Don Henry, who had returned from Ceuta, resolved, in spite of these obstacles, to employ a portion of his revenue as Grand Master of the Order of Christ, in further maritime experiments. He fixed his residence upon the Sacrum Promontorium of the Romans, of which we have given a representation in the chapter describing the voyage of Pytheas. Here he indulged that passion for navigation and mathematics which he had hitherto been compelled to neglect. In 1418, two naval officers of his household volunteered their lives in an attempt to surmount the perils of Bojador. Juan Gonzalez Vasco and Tristan Vax Texeira embarked in a vessel called a barcha and resembling a brig with topsails, and steered for the tremendous cape.
Before reaching it, however, a violent storm drove them out to sea, and the crew, on losing sight of their accustomed landmarks, gave themselves up to despair. But, upon the abatement of the tempest, they found themselves in sight of an island four hundred miles to the west of the coast. Thus was discovered Porto Santo, the smallest of the group of the Madeiras, and thus was the feasibility and advantage of abandoning coasting voyages and venturing boldly out to sea made manifest. The adventurers returned to Portugal, and gave glowing accounts of the fertility of the soil, of the mildness of the climate, and the character of the inhabitants. Vessels were fitted out to colonize and cultivate the island; but a singular and most untoward event rendered it useless as a place of refreshment for navigators. A single rabbit littered during the voyage, and was let loose upon the island with her progeny: these multiplied so rapidly that in two years they eat every green thing which its soil produced. Porto Santo was therefore, for a time, abandoned.
During their residence there, however, Gonzalez and Vax noticed with wonder a strange and perpetual appearance in the horizon to the southwest. A thick, impenetrable cloud hovered over the waves, and thence extended to the skies. Some believed it to be a dreadful abyss, and others a fabulous island, while superstition traced amid the gloom Dante's inscription on the portal of the Inferno:
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!
Gonzalez and Vax bore this state of suspense with the impatience of seamen, while from dawn to sunset the meteor, or the portent, preserved its uniform sullen aspect. At last they started in pursuit. It was urged, by a Spaniard named Juan de Morales, that the shadows hanging in the air could be accounted for by supposing that the soil of an island in the vicinity, being shaded from the sun by thick and lofty trees, exhaled dense and opaque vapors, which spread throughout the sky. As the ship advanced, the towering spectre was observed to thicken and to expand until it became horrible to view. The roaring of the sea increased, and the crew called on Gonzalez to flee from the fearful scene. But soon the weather became calm, and deeper shadows were observed through the portentous gloom. Faint images of rocks seemed to the excited crew the menacing figures of giants. The atmosphere was now transparent; the hoarse echo of the waves abated; the clouds dispersed, and the woodlands were unveiled. The seamen rested on their oars, while Gonzalez admired the wild luxuriance of nature in a spot which superstition had so long dreaded to approach. A rivulet, issuing from a glen, whose paler verdure formed a striking contrast with the deep green of venerable cedars, seemed to pour a stream of milk into a spacious basin. They searched in vain for traces of either inhabitants or cattle. The abundance of building-wood which the island furnished suggested the name of Madeira; and a tract covered with fennel (funcha) marked the site of the future town of Funchal.
A modern poet thus describes in verse the scene which we have narrated in prose:
"Bojador's rocks
Arise at distance, frowning o'er the surf,
That boils for many a league without. Its course
The ship holds on, till, lo! the beauteous isle
That shielded late the sufferers from the storm
Springs o'er the wave again. Then they refresh
Their wasted strength, and lift their vows to Heaven.
But Heaven denies their further search; for ah!
What fearful apparition, pall'd in clouds,
Forever sits upon the western wave,
Like night, and, in its strange portentous gloom
Wrapping the lonely waters, seems the bounds
Of nature? Still it sits, day after day,
The same mysterious vision. Holy saints!
Is it the dread abyss where all things cease?
The favoring gales invite: the bowsprit bears
Right onward to the fearful shade: more black
The cloudy spectre towers: already fear
Shrinks at the view, aghast and breathless. Hark!
'Twas more than the deep murmur of the surge
That struck the ear; whilst through the lurid gloom
Gigantic phantoms seem to lift in air
Their misty arms. Yet, yet—bear boldly on:
The mist dissolves: seen through the parting haze,
Romantic rocks, like the depicted clouds,
Shine out: beneath, a blooming wilderness
Of varied wood is spread, that scents the air;
Where fruits of golden rind, thick interspersed
And pendent, through the mantling umbrage gleam
Inviting."
Gonzalez and Vax returned at once to Lisbon, where a public day of audience was appointed by the king to give every celebrity to this successful voyage. Madeira was at once colonized and cultivated; and it is said that Gonzalez, in order to clear a space for his intended city of Funchal, set the shrubs and bushes on fire, and that the flames, being communicated to the forests, burned for seven years. The sugarcane was planted, and its cultivation yielded immense sums until sugar-plantations were established in Brazil and thus interfered with the monopoly. The attention of the islanders was then transferred to the grape, and from that time to this Madeira has supplied the world with a favorite—nay, almost indispensable—brand of wine.
Don Henry had now, it would appear, surmounted the principal obstacles opposed by ignorance or prejudice to the object of his laudable ambition. But there were many interests threatened by a continuance of discovery by sea. The military beheld with jealous dislike the distinction obtained by, and now willingly accorded to, a profession they held inferior to their own. The nobility dreaded the opening of a source of wealth which would raise the mercantile character, and in an equal degree lower the assumptions and pretensions of artificial social rank. Political economists suggested that there were barren spots in Portugal as capable of cultivation as any desert islands in the sea or any sandy coasts within the tropics. It was urged, too, that any Portuguese who should pass Cape Bojador would inevitably be changed into a negro, and would forever retain this brand of his temerity.