Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. / With an Account of Geographical Progress Throughout the Middle Ages As the Preparation for His Work.

by C. Raymond Beazley

At the start Cape Blanco was appointed as the rendezvous; with favouring wind and tide the ships raced out as far as Arguin. Lawrence, a younger brother of the Diaz family, drew ahead, and was the first to fall in with Pacheco's three caravels, which were slowly crawling home after their losses. Now, hearing of the great fleet that was coming after to take vengeance, they turned about to wait for them, "as it was worth while to have revenge though one had to live on short rations." So, now, thirty European ships and their crews were included in the fleet. The pioneer, Lawrence Diaz, and the rest, lay to at the Isle of Herons in the Bank of Arguin; while waiting there they saw some wonderful things in birds, and Azurara tells us what they told him, though rather doubtfully. The great beaks of the Marabout, or Prophet Bird, struck them most,—"a cubit long and more, three fingers' breadth across, and the bill smooth and polished, like a Bashaw's scabbard, and looking as if artificially worked with fire and tools,"—the mouth and gullet so big that the leg of a man of the ordinary size would go into it. On these birds particularly, says Azurara, our men refreshed themselves during their three days' stay.

Slowly but surely, two by two, three by three, nine caravels mustered at C. Blanco, and as the flagship of Lançarote was among them, an attack was made at once with two hundred and seventy-eight men picked from among the crews, the footmen and lancers in one boat and the archers in another, with Lançarote himself and the men-at-arms behind. They were steered by pilots who had been on the coast before and knew it, and it was hoped they would come upon the natives of Tider Island with the first light of dawn. But the way was longer than the pilots reckoned, the night was pitchy dark, without moon or stars, the tide was on the ebb, and at last the boats were aground. It was well on in the morning before they got off on the flood and rowed along the coast to find a landing-place. The shore was manned with natives, not at all taken by surprise, but dancing, yelling, spitting, and throwing missiles in insolent defiance. After a desperate struggle on the beach, they were put to flight with trifling loss—eight killed, four taken,—but when the raiders reached the village, they found it empty; the women and children had been sent away, and all their wretched little property had gone with them. The same was found true of all the villages on that coast; but in a second battle on the next day, fifty-seven Moors were captured, and the army went back on shipboard once more.

And now the fleet divided. Lançarote, holding a council of his captains, declared the purpose of the voyage was accomplished. They had punished the natives and taken vengeance for Gonsalo de Cintra and the other martyrs; now it was for each crew and captain to settle whether they would go farther. All the prisoners having now been divided like prize-money between the ships, there was nothing more to stay for.

Five caravels at once returned to Portugal after trying to explore the inlet of the sea at C. Blanco; but they only went up in their boats five leagues, and then turned back. One stayed in the Bay of Arguin to traffic in slaves, and lost one of the most valuable captives by sheer carelessness,—a woman, badly guarded, slipped out and swam ashore.

But there was a braver spirit in some others of the fleet. The captain of the King's caravel, which had come from Lisbon in the service of the King's uncle, swore he would not turn back. He, Gomes Pires, would go on to the Nile; the Prince had ordered him to bring him certain word of it. He would not fail him. Lançarote for himself said the same, and another, one Alvaro de Freitas, capped the offers of all the rest. He would go on beyond the Negro-Nile to the Earthly Paradise, to the farthest East, where the four sacred rivers flowed from the tree of life. "Well do you all know how our Lord the Infant sets great store by us, that we should make him know clearly about the land of the Negroes, and especially the River of Nile. It will not be a small guerdon that he will give for such service."

Six caravels in all formed the main body of the Perseverants, and these coasted steadily along till they came to Diaz's Cape of Palms, which they knew was near the Senegal and the land of the Negroes, "and so beautiful did the land now become, and so delicious was the scent from the shore, that it was as if they were by some gracious fruit garden, ordained to the sole end of their delights. And when the men in the caravels saw the first palms and towering woodland, they knew right well that they were close upon the River of Nile, which the men there call the Sanaga." For the Infant had told them how little more than twenty leagues beyond the sight of those trees they would see the river, as his prisoners of the Azanegue tribes had told him. And as they looked carefully for the signs of this, they saw at last, two leagues from land, "a colour of the water that was different from the rest, for that was of the colour of mud."

And understanding this to mean that there were shoals, they put farther out to sea for safety, when one took some of the water in his hand and put it to his mouth, and found that it was sweet. And crying out to the others, "Of a surety," said they, "we are now at the River of Nile, for the water of the river comes with such force into the sea as to sweeten it." So they dropped their anchors in the river's mouth, and they of the caravel of Vincent Diaz (another brother of Diniz and Lawrence) let down a boat, into which jumped eight men who pulled ashore.

Here they found some ivory and elephant hide, and had a fierce battle with a huge negro whose two little naked children they carried off,—but though the chronicle of the voyages stops here for several chapters of rapturous reflection on the greatness of the Nile, and the valour and spirit of the Prince who had thus found a way to its western mouth, we must follow the captains as they coast slowly along to Cape Verde, "for that the wind was fair for sailing." Landing on a couple of uninhabited islands off the Cape, they found first of all "fresh goat-skins and other things," and then the arms of the Infant and the words of his motto, Talan de bien faire, carved upon trees, and they doubted, like Azurara when writing down his history from their lips; "whether the great power of Alexander or of Cæsar could have planted traces of itself so far from home," as these islands were from Sagres. For though the distance looks small enough on a full map of all the world, on the chart of the Then Known it was indeed a lengthy stretch—some two thousand miles, fully as great a distance as the whole range of the Mediterranean from the coast of Palestine to the Straits of Gibraltar.

Now by these signs, adds the chronicler, they understood right well that other caravels had been there already—and it was so; for it was the ship of John Gonsalvez Zarco, Captain of Madeira, which had passed this way, as they found for a fact on the day after. And wishing to land, but finding the number of the natives to be such that they could not land by day or night, they put on shore a ball and a mirror and a paper on which was drawn a cross.

And when the natives came and found them in the morning, they broke the ball and threw away the pieces, and with their assegais broke up the mirror into little bits, and tore the paper, showing that they cared for none of these things.