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

"And so they began to make sail home again, leaving the boats in that they were not able to take charge of them. For of the twenty-two who went to land in them there did not escape more than two; nineteen were killed, for so deadly was the poison that with a tiny wound, a mere scratch that drew blood, it could bring a man to his last end. But above and beyond these was killed our noble knight, Nuno Tristam, earnestly desiring life, that he might die not a shameful death like this, but as a brave man should." Of seven who had been left in the caravel, two had been struck by the poisoned arrows as they tried to raise the anchors, and were long in danger of death, lying a good twenty days at the last gasp, without the power to raise a finger to help the others who were trying to get the caravel home, so that only five were left to work the ship.

Nuno's men were saved by the energy and skill of one—a mere boy, a page of the Infant's House—who took charge of the ship, and steered its course due north, then north by east, so that in two months' time they were off the coast of Portugal. But they were absolutely helpless and hopeless, knowing nothing of their whereabouts, for in all those two months they had had no glimpse of land,—so that when at last they caught sight of an armed fusta, they were "much troubled," supposing it to be a Moorish cruiser. When it came near and shewed itself to be a Gallician pirate, the poor fellows were almost wild with delight, still more when they found they were not far from Lagos. They had had a terrible time; first they were almost poisoned by the dead bodies of Nuno Tristam and the victims of the savages' poisoned arrows; then, when at last they had "thrown their honour to the winds and those bodies to the fishes," shamefaced and utterly broken in spirit, the five wretchedly ignorant seamen, who were now left alone, drifted, with the boundless and terrible ocean on one side, and the still more dangerous and unknown coast of Africa on the other, for sixty days. A common sailor, "little enough skilled in the art of sailing"; a groom of the Prince's chamber, the young hero who saved the ship; a negro boy, who was taken with the first captives from Guinea; and two other "little lads small enough,"—this was the crew. As for the rest, Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, cries the chronicler in that outburst of bewildered grief with which he ends his story. There were widows and orphans left for the Prince to care for, and "of these he took especial charge."

But all people were not so unlucky as Nuno Tristam. The caravel of Zarco of Madeira, which under Zarco's nephew, Alvaro Fernandez, had already passed beyond every other in the year of the great armada, 1445, was sent back again on its errand "of doing service in the unknown lands of Guinea to the Lord Don Henry," in the black year, 1446. Its noble and valiant owner now "charged the aforesaid" Alvaro Fernandez, with the ship well armed, to go as far as he could, and to try and make some booty, that should be so new and so splendid that it would be a sign of his good-will to serve the Lord who had made him. So they sailed on straight to Cape Verde, and beyond that to the Cape of Masts (or Spindle Palms), their farthest of the year before, but they did not turn back here, in spite of unfriendly natives and unknown shores. Still coasting along, they found tracks of men, and a little farther on a village, "where the people came out as men who shewed that they meant to defend their homes; in front of them was a champion, with a good target on his arm and an assegai in his hand. This fellow our captain rushed upon, and with a blow of his lance struck him dead upon the ground. Then, running up, he seized his sword and spear, and kept them as trophies to be offered to the Lord Infant." The negroes fled, and the conquerors turned back to their ship and sailed on. Next day they came to a land where they saw certain of the women of those negroes, and seized one who was of age about thirty, with her child a baby of two, and another, a young girl of fourteen, "the which had a good enough presence and beauty for that country"; but the strength of the woman was so wonderful, that she gave the three men who held her trouble enough to lift her into the boat. And seeing how they were kept struggling on the beach, they feared that some of the people of the country might come down upon them. So one of them put the child into the boat, and love of it forced the mother to go likewise, without much more pushing.

Thence they went on, pursues the story, till they came to a river, into which they made an entrance with a boat, and carried off a woman that they found in a house. But going up the river somewhat farther, with a mind to make some good booty, there came out upon them four or five canoes full of negroes, armed as men who would fight for their country, whose encounter our men in the boat did not wish to await in face of the advantage of the enemy, and fearing above all the great peril of poisoned arrows. So they began to pull down stream as hard as they could towards the caravel; but as one of the canoes distanced the others and came up close to them, they turned upon it and in the fight one of the negroes shot a dart, that wounded the captain, Alvaro Fernandez, in the foot. But he, as he had been already warned of the poison, drew out the arrow very quickly and bathed it with acid and oil, and then anointed it well with theriack, and it pleased God that he passed safely through a great trouble, though for some days he lay on the point of death. And so they got back to the caravel.

But though the captain was so badly wounded, the crew did not stop in following the coast and went on (all this was over quite new ground) till they came to a certain sand-spit, directly in front of a great bay. Here they launched a boat, and rowed out to see the land they had come to, and at once there came out against them full 120 negroes, some with bows, others with shields and assegais, and when they reached the edge of the sea, they began to play and dance about, "like men clean wearied of all sadness, but our men in the boat wishing to be excused from sharing in that festival of theirs, turned and rowed back to the ship."

Now all this was a good 110 leagues,—320 miles beyond Cape Verde, "mostly to the south of the aforesaid cape" (that is, about the place of Sierra Leone on our maps), and this caravel remained a longer time abroad and went farther than any other ship of that year, and but for the sickness of the wounded captain they would not have stopped there. But as it was they came straight back to the Bank of Arguin, "where they met that chief Ahude Meymam, of whom we have spoken before," in the story of Joan Fernandez. And though they had no interpreter, by whom they might do their business, by signs they managed so that they were able to buy a negress, in exchange for certain cloths that they had with them. And so they came safe home. There was not much trouble now in getting volunteers for the work of discovery, and a reward of 200 doubloons—100 from Prince Henry, 100 more from the Regent Don Pedro—to the last bold explorers who had got fairly round Senegambia, added zest to enterprise.

In this same year 1446-7, no fewer than nine caravels sailed to Guinea from Portugal in another armada, on the track of Zarco's successful crew. At Madeira they were joined by two more, and the whole fleet sailed through the Canary island group to Cape Verde. Eight of them passed sixty leagues, 180 miles, beyond, and found a river, the Rio Grande, "of good size enough," up which they sailed, except one ship, belonging to a Bishop—the Bishop of Algarve—"for that this happened to run upon a sand-bank, in such wise, that they were not able to get her off, though all the people on board were saved with the cargo. And while some of them were busy in this, others landed and found the country just deserted by its inhabitants, and going on to find them, they soon perceived that they had found a track, which they had chanced on near the place where they landed."

They followed this track recklessly enough, and nearly met the fate of Nuno Tristam. "For as they went on by that road, they came to a country with great sown fields, with plantations of cotton trees and rice plots, in a land full of hills like loaves, after which they came to a great wood," and as they were going into the wood, the Guineas came out upon them in great numbers, with bows and assegais and saluted them with a shower of poisoned arrows. The first five Europeans fell dead at once, two others were desperately wounded, the rest escaped to the ships, and the ships went no farther that year.

Still worse was the fate of Vallarte's venture in the early months of 1448. Vallarte was a nobleman of the Court of King Christopher of Denmark, who had been drawn to the Court of Henry at Sagres by the growing fame of the Prince's explorations, and who came forward with the stock request, "Give me a caravel to go to the land of the negroes."

A little beyond Cape Verde, Vallarte went on shore with a boat's crew and fell into the trap which had caught the exploring party of the year before. He and his men were surrounded by negroes and were shot down or captured to a man. But one escaped, swimming to the ship, and told how as he looked back over his shoulder to the shore, again and again, he saw Vallarte sitting a prisoner in the stern of the boat.