BARRIER OF ROCKS.
For a long time Cape Bojador, which is situate seventy leagues to the south of Cape Nam, was the extreme limit of discovery. This cape was formidable in itself, being terminated by a ridge of rocks, with fierce currents running round them; but was much more formidable from the fancies which the mariners had formed of the sea and land beyond it. "It is clear," they were wont to say, "that beyond this cape there are no people whatever; the land is as bare as Libya—no water, no trees, no grass in it; the sea so shallow, that at a league from the land it is only a fathom deep; the currents so fierce, that the ship which passes that cape will never return;" and thus their theories were brought in to justify their fears.
This outstretcher (for such is the meaning of the word Bojador) was therefore as a bar drawn across that advance in maritime discovery, which had for so long a time been the first object of Prince Henry's life.