Guinea coast, 1482.
The Congo reached, 1484.
It was a new sensation when news came that at last the Portuguese had crossed the equator, in pushing along the African coast. In January, 1482, they had said their first mass on the Guinea coast, and the castle of San Jorge da Mina was soon built under the new impulse to enterprise which came with the accession of João II. In 1484 they reached the Congo, under the guidance of Diogo Cam, and Martin Behaim was of his company.
MARTIN BEHAIM.
These voyages were not without strong allurements to the Genoese sailor. He is thought to have been a participant in some of the later cruises. The Historie claims that he began to reason, from his new experiences, that if land could be discovered to the south there was much the same chance of like discoveries in the west. But there were experiences of other kinds which, in the interim, if we believe the story, he underwent in the north.