While Henry was resisting the arguments of his detractors, his father died, and was succeeded upon the throne by his son Edward. The latter gave every encouragement to the maritime projects of his brother, and, in 1433, one Gilianez, having incurred the displeasure of Henry, determined to regain his favor by doubling Cape Bojador. Though we are without details of the voyage, we know at least that it was successful, and that the historians of the time represent the feat as more remarkable than any of the labors of Hercules. Gilianez reported that the sea beyond Bojador was quite as navigable as the Mediterranean, and that the climate and soil of the coast were agreeable and fertile. He was sent the next year, with Henry's cup-bearer, Baldoza, over the same route, and they advanced ninety miles beyond the cape with the conscious pride of being the first Europeans who had ventured so far towards the fatal vicinity of the equator. Though they saw no inhabitants, they noticed the tracks of caravans.
They were ordered, in 1435, to resume their discoveries, and to prolong their voyage till they should meet with inhabitants. In latitude 24° north, one hundred and thirty miles beyond Bojador, two horses were landed, and two Portuguese youths, sixteen years of age, were directed to mount them and advance into the interior. They returned the next morning, saying that they had seen and attacked a band of nineteen natives. A strong force was despatched to the cave in which they were said to have taken shelter: their weapons only were found. This spot was called Angra dos Cavallos, or Bay of Horses. The two vessels continued on forty miles farther, to a place where they killed a large number of seals and took their skins on board. Their provisions were now nearly exhausted, and the expedition, having penetrated nearly two hundred miles beyond the cape, returned to Lisbon.
CAPE VERD.
The Portuguese war with Tangiers now absorbed the entire naval and maritime resources of the country, and the plague of Lisbon stayed for a time the patriotic enterprises of Don Henry. In 1440-42, expeditions sent in the same direction resulted in the capture and transfer of several Moors to Portugal, and in the payment to their captors, as ransom, of the first gold dust ever beheld by Europeans. A river, or arm of the sea, near the spot where this gold was paid, received, from that circumstance, the name of Rio del Ouro. This gold dust at once operated as a sovereign panacea upon the obstinacy and irritation of the public mind. It has been well remarked that "this is the primary date to which we may refer that turn for adventure which sprang up in Europe, and which pervaded all the ardent spirits in every country for the two succeeding centuries, and which never ceased till it had united the four quarters of the globe in commercial intercourse. Henry had stood alone for almost forty years; and, had he fallen before those few ounces of gold reached his country, the spirit of discovery might have perished with him, and his designs have been condemned as the dreams of a visionary." The sight of the precious metal placed the discoveries and enterprises of Don Henry beyond the reach of detraction or prejudice. Numerous expeditions were successively fitted out:—that of Nuno Tristan, in 1443, who discovered the Arguin Islands, thirty miles to the southeast of Cape Blanco; that of Juan Diaz and others in 1444; that of Gonzalez da Cintra in 1445, who, with seven others, was killed fifty miles south of the Rio del Ouro,—this being the first loss of life on the part of the Portuguese since they had undertaken their explorations. In 1446, a gentleman of Lisbon, by the name of Fernandez, determined to proceed farther to the southward than any other navigator, and accordingly fitted out a vessel under the patronage of the prince. Passing the Senegal River, he stood boldly on till he reached the most western promontory of Africa, to which, from the number of green palms which he found there, he gave the name of Cape Verd. Being alarmed by the breakers with which this shore is lined, he returned to Portugal with the gratifying news of his discovery. In 1447, Nuno Tristan sailed one hundred and eighty miles beyond Cape Verd, and reached the mouth of a river, which he called the Rio Grande, now the Gambia. He was attacked by the natives with volleys of poisoned arrows, of the effects of which all his crew and officers died but four; and the ship was at last brought home by these four survivors, after wandering two months upon the Atlantic. The next expedition, under Alvaro Fernando, carried out an antidote against the poisoned shafts of the enemy, which successfully combated the venom, as all who were wounded recovered.
The Açores, or Azores, were now discovered, about nine hundred miles to the west of Portugal; but some doubts exist both as to the discoverer and the date. They doubtless received their name from the number of hawks which were seen there, Açor signifying hawk in Portuguese. Santa Maria and San Miguel were named from the saints upon whose days they were first seen. Terceira obtained its name from the circumstance that it was the third that was discovered. Fayal was so called from the beech-trees it produced; Graciosa, from its agreeable climate and fertile soil; Flores, from its flowers; and Corvo, from its crows. The various clusters of islands which thus arose in the Atlantic, from the Azores to Cape Verd, now formed a succession of maritime colonies and nurseries for seamen, and thus enabled navigators to avoid the coast, where the outrages they endured from Moors and negroes threatened to exhaust their patience. The ships of Don Henry had now penetrated within ten degrees of the equator, and the outcry against venturing into a region where the very air was fatal broke out afresh. In this point of view, therefore, the settlement of the Azores was a matter of no little importance. In 1449, King Alphonso gave his uncle, Don Henry, permission to colonize these islands. In 1457, Henry obtained for them several important privileges, the principal of which was the exemption of their inhabitants from any duties upon their commerce in Portuguese and Spanish ports.
In the years 1455-56-57, a Venetian, by the name of Cada-Mosto, undertook, under the patronage of Don Henry, two voyages of discovery along the African coast. The narrative of his adventures, being in the first person, is the oldest nautical journal extant, with the single exception of one of Alfred the Great, still in existence. But, as it is principally occupied with descriptions of the manners and customs of the Africans, and as he did not proceed beyond the Rio Grande, thus adding little or nothing to maritime discovery, an account of his voyage would be out of place here. Don Henry died shortly after the return of Cada-Mosto from his second voyage, and for a season this calamity palsied the naval enterprise of his countrymen. They had been accustomed to derive from him, not only the encouragement necessary for the prosecution of such attempts, but even sailing directions and instructions upon all matters of detail. It can easily be conceived that the demise of this illustrious prince should temporarily dishearten navigators and paralyze discovery. Under his auspices the Portuguese had pushed their discoveries from Cape Non to Sierra Leone,—from the twenty-ninth to the eighth degree of north latitude. He died at Sagres—the city, half ship-yard, half arsenal, which he had founded upon the Sacrum Promontorium.
SEA SWALLOW.