In my last book, “Ships and Ways of Other Days,” I gave an instance of this which was remarkable enough to bear repeating. A reproduction was given of a fourteenth-century portolano, or chart, in which the shape of Southern Africa was seen to be extraordinarily accurate: and this, notwithstanding that it was sketched one hundred and thirty-five years before the Cape of Good Hope had been doubled. Some might suppose this knowledge to have been the result of second-sight, but my suggestion is that it was the result of an ancient tradition that the lower part of the African continent was shaped as depicted. For there is a well-founded belief that about the beginning of the sixth century B.C. the Phœnicians were sent by Neco, an Egyptian king, down the Red Sea; and that after circumnavigating the African continent they entered the Mediterranean from the westward.

The dim recollection of this voyage over a portion of the Indian Ocean, coupled with other knowledge derived from the Arabian seamen, doubtless left little hesitation in the minds of the seafaring peoples of the Mediterranean that the sea route to India existed if indeed it could be found. The various fruitless attempts, beginning with Vivaldi’s voyage from Genoa in 1281, are all evidence that this belief never died. For years nothing more successful was obtained than to get to Madeira or a little lower down the west coast of Africa, yet almost every effort was pushing on nearer the goal; even though that goal was still a very long way distant. The East was exercising a magnetic influence on the minds of men: India was bound to be discovered sooner or later, if they did not weary of the attempt.

Then comes on to the scene the famous Prince Henry the Navigator, who built the first observatory of Portugal, established a naval arsenal, gathered together at his Sagres headquarters the greatest pilots and navigators which could be collected, founded a school of navigation and chart-making, and then sent his trained, picked men forth to sail the seas, explore the unknown south with the hope ultimately of reaching the rich land of India. I have discussed this matter with such detail in the volume already alluded to that it will be enough if I here remark briefly that though Prince Henry died in the year 1460 without any of his ships or men attaining India, yet less than forty years were to elapse ere this was attained, and his was the influence which really brought this about. We must never forget that on the historical road to India through the long ages from the earliest times down to the fifteenth century the name of Prince Henry the Navigator represents one of the most important milestones.

THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S SHIP “GENERAL GODDARD,” COMMANDED BY WM. TAYLOR MONEY, WITH HIS MAJESTY’S SHIP “SCEPTRE” AND “SWALLOW,” PACKET, CAPTURING SEVEN DUTCH EAST INDIAMEN OFF ST. HELENA, ON 14th JUNE, 1795.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)

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You know so well how that thereafter, in the year 1486, the King of Portugal sent forth two expeditions with the desire to find an eastern route to India, and that one of these proceeded through Egypt, then down the Red Sea, across the Arabian Sea, and finally after some hardships reached Calicut, in the south-west of India. The other expedition consisted of a little squadron under Bartholomew Diaz, and although it did not get as far as India, yet it passed the Cape of Torments without knowing it—far out to sea—and even sighted Algoa Bay. The Cape of Torments he had called that promontory on his way back, remembering the bad weather which he here found: but the Cape of Good Hope his master, King John II., renamed it when Diaz reached home in safety. And then, finally, the last of these efforts was fraught with success when Vasco da Gama, in the year 1497, not only doubled the Cape of Good Hope, but discovered Mozambique, Melinda (a little north of Mombasa), and thence with the help of an Indian pilot crossed the ocean and reached Calicut by sea in twenty-three days—an absolutely unprecedented achievement for one who had sailed all the way from the Tagus.

This was the beginning of an entirely new era in the progress of the world, and till the crack of doom it will remain a memorable voyage, not merely for the fact that da Gama was able to succeed where so many others had failed, but because it unlocked the door of the East, first to the Portuguese, and subsequently to other nations of Europe. The twin arts of seamanship and navigation had made this possible, and it was only because the Portuguese, most especially Prince Henry, had believed “in ye sea” that the key had been found. As Columbus, by believing in the sea, was enabled in looking for India to open up the Western world, so was da Gama privileged to unlock the East. And since the sea connotes the ship we arrive at the standpoint that it is this long-suffering creature, fashioned by the hand of man, which has done more for the civilisation of the world than any other of those wonderful creations which the human mind has evolved from the things of the earth.

The first cargo which da Gama brought home was, so to speak, merely a small sample of those goods which were to be obtained by the ships that came after for generation after generation till the present day. It showed how great and priceless were the riches of the East—spices and perfumes, pearls and rubies, diamonds and cinnamon. The safe arrival of these, when da Gama got back home, made a profound impression. But it was no mere sentimental wonder, for the receipt of all these goods repaid the cost of the entire expedition sixty-fold. From this time forth the Portuguese were busily engaged in extracting wealth as men get it out from a gold mine. Their ships went backwards and forwards in their long voyages, sometimes narrowly escaping the attentions of the Moslem pirates anxious to relieve them of their valuable cargoes. Some Portuguese settled in India, and gradually there came into existence a fringe of Portuguese nationality extending from the Malabar coast right away to the Persian Gulf. Even as far as Japan was the East explored, and the vast fortunes which were brought back ever astonished the merchants of Europe. The first Portuguese factory was established at Calicut in the year 1500. For about a hundred years they were able to benefit, unrivalled, by their newly found treasure-house and to use their best endeavours, unfettered, to empty it.