Bartholemew Diaz, accompanied by João Iffante, rounded the southernmost point of Africa, and passed some way beyond the site of the modern Port Elizabeth. The picturesque story of his voyage is well known. He sailed with two vessels of 50 tons apiece, in the belief that "ships which sailed down the coast of Guinea might be sure to reach the end of the land by persisting to the South." His first pillar was set up at Angra dos Ilheos,[[56]] at the south side of Angra Pequena. He made another stay at Angra das Voltas, in 29° S. lat., immediately after passing the Orange River. Then, putting well out to sea, Diaz ran thirteen days due south before the wind, hoping by this wide sweep to round the furthest point of the Continent, which many traditions agreed in fixing not very far from his last halting-place. Finding the sea and air at last becoming cold, he changed his course to east, and as no land appeared after five days, to north. In this last course the Portuguese reached a bay where cattle were feeding, named by the Portuguese Angra dos Vaqueiros, now Flesh Bay.[[57]] After putting ashore two natives (probably some of those lately carried from Congo to Portugal, and sent out again to act as scouts for the European explorers), Diaz continued east to a small island still called "Santa Cruz," W. of our Port Elizabeth, and even further to a river called, after his partner, Rio do Iffante, now the Great Fish River, in 32° 23' S. lat., and midway between the present Port Elizabeth and East London, where the coast begins gradually but steadily to trend north-east. Here the expedition put back, sighting on its homeward way the Land's End, or "Cape of Storms," re-named by John II "Cape of Good Hope" on their return. Almost at the same time as Diaz' reappearance in Lisbon (Dec. 1487), Covilham, who had reached Malabar by way of Egypt, wrote home from Cairo more than confirming the hopes already drawn from the success of the last maritime ventures. "If you keep southward, the continent must come to an end. And when ships reach the Eastern Ocean, let your men ask for Sofala and the Island of the Moon (Madagascar), and they will find pilots to take them to India."
Yet another chapter of discoveries was opened by King John's expeditions for the ascent of the Western Nile, and for the exploration of the North-East Passage to Cathay. Neither of these achieved complete success, but some more light was gained upon the interior of Africa (where the Portuguese made such notable advances in the sixteenth century); it has even been claimed, but apparently without foundation, for the explorers of John II, that a Portuguese discovery of Novaia Zemlya rewarded their enterprise.
The great voyage of Vasco da Gama (1497-9) connected and completed the various aims of Portuguese enterprise, to which Prince Henry had given a permanent and organised form.
Though he was not able to see in his own lifetime the fulfilment of his plans, both the method of a South-East Passage, and the men who finally discovered it, were, in a true sense, his—were inseparably associated with his work. The lines of Portuguese advance, a generation after his death, continued to follow his initiative so closely, that, when a different route to the Indies was suggested by Columbus, the government of John II refused to treat it seriously. And yet it was to the Infant's movement—in part, at least—that Columbus owed his conception. "It was in Portugal," says Ferdinand Columbus, "that the Admiral began to surmise that if men could sail so far south, one might also sail west and find lands in that direction." In another place[[58]] it will be questioned how far a Portuguese movement America-wards can be credited to the mariners of Prince Henry's own time. It is plain that, whether he or his captains ever thought favourably of the chances of the Western route, he and they alike devoted their main energies to its rival, the Eastern or African coasting way. It is equally plain, on the other hand, that the Infant's work produced a new interest in the world-science of geography throughout Christendom, and so was indirectly responsible for quite as much as it directly aimed at accomplishing.
[47] This voyage is described by Cadamosto as an appendix to his own voyages. A young Portuguese who accompanied De Sintra described to Cadamosto the stretch of coast now discovered beyond the Rio Grande, the anchorages of the fleet, and the names given to points on the shore. "This account, without any rhetorical embellishment, is of special interest as a specimen of a Portuguese sailing-direction from a sailor of Henry the Navigator's School" (Nordenskjöld, Periplus, 121). De Sintra reached 5° further South than any before him. His nomenclature still survives at many points: e.g., Cape Verga, Sierra Leone, Cape Santa Anna, Cape del Monte, Cape Mesurado. Cape Sagres, "the highest promontory they had ever seen," between Cape Verga and Cape Ledo, has been re-named. De Sintra also noticed especially a "great green forest"—"Bosque de St. Maria," in 5° 30' N. lat. (?)—and near his furthest point (at Rio dos Fumos) an immense quantity of smoke from native fires. Cf. Hanno's language in his Periplus, on the fiery rivers running down into the sea; and see J. N. Bellin's Petit Atlas Maritime, Paris, 1764; Part iii, Map 105.
[48] Elmina.
[49] According to some, he accompanied De Sintra in the voyage of 1461.
[50] Cadamosto explicitly says that when he left Portugal on February 1, 1463, no voyages had been made in continuation of De Sintra's venture, recorded by him.
[51] According to Cadamosto's account, De Sintra had gone a good deal further.
[52] It is not very clearly recorded who first crossed the line among the Portuguese sailors of this time. Some conclude as stated in text, but Nordenskjöld believes it was "perhaps Lopo Gonçalvez, after whom a promontory directly south of the Equator is named"; he also thinks this great event was accomplished on Gomez' first expedition, under Santarem, Escobar, Fernandez and Esteves, in 1470-1. As to progress eastwards, towards India, it was much exaggerated by many. While his caravels were still off the Guinea coast, King Affonso V believed the meridian of "Tunis, and even of Alexandria," had been already passed.