This tradition admits that it has lost its proofs in the destruction of the Admiralty Registers at Dieppe in 1694, but it is possible that some articles[[125]] may be discovered dating from this early commerce, which can supply fresh evidence. In itself, the Dieppese story is not impossible, and we shall see in another section, from the witness of the Map of 1351 and other portolanos, how plausible it appears, together with still greater ventures. But as things at present stand, it must be considered as a "thing not proven."[[126]]
Reliable evidence of French voyages to the Gold Coast of Guinea can only be quoted for the sixteenth century. Thus Braun in 1617, and Dapper some time shortly before 1668, inspected buildings and collected traditions from the natives on that shore which alone would prove these later expeditions, if they were not confirmed by several documents in Ramusio, Temporal, and Hakluyt.[[127]] Equally reliable is the tradition of Béthencourt's Conquest of the Canaries in 1402, etc.; yet the authors of this history, Béthencourt's chaplains, give no hint of any knowledge possessed by their countrymen about the mainland coast beyond Cape Bojador, but rather imply the reverse. Finally, though so many of the best sixteenth-century maps are Dieppese, none of these show the fourteenth-century settlements, which are also wanting in all charts of the earlier time. The controverted names are first found on a map of 1631, by Jean Guérand; and this is probably not unconnected with the fact that in 1626 Rouen and Dieppe united for trade with the Guinea coast.
It is of course possible, as M. d'Avezac long ago argued from the evidence of the great Portolani of the fourteenth century, especially the Laurentian or Medicean[[128]] of 1351, the Pizzigani[[129]] of 1367, and the Catalan of 1375, that some unrecorded advance was accomplished along the African mainland coast during the middle years of this century; the imperfection of our records must never be forgotten; and we shall return to this question in another section. But nothing definite and certain can be gathered about the coast beyond Cape Bojador, except in a few small points.[[130]] With the Atlantic islands the case was very different.
The expedition[[131]] (1402-12) of the Sieur de Béthencourt, Lord of Granville la Teinturière, of the Pays de Caux in Normandy, was chiefly concerned with the Canaries[[132]]—like the voyages of the Spaniards Francisco Lopez (1382), and Alvaro Becarra (? 1390, etc.) But, after achieving fair success in the islands, De Béthencourt attempted (apparently in 1404) an exploration of the mainland coast "from Cape Cantin, half way between the Canaries and Spain," to Cape "Bugeder" or Bojador,[[133]] the famous promontory to the right or east of the Canaries. But this was left unfinished; and De Béthencourt's chaplains, in describing their Seigneur's intentions beyond the "Bulging Cape," can only fall back on a certain Book of a Spanish Friar,[[134]] which professed to give a description of Guinea, and the River of Gold. This last was said by the Friar to be 150 leagues from "the Cape Bugeder," and the French priests declare that "if things were such as described," their lord hoped sometime to reach the said river, "whereby access would be gained to the land of Prester John, whence come so many riches."
Thus the French colonists in the early fifteenth century, in Prince Henry's boyhood, know nothing first-hand, nothing save half-legendary rumours, about the African coast beyond Cape Bojador. They are anxious to reach the River of Gold, and traffic there, but they do not know the way. Of Petit Paris, Petit Dieppe, La Mine, and other Norman settlements or factories beyond Cape Verde, they give no sign.
The late and doubtful[[135]] tradition of Macham's discovery of Madeira (c. 1350-1370) does not concern the exploration of the African mainland, except that after the death of the "discoverer" in his island, some of his sailors were said to have escaped in the ship's boat (according to the story) to the Continent, to have been made prisoners by the Berbers, and to have been held in slavery till some of the survivors were ransomed in 1416. But all this, if true, belongs to the well-known coast within Cape Non, and in no manner furthered exploration, except as regarded the island group of Madeira and Porto Santo.[[136]]
Fra Mauro preserves a tradition[[137]] of two voyages from India or the East coast of Africa round the Southern Cape—one in 1420, the other at an unfixed date. These, he says, had been accomplished by a person with whom he actually spoke, who claimed to have passed from Sofala to "Garbin," in the middle of the West coast, as it is marked on Fra Mauro's planisphere. If genuine, they would be the last anticipations of Prince Henry's enterprises left to chronicle; but few have placed much confidence in these statements, which seem indeed incredible in the form they are related by the Venetian draughtsman.
[59] Herod. ii, 158-9; iv, 42. These mariners took three years on their voyage: landed, sowed crops, and lived on the harvest during seasons unfavourable to navigation (especially autumn); during part of their journey they were astonished to find the sun on their right hand.
[60] This is first noticed by Aristotle, "On Marvellous Narratives," § 37; by Mela, De Situ Orbis, iii, 9; and by Pliny, Natural History, ii, 67, § 167-170, and elsewhere. The Periplus of Himilco seems to have been worked up by Avienus (c. 400 a.d.) in the first 400 lines of his poem, "De Ora Maritima."
[61] One account of Hanno's voyage was preserved on a Punic inscription in the temple of "Kronos," "Saturn," or Moloch, at Carthage; the inscription was translated into Greek by an unknown hand, probably about 300 b.c.; and this version of the Periplus still remains to us. See Pliny, Hist. Nat., ii, 67; v, 1, 36; vi, 31; Solinus, 56; Pomponius Mela, iii, 9. The first edition of the Greek text is by Gelenius, Basel 1534; the best by C. Müller, in Geographi Graeci Minores. Cf. also an edition by Falconer, London, 1797; an edition by Kluge, Leipsig, 1829; Rennell, Geography of Herodotus, 719-745, 4to ed.; Bunbury, Ancient Geography, i, 318-335; Walckenaer, Recherches sur le Géographie de l'Afrique, p. 362, etc.; Vivien de St. Martin, Le Nord de l'Afrique dans l Antiquité, pp. 330-400; Major, Henry Navigator, 90, etc., 1868; Charton, Voyageurs Anciens, i, 1-5, Ed. of 1882; Gossellin, Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens, i, pp. 70-106; A. Mer, Mémoire sur le Pêriple d'Hannon, 1885; Campomanés, El Periplo de Hannone illustrado, appended to his Antiquedad maritima de Cartago (1756); Bougainville, Acad. des Inscr. et Belles Lettres, xxvi, xxvii, and especially xxviii, p. 287.