[53] It is probably right to ascribe great importance to the work of Fernam Gomez, during his five years' lease. His wealth gave a new character to the equipment of the African Expeditions of Portugal. Formerly there had been too much waste of energy through indefiniteness of object; too much discretion had been left to mariners themselves; now the definite contract for geographical discovery with the Crown caused a more rapid and continuous advance, and long stretches of coast were explored and mapped.
[54] According to King John's orders. Wooden crosses (often of Madeira wood?) had hitherto been erected by Portuguese discoverers in new lands. Now stone pillars 6 ft. high were to be used, and on them was to be inscribed, in Portuguese and Latin, the date, with the name of the reigning monarch, and those of the discoverers.
[55] Near C. Frio. So it is placed (at Arenarum Aestuarium or Manga das Arenas) on Pl. X in Livio Sanuto's Geographia of 1588. We have mentioned that Martin Behaim, of Nüremberg, claimed to have accompanied Cão to West Africa; but his globe, so famous afterwards, executed in 1492 at the order of the Nüremberg Town Council, shows very little evidence of this. Behaim's West Africa is often obstinately Ptolemaic, at the end of the century which had revolutionised the knowledge of this part of the world. He inserts all the legendary Atlantic islands, and puts the Cape Verdes far out of their proper place.
[56] ? Diaz Point, at the Serra Parda or "Dark Hills" of Barros.
[57] Some way beyond Cape Agulhas, and immediately to the east of the River Gauritz.
[58] See the section of this Introduction on the "Atlantic Islands," especially pp. ciii-cvi.
African Exploration preliminary to Prince Henry's work.
The first recorded African expedition along the Atlantic coast of Africa was, if we accept the account of Herodotus, that of the Phœnicians sent out by Pharaoh Necho (c. 600 b.c.), who started from the Red Sea and returned by the Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean.[[59]] Almost at the same time (c. 570 b.c., according to Vivien de St. Martin's estimate) the great Phœnician settlement of Carthage attempted in reverse order a voyage of colonisation and discovery along the West of the Continent outside the Straits. Eratosthenes refers to Phœnician (or Carthaginian) settlements already existing on what is now the coast of Marocco, both inside and outside the "Pillars;" this new expedition under Hanno was intended to strengthen the old, as well as to found new plantations. It is often compared with a similar venture, "to explore the outer coasts of Europe," undertaken by Himilco, probably about the same time.[[60]]
Hanno[[61]] sailed from Carthage, according to our authority, with sixty penteconters, carrying 30,000(?) people, colonists and others, first to Cerne,[[62]] which was as far distant from the Pillars of Hercules as the Pillars were from Carthage. Then he ascended the river Chretes[[63]] to a lake. Twelve days' voyage south of Cerne he passed a promontory with lofty wooded hills,[[64]] and a little beyond this, a great estuary.[[65]] Five days more to the south brought him to the Western Horn,[[66]] and on the other side of this he coasted along a "fragrant shore," with "streams of fire running down into the sea," and "fiery mountains, the loftiest of which seemed to touch the clouds," and which he named[[67]] "Chariot of the Gods."[[68]] Three days' sail beyond this was his furthest point, the Southern Horn,[[69]] whence he returned directly to Carthage.
It is very difficult to identify Hanno's positions, and this is not the place to attempt a fresh investigation.[[70]] But the tradition of this Periplus having reached far beyond the Straits of Gibraltar—farther than any venture of the earlier Middle Ages, or of the classical period—may be regarded as reliable, and some position on the Sierra Leone coast may provisionally be taken as its ultimate point of advance.