PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.* [SEcosrm NOTICE.]

IN a former article we gave an account of the life of Prince Henry, and an outline of the geographical discoveries immediately due to his personal exertions ; we propose now to consider briefly the larger results to which the expansion of his ideas and schemes led within little more than half a century from the date of his decease. Before his death the Western Coast of Africa had been explored as far as the Rio Grande, and within three years of that time the line of discovery was carried more than six hundred miles farther south by Pedro de Cintra, a gentleman of the Royal household. In 1469, King Affonso V., nephew of Prince Henry, rented the trade of the African coast, with its lucrative traffic in slaves, gold and spices, and its abundant fisheries, to Fernam Gomez, reserving for the Crown a monopoly of the ivory trade, and stipulating for the discovery of a hundred leagues of coast annually. The zeal and energy always promoted and sustained by commercial interests led within two years to valuable financial results, and to explorations as far as Cape St. Catharine, two degrees south of the Equator. The voyages of Diogo Cam to the mouth of the Congo in 1484 and 1485 acquire additional interest from the fact that he was accompanied on the second occasion by Martin Behaim, the illustrious Niiremberger, who invented the application of the astrolabe to navigation, and to whom has beeh ascribed, though erroneously, the first idea of the discovery of America. Mr. Major has submitted the merits of Martin Behaim to the same elaborate process of inquiry which he has employed in determining the claims of so many other discoverers and great naval adventurers, and has rendered to him impartially the things that are his, at the same time jealously guarding the interests of Columbus. With the King of Congo Portugal entered into friendly and, it may almost be said, diplomatic relations. That * The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed Me Navigator, and its Retulte, By Richard H. Major. London: Asher.

potentate, anxious that priests should be sent from Portugal to instruct himself and his people in the doctrines of Christianity, despatched one of his subjects, named Cacuta, with other youths, to urge this request. On their arrival, the King and Queen stood sponsors for Cacuta, and the rest of the embassy were baptized before their return. The expedition commanded by Ruy de Sousa, which took them back to their country, was received with ostentatious honours :—

"The King's residence was at Ambasse Congo, about twenty miles from the sea coast, where he received Ray de Sousa. When at two leagues from the city he was met by a chieftain, accompanied by a great host of men formed in procession, who, to the noise of trumpets and kettle-drums, barbarously constructed, sang the praises of the King of Portugal, three or four singing a verse, and the whole body joining in the chorus. The King sat on a throne of ivory, raised on a lofty wooden platform, so that he could be seen from all sides. From his waist upwards, his black and glittering skin was uncovered. Below that he wore a piece of damask, which had been given him by Diogo Cam. On his left arm was a bracelet of copper, and from the shoulder hung a dressed horse's tail, which was a symbol of royalty. He had a cap on his head resembling a mitre, made of palm leaves so skilfully that it had the appearance of stamped velvet. Huy de Sousa made his obeisance to him in the Portuguese fashion, which the King returned in his; that is, he put his right hand on the ground as if to take up dust ; ho then passed his hand first over Sousa's breast, and than over his own, which was the greatest courtesy he could show him. He not only gave permission to build a church, but ordered one of his chieftains to provide materials and labourers, so that no time might b3 lost."

After some tribulations, the cause of Christianity took good root, and prevailed mightily in the kingdom of Congo.

At this point Mr. Major interrupts his narrative to enter into a careful discussion of the knowledge obtained by the Portuguese from the interior of Africa relative to the sources of the Nile, and he shows that the equatorial lakes Victoria Nyanza and Albert Nyanza, with their probable southern feeder, Lake Tan- ganyika, were laid down in a map of the date of 1578-1587, of which a reduction is given, from information gathered by a Portuguese 300 years ago. The subject is one which will at once arrest the attention of most readers, and we must pass it over with this allusion, to pursue the course of exploration towards the Cape of Good Hope. In 1486, King Joao II., the successor of King Affonso, sent out under Bartolomeo Dias the famous expedition destined to pass the southern point of Africa.

After passing Cape Voltas, the explorers were driven by stress of weather for thirteen days due south, and were surprised to find a

remarkable change of temperature as they advanced. "When the wind abated, Dias, not doubting that the coast still ran north and south, as it had done hitherto, steered in an easterly direction, with the view of striking it ; but finding that no land made its

appearance, he altered his course for the north, and came upon a bay where were a number of cowherds tending their kine." Unconscious that he had passed the point of which he was in quest, Dias, full of doubts and fears, and amid the complaints of his exhausted crew, continued his voyage to the river now known as the Great Fish River, when the remonstrances of his men com- pelled him to turn back. On his way westward, his vexation at

thinking that his long and laborious exertions had been in vain was happily dissipated by the sight of that tempestuous point to which he gave the name of Cabo Tormentose, but to which King Joao, foreseeing the realization of the long-coveted passage to India, gave the name of the Cape of Good Hope. The King,

however, was not destined to see the accomplishment of a work which had been the object of Prince Henry's desires, and in which he had taken a lively and energetic interest. The attempt to reach India by way of the newly discovered Cape was delayed for

ten years, chiefly owing to the illness and prostration of the King. His successor, King Manoel, was not long in resuming the labours which had brought to Portugal wealth and power and glory. On the 8th of July, 1497, Vasco da Gama set out upon the expedition with which such vast hopes were associated. The preparations ordered by the King had been worthy of the intended enterprise. Four vessels had been built expressly for the purpose, and they took with them three experienced pilots, Pero de Alemquer, who had carried Bartolomeo Dias beyond the Cape, Joao de Coimbra, and Pero Escolar. The names of such men should not be for- gotten, and it is among the good services for which we are indebted to Mr. Major that he has withdrawn from obscurity the names of many admirable but almost unknown privates and non-

commissioned officers, so to speak, in the noble army of Workers. On the 4th of November the explorers anchored in St. Helena Bay, on the West Coast of Africa ; on the 17th of December they passed the extreme point of discovery reached by Bartolomeo Dias, and on Christmas Day they gained sight of a country to

which, in memory of the day, they gave the name of Natal.

Without detailing the particulars of their voyage along the eastern coast of Africa, suffice it to say that on the 17th of May Da Gama first sighted the high land of India, and on Sunday, the 20th, anchored before Calicut. The first episode of the landing is -worthy of special record :— " On the following day some boats came out to them, and Da Gams, sent one of the degradados,' or condemned criminals, on shore with them ; and they took the man to two Moors of Tunis, who spoke both Spanish and Genoese and the first salutation they gave him was as fol- lows The Devil take you for coming here. What brought you here from such a distance ?' He replied, We come in search of Christians and spices.' They said, Why do not the King of Spain, and the King of France, and the Signoria of Venice send hither?' He replied that the King of Portugal would not consent that they should do so, and they said he was right. Then they welcomed him, and gave him wheatened bread with honey, and after he had eaten, one of the Moors went back with him to the ships, and when he came on board said, Happy venture! happy venture! abundance of rabies! abundance of emeralds ! You ought to give many thanks to God for bringing you to a country where there is so much wealth.'"

The great historical event which had now been accomplished was fully appreciated by King Manoel, who instituted numerous expeditions with a view of establishing permanent commercial relations in the newly discovered countries, and within twenty years the limits of exploration had been largely extended, factories had been founded, and the sovereign princes of remote nations either made tributary or attracted to alliance and friendship. In 1505 Lourenco de Almeida discovered Ceylon, and entering Porto de Gene, made the King tributary to Portugal. In 1506 Francisco .Almeida, first Viceroy of the Indies, who was sent out with a magnificent expedition to free Portuguese commerce in India from the difficulties which oppressed it, discovered the east coast of the Island of Madagascar, the west coast of which was discovered later in the same year by Joao Gomez d'Abreu, and on the 11th of Sep- tember Diogo Lopez de Sequeira anchored at Malacca, having with him on his expedition Fernam de Magalhaens, better known under the Spanish form of his name, Magellan. The establishment of a factory at Malacca was of great commercial importance. It was the great emporium of the East, "to which were brought cloves from the Moluccas, nutmegs from Banda, sandal-wood from Timor, camphor from Borneo, gold from Sumatra and Loo Choo, gums, spices, and other precious commodities from China, Japan, Siam, Pegu, &c. In 1517 Fernam Peres de Andrade sailed to China, and entered into relations with the Governor of Canton.

We have dwelt upon these comprehensive explorations eastward at some length, in order to show their continuity and their connec- tion with the schemes and the personal influence of Prince Henry ; we can do no more than allude to the concise but sufficent argu- ments by which Mr. Major disposes of the claims put forward by M. Desmarquets in favour of the French as anticipating the round- ing of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama,—a claim advanced in ignorance apparently of the prior achievement of Bartolomeo Dias,—and the discovery of China by the Portuguese. Our attention must now be turned westward, and certainly one of the most interesting and instructive chapters in Mr. Major's work is that in which he defines with impartiality and precision the merit due to the various bold and adven- turous men in behalf of whom a claim to the honour of having discovered a new world has been supported. We shall only invite attention to two points which mainly concern our present purpose, —the connection of Columbus's discovery with the exertions of Prince Henry, and the story of the naming of America. Ferdi- nand Columbus, the son of the great discoverer, says distinctly in the biography of his father, "It was in Portugal that the Admiral began to surmise that, if the Portuguese sailed so far south, one might also sail westward and discover lands in that direction." This is valuable testimony, and it is strongly corrobo- rated by facts. During a residence of fourteen years, 1470-1481, in Portugal, in the course of which he made several voyages to the coast of Guinea in the Portuguese service, Columbus married the daughter of Bartolomeo Perestrello, to whom Prince Henry had granted the governorship of the Island of Porto Santo, the dis- covery of which was alluded to in our former article. On this island Columbus resided for some time with his wife and mother- in-law, from whom he obtained all the papers, maps, journals, and nautical instruments left behind by Perestrello. At the same time his study of certain cosmographical works in which the possibility of a western passage to India was suggested, and the information he gained from pilots experienced in western waters, convinced him that there was an unknown land towards the west. Pieces of -wood, sculptured without the use of an iron instrument, had been found coming apparently from a western direction, and it was reported by the colonists of the Azores that, when the wind blew

from the west, canes, pines, and on one occasion the corpses of two men, "with broad faces different from those of Christians," had been thrown ashore. What he learned from theoretical works and what he gathered from men of practical experience was all corroborated by the narratives of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville :—

" Their reports of the vast extent of Asia eastward led to the reason- able inference that the westward passage to the eastern confines of that continent could not demand any considerable length of time. The natural inclination of Columbus for nautical enterprise being thus fostered by the works that he studied, and by the animating accounts of recent adventurers, as well as by the glorious prospects which the broad expanse of the unknown world opened up to his view, we find that in the year 1474 his ideas had formed for themselves a determined channel, and his grand project of discovery was established in his mind as a thing to be done, and done by himself. The combined enthusiasm and tenacity of purpose which distinguished his character caused him to regard his theory as a matter of such undeniable cer- tainty, that no doubts, opposition, or disappointment could divert him from the pursuit of it."

The story of Columbus's difficulties in contending against ignor- ance, prejudice, jealousy, and the misinterpretation of Christianity, is lucidly told in Mr. Major's pages, and accounts for the unfor- tunate transfer of Columbus's services from Portugal to Spain. The roundabout ways of historical nomenclature are strangely illustrated by the method which determined the name of America, and assigned to Vespucci an honour undoubtedly due to Columbus. The circumstances which suggested and, in fact, fixed the name of the New World are traced by Mr. Major with singular ingenuity, and he shows that Vespucci is indebted for an honour far above his just claims to a small circle of learned men who devoted their obscure lives to literature in the little cathedral city of St. Did, in the secluded valley of the Meurthe, within the dominions of Rend II., Duke of Lorraine, a prince distinguished by his encouragement of the arts and of literature.

We think that we have now said enough to show how excellently Mr. Major has satisfied the large promises made on the title-page of his work, and we will only, therefore, add that in the final chapter of his book he gives an admirable account of the discovery by Magellan, a Portuguese by birth, of the straits which now bear his name, and of another voyage undertaken by that great explorer, in which he lost his life, but which resulted in the first circumnavigation of the world. In his concluding pages he deals with the discovery of Australia, and shows that a knowledge of that continent existed so far back as the early part of the sixteenth cen- tury, while the first authenticated discovery of the country he ascribes to the Portuguese in 1601. Nor is it necessary for us to add many words of commendation to what we have already said about Mr. Major's labours. There can be little doubt that his book will long remain, on all points connected with geographical discovery, a valuable and in many the sole trustworthy modern authority. We will just mention that it contains a likeness of Prince Henry extremely well executed from a contemporary por- trait. It is full of life and character, and competent judges are, we believe, inclined to ascribe the original to Van Eyck.