SKETCH OF AFRICA FROM FRA MAURO'S GREAT MAP OF THE WORLD, 1457.
In the African portions of Fra Mauro's map which have already been given they are shown exactly as Fra Mauro drew them, with the north at the bottom and the south at the top, as is nearly always the case in mediæval maps. In this outline of Africa, which is generally supposed to show the results of Prince Henry's labours, the map has been put the right way up. It was prepared between 1457 and 1459.

But Diego Gomez had succeeded in making friends with the hostile natives of this part. He left behind him a better idea of Christian men than some of the other explorers had done. His own account of the conversion of the Mohammedan King who lived near the mouth of the river Gambia, which was visited on the return voyage, is most interesting.

"Now the houses here are made of seaweed, covered with straw, and while I stayed here (at the river mouth) three days, I learned all the mischief that had been done to the Christians by a certain King. So I took pains to make peace with him and sent him many presents by his own men in his own canoes. Now the King was in great fear of the Christians, lest they should take vengeance upon him. When the King heard that I always treated the natives kindly he came to the river-side with a great force, and, sitting down on the bank, sent for me. And so I went and paid him all respect. There was a Bishop there of his own faith, who asked me about the God of the Christians, and I answered him as God had given me to know. At last the King was so pleased with what I said that he sprang to his feet and ordered the Mohammedan Bishop to leave his country within three days."

So when the Portuguese returned home, Prince Henry sent a priest and a young man of his own household to the black King at the mouth of the Gambia. This was in 1458.

"In the year of our Lord 1460, Prince Henry fell ill in his town on Cape St. Vincent," says his faithful explorer and servant, Diego Gomez, "and of that sickness he died."

Such was the end of the man who has been called the "originator of modern discovery." What had he done? He had inspired and financed the Portuguese navigators to sail for some two thousand miles down the West African coast. "From his wave-washed home he inspired the courage of his men and planned their voyages, and by the purity of his actions and the devotion of his life really lived up to his inspiring motto, 'Talent de bien faire.'" And more than this. For each successive discovery had been carefully noted at the famous Sagres settlement, and these had been worked up by an Italian monk named Fra Mauro into an enormous wall-map over six feet across, crammed with detail—the work of three years' incessant labour.