesque story of his voyage is well known. He sailed with two vessels of 50 tons apiece, in the belief that "ships which sailed down the coast of Guinea might be sure to reach the end of the land by persisting to the South." His first pillar was set up at Angra dos Ilheos,[[56]] at the south side of Angra Pequena. He made another stay at Angra das Voltas, in 29Ā° S. lat., immediately after passing the Orange River. Then, putting well out to sea, Diaz ran thirteen days due south before the wind, hoping by this wide sweep to round the furthest point of the Continent, which many traditions agreed in fixing not very far from his last halting-place. Finding the sea and air at last becoming cold, he changed his course to east, and as no land appeared after five days, to north. In this last course the Portuguese reached a bay where cattle were feeding, named by the Portuguese Angra dos Vaqueiros, now Flesh Bay.[[57]] After putting ashore two natives (probably some of those lately carried from Congo to Portugal, and sent out again to act as scouts for the European explorers), Diaz continued east to a small island still called "Santa Cruz," W. of our Port Elizabeth, and even further to a river called, after his partner, Rio do Iffante, now the Great Fish River, in 32Ā° 23' S. lat., and midway between the present Port Elizabeth and East London, where the coast begins gradually but steadily to trend north-east. Here the expedition put back, sighting on its homeward way the Land's End, or "Cape of Storms," re-named by John II "Cape of Good Hope" on their return. Almost at the same time as Diaz' reappearance in Lisbon (Dec. 1487), Covilham, who had reached Malabar by way of Egypt, wrote home from Cairo more than confirming the hopes already drawn from the success of the last maritime ventures. "If you keep southward, the continent must come to an end. And when ships reach the Eastern Ocean, let your men ask for Sofala and the Island of the Moon (Madagascar), and they will find pilots to take them to India."
Yet another chapter of discoveries was opened by King John's expeditions for the ascent of the Western Nile, and for the exploration of the North-East Passage to Cathay. Neither of these achieved complete success, but some more light was gained upon the interior of Africa (where the Portuguese made such notable advances in the sixteenth century); it has even been claimed, but apparently without foundation, for the explorers of John II, that a Portuguese discovery of Novaia Zemlya rewarded their enterprise.
The great voyage of Vasco da Gama (1497-9) connected and completed the various aims of Portuguese enterprise, to which Prince Henry had given a permanent and organised form.
Though he was not able to see in his own lifetime the fulfilment of his plans, both the method of a South-East Passage, and the men who finally discovered it, were, in a true sense, hisāwere inseparably associated with his work. The lines of Portuguese advance, a generation after his death, continued to follow his initiative so closely, that, when a different route to the Indies was suggested by Columbus, the government of John II refused to treat it seriously. And yet it was to the Infant's movementāin part, at leastāthat Columbus owed his conception. "It was in Portugal," says Ferdinand Columbus, "that the Admiral began to surmise that if men could sail so far south, one might also sail west and find lands in that direction." In another place[[58]] it will be questioned how far a Portuguese movement America-wards can be credited to the mariners of Prince Henry's own time. It is plain that, whether he or his captains ever thought favourably of the chances of the Western route, he and they alike devoted their main energies to its rival, the Eastern or African coasting way. It is equally plain, on the other hand, that the Infant's work produced a new interest in the world-science of geography throughout Christendom, and so was indirectly responsible for quite as much as it directly aimed at accomplishing.
[47] This voyage is described by Cadamosto as an appendix to his own voyages. A young Portuguese who accompanied De Sintra described to Cadamosto the stretch of coast now discovered beyond the Rio Grande, the anchorages of the fleet, and the names given to points on the shore. "This account, without any rhetorical embellishment, is of special interest as a specimen of a Portuguese sailing-direction from a sailor of Henry the Navigator's School" (Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 121). De Sintra reached 5Ā° further South than any before him. His nomenclature still survives at many points: e.g., Cape Verga, Sierra Leone, Cape Santa Anna, Cape del Monte, Cape Mesurado. Cape Sagres, "the highest promontory they had ever seen," between Cape Verga and Cape Ledo, has been re-named. De Sintra also noticed especially a "great green forest"ā"Bosque de St. Maria," in 5Ā° 30' N. lat. (?)āand near his furthest point (at Rio dos Fumos) an immense quantity of smoke from native fires. Cf. Hanno's language in his Periplus, on the fiery rivers running down into the sea; and see J. N. Bellin's Petit Atlas Maritime, Paris, 1764; Part iii, Map 105.
[48] Elmina.
[49] According to some, he accompanied De Sintra in the voyage of 1461.
[50] Cadamosto explicitly says that when he left Portugal on February 1, 1463, no voyages had been made in continuation of De Sintra's venture, recorded by him.
[51] According to Cadamosto's account, De Sintra had gone a good deal further.
[52] It is not very clearly recorded who first crossed the line among the Portuguese sailors of this time. Some conclude as stated in text, but Nordenskjƶld believes it was "perhaps Lopo GonƧalvez, after whom a promontory directly south of the Equator is named"; he also thinks this great event was accomplished on Gomez' first expedition, under Santarem, Escobar, Fernandez and Esteves, in 1470-1. As to progress eastwards, towards India, it was much exaggerated by many. While his caravels were still off the Guinea coast, King Affonso V believed the meridian of "Tunis, and even of Alexandria," had been already passed.
[53] It is probably right to ascribe great importance to the work of Fernam Gomez, during his five years' lease. His wealth gave a new character to the equipment of the African Expeditions of Portugal. Formerly there had been too much waste of energy through indefiniteness of object; too much discretion had been left to mariners themselves; now the definite contract for geographical discovery with the Crown caused a more rapid and continuous advance, and long stretches of coast were explored and mapped.
[54] According to King John's orders. Wooden crosses (often of Madeira wood?) had hitherto been erected by Portuguese discoverers in new lands. Now stone pillars 6 ft. high were to be used, and on them was to be inscribed, in Portuguese and Latin, the date, with the name of the reigning monarch, and those of the discoverers.
[55] Near C. Frio. So it is placed (at Arenarum Aestuarium or Manga das Arenas) on Pl. X in Livio Sanuto's Geographia of 1588. We have mentioned that Martin Behaim, of NĆ¼remberg, claimed to have accompanied CĆ£o to West Africa; but his globe, so famous afterwards, executed in 1492 at the order of the NĆ¼remberg Town Council, shows very little evidence of this. Behaim's West Africa is often obstinately Ptolemaic, at the end of the century which had revolutionised the knowledge of this part of the world. He inserts all the legendary Atlantic islands, and puts the Cape Verdes far out of their proper place.
[56] ? Diaz Point, at the Serra Parda or "Dark Hills" of Barros.
[57] Some way beyond Cape Agulhas, and immediately to the east of the River Gauritz.
[58] See the section of this Introduction on the "Atlantic Islands," especially pp. ciii-cvi.
African Exploration preliminary to Prince Henry's work.
The first recorded African expedition along the Atlantic coast of Africa was, if we accept the account of Herodotus, that of the PhÅnicians sent out by Pharaoh Necho (c. 600 b.c.), who started from the Red Sea and returned by the Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean.[[59]] Almost at the same time (c. 570 b.c., according to Vivien de St. Martin's estimate) the great PhÅnician settlement of Carthage attempted in reverse order a voyage of colonisation and discovery along the West of the Continent outside the Straits. Eratosthenes refers to PhÅnician (or Carthaginian) settlements already existing on what is now the coast of Marocco, both inside and outside the "Pillars;" this new expedition under Hanno was intended to strengthen the old, as well as to found new plantations. It is often compared with a similar venture, "to explore the outer coasts of Europe," undertaken by Himilco, probably about the same time.[[60]]
Hanno[[61]] sailed from Carthage, according to our authority, with sixty penteconters, carrying 30,000(?) people, colonists and others, first to Cerne,[[62]] which was as far distant from the Pillars of Hercules as the Pillars were from Carthage. Then he ascended the river Chretes[[63]] to a lake. Twelve days' voyage south of Cerne he passed a promontory with lofty wooded hills,[[64]] and a little beyond this, a great estuary.[[65]] Five days more to the south brought him to the Western Horn,[[66]] and on the other side of this he coasted along a "fragrant shore," with "streams of fire running down into the sea," and "fiery mountains, the loftiest of which seemed to touch the clouds," and which he named[[67]] "Chariot of the Gods."[[68]] Three days' sail beyond this was his furthest point, the Southern Horn,[[69]] whence he returned directly to Carthage.
It is very difficult to identify Hanno's positions, and this is not the place to attempt a fresh investigation.[[70]] But the tradition of this Periplus having reached far beyond the Straits of Gibraltarāfarther than any venture of the earlier Middle Ages, or of the classical periodāmay be regarded as reliable, and some position on the Sierra Leone coast may provisionally be taken as its ultimate point of advance.
The African voyages of Sataspes under Xerxes, and of Eudoxus of Cyzicus under Ptolemy Euergetes II, cannot be regarded as of much importance. Neither probably reached Cape Verde (even if we are to attach any belief to their narratives). Sataspes[[71]] declared that his ship was stopped by obstructions in the sea at a point where lived on the ocean shore a people of small stature, clad in garments made of the palm-tree.[[72]] This was "many months'" sail south of Cape Soloeis or Cantin, and may stand for the neighbourhood of the Senegal, if it be not a mere traveller's tale invented by Sataspes, as Herodotus seems to have thought, to excuse his failure to the Great King. Eudoxus[[73]] claimed to have sailed so far, first along the eastern and then, along the western, coasts of Africa, that he practically circumnavigated the Continent; but all 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 Mauretania." 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 Gadesāa very unlikely story in the face of the currents on the East African coast.
According to Pliny,[[74]] Polybius the historian also made a reconnaissance down the West coast of Africa, in the lifetime and under the order of Scipio Ćmilianus. He seems to have passed the termination of the Atlas chain, but Pliny's language does not warrant us in going any further.[[75]] He interweaves in his narrative the voyage of Polybius with the great measurement of the Roman world under Augustus by Agrippa, which is perhaps in part commemorated by the Peutinger Table, and which evidently took into its view the Hesperian Promontory,[[76]] and the Chariot of the Gods. Some have claimed for Polybius a voyage as far as the latter point, but this, if understood in the sense of Sierra Leone, is highly improbable.
We must not here delay over classical attempts at African continental exploration; but it will be right to notice briefly: That in the age of Pliny, as shown by the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (c. 70 a.d.), and in the age of Ptolemy, as shown in his Geography (c. 139-162 a.d.), the knowledge of the GrƦco-Roman world was extended down the East coast of Africa at least as far as Zanzibar and its neighbourhood, and down the Western coast to Cape Soloeis, or Cape Cantin: That beyond these points only vague ideas obtained, though occasional travellers had ventured further: That in the interior of Africa only the North coast region, viz., Egypt and the "Barbary States," were thoroughly well known, though expeditions had at times crossed the Sahara, reached the Sudan, and ascended the Nile to the marshes situate in 9Ā° N. lat.: That, even if never seen or visited, at least something had been heard of the African Alps in the neighbourhood of the Great Lakes, as well as of those lakes themselves: That Ptolemy's work marks the highest point of ancient knowledge in Africa, which began to decline from the age of the Antonines: That it is not probable even Ptolemy had any definite notions about the Niger, though his text names such a stream in West Africa, and his Map lays it down in a position not very distant from our Joliba: That it is clear he was conscious of the vast size of the Continent in a way that none of his predecessors had grasped, while utterly ignorant of its shape towards the South, so that he even denied the primary fact of its practically insular form.
Leaving to another section any notice of ancient exploration among the African islands, it would also appear that Statius Sebosus, Juba, and Marinus of Tyre all made contributions to the knowledge of West Africa. These contributions are now only preserved in the allusions or paraphrases of other authors; but it is clear that Sebosus, perhaps identical with a Sebosus who was a friend of Catulus and a contemporary of Sallust and CƦsar, had made independent inquiries concerning the West or Ocean coast of the Continent;[[77]] that Juba,[[78]] who made the Nile rise in Western Mauretania, did similar work in the time of Augustus; and that Marinus preserved some original records of Roman expeditions which crossed the Great Desert,[[79]] apparently from Tripoli and Fezzan to the neighbourhood of the Central Sudan States.
As the Roman Empire broke up, geographical knowledge naturally 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 other particulars: (1) That the Arab migration[[80]] to the East coast beyond Guardafui in the eighth century began the extension of Moslem trade-colonies, which at last reached Sofala. (2) That the coast near Madagascar, as well as that island itself, seems to have been known to the great Arab traveller and geographer Masudi ("Massoudy") in the tenth century. (3) That the same writer considered the Atlantic or Western Ocean unnavigable, but that even he preserves a record of one Arab voyage thereon.[[81]] (4) That Edrisi, in the twelfth century, records another voyage which touched the African mainland a good distance beyond the Straits of Gibraltar.[[82]] (5) That Ibn Said, in the thirteenth century, relates a discovery of Cape Blanco.[[83]] (6) That overland communication between the Barbary States and the negroes of the Sudan was originated by the Arabs, as a regular line of commerce, probably from the eleventh century at least.
This last point is one which requires special consideration. By sea the Arabs did scarcely anything to prepare the way for the Christian discoveries of the fifteenth century in Africa (except along the Eastern coast), but by land they were the most important helpers and informants of Prince Henry.[[84]] Islam effected the conquest of the Barbary States, politically in the seventh century, dogmatically in the course of about 200 years after the days of Tarik and Musa. By the end of the eleventh century the faith of Mohammed had begun to spread and take deep root in the Sudan,[[85]] having already made its way into many parts of the Sahara. With the Moslem faith came the Moslem civilisation. The caravan trade across the desert now commenced between Negroland and the Mediterranean; "Timbuktu" was founded by Moslems, probably drawn in large measure from the Tuareg, in about 1077-1100; and the Central Sudan States, from Sokoto to Darfur and Kordofan, passed under Mohammedan influence between a.d. 1000 and 1250. With the fresh migration of Nomad Arabs which seems to have taken place about a.d. 1050, from Upper Egypt to West Africa, a distinct advance of Islam in Central Africa is to be noticed by way of Kanem, Bornu, Sokoto, and the Niger Valley; this new wave reached JennƩ, GhinƩ, or "Guinea", on the Upper Valley of the Niger.
Even earlier than this a movement seems to have been in progress from the opposite directionāfirst south along the west coast, and then east up the valley of the Senegal and similar inlets. The tradition preserved by John Pory[[86]] is approved by the most recent researchāat least in its general conclusions. The Moslems "pierced into" the Sahara in, or a little after, 710, and "overthrew the Azanegue, and the people of Walata;" in "the year 973 (others say about 950) they infected the negroes and first those of Melli." During the ninth century, Islam made progress among the Sahara tribes, and the influence of this faith promoted intercourse between the desert tribes and the great commercial centres of the North African coastāa movement which was furthered by the Almoravide revival of the eleventh, and the Almohade of the twelfth, century. The former started from a reformed Moslem "community," settled on an island at the mouth of the Senegalāin other words, it shows Islam already finding centres for recovery and expansion in Negroland, exploring the Sudan from the north and west, creeping along the Atlantic Ocean, and spreading from the neighbourhood of Cape Verde into the interior of the populous land to the south of the Great Desert.
Here we may notice that Edrisi takes a point called Ulil as his starting-place in reckoning measurements, and especially longitudes, in the Sudan. This Ulil is fixed by all our authorities as close to the sea, in the centre of a salt-producing district; and it may be supposed to have been in the neighbourhood of the Senegal estuary.[[87]] To the east, Ulil bordered on Gana, Ghanah, Guinoa, Geneoa, or "Guinea," which, at least in name, was the first objective of Prince Henry's expeditions, and was famous for its slave export, and its money of "uncoined gold."[[88]] The name of the country was probably derived from its chief city of JennĆ©, variously described by Leo Africanus, in the sixteenth century, as a large village; by the earlier geographersāespecially Edrisi in the twelfth century, and Ibn-Batuta in the fourteenthāas a spacious and well-built city on an island in the Niger, lying west from Timbuktu.
Between Ghanah or JennƩ, and Ulil, according to some writers, lay the kingdom of Tokrur, while Andagost was on the northern boundary of Ghanah close to the Sahara. All these were Moslem states like Melli or Malli (W.S.W. from Timbuktu), and carried on trade with Barbary across the desert long before the days of Prince Henry. One of the earliest important converts to Islam in the Sudan was Sa-Ka-ssi, of the dynasty of Sa in the Songhay country on the Middle Niger (c. a.d. 1009-1010). From this time the states on the Middle Niger became a centre of Mohammedan influence, especially after the foundation of Timbuktu about 1077. When Ibn-Batuta visited these parts in 1330, he found the negroes of the Niger full of Moslem devotion, enjoying a commerce with Mediterranean Africa, and mostly acknowledging the lead of Melli, which kingdom, according to him, had been founded in the early thirteenth century by the Mandingo.[[89]]
Among the Lake Chad States progress was also made in the eleventh century. The first Moslem Sultan of Bornu (Hami ibnu-l-Jalil) is recorded about 1050;[[90]] and a similar conversion happened in Kanem about the same time. This latter kingdom was then more important than now, and dominated much even of the Egyptian Sudan. Hence in the fourteenth century Islam obtained a strong footing in Darfur, as it had already in Baghirmi and Wadai.[[91]] Already in the twelfth century, Kordofan and the extreme east of the Sudan had been partially Moslemised by Arabs from Egypt, who had come south after the fall of the Fatimite Caliphs.
Along the eastern coast, in spite of the early spread of Moslem settlements from Magadoxo southward, Islam was very slow in penetrating the interior. Here the Arabs chiefly devoted themselves 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 slaves 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 Africa was a Christian kingdom, which was nowāin Prince Henry's daysābecoming more familiar to Europe: Abyssinia, the kingdom of Prester John, as the Portuguese of later time identified it. The original seat of the Priest-King, as described (chiefly from Nestorian information) by Carpini, Rubruquis, Marco Polo, and other Asiatic travellers of the thirteenth century, was in Central Asia, but the Abyssinian state offered so close a parallel, that it was naturally recognised by many as the true realm of Prester John, when the first clear accounts of it came into MediƦval Europe. The Asiatic prototype, moreover, was only temporary; it had apparently ceased to exist in the time of Polo himself, who spread its fame so widely; whereas its Abyssinian rival was both permanent and ancient enough to be noticed in pre-Crusading and even in pre-MediƦval literature. As the Renaissance movement progressed in Europe, learned men of the West gained from their reading an ever clearer realisation of this isolated Christianity of the East; and, as the trade of the later Middle Ages spread itself more widely, the Venetians seem to have made their way to the Court of the Negus, even before John II of Portugal sent Covilham and Payva (1486) to find the Prester. Probably the beginnings of this Italian intercourse with Abyssinia may be placed as far back as the lifetime of Prince Henry (c. 1450).
The Christianity of Nubia, which dated from the fourth century like that of Abyssinia itself, was still vigorous in the twelfth,[[92]] but from that time it began to fail before the incessant and determined pressure of Islam. Ibn-Batuta,[[93]] about 1330-40, found that the King of Dongola had just become a Moslem. Father Alvarez, in 1520-7, considered that the Nubian Christianity which had once extended up the Nile from the first Cataract to Sennaar had become extinct; though he would not allow that the mass of the Nubians had adopted any other religion in its place;[[94]] and himself, he tells us, had met a Christian who, in travelling through Nubia, had seen 150 churches.[[95]] But, in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all Nubia embraced Islam; and even in 1534, Ahmad Gragne, King of Adel, in one of his attacks upon Abyssinia, is said to have had 15,000 Nubian allies, apparently all Mohammedans.[[96]]
In Prince Henry's day, then, we may fairly assume that the old Christianity of East Africa was practically limited to Abyssinia; but when Azurara tells us of the Infant's desire "to know if there were in those parts[[97]] any Christian Princes,"[[98]] and again more explicitly, "to have knowledge of the land of Prester John,"[[99]] it is possible that some dim acquaintance with the old tradition of an isolated African (as well as of an isolated Asiatic) Church, was at the root of his endeavour.
At the end of the twelfth century, Islam had already begun to encroach upon the coast of what is now Italian "Erythraea;" and about 1300 a.d. a Musulman army attacked the ruler of Amhara. At this time the realm of the Negus seems to have been completely cut off from the Red Sea;[[100]] but it was not till the early sixteenth century that Abyssinia was in serious danger of becoming a province of Islam, from the attacks of Ahmad Gragne (1528-1543), which, however, ended in complete failure.
To return to the North coast of Africa. Here, by the capture of Ceuta, Prince Henry gained a starting-point for his work; here he is said (probably with truth) to have gained his earliest knowledge of the interior of Africa; here especially he was brought in contact with those Sudan and Saharan caravans which, coming down to the Mediterranean coast, brought news, to those who sought it, of the Senegal and Niger, of the Negro kingdoms beyond the desert, and particularly of the Gold land of "Guinea." Here also, from a knowledge thus acquired, he was able to form a more correct judgment of the course needed for the rounding or circumnavigation of Africa, of the time, expense, and toil necessary for that task, and of the probable support or hindrance his mariners were to look for on their route.
We must, however, qualify in passing the statements of Azurara, in ch. vii, which would imply that Christianity had for ages been utterly extinct in North Africa. "As it was said that the power of the Moors in ... Africa was ... greater than commonly supposed, and that there were no Christians among them." "During the one-and-thirty years that he had warred against the Moors, he had never found a Christian King nor a lord outside this land,[[101]] who for the love of ... Christ would aid him."[[102]] The old North African Church, though constantly declining, survived the Musulman Conquest of the seventh and eighth centuries for nearly 800 years. True, its episcopate, which could still muster 30 members in the tenth century, was practically extinct by the time of Hildebrand[[103]] (Pope Gregory VII), and in 1246 the Franciscan missionary bishop of Fez and Marocco was the only Christian prelate in "Barbary"; but a number of native Christians still lingered on, though without Apostolic succession. In 1159, the Almohade conqueror, Abdu-'l Mu'min ben Ali, on subduing Tunis, 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, when Charles V gained possession of the city in the above-named year (1535), he congratulated these perseverants on their steadfastness. The same fact is evidenced by the tolerant behaviour, as a rule, of the MediƦval Barbary States towards Christians, both native and European.
Thus they employ Christian soldiers, among others; grant freedom of worship to Christian merchants and settlers; and exchange letters with various Popes, especially Gregory VII, Gregory IX, Innocent III, and Innocent IV, on the subject of the due protection of native Christians.[[104]] Traces of Christianity were to be found among the Kabyles of Algeria down to the time of the capture of Granada (1492), when a fresh influx of Andalusian Moors from Spain completed the conversion of these tribes,[[105]]āa conversion which, as Leo Africanus notices, was not inconsistent with some survivals of Christian custom. Similar survivals have been alleged among the TuĆ¢reg of the Sahara, the "Christians of the Desert" at the present day.
Two practical questions arise for our special purpose from this summary of the mediƦval progress and fifteenth-century status of Islam in Africa. These questions have been partly answered already, but we may here re-state them to generalise our conclusions. 1. What information was the Infant able to gain from the "Moors" for his own plans? and 2. Was this "Moorish" information so valuable as to account, in any great degree, for the Prince's perseverance and success in his task?
To the former query it may be replied: 1. That the "Arabs and Moors" of the early fifteenth century could give the Infant detailed and correct information, not only about the Barbary states and the trade-routes of the Sahara, but also about many of the Western and Central Sudan countries, and about the general course and direction of the "Guinea coast" both to the west and south of the great African hump. Especially could they describe the kingdom of Guinea, centreing round the town of JennƩ on the Upper Niger, which was the chief market of their Negro trade in slaves, gold, and ivory. This kingdom, then, reached almost to the Atlantic on the lower valley of the Senegal, where in earlier times a place called Ulil had been marked by Edrisi and other Arab geographers, as independent of Ghanah but important for traffic. Also, the Moors were acquainted with the country of Tokrur,[[106]] which may be supposed to occupy the upper valley of the Senegal, becoming perhaps, in Prince Henry's time, merely a province of Guinea. Further, they could give much information about the States of Timbuktu and Melli, to the east of Guinea, on the Middle Niger, about the gold land of Wangara, in the great bend to the south of that river, and about the Songhay, afterwards so powerful, whose capital was at Gao, at the extreme N.E. angle of the Negro Nile, or Joliba. The Arab travellers and writers seem generally to have made but one river out of the Senegal, the Niger, Joliba, or Quorra, and the BenuƩ or "river of Haussa."
De Barros explicitly states that the Moors told Prince Henry how on the other side of the Great Desert lived the Azanegues, who bordered on the Jaloff negroes, where began the kingdom of Guinea, or Guinanha. From other sources we know, as already stated, that the Infant obtained from the same informants[[107]] definite descriptions of the Senegal estuary, its "tall palms," and other landmarks. For here, rather than at any point more to the south, was the Guinea coast proper of the fifteenth century; though in the Bull of Pope Nicholas V, granting to Portugal (1454) all the lands that should be discovered "from the Cape of Bojador and of Nun throughout the whole of Guinea, as far as its Southern shore, or even to the Antarctic Pole and the Indies," our modern extension of the term is virtually admitted.
2. And, in the second place, granting what has just been said, it is obvious that the Moorish information was important enough to have very considerable influence on the Infant's plans, and especially to furnish him with hopes of success, and reasons for perseverance in the face of opposition and repeated failure.
Our materials for the Prince's life are so inadequate that we can hardly decide, from the silence of our authorities, that he was entirely ignorant, even at second hand, of all that the Arab geographers or travellers had written about Africa. Especially is this the case with Edrisi (1099-1154), whose work was composed in the Christian kingdom of Sicily, and owed much to Christian writers. And perhaps the same hope applies to Ibn-Batuta (fl. 1330), who, living at a time so near to the epoch of the Prince's voyages, had revealed the Western Sudan to the Moslem worldāand so to any Christians conversant with Moslem trade and enterpriseāfar more thoroughly than ever before. These are only two examples among those Moslem geographers, whose work may have been brought to the Infant's notice during his visits to Ceuta.
* * * * *
We have now to see what progress had been made by Christian nations in the exploration of Africa immediately before Prince Henry's time. The Crusades were not merely expeditions to recover the Holy Sepulchre: they were the outward sign of the great mediƦval awakening of Europe and Christendom, which, beginning in the eleventh century, has never slumbered since, and which, in the Infant's days, was passing through that great transition we call the Renaissance. On the geographical side this movement took first of all the direction of land travel, and achieved such great discoveries in Asia that a new desire for wealth and commercial expansion was kindled in Europe, with the special object of controlling the Asiatic treasures which Marco Polo and others had described. Islam, however, interposed a troublesome barrier between Central Asia, India and China on the one side, and European trade or dominion on the other. Hence, from the thirteenth century, we find a new series of attempts to reach the Far East by sea from the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. It was not till the last years of Prince Henry's life that any serious attempts were made to explore the interior of Africa, but expeditions along its shores were sent out long before his time to reconnoitre for a sea-route to India.[[108]] We have already remarked that the Infant represents in his own life-work the leading transition in this movement, from a tentative, impermanent, and unorganised series of efforts, to a continuous, properly directed, and successful plan; but some notice must be taken of those ventures which immediately prepared his way. Leaving out of sight, for another section as far as possible, the voyages which are concerned only with the Atlantic islands, or aim in a rudimentary way at finding a Western route to Asia, it is possible to mention several genuine attempts to anticipate the Portuguese along the Eastern or African mainland course.
The first of these, as far as known, is the voyage of Lancelot Malocello, of Genoa, in 1270. There is no proof that he started, like the adventurers of 1291, to find the ports of India: it is probable his ambitions were more modest; but we do not know how far he reached along the African mainlandāonly that he touched the Canaries, and staying there some time built a castle in Lancarote[[109]] island.
The next venture in this direction is also Genoese. In May, 1291,[[110]] Tedisio Doria and Ugolino de Vivaldo, with the latter's brother and certain other citizens of Genoa, equipped two galleys "that they might go by sea to[wards] the ports of India and bring back useful things for trade." But "after they had passed a place called Gozora,[[111]] nothing more certain has been heard of them." This is confirmed by Pietro d'Abano, writing in 1312; but in the fifteenth century one of Prince Henry's captains, the Genoese colleague of Cadamosto, Antoniotto Ususmaris or Uso di Mare, professed to give some more details. On December 12th, 1455, he wrote his creditors a letter, in which he stated[[112]] that the two galleys of "Vadinus and Guido Vivaldi," leaving Genoa in 1281 "for the Indies," reached the "Sea of Ghinoia," where one ship was stranded, but the other sailed on to a city of Ethiopia called Menam, where lived Christian subjects of Prester John, who held them captive. None ever returned, but Uso di Mare himself spoke with the last surviving descendant of those Genoese.[[113]] Menam, he concludes, was on the sea coast, near the river Gihon.[[114]]
It is difficult to attach great weight to Uso di Mare's letter, which looks like an attempt to amuse his creditors with interesting adventures; but the voyage of 1291, with or without the survival of 1455, is sufficiently remarkable. It is the first direct attempt of Europeans in the Middle Ages to find a sea-route to India around Africa; its far-reaching design contrasts forcibly 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.[[115]]
The Hispano-Italian voyage of 1341 appears to have been solely occupied with the exploration 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 Genoese expedition of 1291. "The ship of Jayme Ferrer," according to the Catalan Mappemonde of 1375, "started for the River of Gold[[116]] on St. Lawrence's Day, 1346."[[117]] To the same effect the Genoese archives[[118]] assert "On the Feast of St. Lawrence there went forth from the city of the Majorcans one galley of John Ferne the Catalan, with intent to go to Rujaura.[[119]] Of the same nothing has since been heard."[[120]] And on the Map of 1375 already noticed, upon the third sheet, is depicted off Cape Bojador the picture[[121]] of the ship in question adjoining the legend above-quoted. We may notice, however, that Guinea, the gold land of Africa, and not India, was the objective of this voyageāalthough Guinea was the first step on the African route to Indiaāand that the venture, as Major says, was apparently designed only for the discovery of the supposed Negro river in which gold was collected: a guess of Mediterranean merchants[[122]] from the information of Moorish middlemen.
Beginning with the year 1364, the French also claimed to have made important advances along the African coast route. The men of Dieppe, it is said, repeatedly sailed beyond Cape Verde, and even Sierra Leone, and founded settlements on what was afterwards called the La Mina coast.[[123]] These stations, called Petit Paris, Petit Dieppe, etc., lasted till 1410, when home troubles caused their abandonment,[[124]] like the temporary evacuation of the French Ivory Coast Settlements after 1870; but during the forty or fifty years of their existence, they carried on a regular trade with the Norman ports.
This tradition admits that it has lost its proofs in the destruction of the Admiralty Registers at Dieppe in 1694, but it is possible that some articles[[125]] may be discovered dating from this early commerce, which can supply fresh evidence. In itself, the Dieppese story is not impossible, and we shall see in another section, from the witness of the Map of 1351 and other portolanos, how plausible it appears, together with still greater ventures. But as things at present stand, it must be considered as a "thing not proven."[[126]]
Reliable evidence of French voyages to the Gold Coast of Guinea can only be quoted for the sixteenth century. Thus Braun in 1617, and Dapper some time shortly before 1668, inspected buildings and collected traditions from the natives on that shore which alone would prove these later expeditions, if they were not confirmed by several documents in Ramusio, Temporal, and Hakluyt.[[127]] Equally reliable is the tradition of BƩthencourt's Conquest of the Canaries in 1402, etc.; yet the authors of this history, BƩthencourt's chaplains, give no hint of any knowledge possessed by their countrymen about the mainland coast beyond Cape Bojador, but rather imply the reverse. Finally, though so many of the best sixteenth-century maps are Dieppese, none of these show the fourteenth-century settlements, which are also wanting in all charts of the earlier time. The controverted names are first found on a map of 1631, by Jean GuƩrand; and this is probably not unconnected with the fact that in 1626 Rouen and Dieppe united for trade with the Guinea coast.
It is of course possible, as M. d'Avezac long ago argued from the evidence of the great Portolani of the fourteenth century, especially the Laurentian or Medicean[[128]] of 1351, the Pizzigani[[129]] of 1367, and the Catalan of 1375, that some unrecorded advance was accomplished along the African mainland coast during the middle years of this century; the imperfection of our records must never be forgotten; and we shall return to this question in another section. But nothing definite and certain can be gathered about the coast beyond Cape Bojador, except in a few small points.[[130]] With the Atlantic islands the case was very different.
The expedition[[131]] (1402-12) of the Sieur de BĆ©thencourt, Lord of Granville la TeinturiĆØre, of the Pays de Caux in Normandy, was chiefly concerned with the Canaries[[132]]ālike the voyages of the Spaniards Francisco Lopez (1382), and Alvaro Becarra (? 1390, etc.) But, after achieving fair success in the islands, De BĆ©thencourt attempted (apparently in 1404) an exploration of the mainland coast "from Cape Cantin, half way between the Canaries and Spain," to Cape "Bugeder" or Bojador,[[133]] the famous promontory to the right or east of the Canaries. But this was left unfinished; and De BĆ©thencourt's chaplains, in describing their Seigneur's intentions beyond the "Bulging Cape," can only fall back on a certain Book of a Spanish Friar,[[134]] which professed to give a description of Guinea, and the River of Gold. This last was said by the Friar to be 150 leagues from "the Cape Bugeder," and the French priests declare that "if things were such as described," their lord hoped sometime to reach the said river, "whereby access would be gained to the land of Prester John, whence come so many riches."
Thus the French colonists in the early fifteenth century, in Prince Henry's boyhood, know nothing first-hand, nothing save half-legendary rumours, about the African coast beyond Cape Bojador. They are anxious to reach the River of Gold, and traffic there, but they do not know the way. Of Petit Paris, Petit Dieppe, La Mine, and other Norman settlements or factories beyond Cape Verde, they give no sign.
The late and doubtful[[135]] tradition of Macham's discovery of Madeira (c. 1350-1370) does not concern the exploration of the African mainland, except that after the death of the "discoverer" in his island, some of his sailors were said to have escaped in the ship's boat (according to the story) to the Continent, to have been made prisoners by the Berbers, and to have been held in slavery till some of the survivors were ransomed in 1416. But all this, if true, belongs to the well-known coast within Cape Non, and in no manner furthered exploration, except as regarded the island group of Madeira and Porto Santo.[[136]]
Fra Mauro preserves a tradition[[137]] of two voyages from India or the East coast of Africa round the Southern Capeāone in 1420, the other at an unfixed date. These, he says, had been accomplished by a person with whom he actually spoke, who claimed to have passed from Sofala to "Garbin," in the middle of the West coast, as it is marked on Fra Mauro's planisphere. If genuine, they would be the last anticipations of Prince Henry's enterprises left to chronicle; but few have placed much confidence in these statements, which seem indeed incredible in the form they are related by the Venetian draughtsman.
[59] Herod. ii, 158-9; iv, 42. These mariners took three years on their voyage: landed, sowed crops, and lived on the harvest during seasons unfavourable to navigation (especially autumn); during part of their journey they were astonished to find the sun on their right hand.
[60] This is first noticed by Aristotle, "On Marvellous Narratives," Ā§ 37; by Mela, De Situ Orbis, iii, 9; and by Pliny, Natural History, ii, 67, Ā§ 167-170, and elsewhere. The Periplus of Himilco seems to have been worked up by Avienus (c. 400 a.d.) in the first 400 lines of his poem, "De Ora Maritima."
[61] One account of Hanno's voyage was preserved on a Punic inscription in the temple of "Kronos," "Saturn," or Moloch, at Carthage; the inscription was translated into Greek by an unknown hand, probably about 300 b.c.; and this version of the Periplus still remains to us. See Pliny, Hist. Nat., ii, 67; v, 1, 36; vi, 31; Solinus, 56; Pomponius Mela, iii, 9. The first edition of the Greek text is by Gelenius, Basel 1534; the best by C. MĆ¼ller, in Geographi Graeci Minores. Cf. also an edition by Falconer, London, 1797; an edition by Kluge, Leipsig, 1829; Rennell, Geography of Herodotus, 719-745, 4to ed.; Bunbury, Ancient Geography, i, 318-335; Walckenaer, Recherches sur le GĆ©ographie de l'Afrique, p. 362, etc.; Vivien de St. Martin, Le Nord de l'Afrique dans l AntiquitĆ©, pp. 330-400; Major, Henry Navigator, 90, etc., 1868; Charton, Voyageurs Anciens, i, 1-5, Ed. of 1882; Gossellin, Recherches sur la GĆ©ographie des Anciens, i, pp. 70-106; A. Mer, MĆ©moire sur le PĆŖriple d'Hannon, 1885; CampomanĆ©s, El Periplo de Hannone illustrado, appended to his Antiquedad maritima de Cartago (1756); Bougainville, Acad. des Inscr. et Belles Lettres, xxvi, xxvii, and especially xxviii, p. 287.
[62] Near Cape Non.
[63] This can hardly be the Senegal and Lake Nguier, as suggested by V. de St. Martin.
[64] Cape Verde?
[65] The Gambia?
[66] Cabo dos Mastos?
[67] Burton, with characteristic recklessness, insists on the Camaroons Mt. as the Chariot of the Gods ("Abeokuta and Camaroons Mt."); Fernando Po being another of the "lofty fiery mountains" seen by Hanno at this point.
[68] In the Sierra Leone range?
[69] Near Sherboro' island?
[70] Some (e.g., Gossellin) would refer the whole group of localities here named to the extreme N.W. or Maroccan coast of Africa. But the "lofty green headland," the Western and Southern Horns, the Chariot of the Gods, the gorillas captured by the seamen, hardly seem to allow of this restriction. Ancient enterprise was far more satisfactory than ancient observation, and the inaccuracies of the latter should not make us deny the former. Here the initial measurement, of the distance from Cerne to the Pillars as being equal to the distance from the Pillars to Carthage, because the time occupied in sailing was equal, seems not only too vague a reckoning, but inaccurate as ignoring one great difference. Inside the straits, Hanno's duty was simply to sail forward; outside, he had to plant colonists at suitable spots,āalong a coast, moreover, not so well known as that of North Africa to the Carthaginians.
[71] Herodotus, iv, 43. Similar excuses were given, e.g. (1) by Pytheas in the North Sea; (2) by Arab and Christian mediƦval voyagers off Cape Non and Cape Bojador; (3) by Arabs off Cape Corrientes (on the E. Coast of Africa).
[72] They lived in towns, he adds, possessed cattle, were of harmless and timid disposition, and fled to mountains on the approach of the strangers.
[73] Posidonius, in Strabo, ii, 3, Ā§ 4. Eudoxus made three voyages (see also Pliny, Hist. Nat., ii, 67, who bases his statement, like Mela, iii, 9, on Cornelius Nepos); in the first two he sailed to India and was driven to points on the East African coast; on the third he attempted to sail round Africa to India by the West, but evidently did not reach any distance beyond S.W. Mauretania (near C. Non). His first voyage must have been before b.c. 117 (d. of Ptolemy Euergetes II, Physcon), his other two subsequent to that year. The narrative of Eudoxus was exaggerated by Pliny and Pomponius Mela into the story that the navigator had actually accomplished, in his own person, the voyage round Africa from the Red Sea to Gades; but his achievements may be limited thus: Two voyages from Egypt to India; a short distance of African coasting beyond Guardafui, probably not as far as Zanzibar; a short distance on the west coast beyond the S.W. coast of our Marocco, probably not beyond Cape Non, or at furthest Cape Bojador.
[74] Hist. Nat., v, i.
[75] The text here is very confused and difficult, but the best editors give the following text for Pliny's words: "He (Polybius) relates that beyond Atlas proceeding west there are forests.... Agrippa says that Lixus is distant from Gades 112 miles. From the Chariot of the Gods to the Western Horn is 10 days' voyage, and midway in this space he (i.e., Agr., not Pol.) has placed Mt. Atlas."
[76] Or Western Horn.
[77] He was also the alleged author of a Periplus, and a treatise on the Wonders of India, but he is only known by Pliny's quotations.
[78] The younger, "King of Numidia."
[79] Such as those of Julius Maternus and Septimius Flaccus, which perhaps reached Lake Chad, probably in the time of Trajan (98-117 a.d.), and of Cornelius Balbus under Augustus (19 b.c.), which conquered the Garamantes of Fezzan.
[80] This migration led to the foundation of Magadoxo, 909-951, and of Kilwa, 960-1000; later on of Malindi, Mombasa, and Sofala. See Krapf, Travels and Missionary Labours, etc., p. 522; G. P. Badger, Imams ... of Oman, p. xiii; El-BelĆ¢dzory, FutĆ»h-el-BuldĆ¢n (Ed. Kosegarten), pp. 132-135. The immigrants came from the Red Sea and Syria, according to Dr. Krapf, from Oman and the Persian Gulf according to Badger (though Krapf admits a later Persian element as well). This was the migration of the "Emosaids" ('Ammu-Sa'Ć®d, or People of Sa'Ć®d?). They, in one tradition, claimed to be the clan of Said, grandson of Ali; "a mythical personage," according to Badger, who substitutes "Sa'Ć®d, grandson of JulĆ”nda" the Azdite; the latter, in this 'OmĆ¢ni migration, was accompanied by his brother SuleimĆ¢n. The traditional date is a.d. 740, and onwards.
[81] Masudi, ch. 12 of the Meadows of Gold. The adventurer was Khosh-Khash, the "young man of Cordova," who returned with great riches, from Guinea (?).
[82] See the section of this Introduction upon the Atlantic Islands, pp. lxxv-lxxvii. Edrisi's Maghrurin or Wanderers probably sailed from and returned to Lisbon before 1147, the date of the final Christian capture of that city, and touched the African mainland at a point over against Madeira.
[83] By one Ibn Fatimah, who was wrecked at Wad-Nun, a little North of Cape Non, put off in a sloop with some sailors, and at last came to a glittering white headland, from which they were warned off by some Berbers. They learned afterwards that it was one mass of deadly serpents. Thence turning North they landed and went inland to the salt market of Tagazza, and finally returned home.
[84] Cf. what is said about Prince Henry's correspondent, the merchant at Oran, p. xxvi of this Introduction.
[85] Various early Arab MSS., lately found by the French in Tombuttu ("Timbuktu"), especially the Tarik-es-Sudan of "Abderrahman ben Amr-Sadi-Tombukkti," according to FĆ©lix Dubois (Tombouctou la MystĆ©rieuse), supply important rectifications of the standard accounts here; e.g. (1) Islam is found in the Western Sudan from the close of the ninth century. (2) The Songhay were converted in 1010; were for a time subject to the Kings of Melli; but gained freedom in 1355. (3) The Songhay took Timbuktu in 1469; and from this date, for more than a century, dominated all the West and Central Sudan from their capital at Gao. (4) JennĆ©, on the Upper Niger, was the furthest point westward of the original Songhay migration from Nubia. It was founded in 765; was converted to Islam in 1050, but "Pagan idols" were not completely rooted out till 1475. (5) JennĆ© was, in the Middle Ages, the greatest emporium of the Western Sudan, far outshining Timbuktu, which owed its foundation in part to JennĆ©. (6) JennĆ© was also a chief centre of Sudanese Islam. Its great Mosque, built in the eleventh century, partially destroyed in 1830, was the finest in all Negroland. (7) Its control of the salt and gold trade, as well as of most other branches of Sudanese merchandise, was such that it gave the name of Guinea to a vast region of West Africa, especially along the coast. (8) But Timbuktu, geographically, stood between JennĆ© and Barbary, and so between JennĆ© and Europe, and prevented JennĆ© from becoming famous in Christendom. (9) JennĆ© was connected primarily with a migration from East to West; Timbuktu, with a migration from North to South. (10) Timbuktu was founded [Ī±] by the Tuareg, who owed their new energy in part to Moslem migrations from Spain, c. 1100 (1077 according to some authorities); [Ī²], by merchants from JennĆ©, who made it an emporium in the twelfth century. (11) In the twelfth century, Walata, or Gana, in the great bend of the Niger [? dominated by JennĆ©] was the most prosperous commercial district of West Soudan; but in the thirteenth century the conquests of the Kings of Melli [placed by these authorities west-south-west of Timbuktu, to the north of the Upper Niger] disturbed the old trade-routes, and diverted commerce to Timbuktu; which, however, was never itself very populous, and served chiefly as a place of passage and commercial rendezvous. (12) From 1330 to 1434 the Kings of Melli were usually masters of Timbuktu, where they built a pyramid minaret for the chief mosque; but at least during some years of the fourteenth century, Timbuktu was conquered by an invasion from Mossi. (13) From 1434 to 1469, the Tuareg regained possession of Timbuktu, and drove out the Melinki; but in 1469 the Songhay took the town, and held it for more than 100 years. (14) In the fourteenth century the Kings of Melli built a great palace in Timbuktu, which did not disappear till the sixteenth century. (15) From the fourteenth century Timbuktu was the intellectual capital of the Sudan. This was due to the Spanish-Moorish influence. (16) The patron saint and doctor of Timbuktu, Sidi Yahia, was practically contemporary (1373-1462) with Prince Henry the Navigator. (17) The town of Kuku, Kuka or Kokia, in the W. Sudan, mentioned by mediƦval Moslem travellers, was probably either a city on or near the Niger, immediately south of Gao, the Songhay capital; or else Gao itself, which is sometimes called Kuku or Gogo. Even this place was conquered by Melli, in the fourteenth century, which thus dominated part of the Central Sudan. The ruins of the great mosque at Gao still commemorate Kunkur Musa, King of Melli, who built this house of prayer on his return from the Mecca pilgrimage, about 1325. See Tarik-es-Sudan, composed about 1656, and giving a history of the Sudan down to that year: the fragments remaining of the Fatassi of Mahmadu-Koti (1460-1554); Nil-el-Ibtihaj bitatriz el-dibaj, or Supplement to the Biographical Dictionary of Ibn-Ferhun by Ahmed Baba, 1556-1627.
[86] In his "Summary Discourse of the Manifold Religions in Africa," printed at the end of the Hakluyt Society's Edition of Pory's (1600) Translation of Leo Africanus, vol. iii, especially pp. 1018-1021.
[87] See Edrisi, Climate I, Ā§ i; WappaĆ¼s, Heinrich der Seefahrer, pp. 65, etc.
[88] Similar language is used by Abulfeda, who calls it the seat of the King of Gana (whither come the western merchants of Segelmesa), situate on a Nile, twin-brother of the Egyptian, which flows into the Ocean; also by Ibn-al-Wardi, who calls Ghanah city one of the greatest in the land of the Blacks, placed on both sides of the Negro Nile, and resorted to for gold by merchants, twelve days' journey from Segelmesa. Edrisi (Climate I, section ii; ed. Jaubert, i, 16-18; also see i, 11, 13, 15, 19-20, 23, 106, 109, 173-4, 206, 272) is the most specific of all. "Ghanah the Great, made up of two towns on the banks of a sweet-water river ... the most populous and commercial city in Negroland. Merchants come there from all surrounding countries, and from the extremities of the West ... it was built in a.h. 510" (= a.d. 1116) (see also Leo Africanus, Hakluyt Soc. ed., pp. 124, 128, 822, 840).
[89] See Ibn-Batuta (DefrƩmery and Sanguinetti), iv, 395, 421-2; also Oppel, Die religiƶse VerhƤltnisse von Afrika, Zeitschrift of Berlin Geog. Soc., xxii, 1887.
[90] See Otto Blau, Chronik von Bornu, p. 322, Z. D. M. G., vi, 1852.
[91] The more complete Islamising of Wadai, Darfur, and Baghirmi did not take place till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. See Slatin Pasha, Fire and Sword in Soudan, pp. 38-42; T. W. Arnold, Preaching of Islam, chs. iv, xi.
[92] Edrisi, Climate I, section iv; vol. i, p. 35 (Jaubert). See Duchesne, Eglises SƩparƩes.
[93] Ibn-Batuta, iv, 396. (DefrƩmery and Sanguinetti).
[94] See Alvarez, Hakl. Soc. Edition, p. 352.
[95] Ruins?
[96] See Nerazzini, Musulman Conquest of Ethiopia, Rome 1891. (Ital. Transl. from Arab MS.).
[97] Africa.
[98] Azurara, c. vii.
[99] Ibid., c. xvii.
[100] See MaqrÄ«zÄ«, Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks de l'Egypte, QuatremĆØre, 1837-45, t. ii, Pt. 11, p. 183.
[101] Portugal.
[102] To find such a "Christian Lord" in the person of Prester John was said to have been one of the chief objects of D. Pedro's travels. This object Pedro avowed in Cairo; and with this, among other aims, he visited not only Egypt but Sinai and the Red Sea (see Martins, Os Filhos, pp. 83, 97, 121-2, etc., and pp. xvii-xviii of this volume).
[103] In 1076, the Church of Barbary could not provide three bishops to consecrate a new member of the Episcopate, and Gregory VII named two bishops to co-operate with the Archbishop of Carthage (See Migne, Pat. Lat., cxlviii, p. 449; Mas Latrie, RĆ©lations de l'Afrique septentrionale avec les Nations chrĆ©tiennes au Moyen Age, p. 226). In 1053, Leo IX declared that only five bishops could be found in North Africa (Migne, P. L., cxliii, p. 728). On the thirty bishops of the tenth century, see Mas Latrie, Ibid. pp. 27-8. It is curious to find Gregory II, in c. 730, forbidding St. Boniface of Mainz to admit emigrants from North Africa to Holy Orders without inquiry (Migne, P. L., lxxxix, p. 502)āa remarkable proof of mediƦval emigration.
[104] See Mas Latrie, Afrique Septentrionale, passim, and especially pp. 61-2, 192, 266-7, 273.
[105] See C. Trumelet, Les Saints de l'Islam (1881), pp. xxviii-xxxvi. In this connection we may notice one or two other traces of intercourse between the Moslems of Granada and those of Africa, e.g. (1) Ibn-Batuta's mention of the tomb of the poet Abu Ishak es Sahili, born in Granada, died and buried in Timbuktu, 1346. (2) Leo Africanus' notice of the stone mosque and palace in Timbuktu, the work of an architect from Granada in the fifteenth century. On Timbuktu, see Ibn Batuta (Def. and San.), iv, 395, 426, 430-2; Leo Afr. (Hakluyt Soc.), 4, 124, 128, 133-4, 146, 173, 255, 306, 798, 820, 822-4, 842.
[106] But in one view Tokrur is merely a generic name for the Sudan and Sudanese, and is only by mistake converted into a definite kingdom by Arab writers of second-rate authority.
[107] From the same he may have heard the tradition of Bakui's voyage in 1403, from the Maroccan coast to about the latitude of the Bight of Arguim, a parallel adventure to Ibn Fatimah's. See above, p. xliv.
[108] Raymond Lulli ["of Lull">[ is thought by some to have made the first definite suggestion of this route in the central mediƦval period. This "doctor illuminatus" was born at Palma in Majorca, 1235, became a Franciscan Tertiary in 1266, and died 1315. We may perhaps connect him with the very early school of portolano-draughtsmanship in the Balearics. See Map section of this Introduction.
[109] = Lancelote? See pp. lxxviii-lxxix.
[110] According to some authorities, 1281. See Giustiniani, Castigatissimi Annali di Genova, 1537, fol. cxi, verso. Giustiniani refers to Francesco Stabili, otherwise Cecco d'Ascoli, in his Commentary on the De Sphaera Mundi of Sacrobosco (John of Holywood, in Yorks, c. a.d. 1225). The year 1291 corresponds with the fall of Acre, and the consequent embarrassment of the Syrian overland routes to Inner Asia.
[111] At or near Cape Non, which, on the Pizzigani Map of 1367, is marked "Caput Finis Gozole."
[112] This statement, it has been conjectured, was intended for use in a "forthcoming globe or map." Uso di Mare's statement was first noticed by GrƤberg af Hemsƶ. See Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 179 (Ed. of 1865); Major, Henry Navigator, 99-106 (Ed. of 1868), P. Amat di S. Filippo, Studi biografici, etc. (Ed. of 1882), i, p. 77, for recent studies on the general question of the Genoese Voyage of 1291, and Uso di Mare's letter. The earliest modern notice of the account of this voyage in the Public Annals of Genoa was by G. H. Pertz, in his memoir, "Der Ƥlteste Versuch zur Entdeckung des Seewegs nach Ostindien", offered to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich, March 28th, 1859 (Festschrift, Berlin, 1859). The Genoese Annals referred to are a continuation of the Chronicles of Caffaro. Muratori has printed an abstract of the narrative. See also Nordenskjƶld, Periplus (1897), pp. 114, 116; Nouvelles Annales des Voyages (d'Avezac), vol. cviii, p. 47.
[113] In 1455?
[114] Nile.
[115] Thus it has been pointed out that two of Tedisio Doria's galleys were registered in a legal document of 1291, under the names of St. Antonio and Allegrancia, and that the name Allegranza, applied for some time to one of the Canaries, was perhaps derived from this ship. Either from this or from Malocello's venture of 1270, the islands of LanƧarote and Maloxelo in the same group probably took their names. LanƧarote was marked with the red cross of Genoa on most Portolani down to a late period of the sixteenth century.
[116] I.e., Guinea.
[117] 10th August.
[118] See Papers presented to Archives of Genoa by Federico Federici, 1660. Reference discovered by GrƤberg af Hemsƶ.
[119] The River of Gold.
[120] Yet, proceeds this record, the "river [of gold] is a league wide and deep enough for the largest ship. This is the Cape of the end ... of W. Africa."
[121] Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, p. 114 (1897), gives a confirmation from experience. "There is hardly any doubt that the ship-drawing on the Atlas Catalan is in the main correct.... Even in my time, Norwegians went out fishing on Spitzbergen in large undecked boats, somewhat like that of Ferrer."
[122] Such as dealt in Guinea products, especially malaguette pepper, at Nismes, Marseilles, and Montpellier.
[123] "The Mine" of Hakluyt and early English geographers.
[124] See the MS. edited by Margry, and given in Major's Introduction to his Life of Henry the Navigator; the Short History of the Navigation of Jean Prunaut of Rouen; also La Relation des Costes d'Afrique appelĆ©es GuinĆ©es, by Sieur Villaut de Bellefond, Paris, 1669; L. Estancelin, Recherches sur les voyages des navigateurs normands, 1832; PĆØre Labat, Nouvelle rĆ©lation de l'Afrique Occidentale, 1728; Pierre Margry, Les Navigations FranƧaises du XIV.me au XVI.me siĆØcle, 1867. The French claim is fully admitted by Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 115-6 (1847), but of course vigorously denied by the Portuguese, whom Major supports.āHenry Navigator, Introduction, pp. xxiv-li, and text, pp. 117-133.
[125] Especially some of the ivory carvings said to have been made from spoils of this fourteenth-century trade.
[126] The "short history" of Prunaut's navigation assigns September, 1364, for the start of the first voyage; makes the sailors reach "Ovideg" at Christmas ("Ovidech" in Barros, Decade I, occurs as a native name for the Senegal); and tells us the anchorage was at C. "Bugiador," in "Guinoye." The blacks, called Jaloffs or Giloffs, had never seen white men before. Small presents were exchanged for "morphi" or ivory, skins, etc. Next year (?) Prunaut (called "Messire Jean of Rouen" throughout), returned with four ships and acquired land from the natives. Here he built houses for wares and habitation, and proposed to his men to settle there permanently. They agreed, but quarrels prevented the foundation of the colony. In September, 1379, Prunaut sailed again to Guinea with a very fine ship, Notre Dame de bon Voyage, but lost many men from sickness; he himself returned after Easter, 1380, with much gold. After this Prunaut was made a captain in the French navy. Next year (1381) the Notre Dame again went out with the St. Nicholas and L'EspƩrance, of Dieppe and Rouen. The first-named cast anchor at La Mine, where Prunaut built a chapel, a castle, a fortalice, and a square house, on a hill called the "Land of the Prunauts." Near this were Petit Dieppe, Petit Rouen, Petit Paris, Petit Germentrouville; French forts were also built at Cormentin and Acra. But from 1410 all this prosperity decayed; in eleven years only two ships went to the gold coast, and one to the Grande Siest; and soon after the wars in France destroyed this commerce altogether.
Villaut de Bellesfond, Estancelin, and Labat, narrate the same incidents as follows: Charles V encouraged commerce, so in November, 1364, the Dieppese fitted out two ships, of 100 tons each, for the Canaries. About Christmas they reached C. Verde, and anchored before Rio Fresco, which in 1669 was still called "Baie de France." Afterwards they went on to a place they called "Petit Dieppe," and the Portuguese "Rio Sestos," beyond Sierra Leone; for objects of small value they gained gold, ivory, and pepper; returning in 1365 they realised great wealth; and in September of the same year the merchants of Rouen joined with those of Dieppe to fit out four ships, two for trade between Cape Verde and Petit Dieppe, the other two for exploration of the coast beyond. One of these last stopped at Grand Sestere, on the Malaguette coast, and loaded pepper; the other ship traded on the Ivory Coast, and went on as far as the Gold Coast, and depƓts 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 1660. In 1380 the Company sent out Notre Dame de bon Voyage, of 150 tons, from Rouen to the Gold Coast (September). At end of December they reached the same landing where the French had traded fifteen years before. In the summer of 1381 the Notre Dame returned to Dieppe richly laden; in 1382 three ships set sail together, September 28th, viz, La Vierge, Le Saint Nicholas, L'EspƩrance. La Vierge stopped at La Mine, the first place discovered on the Gold Coast. The St. Nicholas traded at Cape Corse and at MourƩ below La Mine, and L'EspƩrance went as far as Akara, trading at Fanting, Sabon and Cormentin. Ten months after, the expedition returned with rich cargoes. Three more ships were sent out in 1383, one to go to Akara, the others to build an outpost at La Mine; there they left ten or twelve men, and returned after ten months. A church was afterwards built for the new colony, and in 1660 this still preserved the arms of France. After the accession of Charles VI, the African trade was soon ruined. Before 1410 La Mine was abandoned, and until after 1450 the Normans, it is believed, abandoned maritime explorations.
[127] See De Bry's Collection des petits Voyages, Frankfort, 1625; Oliver Dapper's Description of Africa (in Dutch), Amsterdam, 1668; Ramusio's Collection, Ed. of 1565, iii. p. 417 verso, in the Discorso sopra la Nuova Francia; Dr. David Lewis' Letter to Burleigh, March 9, 1577. Santarem's Priority of Portuguese Discoveries, etc. (1842), is mainly directed against the French claims.
[128] Genoese.
[129] Venetian.
[130] Unless the contour of the Laurentian Map of 1351 is held to prove a circumnavigation of Africa shortly before 1351. The comparative accuracy of this outline, so incredibly good as mere guesswork, must remain one of the chief cruces of MediƦval geography.
[131] See the Book of the Conquest and Conversion of the Canarians by Jean de BĆ©thencourt, written by Pierre Bontier, monk, and Jean le Verrier, priest. Edited for the Hakluyt Society by R. H. Major, 1872.
[132] See section of this Introduction on the African Islands, pp. lxxxii-lxxxiv.
[133] Buyetder on the Catalan Atlas of 1375.
[134] This is identified by Nordenskjƶld, Periplus 79, following Espada, with the recently rediscovered Libro del ConosƧimiento de todos los reynos & tierras & seƱorios que son por el mundo & de las seƱales & armas que han cada tierra & seƱorio por sy & de los reyes & SeƱores que los proueen. This was lost sight of till 1870, when it was found by Marcos Jimenez de la Espada, who published it in the Boletin de la Sociedad Geographica de Madrid 1877. "It is certainly not a record of actual travel, but probably the description of an imaginary journey, compiled with the help of a richly illustrated typical portolano, reports by far-famed and travelled men, and such geographical works as were accessible to the author. Many names here occurring are, however, not to be found on the portolanos of the fourteenth century.... Every city or country spoken of in the book has a chapter to itself, followed by a representation of the flag or arms of the State. These also seem ... taken from some portolano." See the Conquest of the Canaries (Hakluyt Soc. ed., ch. 55). The ConosƧimiento cannot well be of later date than 1330-1340. In many places it copies Edrisi.
[135] Admitted by Nordenskjƶld with singular facility: Periplus, pp. 115-6. As to the Portuguese sailor named Machico, and the possibility that the Machico district of Madeira was named after him or one of his descendants, see below, pp. lxxxiv-lxxxv.
[136] See Atlantic Islands.
[137] See Map section.
The Atlantic Islands.
i. before prince henry.
The history of the exploration of the Azores, the Canaries, and the Madeira group, before Prince Henry's time, seems to deserve a special notice in this place.
It is pretty certain that the Fortunate Islands of ancient geography were our Canaries. Eudoxus of Cyzicus was said to have discovered off the West African coast an uninhabited island, so well provided with wood and water, that he intended to return there and settle for the winter. According to Plutarch, Sertorius (b.c. 80-72) is said to have been told by some sailors whom he met at the mouth of the Baetis[[138]] of two islands[[139]] in the ocean, from which they had just arrived. These they called the "Atlantic Islands," and described as distant from the shore of Africa 10,000 stadia (1,000 miles), and enjoying a perpetual summer. Sertorius wished to fly from his war with the Romans in Spain, and take refuge in these islands, but his followers would not agree to this.[[140]]
Leaving out of serious consideration the Atlantis story in Plato's Timaeus (which may possibly owe something to early PhÅnician and Carthaginian discoveries among the Atlantic islands), it is noticeable that no such Western Ocean lands occur in Strabo (b.c. 30). On the other hand the Canaries are described by Statius Sebosus, as reported in Pliny[[141]] (b.c. 30-a.d. 70), and by King Juba the younger of Mauretania (fl. b.c. 1); are laid down under the name of Fortunate Islands by Ptolemy; and are adopted in his reckonings as the Western limit of the world. Sebosus mentions Junonia, 750 miles from Gades; near this, Pluvialia and Capraria; and 1,000 miles from Gades, off the South-west coast of Mauretania or Marocco, the Fortunatae, Convallis or Invallis, and Planaria.
Juba[[142]] again makes five Fortunate Isles: Ombrios, Nivaria, Capraria, Junonia, and Canaria, all fertile but uninhabited. Large dogs were found, however, in the last-named, and two of these had been brought to Juba himself, who called the island after them. Date-palms also abounded. Juba also, according to Pliny, discovered the Purple islands (Purpurariae) off the coast of Mauretania, which have been carelessly identified by some with the Madeira group, though wanting the two essential conditions of Juba's description: (1) producing Orchil; (2) lying very close to the shore of Mauretania. LanƧarote and Fuerteventura agree with Juba's conditions on these points,[[143]] but then why are they made a separate group from Nivaria, etc., which are undoubtedly the main body of the Canaries? Juba's account is the most clear and valuable we have from ancient geography, dealing with the Canaries, and is far better than that[[144]] of the Alexandrian geographer. Ptolemy lays down the Fortunate Islandsāassuming the Canaries to be meantāincorrectly both in latitude and longitude, in a position really corresponding better to that of the Cape Verdes. Hence it has been supposed that he confounded the two groups in one; whereas the Cape Verdes, lying out to sea 300 miles from the Continent, are not likely to have been known, even in his day. An error in position is so common with Ptolemy that it is quite unnecessary to be disturbed by it. But he clearly had some definite knowledge that islands existed in the ocean to the west of Africa, and in his map he probably reproduces the statements of others, without first-hand information of his own, assigning such a position as suited best with his theories. For he not merely brings the southernmost of the Fortunate Isles down to 11Ā° N. lat., but scatters the group through 5Ā° of latitude, placing the northernmost in latitude, 16Ā° N. His names vary much from Juba's, for he gives us six: Canaria, the Isle of Juno, PluĆÆtala,[[145]] Aprositus (the Inaccessible), Caspiria, and Pinturia or Centuria; at the western extremity of these, after the example of Marinus, he drew the first meridian of longitude.[[146]]
The Arabs seem to have lost all definite knowledge of the Atlantic islands, an impossible possession to a race with such a deep horror of the Green Sea of Darkness. Masudi, indeed, tells us a story, already noticed, of one Khoshkhash, the young man of Cordova, who some years before the writer's time[[147]] 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 Madeira group seems to have been preserved among Moslem geographers, under the name of Isles of Khaledat, or Khaledad, but we have only one narrative from the collections of these authors which suggests a Musulman visit to the same. This is found in Edrisi, in its earlier form, and must refer to some time before 1147, when Lisbon finally became a Christian city. It probably belongs to a year of the eleventh century, and has perhaps left its impression in the Brandan legend as put forth in the oldest MS., of about 1070.
The Lisbon Wanderers, or Maghrurin, from Moslem Spain, commemorated by Edrisi and by Ibn-al-Wardi, did not apparently venture to the South of Cape Non, but they seem to have reached the Madeira group as well as the Canaries. The adventurers were eight in number, all related to one another. After eleven days' sail, apparently from Lisbon, they found themselves in a sea due[[148]] West of Spain, where the waters were thick, of bad smell, and moved by strong currents.[[149]] Here the weather became as black as pitch. Fearing for their lives they now turned South, and after twelve days sighted an island which they called El Ghanam, the Isle of Cattle,[[150]] from the sheep they saw there without any shepherd. The flesh of these cattle was too bitter for eating, but they found a stream of running water and some wild figs. Twelve more days to the South brought them to an island[[151]] with houses and cultivated fields. Here they were seized, and carried prisoners to a city on the sea-shore. After three days the King's interpreter, who spoke Arabic, came to them, and asked them who they were and what they wanted. They replied, they were seeking the wonders of the Ocean and its limits. At this the King laughed, and said: "My father once ordered some of his slaves to venture upon that sea, and after sailing it for a month, they found themselves deprived of sun-light and returned without any result." The Wanderers 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,[[152]] and returned to Spain, when a "street at the foot of the hot bath in Lisbon took the name of 'Street of the Wanderers.'"
El Ghanam has been identified by Avezac and others with Legname, the old Italian 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 meat of the animals who browsed upon it.[[153]]
Some have conjectured that the "White Man's Land" and "Great Ireland," which the Norsemen of Iceland professed to have seen in 983-4, 999, and 1029, was a name for the Canaries, rather than for any point of America, but this appears entirely conjecturalāthough it is probable enough that some of the Vikings in their wanderings may have visited these islands. In 1108-9, King Sigurd of Norway meets a Viking fleet in the Straits of Gibraltar ("Norva Sound");[[154]] and in the course of their many attacks on the "Bluemen" or Moors of "Serkland" (Saracen-land) the Northern rovers who reached the New World, Greenland, and the White Sea, may well have sighted and ravaged the Fortunate Islands of the Atlantic, beyond Cape Non.
No further reference, even conjectural, to the Atlantic Islands is known until the later thirteenth century, when the MediƦval revival in Christian lands, finding its expression in the Crusades and in the Asiatic land-travels of John de Plano Carpini, Simon de St. Quentin, Rubruquis, and the Polos, among others, led to attempts in search of a maritime route to India from the Mediterranean ports. The earliest of these followed immediately on the return of the elder Polos from Central Asia (1269).
In 1270 the voyage of the Genoese, Lancelot Malocello, already referred to as a possible reconnaissance on the African coast route to the Far East, resulted in a re-discovery of some of the Canaries. At any rate, he stayed[[155]] long enough to build himself a "castle" there; and the recognition of this island, as well as of the adjoining "Maloxelo," as Genoese on maps of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries,[[156]] was probably due to this. During BĆ©thencourt's "Conquest," some of the followers of his colleague, Gadifer de la Salle, stored barley, we are told, in an old castle which had been built by Lancelot Maloisel. It has been supposed that Petrarch, writing c. 1335 a.d., and referring to the armed Genoese fleet which had penetrated to the Canaries a generation before (a Patrum memoria), was thinking of Malocello's venture, but the expression is better suited to the Expedition of 1291, led by Tedisio Doria and the Vivaldi.
It is possible that the Portuguese followed up Malocello's visit by voyages of their own (besides the well-known venture of 1341) before the year 1344,[[157]] when Don Luis of Spain obtained a grant of the Canaries from the Pope[[158]] at Avignon (November 15, 1344). This grant conferred on Luis de la Cerda, Count of Talmond, the title of Prince of Fortune, with the lordship of the Fortunate 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 would 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 supplied 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 left Portugal for the Canaries under Genoese pilotage, and quite independently of Don Luis, as far as we know. It was composed of two vessels furnished by the King of Portugal, and a smaller ship, all well-armed, and manned by Florentines, Genoese, Castilians, Portuguese, and "other Spaniards."[[159]] They set out from Lisbon on July 1, 1341; on the fifth(?) day they discovered land; and in November they returned. They brought home with them four natives, many goat and seal skins, dye-wood, bark for staining, red earth, etc. Nicoloso de Recco, a Genoese, pilot of the expedition, considered these islands nearly 900 miles distant from Seville. The first[[160]] discovered was supposed to be about 150 miles round; it was barren and stony, inhabited by goats and other animals, as well as by naked people, absolutely savage. The next[[161]] visited was larger than the former, and contained many natives, 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 with vegetables. Four men swam out to the ships, and were carried off. The Europeans found on the island a sort of temple, with a stone idol, which was brought back to Lisbon.
From this island several others were visibleāone remarkable for its lofty trees,[[162]] another containing excellent wood and water, wild pigeons, falcons, and birds of prey.[[163]] In the fifth visited were immense rocky mountains reaching into the clouds.[[164]] Eight other islands were sighted. In all, five of the new-found lands were peopled, the 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 30,000 feet high, and on its summit a fortress-like rock, with a mast atop of it rigged with a yard and lateen sailāa manifest proof of enchantment. No wealth was found in any of the islands, and hence perhaps the venture of 1341 was not followed up by Portugal for many years; but it is probable that the results of this year are commemorated in the delineation of the Fortunate Isles upon the Laurentian Portolano of 1351.[[165]]
Nothing, so far as we know, was done for the further exploration of the Canaries (after 1341) till 1382, when one Captain Francisco Lopez, while on his way from Seville to Galicia, was driven south by storms, and took refuge (June 5th) at the mouth of the Guiniguada, in Grand Canary. Here he landed with twelve of his comrades; the strangers were kindly treated, and passed seven years among the natives, instructing many in the doctrines of Christianity. Suddenly Lopez and his men were accused of sending into Christian countries a "bad account" of the islands, and were all massacred. Before dying, they seem to have given one of their converts a written "testament," and this was found by the men of Jean de BĆ©thencourt in 1402.
Apparently, very shortly before the invasion of the latter (? in 1390-5), another Spaniard, Alvaro Becarra, visited the islands,[[166]] and it was (according to one authority) from information directly supplied by him and two French adventurers who accompanied him, that De BĆ©thencourt was induced to undertake his expedition.
The Lord of Grainville set out with a body of followers, among whom the knight Gadifer de la Salle was chief, from Rochelle, on May 1st, 1402. Eight days' sail from Cadiz, he reached Graciosa. Thence he went to LanƧarote, where he built a fort called Rubicon. Going on to Fuerteventura, he was hampered by a mutiny among his men, and by lack of supplies. He returned to Spain, procured from Henry III of Castille what he needed, and reappeared at LanƧarote. During his absence, Gadifer, left in command, accomplished a partial exploration of Fuerteventura, Grand Canary, Ferro, Gomera and Palma. The "King" of LanƧarote was baptised on February 20th, 1404; but after this, Gadifer quarrelled with his leader and returned to France. All attempts to conquer the Pagans of Grand Canary were fruitless, and De BƩthencourt finally quitted the islands, appointing his nephew Maciot[[167]] to be governor in his place of the four Christian colonies in Palma and Ferro, LanƧarote and Fuerteventura.
The Madeira group are laid down[[168]] in the ConosƧimiento de todos los Reynos of the early fourteenth century, as well as in the Laurentian Portolano of 1351; in the Soleri Portolani of 1380 and 1385; and in the Combitis Portolan of about 1410. But in 1555,[[169]] A. Galvano, in his Discoveries of the World, claimed that an Englishman in the reign of Edward III(?) was the discoverer. He was copied by Hakluyt in 1589, and English patriotism has been loath to surrender the tradition.
"About this time," says Galvano [viz., between 1344 and 1395, the two dates named immediately before and after this entry], the "island of Madeira was discovered by ... [Robert] Macham,[[170]] who sailing from England, having run away with a woman,[[171]] was driven by a tempest ... to that island, and cast ashore in that haven, which is now called Machico, after ... Macham." Here the ship was driven from its moorings; and, according to one account[[172]] both lovers died; according to the older version, Macham escaped to the African mainland, and was finally saved and brought to the King of Castille. His old pilot, Morales, was supposed to have guided J. G. Zarco in Prince Henry's rediscovery of Madeira (1420). Azurara, however, says nothing about Macham; and it has been conjectured, from a document rediscovered in 1894, that the Machico district of Madeiraāwhose title, given by the Portuguese in 1420, has often been quoted as an acknowledgement of Macham's claimāderived its name from a Portuguese seaman of that name, who was living in 1379, or from one of his relations.[[173]]
The Azores, or Western Islands, are also (in part) laid down in the ConosƧimiento above quoted (of about a.d. 1330), and in the Medicean Portolano of 1351;[[174]] and when the Infant sent out GonƧalo Cabral[[175]] in this direction he was aided, it is said, by an Italian portolano, on which the aforesaid islands were depicted.[[176]] But no record of any voyage thereto earlier than that of Diego de Sevill[[177]] (1427) has been preserved; nor did any one before the Prince's time attempt, as far as is known, the colonisation or complete exploration of the Azores. To these, however, like the other Atlantic islands, Nordenskjƶld's emphatic words[[178]] apply, as the cartographical evidence requires. To some extent at least all these groups "were known ... to skippers long before organised ... expeditions were sent to them by great feudal lords." Absolute novelty in geographical discovery is one of the most difficult things to prove, and in no field of historical inquiry does the saying more often occur to the inquirer: "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona, multi."
The Cape Verdes is the only group of Atlantic Islands as to which we may be reasonably sure that the mediƦval discovery at least was not made before Prince Henry's lifetime. Here the Infant's claim of priority is probably most in danger from PhÅnician and Carthaginian sailors;[[179]] but even here the challenge is not very serious, unless we insist on considering as proven a number of pretensions which are almost impossible to substantiate.
[138] Guadalquivir.
[139] Madeira and Porto Santo(?)
[140] Plutarch, Sertorius, c. 8.
[141] Pliny, Hist. Nat., vi, 32.
[142] Copied by Solinus and many mediƦval writers (see Pliny, Hist. Nat., vi, 31). Juba's work was dedicated to Caius CƦsar, b.c. 1, when just about to start on an expedition to the East. Ombrios, from its mountain lake, has been identified with Palma; Nivaria more easily with Teneriffe and Canaria with Grand Canary; Junonia is difficult to fix, as we have the statement that a second and smaller island of the same name is in its neighbourhood; Capraria is supposed to be Ferro. The remaining two of our modern archipelago, Lancarote and Fuerteventura, are supposed by some to be the "Purpurariae" of Juba.
[143] And are therefore accepted as the Purpurariae by D'Anville Gossellin, Major, and, with some hesitation, by Bunbury.
[144] "A mere confused jumble of different reports." Bunbury, Anc. Geog. ii, 202.
[145] Perhaps a corruption of Sebosus' Pluvialia. "The Inaccessible" is possibly Teneriffe. Canaria and the Isle of Juno are of course identical with Juba's nomenclature.
[146] Cerne, so important a mark in Hanno's Periplus, he places in the Ocean 3Ā° from the mainland, in clear opposition to the Carthaginian authorities whom some have thought he possessed and used. Cerne is in latitude 25Ā° 40', and east longitude 5Ā° on Ptolemy's map.
[147] C. a.d. 950.
[148] They started with a full east wind.
[149] Sargasso Sea?
[150] Madeira?
[151] One of the Canaries?
[152] At a point named Asafi or Safi (at the extreme south-west of our Marocco), said to have been named after the Wanderers' exclamation of dismay: Wa Asafiā"Alas! my sorrow." Cf. Edrisi, Climate III, section i (ed. Jaubert, i, 201); Climate IV, section i (J., ii, 26-9). Safi is in 32Ā° 20' N. Lat.
[153] See Berthelot, Histoire Naturelle des Iles Canariens.
[154] "Saga of King Sigurd" (in Heimskringla), ch. vi.
[155] In LanƧarote island?
[156] Cf. especially the ConosƧimiento of early fourteenth century; the Laurentian Portolano of 1351; the Soleri Portolani of 1380 and 1385; the Combitis Portolan of early fifteenth century; the so-called Bianco of 1436. On a Genoese map of 1455, executed by Bartholomew Pareto, is a more explicit legend over against LanƧarote Island: "Lansaroto Maroxello Januensis." See also the Conquest of ... Canaries, by De BƩthencourt's chaplains, ch. xxxii; and Major's note, pp. 55-6 of the Hakluyt Society's edition of this Chronicle.
[157] Ships from Portugal (according to SĆ”ntarem, Cosmographie, i, 275, copied by Oliveira Martins, Filhos de D. JoĆ£o, i, 68), visited the Canaries under Affonso IV, between 1331 and 1344. Perhaps this is only a loose reference to the expedition of 1341.
[158] Clement VI. Major, Prince Henry, 140, and Conquest of Canaries (Hakluyt Soc.), xi, has apparently confused matters, giving the date of 1334 (in the Pontificate of Benedict XII), and implying a grant by Clement VI.
[159] The account that has come down to us is by Boccaccio(?) (discovered in 1827 by Sebastiano Ciampi, who identified the handwriting), and was professedly compiled from letters written to Florence by certain Florentine merchants residing in Seville. Among these, "Angelino del Tegghia dei Corbizzi, a cousin of the sons of Gherardino Gianni," is especially mentioned.
[160] Major conjectures Fuerteventura.
[161] Grand Canary?
[162] Major here suggests the pines of Ferro.
[163] Gomera?
[164] Probably Teneriffe. Palma has also been suggested, with less likelihood.
[165] See the section of this Introduction on "Maps and Scientific Geography;" also WappƤus, Heinrich der Seefahrer, pp. 174-5.
[166] Ayala, Chronicle of Henry III of Castille, asserts that in 1393, mariners of Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Seville, visited the Canaries, and brought back spoils. Teneriffe they called the Isle of Hell (Inferno), from its volcano. They also landed on other islands of the group which they called Lencastre, Graciosa, Forteventura, Palma, and Ferro. See also Martins, Os Filhos de D. JoĆ£o I, p. 68.
[167] See Azurara, Guinea, c. xcv, lxxix, etc.
[168] Under the names of Lecmane, Lolegname, Legnami [Madeira, the "Isle of Wood">[; Puerto or Porto Santo; and I. desierta, deserte, or deserta. The last alone is wanting in the Combitis Portolan.
[169] Still earlier in 1508, Valentin Fernandez, a printer of Munich, issued the story in a MS., re-discovered in this century. Later, in 1660, Francisco Manoel de Mello published it in his Epanaphoras de Varia Historia Portuguesa (III), Lisbon, 1660. Mello's account was professedly derived from an original narrative by Francisco Alcaforado, a squire of Prince Henry, now lost. Fernandez, Galvano, (copied by Hakluyt) and Mello, all tell practically the same story, but with varying details.
[170] Or Machin, or O'Machin, or as Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 115, also reads: Mac Kean. N. accepts the whole of the Macham story with extraordinary readiness.
[171] Anne d'Arfet, or Dorset.
[172] Mello's.
[173] See J. I. de Brito Rebello, in Supplement to Diario de Noticias of Lisbon, published in connection with the fifth centenary of Prince Henry's birth, 1894. The document referring to Machico is dated April 12th, 1379, and by this, King Ferdinand, "the handsome," of Portugal, gives to one Machico, "mestre de sua barcha," a house in the Rua Nova of Lisbon. This was discovered by Rebello in the Torre do Tombo, acting on a hint given by Ernesto do Canton. Before this, the Macham story was attacked by Rodriguez d'Azevedo, in 1873. See the Saudades da terra of Dr. G. Fructuoso, pp. 348-429.
[174] It is not at all certain, as Major assumes (Prince Henry, 1868, p. 235), that this group was first discovered by "Portuguese vessels under Genoese pilotage."
[175] In 1431, etc.
[176] See Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 118 A; also P. Amat di S. Filippo, I veri Scopritori delle isole Azore, Ital. Geog. Soc. Bolletino, 1892.
[177] We learn about the voyage of Sevill from the Catalan Map of Gabriel Valsecca, executed between 1434 and 1439, which (1) gives a very fair representation of several of the Azores, under the names: Ylla de Oesels (St. Mary), Ylla de Fruydols (St. Michael), Ylla de Inferno (Terceira), Ylla de Guatrilla (St. George), Ylla de Sperto (Pico), and another of which the name has been effaced: (2) Bears the inscription: These islands were found by Diego de Sevill, pilot of the King of Portugal, in 1427. [Some have tried to read the MS. date as 1432 (xxxii for xxvii) but the text is against them]. In the Mediceum, or Laurentian Portolano, of 1351, St. Mary and St. Michael are laid down as Insule de Cabrera; St. George, Fayal, and Pico, as Insule de Ventura sive de Columbis; Terceira (?) as Insula de Brazi[l]. On the Catalan Map of 1375, we have San Zorzo (= St. George, "Jorge"); I. de la Ventura (= Fayal); Li Columbi (= Pico); I. di Corvi Marini (= Corvo); Li Conigi (= Flores). On the so-called Andrea Bianco of 1436 (probably a re-edition of a much earlier map), St. Michael appears as Cabrera. Corvo and Flores first appear on the Catalan Atlas of 1375, as far as present knowledge goes.
[178] Periplus, 116 A.
[179] It is probable that the "Gorgades" of the Greeks were derived from PhÅnician accounts; but it is very doubtful whether these represent the Cape Verdes. Ptolemy, as we have seen, places the southern extremity of his Fortunate Isles much in the true position of Santiago, though extending them north through 5 degrees of latitude.
2.āTHE ATLANTIC ISLANDS
in prince henry's lifetime.
Azurara also requires some words of supplement as to the progress of discovery and colonisation among the Atlantic Islands in Prince Henry's lifetime.[[180]] And, first, in the Azores. After the first voyages of Diego de Sevill and GonƧalo Cabral, the latter (according to Cordeiro) sought unsuccessfully for an island which had been sighted by a runaway slave from the highest mountain in St. Mary; at last, corrected by the Prince's map-studies, he found the object of his search on the 8th May, 1444, and named it St. Michael, being the festival of the Apparition of the Archangel.[[181]] The colonisation of this (even more than of other islands in the group) was impeded by earthquakes, but was nevertheless commenced on September 29, 1445. From the number of hawks or kites[[182]] found in St. Michael and St. Mary, the present name now began to supersede all others[[183]] for the Archipelago. The island now called Terceira,[[184]] but originally "The Isle of Jesus Christ," was apparently discovered before a.d. 1450, either by Prince Henry's sailors, or by an expedition of Flemish mariners or colonists under one Josua van der Berge, a citizen of Bruges, who claimed the exclusive, honour of this achievement under date of 1445. Hence, in some Netherland maps and atlases, of later date, the Azores are called The Flemish Islands.[[185]] On the other hand, Cordeiro has printed the Infant's charter of March 2, 1450, to Jacques de Bruges,[[186]] his servant, giving him the Captaincy of the Isle of Jesu Christ, because the said Jacques had asked permission of the Prince to colonise this uninhabited spot. Jacques de Bruges bore all the expenses of this colonisation, and may have been specially recommended to Henry by his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy. He had married into a noble Portuguese family, and had previously rendered some services to the Infant.
Graciosa was colonised by Vasco Gil SodrƩ, a Portuguese, who had been under Prince Henry's orders to Africa, and at first intended to join in the settlement of Terceira, but afterwards passed over to Graciosa. The captaincy of this island he divided for some time with his brother-in-law, Duarte Barreto.
San Jorge received its first inhabitants through a venture of Willem van der Haagen,[[187]] one of Jacques de Bruges' companions: Van der Haagen brought two shiploads of people and plant from Flanders, but afterwards abandoned the city he had founded there, and transferred himself to the more fertile island of Fayal. The last name brings us to one of the controversial points in the early history of the Azores.
According to the received account, Fayal was first settled by a Fleming noble, Jobst Van Heurter,[[188]] Lord of Moerkerke, father-in-law of Martin Behaim, who commemorated this event in a legend on his globe of 1492. The famous Nuremberger declares that the Azores were colonised in 1466, after they had been granted by the King of Portugal to his sister, Isabel, Duchess of Burgundy; that in 1490 Job de Huerter came out to settle with "some thousands of souls," the Duchess "having granted these islands to him and his descendants;" that in 1431, when Prince Pedro was Regent, Prince Henry sent out two vessels for two years' sail beyond Finisterre, and sailing west 500 leagues, they found these ten uninhabited islands; that they called them Azores from the tame birds they found there; and that the King began to settle the islands with "domestic animals" in 1432. This account is full of inaccuracies, and from the documents,[[189]] noticed by Father Cordeiro, by Barros, and by the Archivo dos AƧores, it appears probable that the grant of Fayal to Jobst van Heurter as first Captain Donatory was made after Prince Henry's death, perhaps in 1466, by Henry's successor, D. Ferdinand, at the request of the Duchess of Burgundy, and that this grant was confirmed by the Crown of Portugal; which, however, retained its sovereign rights over all the Azores, and did not part with them to the Duchess or anyone else.
Jobst van Heurter, some time after he had obtained the grant or sub-lease of Fayal, appears also to have become Captain Donatory of Pico, with a commission to colonise this island.
Flores and Corvo were first granted, as far as our records go, to a lady of Lisbon, Maria de Vilhena, likewise after the death of Prince Henry. It is said that Van der Haagen,[[190]] when he moved from S. Jorge to Fayal, did so at the invitation of Jobst van Heurter, who had been there four years, and now promised him a part of the island. The two quarrelled, however, and "Silveira" left Fayal and went to Terceira. Some time after this he visited Flanders, and returning to the Azores by way of Lisbon, became the guest of D. Vilhena, who had received a grant of Flores and Corvo. She now proposed to Van der Haagen that he should colonise and govern these islands for her, which he did for seven years.
* * * * *
Next, as to the Cape Verde islands. There is no positive ground for supposing that any Europeans discovered or colonised these before Prince Henry. The ancient Gorgades, Hesperides, and so forth have been identified with them by some, but all this remains in the state of guess-workāguess-work which has no great probability behind it.
But as to the discovery of the Cape Verdes in the Infant's lifetime, a controversy exists between the claims of Cadamosto and Diego Gomez, which must be shortly noticed. It is happily beyond controversy that five at least of the Archipelago were discovered within the Prince's own "period," as their names occur in a document of December 3, 1460, hereafter noticed.
Cadamosto's claim to the discovery of the Cape Verde islands has been denied[[191]] on the following grounds:
1. A mariner sailing from Lagos in early May could not anchor at Santiago on SS. Philip and James' day (May 1st), as stated by Cadamosto.
2. Cadamosto drove three days before the wind from Cape Blanco W.N.W. to Bonavista. But this lies 100 miles S.W. of Cape Blanco.
3. Cadamosto claims to 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 this it has been replied:
1. The first point is probably founded on a misprint. As a correction, d'Avezac[[192]] has suggested that Santiago was so called because the expedition set out on May 1st. It has also been noticed that the German and French versions of Cadamosto's Italian text (which contains this mistake) give March and not May as the month of sailing, while the translation in Temporal's Histoire de l'Afrique has July. Once more the festival of St. James (July 25th) has been suggested,[[193]] in exchange for that of SS. Philip and James. In support of this, the most likely alternative to a simple blunder, caused by haste, carelessness, and lapse of time, it is pointed out that Cadamosto seems to have arrived at the islands during the rainy season; that this season prevails from mid-June to November; and that the festival of St. James would agree with the time required for a voyage from Lagos, even if commencing not in March or May, but as late as the beginning of July.
This date is apparently confirmed by the earliest known official document which relates to the Cape Verde Islands, viz., a decree, dated December 3rd, 1460, issued just after the death of Prince Henry.[[194]] In this is given a list of seventeen islands discovered by the Infant's explorers, beginning with the Madeiras and Azores, and ending with five of the Cape Verdes, S. Jacobe (Santiago), S. Filippe (Fogo), De las Mayaes (Maio), Ilha Lana (Sal?), and S. ChristovĆ£o (probably Bonavista). The only festival of St. Christopher in the Calendar falls on the day of St. James, or July 25th. We may notice that in the earliest map containing these islands,[[195]] Cadamosto's name of Bonavista prevails, as now, over "St. Christopher."
2. This charge seems founded on a mistranslation. In the original text of 1507, after a description of the process of putting out to sea from Cape Blanco, we have these words:[[196]] "and the following night there arose a strong wind from the south-west, and in order not to turn back we steered west and north-west ... so as to weather and hug the wind for two days and three nights." That is, the contrary wind met with after leaving Cape Blanco did not turn the ships back, as they managed to sail close to it.[[197]]
It is probable, however, that the text is corrupt, and it is only too common in records of this time to have mistakes as to points of the compass creeping into the record of voyages performed some time before. In any case, it is surely not enough to upset the whole of Cadamosto's narrative.
3. Here Cadamosto seems to have made no mistake, in his first printed text of 1507. The islands have never been properly surveyed, but Prof. C. Doelter, in his work Ueber die Kapverden nach dem Rio Grande (1884), speaks of seeing Bonavista from the Pico d'Antonio on Santiago, together with all the rest of the group, even the more distant Sal and St. Vincent. It is therefore quite probable that Cadamosto's sailors did see Santiago from Bonavista, and this feat was certainly possible.
4. In this once more Cadamosto is clearly right, and the attempt to discredit him ridiculous. Salt is so abundant in the Cape Verdes, especially in the western group, that these were at one time called the "Salt islands." Turtles are also common enough in the rainy season, and are mentioned by plenty of visitors and residents.[[198]] Lastly, the river in Santiago, "a bow-shot across," does not correspond to any fresh-water stream found there, but by this expression may be intended an inlet of the sea, like the Rio d'Ouro of Prince Henry's sailors, north of Arguim. Curiously enough, this very expressionā"a bow-shot wide"āis employed by Dapper of the Estuary at Ribeira Grande in Santiago; while Blaeuw's Atlas (Amsterdam, 1663) speaks of the same point in exactly similar terms: "Ć son embouchure large d'environ un trait d'arc."
* * * * *
Thirdly, the attempts of Prince Henry to acquire possession of the Canaries for Portugal may be noticed. In 1414, Maciot de BƩthencourt, nephew and heir of the famous John, "Jean le ConquƩrant," having, under threat of war from Castille, ceded the islands to Pedro Barba de Campos, Lord of Castro Forte, sailed away to Madeira; and in 1418, according to some authorities, he made a sale of the "Fortunatae" to Henry of Portugal. This was not enough for him, as afterwards he made a third bargain with the Count of Niebla; while meantime Jean de BƩthencourt himself left his conquests by will to his brother Reynaud. Pedro Barba de Campos soon parted with his new rights, which passed successively to Fernando Perez of Seville, and the Count of Niebla. But the latter, though now uniting in himself all Spanish claims to the islands, did not cling to them, but made over everything to Guillem de las Casas, who passed on his rights to Fernam Peraza, his son-in-law. While this transference was going on in Castille and in France, Henry, in the name of Portugal, attempted in 1424 to settle the question by sending out a fleet under Fernando de Castro, with 2,500 foot and 120 horse. With this force he would probably have conquered the Archipelago, in spite of the costliness and trouble of the undertaking, if the protests of Castille had not led King John I to discourage the scheme and persuade his son to defer its execution.
In 1445,[[199]] seven of the Prince's caravels visited the islands, received the submission of the chiefs Bruco and Piste in Gomera (who had already experienced the Infant's hospitality and become his "grateful servitors"), and made slave-raids upon the islanders of Palma. Alvaro GonƧalvez de Atayde, JoĆ£o de Castilha, Alvaro Dornellas, Affonso Marta, and the page Diego GonƧalvez, with many others, took part in this descent, which did not altogether spare the friendly Gomerans, and brought on the perpetrators the severe rebuke of Prince Henry.
In 1446, however, he followed up the reconnaissance of 1445 by another attempt at complete conquest, which also seems to have ended in failure, though the account that remains is very inadequate; perhaps in the future it may be supplemented from the disinterred treasures of Spanish documentary collections. We only know that Henry obtained, in 1446, from the Regent D. Pedro a charter, giving him the exclusive right to sanction or forbid all Portuguese voyages to the Canaries; that in 1447 he conferred the captaincy of LanƧarote on Antam GonƧalvez,[[200]] and that GonƧalvez sailed to establish himself there. So far, according to Azurara; Barros and the Spanish historians would ante-date all these measures of 1446-7 by several years. In 1455 Cadamosto, sailing in the Portuguese service, visited and described the islands, and in 1466 Henry's heir, D. Fernando, made one more attempt to reclaim the Canaries for Portugal. It failed, and in 1479 the islands were finally adjudged to Spain, or the now united monarchy of Castille and Aragon.
* * * * *
Fourthly, in the Madeira group, colonisation made progress during the Infant's lifetime. After the discoveries of 1418-20,[[201]] Madeira itself was divided up under the feudal lordship of John GonƧalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz Teixeira; the former receiving the captaincy of the northern half with Machico for his chief settlement; the latter obtaining the southern portion, with Funchal as capital, and the Desertas as an annexe. From the language of the Infant's Charter[[202]] of September 18th, 1460, this settlement appears to have taken place in 1425, when the Prince was 35 years old.
According to Gaspar Fructuoso, Zarco, in clearing a path through the forests of Madeira, set the woodland on fire, and seven years elapsed before the last traces of the conflagration were extinguished. The seven years is, no doubt, an extra touch; but a fire of tremendous severity must have taken place, from Cadamosto's account.[[203]] The whole island, he declares, had once been in flames; the colonists only saved their lives by plunging into the torrents; and Zarco himself had to stand in a river-bed for two whole days and nights, with all his family. Yet, according to Azurara, so much wood was soon exported from the island to Portugal, that a change was produced in the housebuilding of Spain: loftier dwellings were built; and the Roman or Arab style was superseded by one originating in the new discoveries among the Atlantic Islands. Almost all Portugal, Cadamosto tells us in 1455, was now adorned with tables[[204]] and other furniture made from the wood of Madeira.
In the settlement of Porto Santo, Bartholemew Perestrello, a gentleman of the household of Prince Henry's brother, the Infant John, took part[[205]] with Zarco and Vaz. Perestrello imported rabbits, which destroyed all the colonists' experiments in crops and vegetable planting; but receiving the captaincy of the island, he made some profit from breeding goats and exporting dragon's blood. His grant of Porto Santo, originally for his lifetime only, was extended by decree of November 1st, 1446, to a donation in perpetuity for himself and his descendants. On the death of Bartholemew, Prince Henry bestowed the captaincy on his son-in-law, Pedro Correa da Cunha, in trust for the first Governor's son Bartholemew, who was still a minor. Da Cunha later contracted with young Bartholemew's mother and uncleāthe widow and brother of the first granteeāfor a sum of money in return for a cession of his interim rights; and Prince Henry authorised this contract by a decree from Lagos (May 17th, 1458), confirmed by King Affonso V at Cintra (August 17th, 1459).
Young Bartholemew entered into his governorship in 1473, and it was formally confirmed to him (15th March, 1473) by Affonso V. It was his sister, a daughter of the elder Bartholemew, named Felipa MoƱiz de Perestrello, whom Christopher Columbus married in Lisbon; after which he lived for some time in Porto Santo, enjoying the use of Perestrello's papers, maps, and instruments.
Before many years had passed, Madeira became famous for its corn and honey, its sugar cane,[[206]] and, above all, its wine. The Malvoisie[[207]] grape, introduced from Crete, throve excellently, and at last produced the Madeira of commerce. When Cadamosto visited the island, in 1455, he found vine culture already advanced, and become the staple industry of the colonists, who exported red and white wine annually to Europe, and found a market for the vine staves as bows.
As early as 1430[[208]] the Infant issued a charter, regulating the settlement of Madeira; herein Ayres Ferreira (whose children, "Adam and Eve," were the first Europeans born in the island) is mentioned as a companion of Zarco. An early tradition, which has not yet been substantiated, also maintained that Prince Henry instituted family registers for his colonists in this group.[[209]] In 1433 (September 26th), King Duarte, in a charter from Cintra, granted the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, and the Desertas to the Infant Henry; and in 1434 (October 26th), the spiritualities of the same were bestowed on the Order of Christ.[[210]] In December, 1452, a contract was made at Albufeira between the Infant D. Henry and Diego de Teive, one of his "esquires," for the construction of a water-mill to aid in the manufacture of cane-sugar,[[211]] the third part of the produce to go to the Prince. Finally, in 1455, on Cadamosto's visit, the island possessed four settlements and 800 inhabitants, and this prosperity seems to have steadily continued. The charter of 1460[[212]] has been already noticed.
From the work of the Portuguese among the Atlantic Islands arises one question of special interest. Did this westward enterprise of Prince Henry's seamen, which undoubtedly carried them in the Azores and Cape Verdes a great distance (from 20 to 22 degrees) westward of Portugal, lead them on further to a discovery of any part of the American mainland?
On the strength of an enigmatical inscription in the 1448 Map of Andrea Bianco, such a discovery of the north-east corner of Brazil in or before this year has been suggested;[[213]] but this, it must be admitted, is quite lacking in demonstrative evidence, however possible in itself. Yet once more, the "accidental" discovery of this same Land of the Holy Cross by Cabral in 1500 has been urged to much the same effect. For, if really accidental, a similar event might well have happened in earlier yearsāespecially from the time of the Azores settlement of 1432, etc.; or if not accidental, it was based on information obtained from older navigators, who reached the same country.[[214]] Such older navigators towards the west were said to have been Diego de Teive and Pedro Velasco, who in 1452 claimed to have sailed more than 150 leagues west of Fayal; GonƧalo Fernandez de Tavira, who in 1462 sailed (in one tradition) W.N.W. of Madeira and the Canaries; Ruy GonƧalvez de Camara, who in 1473 tried to discover land west of the Cape Verdes; with a certain number of later instances. Some weight has also been attached to a statement of Las Casas, that on his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus planned a southern journey from the Cape Verde Islands in search of landsāespecially because, proceeds Las Casas, "he wished to see what was the meaning of King John of Portugal, when he said there was terra firma to the South. Some of the ... inhabitants of ... Santiago came to ... him,[[215]] and said that to the South-West of the Isle of Fogo[[216]] an island was seen, and that King John wished to make discoveries towards the South-West, and that canoes had been known to go from the Guinea coast to the West with merchandise."
Further, Antonio Galvano, after speaking of a voyage which took place in 1447, goes on to mention another (undated, but probably conceived by the author as falling within a year or two of the last) in these terms. "It is moreover told that in the meantime a Portuguese ship, coming out of the Straits of Gibraltar, was carried westwards by a storm much further than was intended, and arrived at an island where there were seven cities, and people who spoke our language." This, however, is too much like an echo of the old Spanish tale of the Seven Bishops and their cities in the Island of "Antillia."
In the same connection a number of still looser and more doubtful assertions exist in Portuguese archives and chronicles. Thus, in 1457, the Infant D. Fernando, as heir of Prince Henry, planned Atlantic explorations; in 1484 and 1486 similar designs were entertainedāpossibly on the strength of Columbus' recent suggestions, which are known to have directly occasioned one unsuccessful venture at this time; and in 1473 JoĆ£o Vaz da Costa Cortereal was reported, by a now-exploded legend, to have actually discovered Newfoundland.
[180] See Major, Prince Henry, pp. 238-245 (Ed. of 1868), mainly based upon Father Cordeiro's Historia Insulana, 1717.
[181] Azurara (Chronicle of Guinea, c. lxxxiii.) says that the Regent, D. Pedro, having a special devotion to this saint, and being much interested in the re-discovery of the Azores, caused this name to be given. Prince Henry afterwards granted the Order of Christ the tithes of St. Michael, and one-half of the sugar revenues.
[182] "Azores" in Portuguese.
[183] "Western Islands," etc.
[184] "The Third," apparently in order afterā1. St. Mary (reckoned with the Formigas); 2. St. Michael. Its arms were the Saviour on the Cross, and it was probably sighted by the Portuguese on some festival of the Redeemer.
[185] "De Vlaemsche Eylanden." So on Amsterdam maps of 1612 (Waghenaer); 1627 (Blaeuw's Zeespiegel) and others, such as the Atlas Major Blaviana, ix, Amsterdam, 1662, p. 104.
[186] I.e., Josua van der Berge. In 1449, according to Galvano and Barros (1, ii, 1), King Affonso V formally sanctioned the colonisation of the Azores.
[187] "Da Silveira" in Portuguese.
[188] "Joz de Utra" in Portuguese.
[189] Several documents exist relating to the Government, etc., of the Azores during Prince Henry's life; for instance:ā(1) A royal charter of July 2, 1439, dealing with colonisation. (2) A similar charter of April 5, 1443, exempting the colonists from tithe and customs. (3) A similar charter of April 20, 1447, establishing the same exemption for the island of St. Michael, granted to the Infant D. Pedro. (4) A similar charter of March, 1449, to the Infant D. Henry, licensing him to people the Seven Islands of the Azores. (5) A similar charter of January 20, 1453, granting the Island of Corvo to the Duke of Braganza. (6) A donation of September 2, 1460, from the Infant D. Henry to his adopted son, the Infant Dom Fernando, of the Isles of Jesus Christ and Graciosa. [To which may be added: A royal charter of December 3, 1460, transferring to the Infant D. Fernando, Duke of Viseu, the grant of the Archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores, vacant by the death of D. Henry.] See Archivo dos AƧores, i, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11; Martins, Os Filhos do D. JoĆ£o, pp. 261-2 (where the date of GonƧalo Velho Cabral's discovery of the Formigas is given as 1435); Documents in Torre do Tombo, Gaveta 15, MaƧo 16, No. 5, of September 16, 1571.
[190] "Da Silveira." See above, p. lxxxix.
[191] E.g. By Major, Prince Henry, 1868, p. 286-8, based on Lopes de Lima's Ensaios sobre a Statistica das Possessoįŗ½s portuguezas, Lisbon, 1844; see Zurla's Dissertazione of 1815.
[192] "Iles d'Afrique"....
[193] On the strength of Temporal's text in the Histoire de l'Afrique,... Lyons, 1556, by H. Y. Oldham, Discovery of Cape Verde Islands (paper of 15 pages; see especially 9-12).
[194] See Indice cronologico das Navigacoįŗ½s ... dos Portuguezes, Lisbon, 1841; Oldham, op. cit., pp. 12-13.
[195] The Benincasa of 1463.
[196] "E la nocte sequente ne a fazo un temporal de garbin cum vento fortevole, diche per non tornar in driedo tegnessemo la volta di ponente e maistro salvo el vero per riparar e costizar el tempo doe nocte e III zorni." Oldham, loc. cit. 11.
[197] Oldham adds: "If nocte sequente means, as it would seem, the night of the day following that on which Cape Blanco was passed, the ships would have had time to reach a point from which a West or West-south-west course would lead to Bonavista. Moreover, the Latin text gives the wind as South."
[198] See Astley's Voyages and Travels, vol. i, Book iv, ch. 6.
[199] Al. 1443. See Azurara, Guinea, chs. lxviii-lxix.
[200] Presumably the same man who "brought home the first captives from Guinea" in 1441. Cf. Azurara, Guinea, ch. xcv.
[201] Cadamosto's statement that Porto Santo had been found 27 years before his first voyage, has caused some to date this journey 1445, instead of 1455, reckoning from Zarco's discovery of 1418, and has led others to post-date Zarco's discovery by ten years; but the number xxv is no doubt a slip for xxxv. This is a very common form of error at this period. Thus, in the "Cabot" Map of 1544, the year of the original Cabotian discovery of North America is given as mccccxciiii, instead of mccccxcvii, by a (probable) malformation of the V, or simple inattention of the draughtsman. Also, in Grynaeus we have mccccciv for mccccliv.
[202] Endowing the Order of Christ with the Spiritualities of these islands.
[203] On his visit in 1455.
[204] It has been also suggested, that the wooden crosses set up by Henry's orders in new-discovered lands were from the material thus provided.
[205] He accompanied Zarco in the second voyage of 1420.
[206] Introduced from Sicily.
[207] "Malmsey," or "Malvasie," from Monemvasia or Malvasia in the Morea, the original seat of its culture.
[208] See Cordeiro, Historia Insulana, Bk. iii, ch. xv.
[209] The late Count de Rilvas communicated this fact to Mr. R. H. Major.
[210] Documentos ... do Torre do Tombo, p. 2.
[211] See Gaspar Fructuoso, Saudades da terra, ed. Azevedo (1873), pp. 65, 113, 665; Martins, Os Filhos de D. JoĆ£o, pp. 80 and n. 1, 258 and n. 2.
[212] This was issued on September 18th, 1460, bestowing the ecclesiastical revenues of Porto Santo and Madeira on the Order of Christ, the temporalities on King Affonso V. and his successors. It must be taken in connection with the Charters of June 7th, 1454, December 28th, 1458, and September 15th, 1448, all relating to the trade of Guinea, and the first two conferring special privileges on the Order of Christ, or revising such privileges already granted; see the Collection of Pedro Alvarez, Part iii, fols. 17-18; Major, Prince Henry, 303.
[213] The inscription apparently runs "Isola Otinticha xe longa a ponente 1500 mia;" which has been translatedā(1) "Genuine island distant 1,500 miles to the west." (2) "Genuine island, 1,500 miles long to the west." (3) "Genuine island extends 1,500 miles to the west." Also, reading ... a [= e] la sola otinticha. (4) "Is the only genuine ..." (The first line being altogether separate in sense from what followsā"xe longa," etc.) Once more, supplying "questa carta," (5) "This map is the only genuine one," leaving the second line unintelligible. (6) "Genuine island, stretching 1,500 miles westwards, ten miles broad." And lastly, reading Antillia for Otinticha, (7) "Island of Antillia," etc. (This would explain the difficulty of the Antillia Isle being otherwise absent from the 1448 Bianco.) See Desimoni, in Atti della SocietĆ ligure di Storia patria, 1864, vol. iii, p. cxiv; Canale, in Storia del Commercio degl'Italiani, 1866, p. 455; Fischer, Sammlung ... Welt- und See-Karten italienischen Ursprungs, Venice, 1886, p. 209; Proceedings R. G. S., London, March 1895, pp. 221-240. Whatever the explanation, it must be remembered that this Map and Inscription were never produced by Portugal as evidence of a Pre-Columbian discovery, either in 1492-3, or later, in formal negotiations with Spaināas at Badajoz in 1524. It is possible that the delineation and legend in question were added by a later hand; and it is probable that, if really inserted by Bianco himself, the reference is to one of the legendary Atlantic Islands under a new form. It cannot well be identified with that stated by Galvano to have been discovered about 1447, for the latter was reached by a course of 1,500 miles due west from the Straits of Gibraltar, which would bring us to the Azores. The coast line of the "Genuine Island" is, moreover, quite inconsistent with the north-east shore-land of South America.
[214] The most singular point in this controversy is that the pilots of Cabral's fleet professed to recognise the new land as the same they had seen marked on an old map existing in Portugal. This is stated by one John, "Bachelor in Arts and Medicine, and Physician and Cosmographer to King Emanuel." He accompanied the expedition of 1500, and declared that the country where Cabral landed was identical with a tract marked upon a Mappemonde belonging to Pero Vaz Bisagudo, a Portuguese.
[215] Columbus.
[216] In the Cape Verdes.
The "School of Sagres," etc.
Few things in connection with the life of Henry the Navigator are more interesting than the tradition of his educational and intellectual work, especially for the furtherance of geography, in the alleged School of Sagres and other supposed foundations or benefactions. Unfortunately, this tradition is not as clearly established as it might be, and it has been made more difficult by constant exaggeration. Not content with asserting that the Infant aimed at drawing the commerce of Cadiz and Ceutaāwithout reckoning other portsāto his town at Sagres, some have indulged in pictures of a geographical university established by the Prince upon this headlandāpictures which are quite beyond any known means of verification. These flourishes, however, need not cause one to run into another extreme, and deny that Sagres became, during the latter part of Henry's life, especially from 1438 to his death, the centre of the exploring movement and the scientific study which the Infant inspired. At Sagres,[[217]] according to what may be called the older viewāwhich, resting mainly upon Barros, is adopted by Major, de Veer, Wauwermans, and even MartinsāPrince Henry usually resided, not merely during the last years of his life, or after his return from the Tangier expedition of 1437, but from the time of his reappearance in Portugal after the relief of Ceuta in 1418. At first, however (1418-1438) it was called Tercena[[218]] Nabal, or Naval Arsenal, after it emerged from the stage of a little harbour of refuge for passing ships; and only afterwards did it become (from 1438 onwards) the Villa do Iffante, "my town," from which some of Prince Henry's charters are dated. Shortly before the completion of Azurara's chronicle, according to this view, the town was fortified with strong walls and enlarged by the building of new houses.[[219]] In this settlement (within the narrow space of some 100 acres), there were said to have been, besides the Infant's own Court or palace, a church, a chapel,[[220]] a study, and an observatory (the earliest in Portugal), together with an arsenal, a dockyard, and a fort. Here cartography and astronomical geography were diligently studied, and practical mariners were equipped for their work.
Two original statements of Portuguese authors have been often quoted to support this tradition. The first comes from John de Barros, the Livy of Portugal (a.d. 1496-1570). "In his wish to gain a prosperous result from his efforts, the Prince devoted great industry and thought to the matter, and at great expense procured the aid of one Master Jacome[[221]] from Majorca, a man skilled in the art of navigation and in the making of maps and instruments, who was sent for, with certain of the Arab and Jewish mathematicians, to instruct the Portuguese officers in that science." Secondly, we have the statement of the mathematician Pedro NuƱes, that the Infant's mariners were "well taught and provided with instruments and rules of astrology and geometry which all map-makers should know."[[222]] On the other hand, it has been contended that there is no satisfactory evidence of the Infant's town having ever been finished, or of the Prince ever having lived there continuously, except during the last years of his life; and that our best authorities do not warrant us in believing that the settlement was even begun before the Tangier expedition. Henry's earlier charters are, with one exception, dated from other places, and his residence before 1438 seems to have been usually at Lisbon, Lagos, or Reposeira. Further, we have no right to speak of the "School," or "University," or "Academy" of Sagres; there may have been both teachers and learners, but there was nothing of an "institution for instruction" in the Prince's establishment.
Such is the minimising view; and most, in face of this sharp divergence, will agree with Baron Nordenskjƶld that a really critical study of the subject, especially from a local antiquarian, is desirable. Very plausibly does Nordenskjƶld himself sum up the probabilities of the case when he concludes that "a small school of navigation, important for the period in question, has probably received from laudatory biographers the name of an 'Academy.'"[[223]] The Swedish geographer, however, adds from his own special researches some important observations. He believes that in the La Cosa map of 1500[[224]] we have work which was based upon the observations of the Infant's captains, who, as shown in these results, were evidently able to keep reliable reckoning and take fairly correct altitudes. "Further, the extension of the normal or typical portolano along the West coast of Africa, 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 Prince Henry."
No charts or other productions of the "Sagres School," in any definite sense of this term, no geographical or astronomical works emanating from the "Court" of the Infant, are now extant. But it may reasonably be inferred from passages in Azurara's Chronicle of Guinea that such charts were not only draughted under the Prince's orders, but used by his sailors;[[225]] Cadamosto tells us of the chart he kept on his voyage of 1455, probably by direction of the Infant; while it is probably true that the "extension of the portolanos beyond Cape Bojador, in Benincasa,[[226]] for instance, as well as in Fra Mauro's work of 1457-9, depended on information given by native and foreign skippers" sent out by Henry. Of course, it is obvious, in the light of present knowledge, that neither he nor his school in any sense invented the portolano type; although the mention of Master Jacome of Majorca reminds us of one of the earliest centres of the new scientific cartography[[227]] (which was probably first made effective by Catalan skippers and draughtsmen), and suggests that the Infant was in touch 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-ordinates."
But his life was almost certainly not without direct influence in the improvement of cartography, and the extension of the scientific type of map beyond its fourteenth-century limitsāan improvement which we see in the great map of Fra Mauro executed shortly before the Infant's death. Also, he made his nation take a real interest in geographical discovery, broke down their superstitious fear of ocean sailing, and made a beginning in the circumnavigation of Africa. He altered the conditions of maritime exploration by giving permanence, organisation, and governmental support to a movement which had up to this time proved disappointing for lack of these very means. And he certainly improved the art of shipbuilding, which Cadamosto remarks upon as having rendered the caravels of Portugal the best sailing ships afloat.
As to the build of these caravels we are fortunately not without data. Cadamosto, indeed, though he describes them as the best sailing ships at sea in his time, does not give any details; but from other sources[[228]] it is possible to form some idea of their peculiar features. They were usually 20-30 metres long, 6-8 metres in breadth; were equipped with three masts, without rigging-tops, or yards; and had lateen sails stretched upon long oblique poles, hanging suspended from the masthead. These "winged arms," when their triangular sails were once spread, grazed the gunwale of the caravel, the points bending in the air according to the direction of the wind. They usually ran with all their sail, turning by means of it, and sailing straight upon a bow-line, driving before the wind. When they wished to change their course, it was enough to trim the sails.
It was with this type of vessel that the Madeira and Canary groups were "gained from the secrets of the Ocean;" that the Azores, at a distance of twenty-two degrees west of Portugal, and in the heart of the Atlantic, were discovered and colonised; and that open sea navigation of almost equal boldness was successfully employed in the finding and settlement of the Cape Verdes. Before the end of the year 1446, according to Azurara's estimate, the Infant had sent out fifty-one of these ships along the mainland coast of Africa, and they had passed 450 leagues[[229]] beyond Cape Bojador, which before the Prince's time was the furthest point "clearly known on the coast of the Great Sea." Also, the work of the "School of Sagres" may perhaps be recognised in Azurara's further claim that "what had before been laid down on the Mappemonde was not certain, but only by guesswork," whereas now it was "all from the survey by the eyes of our seamen," and that "all this coast towards the South with many points our prince commanded to add to the sailing chart."
It has been noticed that D. Pedro, according to the Portuguese tradition, presented Henry with a copy of Marco Polo's travels, and a map of the same, either drawn by the explorer himself or by one who knew his works, and belonged to his own city. Thereby, we are told, the work of the Infant was much furthered, and Galvano suggests that the same was extant in 1528, and that it contained many wonderful anticipations of later discoveries.[[230]]
It has also been surmised, without any certain evidence,[[231]] that D. Pedro presented his brother with various maps of Gabriel Valsecca,[[232]] and with the writings of Georg Purbach, the instructor of Regiomontanus. Much more certain and interesting is the allusion to the Infant's collection of old maps in the history of the discovery of St. Michael (1443-4) in the Azores. A runaway slave, having escaped to the highest peak in the Isle of St. Maria, sighted a distant land, and returned to his master to gain pardon with this news. Prince Henry was informed of this, consulted his ancient charts, and found them confirm the slave's discovery. So he sent out GonƧalo Velho Cabral to seek for the same. Cabral failed; but on his returning to the Prince, the latter showed him from the ancient maps how he had only missed it by a slight error of direction. On his second trial the explorer was successful, and reached St. Michael on May 8, 1444.
* * * * *
Prince Henry's connection with the Coimbra-Lisbon University (founded by King Dinis in 1300) opens another side of the same question. We have already mentioned the tradition that in 1431 the Infant provided new quarters in the parish of St. Thomas, in Lisbon, for the teachers and students, and afterwards established Chairs of Theology and Mathematics. This has been called by some a "Reform of Ancient Schools" under his influence and direction;[[233]] and recent enquiry[[234]] has endeavoured to prove that the Protector of Portuguese Studies was also the founder (in 1431) of a Chair of Medicine, and the donor of a room or lecture-hall in which was painted by his order a picture of Galen. In 1448 the Infant subsidised the Chair of Theology by a grant of twelve marks of silver annually from the revenues of Madeira.[[235]] It is perhaps noteworthy that the Prince does not appear to have founded any lectureship, or made any benefaction to promote directly the study of geography, though ancient texts bearing on this subject were now beginning to attract considerable attention. It may be open to question how far a university would then have welcomed an instructor in practical navigation or draughtsmanship; but students would have probably listened to lectures upon Ptolemy, or Strabo, or other classical geographers, and thereby a great impetus might have been given to the new exploring spirit. Thus in general we may fairly conclude that, so far as the Portuguese seamen of the next generation, Bartholemew Diaz, Da Gama, CĆ£o, and others, "received their training from the Infant's School," it was usually through a rougher and more practical tradition than that of a class-roomāby means of older mariners who had served in the Prince's ships rather than by university lecturers whom he had appointed.
[217] See Azurara, Guinea, iv; Barros, Asia, Decade I, i, 16.
[218] From the Venetian Darcena; see Goes, Chron. do pr. D. JoĆ£o IV; O. Martins, Filhos de D. JoĆ£o I, p. 75.
[219] It retained its importance till the Prince's death, when it gradually declined; it was sacked by Drake in 1597; and ruined by earthquakes. Finally it became again as deserted as before the Infant's time. Ferdinand Denis believed that before the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 there were traces of a much earlier habitation of the Sagres Promontory, including buildings (Moorish?) at least as old as the XIth century. The headland measures only one kilometre in circuit, half a kilometre in its extreme length.
[220] Prince Henry's will refers to the Church of St. Catherine, and the Chapel of St. Mary; see the MS. Collection of Pedro Alvarez, iii; Martins, Os Filhos de D. JoĆ£o, p. 74. The observatory was not on Sagres Cape proper, but "un peu en avant quand on vient de l'Ouest" (V. St. Martin).
[221] Jacob or James, who, according to one tradition, came to the Infant's "Court" shortly after the disaster of Tangier, in or about 1438. To this name the Viscount de Juromenha in his notes to Rackzynski, Les Arts en Portugal, 205, adds that of Master Peter, the cartographic artist of the Infant, who illuminated his maps in colours and adorned them with legends and pictures. The existence of this Peter rests upon a document at Batalha discovered by Juromenha. See also O. Martins, Filhos de D. JoĆ£o I, p. 73.
[222] Wauwermans, Henri le Navigateur et l'Academie Portugaise de Sagres, gives little or no help towards the controverted question which he assumes as settled in his title. It is a general essay on the course of fifteenth-century exploration; its most useful portions are devoted to tracing the connections between geographical study in Portugal and the Netherlands.
[223] Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 121 A.
[224] Plates xliii and xliv of Nordenskjƶld's Periplus.
[225] See Azurara, Guinea, ch. lxxviii; Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 121; Santarem, Essai sur Cosmographie, vol. iii, p. lix. Affonso Cerveira, Azurara's predecessor, was probably not a "pupil" of the "Sagres School," as some have supposed.
[226] Especially in his works of 1467-8 and 1471.
[227] In the Balearic isles. See pp. cxvii-cxix of this Introduction.
[228] See Osorio, Vida e feitos d'el rei D. Manoel, i, p. 193; O. Martins, Os Filhos de D. JoĆ£o I, p. 75; Candido Correa, Official Catalogue of the Naval Exposition of 1888 in Portugal, where was exhibited a facsimile of an old caravel; see also the plans in D. Pacheco Pereira's Esmeraldo, and the article in the Revista Portuguesa Colonial, May 20th, 1898, pp. 32-52. In the last-named study, which is specially worthy of notice, we have a detailed account of (1) the Barca, (2) the Barinel, (3) the Caravel, (4) the Nau, which are classed as navios dos descobrimentos, followed by the navios dos conquistas, viz., (5) the Fusta, (6) the Catur, (7) the Almadia de Cathuri, (8) the GalĆ©, (9) the Galiota, (10) the Brigantim, (11) the GaleaƧa, (12) the Taforea, (13) the GaleĆ£o, (14) the Carraca. Illustrations of Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 13 are added.
[229] Azurara, Guinea, ch. lxxviii.
[230] "... Venice ... whence he [Pedro] brought a map which had all the circuit of the world described. The Strait of Magellan was called the Dragon's Tail; and there were also the Cape of Good Hope and the coast of Africa.... Francisco de Sousa Tavarez told me that in the year 1528, the Infant D. Fernando showed him a map which had been found in the Cartorio of AlcobaƧa, which had been made more than 120 years before, the which contained all the navigation of India with the Cape of Good Hope."āGalvano, Discovery of World, sub ann. 1428.
[231] But see Gaspar Fructuoso, Saudades da terra (ed. Azevedo, 1873), bk. ii, p. 9; Cordeiro, Historia Insulana, ii, p. 2; Santos, Memoria sobre dois antigos mappas, etc., in Mem. de Litt. da Academia, viii, pp. 275-301; O. Martins, Os Filhos de D. JoĆ£o I, p. 72.
[232] One of which (a.d. 1434-1439) is our authority for the earliest known Portuguese voyage to any part of the Azores; viz., that of Diego de Sevill in 1427 (a date hypothetically converted by Major into 1432). This map of Valsecca's only gives St. Mary and the Formigas as known in 1439; see pp. cxxxi, cxxxiv of this Introduction.
[233] See O. Martins, Filhos de D. JoĆ£o I, pp. 63-4.
[234] Cf. Max. Lemos, A medicina em Portugal, 1881.
[235] J. S. Ribeiro, Historia dos estabel. scientific, litt. e art. de Portugal, i, p. 31.
Maps and Scientific Geography up to and during Prince Henry's Life.
Ancient maps were not without high merits in certain cases, and a little after Prince Henry's time the Renaissance editions of Ptolemy played a very important part in geographical history. But in the first part of the fifteenth century neither the work of the Alexandrian astronomer and cartographer, nor the ancient road maps of the Roman Empire and surrounding lands[[236]] seem to have been sufficiently known for the 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 mediƦval maps and charts,[[237]] which are quite unscientific in character, and often rather picture books of natural history legends than delineations of the world.
Strictly scientific map-making begins with the Mediterranean portolani. The earliest existing specimen of these is of about 1300, but the type then formed[[238]] must have been for some time in process of elaboration; and it is even probable that a fully-developed example from the middle of the thirteenth century may yet be discovered.
"A sea-chartāprobably a portolanoāis mentioned as early as the account of the Crusade of St. Louis, in 1270."[[239]] So in Raymond Lulli's Arbor ScientiƦ, written about 1300, we have reference to compass, chart and needle, as necessary for sailors.[[240]] Once again, it is probable that Andrea Bianco's planisphere of 1436[[241]] is only a re-edition of a thirteenth-century work, when the "Normal Portolano" was just in process of making, but had not reached even the comparative perfection of the Carte Pisane, Carignano, or Vesconte examples.
The earliest dated portolan is that of 1311, by Petrus Vesconte; and from this time the maps of this class, whose central feature is an accurate Mediterranean coast-line, increase rapidly, being indeed all reproductions of one type,[[242]] occasionally introducing additions or corrections, especially in outlying parts, but not often varying much from one another in the central portions. The type is reasonably believed by some[[243]] to have originated among the Catalans, either of Spain, France, or the Balearic Isles, well within the thirteenth century.[[244]] In connection with this, we may recall the point mentioned by Barros, that Prince Henry the Navigator obtained the services of Master Jacome, or James, from Majorca to instruct the Portuguese captains in navigation, map-making, and the proper handling of nautical instruments.
These plans of practical seamen are a striking contrast, in their often modern accuracy, to the results of the literary or theological geography portrayed in such works as those of the "Beatus School," or of Robert of Haldingham.[[245]] Map surveys of this kind were apparently unknown to the ancient world. The old Peripli were sailing directions, not drawn but written; and the only Arabic portolan known to exist was copied from an Italian example. Long after the Italian leadership in exploration and commerce had begun to pass away, Italian science kept control of cartographical work; thus, among the early portolani, not only the majorityā413 out of 498ābut the most valuable, were executed by the countrymen of Carignano and Vesconte.
This department of geographical history is only just beginning to be appreciated at its full valueāas marking the vital transition from ancient to modern, from empirical to scientificābut this need not surprise us much. The portolani, as has been well said, never had for their object to provide a popular or fashionable amusement; they were not drawn to illustrate the works of classical authors or learned prelates; still less did they illustrate the legends and dreams of chivalry and historical romance; they were seldom drawn by learned men; and small enough in return was the acknowledgment which the learned but too often made them, when the great geographical compilers of the Renaissance and Reformation times incorporated the earlier coast-charts in grander and more ambitious works.
Unquestionably, however, it is in maps of the portolano type that we must look for Prince Henry's primary geographical teachers, though the influence of booksāand even of the older theoretical designs in cartographyāmust not be forgotten. Therefore, to understand his positionāto realise what he had to draw fromāwe must briefly describe the chief designs which it was possible for him to consult for his scientific purposes, for his Ptolemaic ambition, Ī“Ī¹ĪæĪøįæ¶ĻĪ±Ī¹ Ļį½øĪ½ į¼ĻĻĪ±įæĪæĪ½ ĻĪÆĪ½Ī±ĪŗĪ±.
(1) The "Carte Pisane" of the latest thirteenth or earliest fourteenth century is probably only a copy of an earlier work, though now itself our earliest example of the portolano type. The Mediterranean on this example (as well as the Black Sea, where it has survived injury) shows the new scientific or surveying method, but the Atlantic coasts of Spain and France, and still more the shore-lines of Britain, are of a different and inferior character. This alone points to an earlier date than, e.g., the works of Vesconte and Dulcert. In West Africa only a part of the Maroccan coast now remains.
(2) The Map of Giovanni di Carignano,[[246]] of c. 1300?-1310, though much damaged, shows the Black Sea and Britain with contours differing somewhat from the ordinary portolan; and the same is noticeable in the Baltic. The West African coast does not extend to Cape Non. Another work by Carignano, of c. 1306, "specially referring to Central Asia," is said to exist, but its present position is unknown.
(3) A portolan of the early fourteenth(?) century, belonging to Professor Tammar Luxoro, of Genoa, in 1882, and usually called after him, is believed by Nordenskjƶld to be a "slightly altered copy of the normal portolano in its original form." In N.W. Africa it only gives us the shore-line as far as SallƩ, with a series of names, beginning at Arzilla.[[247]]
(4) Marino Sanudo the Elder, to his work, Liber Secretorum fidelium Crucis, written between 1306 and 1321, added an atlas of ten maps. Among these, i-v form an ordinary portolano, corresponding especially with Vesconte's work,[[248]] but giving us no special information upon Africa; while No. vi is the famous map of the world often reproduced. Here a thoroughly conventional Africa is laid down, of the "Strabonian" or "Macrobian" type: its length, from east to west, traversed by the Negro Nile from near the Mountains of the Moon to the Atlantic, is equal to fully twice the breadth from north to south. The deep inlet in the West African coast penetrating east to a "Regio vii Montium" immediately south of the Negro Nile, is a prototype of the similar feature in Fra Mauro, and is perhaps only an exaggeration of the Sinus Hesperius of Ptolemy. This map was probably known to Prince Henry, like the book it accompanied, which contained many important particulars of fourteenth-century trade and navigation. The Mappemonde is a compromise between, or combination of, the portolano and the MediƦval theoretical map, and is quite a landmark in the history of cartography.
(5) Pietro Vesconte of Genoa has left three or four works executed between 1311 and 1321, and still extant, viz.: (Ī±) Of 1311, which lacks the Western Mediterranean and West Africa, what remains giving us a "normal portolano" of the Levant and Black Sea. (Ī²) Of 1318, depicting the entire Mediterranean, etc., with the Atlantic, North Sea coasts of Europe (in ten plates), and West Africa as far as "Mogador." (Ī³) Of 1318 (in six maps), which for our purposes need not be discriminated from (Ī²); and lastly (Ī“) Of 1320, a map of the world, with plans of cities, a special chart of Palestine, etc. The Mappemonde, which principally concerns us here, is extremely like Sanudo's, and is perhaps the work of the same artistāVesconte himself. Another work, of 1321, by Vesconte, is mentioned in Santarem,[[249]] but its whereabouts is now unknown.
Once more a work of 1327, signed "Perrinus Vesconte fecit ... mcccxxvii in Veneciis" is conjectured to be only another "normal-portolan" by Pietro Vesconte.
(6) Angelino Dulcert, a Catalan, composed in August 1339, in Majorca ("in civitate Majoricarum") a portolan of great merit. Dulcert's Baltic somewhat resembles Carignano's, but with more numerous legends. A star ("the Star in the East") placed by this draughtsman south of the Caspian is copied, or at least paralleled, in the Atlas Catalan of 1375 (No. 9, p. cxxvi), in the Andrea Bianco of 1436, and in the Borgian map of 1430-50, as well as in the Anonymous Catalan planisphere hereafter noticed (No. 14, p. cxxviii). Dulcert's Africa probably served in some respects as a prototype for the Catalan Atlas of 1375, and Prince Henry may have studied the Continent in one or other of these delineations, which are among the most complete pictures of the Sahara coasts and Sudan interior coming down from any period before that of his voyages. Some of the Canaries are marked in about their right position, with LanƧarote showing the Cross of Genoa, and Fuerteventura to the south, while almost in the latitude of Ceuta appear "Canaria," St. Brandan's Isle, etc. On the mainland a long stretch of shore-line is given beyond Cape Non or Nun, but it is drawn very conventionally in a S.S.E. direction, with seven names,[[250]] or titles, and an inscription of two lines, the whole seeming to show pretty clearly that the draughtsman knew nothing at first hand of the coast between Non and Boyador, but was led to conjecture a continuation of the Desert Littoral. In the Interior, the Atlas range, the large seated figure of a king with sceptre, and most of the towns depicted on eminences, reappear with slight alterations in the Atlas Catalan; which, however, adds many details.
(7) Next comes the most famous, and perhaps in some respects the most advanced, specimen of the early portolani: that usually quoted as the Medicean or Laurentian Portolan of 1351 ("Atlante Mediceo," or "Portolano Laurenziano-Gaddiano"). The author was anonymous, but almost certainly a Genoese, and his work consists of eight plates, or tables. The second of these is the Mappemonde, which is the only one that need be noticed here. The Africa of this map, taken as a whole, is drawn with a nearer approach to general correctness than on any chart anterior to the voyage of B. Diaz in 1486;[[251]] both the Guinea coast to the Camaroons, and the southern projection of the Continent, are extraordinarily well conceived for the time. No details or names are inserted on the W. African mainland shore beyond Cape Bojador and the River of Goldā"Palolus."[[252]] In this it is similar to the Pizigani map of 1367.[[253]]
(8) Francisco Pizigano, of Venice, 1367-1373, aided by his brother Marco, executed two famous works still extant: (Ī±) In 1367, a large chart comprising a good deal beyond the normal portolano's Mediterranean and Black Sea;āe.g., part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Baltic, the Caspian, etc. It is signed, "mccclxvii, Hoc opus compoxuid Franciscus Pizigano Veneciar et domnus In Venexia meffecit Marcus die xii Decembris." (Ī²) In 1373, a normal portolano, signed "mccclxxiii a die viii de zugno Francischo Pisigany Venician in Venexia me fecit." The N.W. Africa of these two maps shows no advance on the Laurentian Portolano.
(9) The Atlas Catalan of 1375 is said to have been executed for Charles V of France, in whose library it was entered with the title, "Une quarte de mer en tableaux faicte par maniĆØre de unes tables, painte et histoirĆ©e, figurĆ©e et escripte, et fermant a quatre fermoners de cuivre." It is in six plates, the last four of which compose a mappemondeā"the most comprehensive cartographic work of the fourteenth century," especially rich in legends, and showing us the normal portolan, for shore-lines, blended with the theoretical map, for the interiors of countries, all designed on the most elaborate scale. The West African coast on this example is brought down to, and a little beyond, Cape Bojador, southwest of which appear the Catalan explorers of 1346[[254]] in their boat, with an inscription.[[255]] Beginning with Arzilla, and continuing south, we have besides the recognisable SallĆ©, Cantin, Mogador, and No[n], 35 other names before we reach Cavo de Buyet(e)der, after which we have only the legend "Danom," and the conclusion, "Cap de Finister(r)a occidental de Affricha."[[256]] More attention is given to the interior of North Africa in this design than in any other map of the fourteenth century.
(10) Guglielmo Soleri, of Majorca, between c. 1380 and 1385, executed two designs of some value, both "normal-portolans:" (Ī±) is undated, probably executed about 1380, and signed "Guill'mo Soleri civis Majoricarum me ficit." (Ī²) is inscribed "Guillmus Solerii civis Majoricarum me fecit anno mccclxxxv."
In (Ī²) West Africa has a fairly good extension, a little beyond the latitude of the Canaries, where the rough and torn southern edge of the map cuts across all.[[257]]
(11) Next in order comes an anonymous Atlas of 1384 (?) in six sheets, usually called, after two of its possessors, the Pinelli-Walckenaer Portolano. It is probably a Genoese work. Its West Africa extends about as far as (or a little beyond) the Soleri of 1385, to what is apparently Cape Bojador, slightly south of the Canaries. Ten names occur beyond C. Non, among them Cavo de Sablon and Enbucder.[[258]] The little harbour existing to the south of Bojador seems indicated here.
(12) And now, coming to the fifteenth century, we have first the "Combitis" Portolan of c. 1410āan anonymous work, but inscribed "Haec tabula ex testamento domini Nicolai de Combitis devenit in Monasterio Cartusiae florentinae." This is, in some respects, closely similar to the Vesconte of 1318.
(13) Another cartographer of the early fifteenth century is Cristoforo Buondelmonteāotherwise Enseniusāwhose "Description of the Cyclades" is accompanied by maps; who was the author of an important graduated chart of the North of Europe; and who also left a roughly-sketched mappemondeāperhaps a copy of a much older workāwhich may conceivably have been known to Prince Henry and have encouraged his explorations. This shows an Africa somewhat similar in contour to Fra Mauro's of 1457-9, but almost without names.[[259]]
(14) Last among these works of the "Preparatory Time," we may take an anonymous Catalan planisphere of the early fifteenth century (in the National Library of Florence) closely resembling the great Atlas of 1375.
This completes the list of important maps for the period immediately preceding the new Portuguese discoveries, and shows us the most likely examples of cartography for Prince Henry's study. Some of these he may have owned; many of them he probably inspected in person or by deputy.
It is probable enough that he was acquainted with some of the pre-scientific or "theoretical" designs, such as those of the "Beatus" type from the eighth and subsequent centuries; those which are to be found illustrating manuscripts of Sallust, Higden, Matthew Paris, St. Jerome, or Macrobius' Commentary on the "Dream of Scipio;" and those of Arabic geographers like Edrisi[[260]]āto name only a few examplesābut he can hardly have derived much assistance from them. The great thirteenth century wheel-map picturesāas, for instance, those we know as the Hereford or Ebstorf Mappemondesāexpressed the very antithesis of his spirit; and the same must be said of the greater part of the MediƦval cartography before the appearance of the portolani.
From certain books of travel, such as those of Carpini, Rubruquis, Odoric, Pegolotti, or Marco Polo, he may, however, have received great assistance. The merchants and missionaries who opened so much of Asia to the knowledge of Europe during the Crusading period, furnished the most direct stimulus for the discovery of a direct ocean route to the treasures of the East. And to find such a route by the circumnavigation of Africa was, as we have suggested before, one of the primary objects of the Infant's life and work.
But, in addition to the Maps of his predecessors, the Infant was almost certainly acquainted with some of the chief cartographical works of his own time, falling within the period of his exploring activity, and we must finish this brief survey with some notice of these. Continuing the catalogue, we have
(15) A map by Mecia de Viladestes of 1413. This is a Catalan portolano, signed "Mecia de Viladestes me fecit in ano 1413," and is noticeable as containing a reference to the voyage of Jayme Ferrer in 1346, similar to that on the great Catalan atlas of 1375.[[261]]
(16) Four, or possibly five, specimens of Jacobus Giroldis' draughtsmanship belonging to the years 1422-1446, viz., (Ī±) a Mediterranean portolan of 1422, signed "mccccxxii mense Junii die primo Jachobus de Giroldis Veneciis me fecit;" (Ī²) a Portolan atlas in six sheets, of a.d. 1426, thought by some to resemble the work of Andrea Bianco in river-markings, legends, etc. This work possesses a distance-scale, but no graduation for latitude. It is inscribed, "Jachobus de Ziraldis [Ziroldis?] de Veneciis me fecit ... mccccxxvi." The West Africa of this work ends at Bojador ("Buider"), and gives us thirty-nine names between Arzilla and this point. Its nomenclature here is very similar to, though somewhat less full than, that of the Catalan atlas (1375).[[262]] Besides these two works, Giroldis has left others of less importance, viz., (Ī³), a Portolan atlas of 1443, consisting of six maps; (Ī“), a Portolan atlas, also of six maps, dated 1446; (Īµ?), a Portolano, unsigned, in the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana at Florence, which is perhaps his work.
Passing by the (for our purposes) less important Portolans of Battista Becharius, or Beccario, of Genoa, executed in 1426 and 1435; of Francisco de Cesani of Venice (1421), of Claudius Clavus[[263]] (1427), of Cholla de Briaticho (1430), there are only about ten maps or atlases belonging to this period which have still to be noticed, and which with some probability may be connected with the work of Prince Henry.
These areānot counting the lost map brought back by D. Pedro from Venice in 1428,ā
(17) The Atlas of 1435-1445, by Gratiosus Benincasa, of Ancona.
(18) The so-called Andrea Bianco of 1436.
(19) The Andrea Bianco of 1448.
(20) The Portolano of 1434-39 by Gabriele de Valsecca, of Majorca, together with one of 1447 by the same draughtsman.
(21) The anonymous planisphere of 1447.
(22) The planispheres of 1448 and 1452, by Giovanni Leardo (Leardus), of Venice.
(23) The planisphere of 1455, by Bartolommeo Pareto, of Genoa; and
(24) The planisphere of 1457-9, by Fra Mauro of the Camaldolese Convent of Murano, in Venice.
As to these, we need only remark:
No. (17) is the earliest known work of Gracioso Benincasa, consists of sixty-two maps, and belongs to a MS. giving sailing directions, etc. Its West Africa does not call for special remark, though the later discoveries of Prince Henry's lifetime are admirably illustrated in the same draughtsman's work of 1468, 1471, etc.
No. (18) consists of ten maps, including a graduated Ptolemaic mappemonde, and a circular world-map, somewhat resembling Vesconte, probably copied and re-edited from a very early portolan, with a certain theoretical extension.[[264]] The original of this is supposed by some to have been a late thirteenth-century work; its West African names and detailed charting end at Cape Nonāan incredibly backward point for the time of revision, viz., a.d. 1436. A ship is, however, depicted in full sail far down the west coast[[265]] of a Continent whose general shape is conceived as "Strabonian" or "Macrobian," with its length from east to west, and consequently possessing a long southern shore. The Negro Nile flows straight from Babylon or Cairo, into the Atlantic, near (but north of) the picture labelled Rex de Maroco. The western Mediterranean, Adriatic and Ćgaean, as well as the Black Sea and Caspian, are poorly drawn, and suggest an early and crude type of portolan.
No. (19), signed "Andrea Biancho venician comito di galia mi fexe a Londra mccccxxxxviii," was probably executed with a special view of illustrating the discoveries of the Portuguese along West Africa, and contains the enigmatical inscription in the S.W., which some have construed into a Portuguese discovery of South America about this time.[[266]] Besides the interest of this controversy, and of the fact that it was one of the first scientific maps drawn in England, this chart gives us in West Africa some of the earliest indications of the new Portuguese discoveries. Thus, beyond Cape Bojador, or Buyedor, we have on the mainland shore-line twenty-seven names reaching to Cape Roxo or Rosso, and including Rio d'Oro, Porto do Cavalleiro ("Pro Chavalero"), the Port of GalƩ ("Pedra de Gala"), Cape Branco, Cape St. Anne, and Cape Verde.
This example has often been spoken of as the earliest map-register of Prince Henry's discoveries, but herein it must yield to
No. (20), the Valsecca (Vallesecha) of 1434-9, which mentions the discoveries of Diego de Sevill in the Azores in 1427,[[267]] and maps the north-west coast of Africa scientifically to Cape Bojador (Bujeteder) and "theoretically" for some way beyond.
No. (21), of 1447, inscribed, "... Vera cosmographorum cum marino accordata terra, quorundam frivolis narrationibus rejectis mccccxlvii," denotes, as Nordenskjƶld points out, not any connection with Marinus of Tyre (by means of a since lost MS., or otherwise), but merely the author's purpose, viz., "to present here a picture of the world, according to the conception of learned cosmographers, adapted to or grouped round a skipper-chart or portolan of the Inner Sea."
West Africa, in this chart, does not present anything specially noteworthy.
No. (22). Similar in purpose to No. (8) are both the Leardo Maps of 1448 and 1452, which in detail are somewhat similar to the Bianco of 1436.
The West African coast of these Designs does not call for special notice.
No. (23), of 1455, signed "Presbiter Bartolomeus de Pareto civis Janue ... composuit ... mcccclv. in Janua," is not of high value for its date, and shows no evidence of correspondence with Prince Henry's work. The West Africa of this design need not be specially noticed here.
No. (24), the most famous of the whole series, is more fully noticed on pp. cxl-cxliv. Fra Mauro was, perhaps, helped by Cadamosto among others. It is noteworthy that the Doge Foscarini, in the letter quoted below, pp. cxl-cxli, couples the success of Cadamosto and the work of Fra Mauro, as two things which should induce Prince Henry to persevere.[[268]]
A new mappemonde,[[269]] discovered by Kretschmer in the Vatican Library, and noticed in his monograph of 1891, is of 1448; while under date of 1444, Santarem refers to a "Portolan portugais inƩdit," which is not further known.
These were the works[[270]] which in cartography bore most closely upon the Infant's explorations; and we may here summarise the evidence of the same as to the advance of knowledge along the West African coast and among the Atlantic Islands.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, as we have seen, there is no cartographical evidence of knowledge extending far beyond the Straits of Gibraltarāeither down the mainland shore or among the Islands in the Ocean. But on Dulcert's Portolan of 1339, and on other productions of the same epoch, such as the ConosƧimiento of about 1330, we meet with some of the Islands, and with the Continental coast as far as Bojador. Thus, in the ConosƧimiento and the Laurentian Portolano of 1351, "the most important of the Azores, the Madeira group, and the Canary Islands, are denoted by the names they still bear," or by the prototypes of these names.[[271]] The same Medicean or Laurentian map of 1351, the Pizzigani of 1367-1373, the Catalan[[272]] of 1375, and others, "bear inscriptions even beyond C. Bojador"āinscriptions, however, 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.[[273]] Moreover, the shape of Africa in the "Atlante Mediceo" of 1351,[[274]] suggestsāthough it can hardly be said to proveāactual observations far beyond Cape Bojador made by the crews of storm-driven or India-seeking ships. But, after all, the map knowledge shown of Africa to the south of latitude 26Ā° N. was so incomplete and so vagueāperhaps even in the Laurentian Portolan the engrafting of a great theory on a tiny plant of factāthat the claim of first discovery in more southern regions cannot well be refused to Gil Eannes, Dinis Diaz, Cadamosto, and the other explorers of the Infant'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 fourteenth-century navigators and draughtsmen.
A good deal of hearsay knowledge about the interior of Africa is also indicated, as we have seen, in some of these maps, especially the Dulcert of 1339, and the Catalan of 1375; and in this connection we must refer to what has been said upon the trade-routes of North Africa; but these elaborate pictures of mountain ranges, Moslem kings, traders with their camels, and towns on eminences, have little more pretence to scientific accuracy than the Negro Nile of so many old geographers, which is probably a mistaken combination of the real but separate courses of the Benue, the Niger, and the Senegal.
Once more we have seen that the first two portolani plainly influenced by Prince Henry's discoveries are the Valsecca[[275]] of 1434-9 and the 1448 map of Andrea Bianco, drawn in London; and that the 1436 Bianco is probably a copy of a thirteenth-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 suddenly with Cape Rosso, or Roxo, immediately south of Cape Verde, and "from this point the coast is drawn straight eastward 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 Macrobius type." The work of 1448 is frequently copied in following years; as, for example, on several designs of Gratiosus Benincasa (1435 to 1482), wherein the west coast of Africa, from Ceuta to Cape Verde, "has the same contours and the same names."[[276]] All of these charts are believed by Nordenskjƶld 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.[[277]] It reproduces the discoveries along the coast down to Pedro de Sintra's voyage of 1462-3, and seems in part to be based on direct information from Cadamosto."[[278]]
Lastly, a more special notice must be taken of the great map of Fra Mauro, 1457-9.
In this undertaking[[279]] Andrea Bianco is said to have assisted, and the work was (either originally or in copy) executed for the Portuguese Government, and assisted by the same. King Affonso V supplied the draughtsmen with charts on which the recent discoveries of Prince Henry's seamen were laid down. Payment was liberal (12 to 15 sous a day to every one of the common artisans and copyists); and the Doge Francesco Foscarini, "when he witnessed the plan and the beginning of Mauro's work," trusted that Prince Henry would find therein fresh reasons for pressing on his explorations. The completed mappemonde was sent to Portugal, in charge of Stefano Trevigiano, on April 24th, 1459. This was based, perhaps, in part on the map, or maps, illustrating the voyages of Marco Polo, in the Doges' Palace in Venice, apparently on one of the walls of the Sala della Scudo. The "Polo" portions of the New Design were, however, chiefly in the Far East. In N.W. Africa, Cape Verde and Cape Rosso are marked, and near the S.W. coast of the Continent is a long inscription about the Portuguese voyages, stating that the latter "here gave new names to rivers, bays, harbours, etc., and that they made new charts, of which he (Fra Mauro) had had many in his possession." At the extreme south point of Africa is the name "Diab," with a legend telling how an Indian junk was said to have been storm-driven to this point in about 1420, and (without reaching land) to have sailed further westward for 2,000 miles during forty days. After this the Indians turned back, and after seventy days' sail, returned to Cavo di Diab, where they found on shore a huge bird's egg, as large as a barrel.[[280]] Fra Mauro had also himself spoken with a trustworthy person, who said that he had sailed from India past Sofala to "Garbin," a place located in the middle of the west coast of Africa close to "Dafur." "Fundan," again, a little south of Cape Rosso, may represent some Portuguese coast-name which has not elsewhere survived.
Yet, apart from these references, there is but little evidence of the new discoveries forthcoming, and, from a critical point of view, Fra Mauro's planisphere is somewhat disappointing. True it is in certain regions (its Mediterranean and Black Sea, for instance), of the portolano type, but in the more outlying parts of the world, and even in much of Africa, it is far more similar to one of the old Macrobius type of wheel-maps (continued in such fifteenth-century specimens[[281]] as the "Borgian" design of c. 1430), than to a specimen of enlightened cartography like the "Laurentian" example of 1351. The traditional centre at Jerusalem is not taken, but a point slightly north of Babylon serves instead. In Africa numerous tribes and cities are marked even beyond the Equator, in regions inscribed as "Inhabitabiles propter calorem;" but the general shape of the west coast is hardly satisfactory. Fra Mauro knows nothing of the great bend of the Guinea coast; N.W. Africa appears not as a great projection, but only as a gently-sloping shoulder of land; Cape Verde is not the westernmost point of the Continent. This position is given to the traditional "Promontory of Seven Mountains" (north of the Western Nile), which we have met with in earlier examples. To the south of the Green Cape appears a long and narrow inlet of sea,[[282]] which can hardly be supposed to represent in any way the South coast of "Guinea" from Sierra Leone to Benin, but perhaps is a combination and exaggeration of the great estuaries so recently visited by Henry's seamenāthe Gambia, the Casamansa, the Rio Grande or Geba, and others. The Western or Negro Nile is drawn as flowing straight from Meroe in Nubia to the Atlantic, passing through a great swamp (Lake Chad?), an elongated piece of open water in the country of Melli (the Middle Niger in flood?), and the course of the Senegal. South of Cape Roxo, the coast, trending gradually south-east, exhibits a very broken contour and is fringed with many islandsāevidence only too certain that the draughtsman is working by the light of imagination. Finally, although Africa is rightly conceived as on the whole projecting into the Southern Ocean, and having its length or greatest dimension from south to north rather than from east to west, it is greatly twisted out of shape by the inclination S.E., which bends round its southmost point almost to the longitude of Guzerat.[[283]] The general size of the Continent, however, is more accurately guessed[[284]] than on most maps of this or earlier time. Here Fra Mauro is nearer the truth even than the Laurentian Portolano of 1351, so far superior to the work of 1457-9 in many respects. Parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude are not indicated in the Camaldolese mappemonde, which has been sometimes referred to as "an immeasurable advance on all earlier cartography;" and the importance of this famous design, as an index to current geographical ideas, and as a world-picture of great size and magnificence, possessing in its time considerable official importance, must not lead us to take it as an example of cartographical perfection.
* * * * *
The use of the magnetic needle is essentially connected with the portolan type of map; this instrument was well known to Prince Henry's sailors, and is referred to by the Infant himself as being, like the sailing chart, a necessity for navigators.[[285]] But it could hardly come into general employment till men reached beyond the mediƦval stage of a magnetic needle enclosed in a tube so as to float on water.
In the Discovery of the Compass four stages may be distinguished:
(1) The discovery of a species of stone with polar-magnetic qualities, i.e., with the power of attracting iron.
(2) The discovery that steel or hardened iron could be made polar-magnetic by rubbing it with a lode-stone.
(3) The discovery that the magnet (or magnetised iron) possessed the quality of definite direction, one of its poles always indicating the north, if it were so supported or suspended that it could move freely.
(4) The discovery of using the magnetised iron needle as a compass.
The first dates from a high antiquity, and is noticed by Plato, Theophrastus, Pliny, Ptolemy, Claudian, and many writers of the MediƦval as well as of the Classical period. The subsequent advances we cannot date, for Europe, earlier than the twelfth century; when Alexander Neckam and Guyot de Provins (c. 1190-1200) show us that some investigators had advanced as far as the third of the stages above recounted.
It is now generally understood that magnetic cars, "based on the same principle as the compass," were used in China much earlier than this. The Helleno-Roman world of antiquity, in describing the magnet, only dwelt on its attraction for iron, and did not notice its power of indicating the poles; whereas the Celestials were aware in the first place of the communication of magnetic fluid to iron, and in the second place of the mysterious power of iron so magnetized, as early as about a.d. 120. The earliest use of the water-compass in China is fixed by Klaproth at a.d. 1111-17; and as to the magnetic figures or magnetic cars with which in earlier times Chinese junks sailed to the south of Asia, and Chinese travellers made their way across the plains and mountains to the west of their country, it must not be assumed that their use was universal. Thus, in the fifth century a.d., when Wu-Ti, afterwards Emperor, stormed Singanfu (417 a.d.), he seized upon one of these as a great curiosity.
It is uncertain, as already remarked, when the complete compass, or even the polarity of the magnet, was first discovered in Europe. We may, however, note the following evidence:
(1) Alexander Neckam, an English monk of St. Albans (born 1157, died 1217), who had studied for some time in the University of Paris, refers more than once to what we may suppose was a compass needle, placed on a metal point.[[286]] This, he implies, was then in common use among sailors, and was not merely a secret of the learned. For, "when the mariners cannot see the sun clearly in murky weather or at night, and cannot tell which way their prow is tending, they put a needle above a magnet, which revolves until its point looks North and then stands still." These words were probably written between 1190-1200.
(2) Guyot de Provins, a satirist of Languedoc, in his poem, La Bible, written about 1200, wishes the Pope would more nearly resemble the Pole-star,[[287]] which always stands immovable in the firmament and guides the sailor. Even in darkness and mist 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 1218, in his Historia Orientalis, speaks of "the iron needle which always turns to the North Star after it has touched the magnet" or "adamant."[[288]]
(4) "An unknown singer of the same period" speaks of sailors to Friesland, Venice, Greece or Acre, finding in the Pole-star a sign-post in heaven. Even in darkness and mist the star 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 point to the north.
(5) Brunetto Latini, writing about 1260, tells how Roger Bacon showed him[[289]] a magnet, a stone black and ugly, and explained its use. If one rubbed a needle with it, and then put the needle, fixed to a straw, in water, the point of the needle always turned towards "the Star." By this the sailor could hold a straight course, whether the stars were visible or no.
(6) In the Landnamabok, or Icelandic Book of Settlement, the main text of which was finished before 1148, there occurs a passage, probably added about 1300,[[290]] which describes a voyage of the ninth century (c. 868) to Iceland, and explains the use of ravens to direct this early courseā"for at that time the sailors of the northern countries had not yet any lodestone."
(7) The Arabic author of the BaĆÆlak el Kibjaki, or "Handbook for Merchants in the Science of Stones," relates how, in 1242, on a voyage from Tripoli to Alexandria, he himself witnessed the use of the polarized needle. He adds that Moslem merchants sailing to India, instead of the magnet-needle attached to a straw, tube or cork, used a hollow iron fish which, thrown into water, pointed north and south.
"Subsequently the instrument was improved by degrees, till it assumed the shape of a box, containing a needle moving freely on a metal point, and covered by a compass-rose." It is here probably that the share of Amalfi is to be found,[[291]] and it may have been Flavio Gioja, or some other citizen of the oldest commercial republic of Italy, who first fitted the magnet into the box, and connected it with the compass-card, thus making it generally and easily available.[[292]]
This it certainly was not in Latini's time. "No mariner could use it (the polarized magnet), nor would sailors venture themselves 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 fourteenth century it was almost universally accepted.
A mistake has been made on one point. The first scientific (or portolano) type of map is generally associated with the first scientific use of the magnet; but portolani began while men had not advanced beyond the use of the primitive water-compass above described; and "accurate determination by means of this" must have been very difficult on a tossing sea. "A comparison of the contours of the Mediterranean, according to various portolanos, with a modern chart, shows that the normal portolano contained no mistake due to the misdirection of the compass."[[293]] Nor do the earliest portolani contain any compass-roses or wind-roses. Gradually these were introduced into the new charts, e.g., they are found in the Catalan Atlas of 1375, in the Pinelli of 1384, and in many fifteenth-century portolani; but not till the sixteenth century do we have a number of these roses drawn on the same map-sheet.
The use of the quadrant by Prince Henry and his sailors is expressly mentioned by Diego Gomez; but neither in this case, nor in that of the compass, are we warranted in assuming (as some authorities have done) that to the Infant is due the first use of astronomical instruments at sea.
C. Raymond Beazley.
13, The Paragon, Blackheath.
March 27th, 1899.
Facsimile of Prince Henry's Initial Signature.
[I. D. A. = Iffante Dom Anrique.
[236] E.g., the Peutinger Table.
[237] Viz., before the end of the thirteenth century; see Dawn of Modern Geography, ch. vi, on "Geographical Theory in the Earlier Middle Ages," and especially pp. 273-284, 327-340, 375-391.
[238] E.g., in the Carte Pisane and the work of Giovann de Carignano.
[239] See d'Avezac, Bolletino d. Soc. Geog. Ital., 1874, p. 408; Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 16 A.
[240] See d'Avezac, Coup d'Åil historique sur la projection des Cartes de Geographie (1863), p. 38.
[241] Reproduced in part at the end of this edition of Azurara, vol. i, Plate 4.
[242] Thus Nordenskjƶld sums up after an exhaustive review of all the chief early portolans: "Not only are the coast-legends the same, even the ... names in red ink of places considered of special importance to navigators were not essentially different in the three centuries from Vesconte to Voltius. Moreover: (1) The Mediterranean and Black Sea have exactly the same shape on all these maps; (2) a distance-scale, with the same unit of length, such as otherwise is used only on the Spanish and French Mediterranean coasts, occurs on all these maps, independently of the land of their origin; (3) the distances across the Mediterranean and Black Sea, measured with this scale, agree perfectly on the different maps; (4) the conventional shape given to many islands and capes remain almost unaltered on portolanos from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. So that it may be thought proved that all these portolanos are only amended codices of the same original" (Periplus, 45 a).
[243] E.g., Nordenskjƶld, in his last work (Periplus, 46, 47).
[244] Nordenskjƶld conjectures probably between 1266 and 1300.
[245] Cf. (1) the Beatus maps of "St. Sever," "Ashburnham," "Turin," "London," of 1109, "Valladolid," "Madrid," etc., of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries; (2) the Hereford Mappemonde of the late thirteenth century, with which may be compared the Ebstorf world-map of c. 1300; see Konrad Miller, Die Ƥltesten Weltkarten, Heft v, 1896.
[246] Signed "Johannes presbyter, rector Sancti Marci de Porta Janue me fecit." A priest answering to this description flourished in Genoa, 1306-1344; this may have been a younger relative.
[247] No Atlantic islands exist on the Tammar Luxoro portolan.
[248] Konrad Kretschmer believes Sanudo's maps to have been draughted entirely or principally by Vesconte.
[249] Essai sur l'Histoire de la Cosmographie, i, 272, ed. of 1849.
[250] One being merely "Plagae Arenae."
[251] See Azurara, Hakluyt Soc. ed., vol. i, Reproduction at end, No. 1
[252] For Pactolus (?).
[253] A considerable knowledge of the Atlantic Islands is also shown, sixteen names being given. This number, however, is less than we have in the ConosƧimiento of slightly earlier date, c. 1330 (?).
[254] Jayme Ferrer, etc.
[255] Quoted and discussed above, pp. lxiii-lxiv.
[256] Names are given to twenty-seven islands in the Atlantic, among them St. Brandan's isle, most of the Canaries, the whole Madeira group and several of the Azores.
[257] The Soleri of 1380 gives twenty Atlantic islands; nineteen appear in the Soleri of 1385 (some legendary). In neither is any addition made to earlier lists.
[258] Bojador?
[259] Reproduced in Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 111, and labelled only "before 1481." The only name on the West African mainland is well down S.W., "India [portus?] pbīs fons." The deep indent on the middle of the W. African coast, noticed in several other maps and even in Fra Mauro, appears here on a great scale.
[260] Twelfth century.
[261] A work by the same author, of 1457, is said to be at the Carthusian Monastery of Segorbe, near Valencia, but it is not yet fully identified, and is supposed by some to be the same as that just noticed.
[262] The same is the case with the Atlantic Islands; but though giving us fewer actual isles, it supplies more names to points thereināthirty-two in all.
[263] An important chart for N. European cartography, and for the fact that it is one of the earliest graduated non-Ptolemaic maps.
[264] See Azurara, Hakluyt Soc. ed., vol. i, Map No. 4 at end of volume.
[265] Is this an addition of the Editor to bring it up to date? The reviser must, however, have added very largely to this map; e. g., both Russia and Turkey (?), as here depicted, do not correspond at all to the late thirteenth century, but agree better with the fifteenth; though for 1436 Russia seems unduly magnified. Imperium Tartarorum appears immediately north of the Sea of Azov. The Moslem prince near the Bosphorus is probably meant for the Ottoman Sultan.
[266] See pp. ciii-cvi.
[267] See p. cxiv of this Introduction.
[268] See Major, Henry Navigator, p. 312.
[269] The "Walsperger," Eine neue mittelƤlterliche Weltkarte.
[270] On all these maps, see especially G. Uzielli and P. Amat di S. Filippo, Studi biographici e bibliographici sulla storia della Geografia in Italia, ii, Mappemonde, etc., dei secoli xiii-xvii, Roma, 1882āespecially pp. 49, 52, 54, 55, 57-8, 60, 62, 64, 66, 72-3, 230-1; Theobald Fischer, Sammlung MittelƤlterlicher Welt und See-karten, Venice, 1886, pp. 111, 117-9, 127, 150-5, 207-213, 220; Santarem, Atlas, 1849; Santarem, Essai sur l'histoire de la Cosmographie, etc., 1849-52; Santarem, Notices sur plusieurs monuments gĆ©ographiques du moyen Ć¢ge, etc. (Bull. Soc. GĆ©og., 3e sĆ©rie, vii, Paris, 1847), especially pp. 289, 295; Santarem, Recherches sur la prioritĆ© des dĆ©couvertes portugaises, 1842; C. Desimoni and L. T. Belgrano, "Atlante ... posseduto dal Prof. Tammar Luxoro ..." in Atti della societa ligure di storia patria, v, Genoa, 1867; K. Kretschmer, Marino Sanudo der Altere, in Zeitschrift d. Ges. f. Erdkunde, Berlin, xxvi, 1891; H. Simonsfeld, in Neues Archiv fĆ¼r altere deutsche Geschichtskunde, vii, especially pp. 43, etc., Hannover, 1881; E. T. Hamy, La mappemonde d'Angelino Dulcert (Bull. GĆ©og. Hist, et Descr., 1886-7); ibid., Les origines de la Cartographie de l'Europe Septentrionale, 1888; ibid., Cresques lo Juheu, note sur un gĆ©ographe juif Catalan de la fin du xive siĆ©cle, 1891; Jomard, Atlas ("Monuments de la GĆ©ographe"), 1862; Choix de Documents GĆ©ographiques conservĆ©s a la BiblĆØque Nata'e, especially p. 4, Paris, 1883; Buchon and Tastu, Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la BibliothĆØque du Roi, xiv, 2nd partie, Paris, 1841, especially p. 67; G. Marcel, Recueil des Portolans, Paris, 1886; Hommaire de Hell, in Bulletin de la Soc. de GĆ©og., 3e sĆ©rie, vii, Paris, 1847, p. 302; M. A. P. d'Avezac (-MaƧaya) "... Notice sur un Atlas de la BiblĆØque Walckenaer" (Bull. Soc. GĆ©og., 3e sĆ©rie, viii, Paris, 1847), especially p. 142, etc.; P. Matkovic, in Mittheilungen der K. K. Geog. Gesellsch., vi, p. 83, etc., Vienna, 1862; Cortambert, Introduction Ć l'Atlas ... par feu M. Jomard (Bull. Soc. GĆ©og., 6e sĆ©rie, xviii, Paris, 1879) p. 74; R. H. Major, Henry the Navigator, London, 1868; Notice des objets exposĆ©s dans la section de GĆ©ographie, Paris, 1889 (Exposition), especially p. 14; Lelewel, GĆ©ographie de Moyen Age, especially Epilogue, pp. 167-184, Brussels, 1857; Placido Zurla, Il Mappemonde di Fra Mauro Camaldolese, Venice, 1806; A. E. Nordenskjƶld, Facsimile Atlas, Stockholm, 1886; Periplus, Stockholm, 1897.
[271] E.g., Legname for Madeira, "The Isle of Wood."
[272] We must note that the ship of the Catalan explorers, with the accompanying legend commemorative of the expedition of 1346, is depicted in this map as well to the south of Bojador.
[273] Though Nordenskjƶld seems to think otherwise.
[274] See Azurara, vol. i, Plate 1, at end of volume.
[275] The Valsecca Map delineates the West African coast to Cape Bojador (C. de Bujeteder). Beyond this the outline of the coast is "suggested" for a distance about as great as from the Straits to Bojador, but with no names or legends except "Plagens arenosas," "Tarafal," "Bujeteder," and at the extreme south, "Tisilgame."
[276] This is especially true of the Benincasa of 1467. Nordenskjƶld gives twenty-eight parallel names from this and the Bianco of 1448 between Bojador and Capes Verde and Rosso.
[277] To Rio de Palmeri, immediately beyond Cape St. Anne.
[278] This may be seen, as Nordenskjƶld suggests (Periplus, p. 127), by comparing the names on the lower part of Benincasa's West Africa with the following names occurring in Cadamosto's account of De Sintra's voyage: Rio di Besegue, Capo di Verga, Capo di Sagres, Rio di San Vicenzo, Rio Verde, Cape Liedo, Fiume rosso. Capo rosso, Isola rossa, Rio di Santa Maria della nave, Isola di Scanni, Capo di Santa Anna, Fiume della palme, Rio de Fiume, Capo di monte, Capo Cortesi, Bosco di Santa Maria. Benincasa, however, appears to have access to other sources besides Cadamosto, as many of his names are not found in the latter.
[279] See Zurla, Il Mappemonde di Fra Mauro, Venezia, 1806, p. 62; Humboldt's Kritische Untersuchungen, i, p. 274; Ongania and Santarem's Reproductions of the Map itself; Nordenskjƶld's Periplus, 127-8.
[280] Egg of the Rukh, or Roc?
[281] Cp. also the elliptical Florentine example of 1447 (Nordenskjƶld, Facsimile Atlas, 116), or Leardus' Mappemondes of 1448 and 1452 (ibid. 61).
[282] "Sinus Ethiopicus:" very similar to that depicted on the Leardus of 1448. On the southern side of this is "Fundan."
[283] Perhaps a Ptolemaic concession.
[284] Still more is this the case with Asia, where Fra Mauro is in some ways more satisfactory than anywhere else, and contrasts well even with the "Harleian" or Dieppe Map of c. 1536, and many other similar works.
[285] Azurara, ch. ix.
[286] Cf. Neckam's references. (Ī±) In his work, De Utensilibus: "Qui ergo munitam vult habere navem . . . habeat etiam acum jaculo superpositam: rotabitur enim et circumvolvetur, donec cuspis acus respiciat Septentrionem, sicque comprehendent quo tendere debeant nautae, cum Cynosura latet in aeris turbatione, quamvis ea occasum nunquam teneat propter circuli brevitatem." (Ī²) In his De Naturis Rerum, c. 98: "Nautae ... mare legentes, cum beneficium claritatis solis in tempore nubilo non sentiunt, aut ... cum caligine ... tenebrarum mundus obvolvitur, acum super magnetem ponunt, quae circulariter circumvolvitur usque dum ejus motu cessante, cuspis ipsius Septentrionalem Plagam respiciat."
[287] "La tresmontaine."
[288] "Acus ferrea, postquam adamantem contigerit, ad stellam septentrionalem ... semper convertitur; unde valde necessarium est navigantibus in mari."
[289] In Oxford, a.d. 1258. This is not a very certain tradition.
[290] See Nordenskjƶld, Periplus, 50. "The Landnamabok was written by Are Torgillson Frode, who died in 1148;" but "the passage here in question first occurs in a copy or revision by Hauk Erlandsson, who lived at the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth."
[291] "Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalphis."
[292] Such a compass-box is figured on the margins of some MSS. of Dati's Sphera of the early fifteenth century. See Nordenskjƶld Periplus, p. 45.
[293] Periplus, p. 47.
hakluyt. s. i. v. c
