[1460.] Diogo Gomez discovered the Cape Verde Islands, and their colonization was effected during the following years. Major, Prince Henry, pp. 288-99, publishes the original account for the first time in English. Prince Henry died in November of this year. Major's Prince Henry, p. 303; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 19. Irving, Columbus, vol. i. p. 30, fixes this date 1473; and Galvano, Discov., p. 14, says 1463.
[1461.] The spirit of discovery and the thirst for African gold and slaves had become too strong to receive more than a temporary check in the death of its chief promoter. In the year following Prince Henry's death a fort was built on the African coast to protect the already extensive trade, and in 1461 or 1462 Pedro de Cintra reached a point in nearly 5° north, being over six hundred miles below the limit of Cadamosto's voyage. La Nauigation del Capitan Pietro di Sintra Portoghese, scritta per Meser Aluise da ca da Mosto, in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 119.
[1469-89.] In 1469 Fernam Gomez rented the African trade from the king of Portugal for a term of five years, and during that time pushed his explorations under Santarem and Escobar to Cape St Catherine in 2° south, first crossing the equator in 1471. Under João II., who succeeded Alfonso V. in 1481, the traffic continued, and in 1489 Diogo Cam reached a point in 22°, over two hundred leagues below the Congo River, planting there a cross which is said to be yet standing. Martin Behaim, the mathematician and cosmographer, accompanied Cam on this voyage, and an error or interpolation in Schedel, Registrum, etc., Nuremberg, 1493, gave rise to the unfounded report that they sailed west and discovered America. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 257, 283, 292, 309; Major's Prince Henry, pp. 325-38; Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. xl.; Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 40; Galvano's Discov., pp. 74-6; Otto, in Am. Phil. Soc., vol. ii., 1786.
We enter now the Columbian epoch proper, to which, as we have seen, the enterprises of Prince Henry and the Portuguese were precursory. About 1484, Christopher Columbus having proposed a new scheme of reaching India by sailing west, the king of Portugal surreptitiously sent a vessel to test his theory, which, after searching unsuccessfully for land westward, returned to the Cape Verde Islands. Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 53-4 et al. Columbus had resided in Portugal since 1470, and had made several trips in Portuguese ships down the African coast, in the course of which he is supposed to have first conceived his new project. Indignant at the conduct of the Portuguese king, Columbus left for Spain. Colon, Hist. del Almirante, in Barcia, Hist. Prim., tom. i. pp. 9-10; translation in Pinkerton's Col. Voy., vol. xii. pp. 1-16; and in Kerr's Col. Voy., vol. iii. pp. 1-242.
In 1486 Bartolomeu Dias sailed round Cape Good Hope and continued his voyage to Great Fish River on the south-east coast, from which point he was compelled to return on account of the murmurs of his men. The cape, now for the first time doubled by Europeans, was seen and named by him on his return. In 1487 King João sent two priests, Covilham and Payva, to travel in the East, in the hope of gathering more definite information respecting Prester John and his famous Christian kingdom. Prester John they did not find, but Covilham in his wanderings reached Sofala on the east coast of Africa in about 20° south latitude, being the first of his countrymen to sail on the Indian Ocean. At Sofala he learned the practicability of the voyage which Dias had actually accomplished a little before, and a message to that effect was immediately sent to the king. Major's Prince Henry, pp. 339-42; Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. xl-i; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 230 et seq.; Galvano's Discov., pp. 77-8.
From this time to the great discovery of 1492, few expeditions remain to be mentioned. It must not be forgotten, however, that by this time trading voyages were of ordinary occurrence all along the eastern Atlantic coast and its adjoining islands from Scandinavia to Guinea. A lively commerce was carried on throughout this century between Bristol and Iceland, and in the words of Kunstmann, substantiated by older authorities, "a bull of Nicolas IV. to the bishops of Iceland, proves that the pope in 1448 was intimately acquainted with matters in Greenland." It seems incredible that during all this intercourse with northern lands, no knowledge of America was gained by southern maritime nations, yet so far as we know there exists no proof of such knowledge.
[1476.] John of Kolno, or Szkolny, is reported to have made a voyage in the service of the king of Denmark in 1476, and to have touched on the coast of Labrador. The report rests on the authority of Wytfliet, Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ augmentum, Lovanii, 1598, fol. 188, supported by a single sentence, "Tambien han ydo alla hombres de Noruega con el Piloto Iuan Scolno," in Gomara, Hist. Gen. de las Indias, Anvers, 1554, cap. xxxvii. fol. 31; by a similar sentence in Herrera, Hist. Gen., Madrid, 1601, dec. i. lib. vi. cap. xvi., in which the name is changed to Juan Seduco; and by the inscription, Jac Scolvus Groetland, on a country west of Greenland on a map made by Michael Lok in 1582, fac-simile in Hakluyt Soc., Divers Voy., p. 55. According to Kohl, Hist. Discov., pp. 114-15, this voyage is considered apocryphal by Danish and Norwegian writers. Lelewel, Géog. du moyen âge, p. 106, regards the voyage as authentic, and Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 45-8, attaches to it great importance as the source of all the voyages to the north which followed. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 152-4, gives but little attention to the voyage, and confesses his inability to decide on its merits: "Je ne puis hasarder aucun jugement sur cette assertion de Wytfliet."
[1477.] In this year Columbus, whom we first find with the Portuguese traders on the African coast, sailed northward, probably with an English merchantman from Bristol, to a point one hundred leagues beyond Thule, in 73° north. Colon, Hist. del Almirante in Barcia, tom. i. p. 4; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 43-7; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. p. 272. He probably visited Iceland, although he gives the latitude incorrectly, taking it very likely from ancient geography rather than his own observations.
[1482.] According to Kunstmann, the edition of Ptolemy this year, Ptolomæi Cosmographia, Ulmæ, 1482, lib. viii., contains a map that includes Greenland, and must have been compiled from northern sources.
[1488.] Desmarquets, Mémoires Chronologiques, etc., Dieppe, 1785, tom. i. pp. 92-8, states that one Cousin sailed from Dieppe early in 1488, stood off further from land than other voyagers had done, and after two months reached an unknown land and a great river, which he named the Maragnon. Was this the Marañon in South America? He then sailed south-eastward and discovered the southern point of Africa, returning to Dieppe in 1489. The discovery was kept secret, but Cousin made a second voyage round the cape and succeeded in reaching India. Major, besides pointing out some inconsistencies in this account, shows that M. Desmarquets "could commit himself to assertions of great moment which are demonstrably false." He is not good authority for so remarkable a discovery not elsewhere recorded.