Men of vision and men of action are essential to each other; for many men can see what only a few others can perform.
Magellan married Beatriz Barbosa about the year 1518. He was the father of one son. His wife died shortly after hearing the news of his great discovery of the Pacific and the new way to the East.
He was now prepared to go to Charles V, King of Spain, son of the demented Queen Joanna, the daughter of Isabella, and to lay before him a plan of opening a short way to the East by sailing West. This purpose more and more absorbed his soul—he himself was nothing, discovery was everything. The frown of Portugal no longer cast any deep shadow over his life; it was his mission to find. He heard in the acclaim of Columbus a prophecy of what his own name would one day be.
CHAPTER III.
PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR AND VASCO DA GAMA.
All things follow suggestion and inspiration, and the discovery of the Western World owes much to the heart and brain of Prince Henry, called the Navigator. Although the son of a King, he felt that he was more than that—a son of Humanity. He took up his residence far from the pomp of courts on the bleak, bare, solitary promontory of Sagres, the sharp angle of Western Europe. Here he could see the sun go down on the western sea, day by day. Some inward genius like a haunting spirit seemed to beckon his thoughts toward the West.
In view of his abode on a tall headland were the ruins of a Druidical temple, where Strabo tells us the gods used to assemble at night under the moon and stars. So the place was called the Sacrum Promontorium, and it was in this region that Prince Henry schooled his soul in navigation and sought to inspire all adventurers upon the sea. "Farther" was his motto, and "Farther yet!" In his solitude he called to him a company of restless spirits with a passion for discovery, and said to them all, "Farther," and "Farther yet!"
The night of the dark ages was passing, and in the new dawn of civilization, Prince Henry had visions of new ways to India, the magnificent; the land of gold, gems, and spices, where the sun shone on gardens of palms and seas of glory.