The Pinnacle of Life

LEGENDS OF THE SEA.

Modern familiarity with navigation renders it difficult for us to appreciate adequately the greatness of the enterprise which was undertaken by the discoverers of the New World. Seen by the light of science and of experience, the ocean, if it has some real terrors, has no imaginary ones. But it was quite otherwise in the fifteenth century. Geographical knowledge was but just awakening, after ages of slumber; and throughout those ages the wildest dreams had mingled fiction with fact. Legends telling of monsters of the deep, jealous of invasion of their territory; of rocks of lodestone, powerful enough to extract every particle of iron from a passing ship; of stagnant seas and fiery skies; of wandering saints and flying islands; all combined to invest the unknown with the terrors of the supernatural, and to deter the explorer of the great ocean. The half-decked vessels that crept along the Mediterranean shores were but ill-fitted to bear the brunt of the furious waves of the Atlantic. The now indispensable sextant was but clumsily anticipated by the newly invented astrolabe. The use of the compass had scarcely become familiar to navigators, who indeed but imperfectly understood its properties. And who could tell, it was objected, that a ship which might succeed in sailing down the waste of waters would ever be able to return, for would not the voyage home be a perpetual journey up a mountain of sea?

INCITEMENTS TO DISCOVERY.

But the same tradition which set forth the difficulties of reaching the undiscovered countries promised a splendid reward to the successful voyager. Rivers rolling down golden sand, mountains shining with priceless gems, forests fragrant with rich spices were among the substantial advantages to be expected as the result of the enterprise. "Our quest there," said Peter Martyr, "is not for the vulgar products of Europe." The proverb "Omne ignotum pro magnifico" [Transcribers's note: Everything unknown is taken for magnificent.] was abundantly illustrated. And there was another object, besides gain, which was predominant in the minds of almost all the early explorers, namely, the spread of the Christian religion. This desire of theirs, too, seems to have been thoroughly genuine and deep-seated; and it may be doubted whether the discoveries would have been made at that period but for the impulse given to them by the most religious minds longing to promote, by all means in their power, the spread of what, to them, was the only true and saving faith. "I do not," says a candid historian [Faria y Sousa] of that age, "imagine that I shall persuade the world that our intent was only to be preachers; but on the other hand the world must not fancy that our intent was merely to be traders," There is much to blame in the conduct of the first discoverers in Africa and America; it is, however, but just to acknowledge that the love of gold was by no means the only motive which urged them to such endeavours as theirs. To appreciate justly the intensity of their anxiety for the conversion of the heathen, we must keep in our minds the views then universally entertained of the merits and efficacy of mere formal communion with the Church, and the fatal consequences of not being within that communion.

EARLY ADVENTURERS.

This will go a long way towards explaining the wonderful inconsistency, as it seems to us, of the most cruel and wicked men believing themselves to be good Christians and eminent promoters of the faith, if only they baptized, before they slew, their fellow-creatures. And the maintenance of such church principles will altogether account for the strange oversights which pure and high minds have made in the means of carrying out those principles, fascinated as they were by the brilliancy and magnitude of the main object they had in view.

But while piety, sometimes debased into religious fanaticism, had a large part in these undertakings, doubtless the love of adventure and the craving for novelty had their influence also. And what adventure it was! New trees, new men, new animals, new stars; nothing bounded, nothing trite, nothing which had the bloom taken off it by much previous description! The early voyagers moreover, were like children coming out to take their first gaze into the world, with ready credulity and unlimited fancy, willing to believe in fairies and demons, Amazons and mystic islands, "forms of a lower hemisphere," and fountains of perpetual youth.

MEDIAEVAL MAP OF THE WORLD; THE ROMAN DOMINION.

The known world, in the time of Prince Henry of Portugal (at whose discoveries it will be convenient to take a preliminary glance), was a very small one indeed. The first thing for us to do is to study our maps and charts. Without frequent reference to these, a narrative like the present forms in our mind only a mirage of names and dates and facts, is wrongly apprehended even while we are regarding it, and soon vanishes away. The map of the world being before us, let us reduce it to the proportions it filled in Prince Henry's time; let us look at our infant world. First take away those two continents, for so we may almost call them, each much larger than a Europe, to the far west. Then cancel that square massive looking piece to the extreme south-east; its days of penal settlements and of golden fortunes are yet to come. Then turn to Africa; instead of that form of inverted cone which it presents, and which we now know there are physical reasons for its presenting, make a scimetar shape of it, by running a slightly curved line from Juba on the eastern side to Cape Nam on the western. Declare all below that line unknown. Hitherto, we have only been doing the work of destruction; but now scatter emblems of hippogriffs and anthropophagi on the outskirts of what is left on the map, obeying a maxim, not confined to the ancient geographers only: "Where you know nothing, place terrors." Looking at the map thus completed, we can hardly help thinking to ourselves, with a smile, what a small space, comparatively speaking, the known history of the world has been transacted in, up to the last four hundred years. The idea of the universality of the Roman dominion shrinks a little; and we begin to think that Ovid might have escaped his tyrant.[3] The ascertained confines of the world were now, however, to be more than doubled in the course of one century; and to Prince Henry of Portugal, as the first promoter of these vast discoveries, our attention must be directed.

[Footnote 3: But the empire of the Romans filled the world; and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag the gilded chain in Rome and his senate, or to wear out a life of exile on the barren rocks of Seriphus, or the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, vol. i. p. 97, Oxford Edition.]

[Illustration: Contemporary map of the world.]

[Illustration: 1490 map of the world includes only Europe, Asia and the northern 1/4 of Africa. Excludes the Americas, Greenland, and Australia.]

PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL; HIS MOTIVES FOR DISCOVERY.

This prince was born in 1394. He was the third son of John the First of Portugal and Philippa, the daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. That good Plantagenet blood on the mother's side was, doubtless, not without avail to a man whose life was to be spent in continuous and insatiate efforts to work out a great idea. Prince Henry was with his father at the memorable capture of Ceuta, the ancient Seplem, in the year 1415. This town, which lies opposite to Gibraltar, was of great magnificence, and one of the principal marts in that age for the productions of the eastern world. It was here that the Portuguese first planted a firm foot in Africa; and the date of this town's capture may, perhaps, be taken as that from which Prince Henry began to meditate further and far greater conquests. His aims, however, were directed to a point long beyond the range of the mere conquering soldier. He was especially learned, for that age of the world, being skilled in mathematical and geographical knowledge. He eagerly acquired from Moors of Fez and Morocco, such scanty information as could be gathered concerning the remote districts of Africa. The shrewd conjectures of learned men, the confused records of Arabic geographers, the fables of chivalry, were not without their influence upon an enthusiastic mind. The especial reason which impelled the prince to take the burden of discovery on himself was that neither mariner nor merchant would be likely to adopt an enterprise in which there was no clear hope of profit. It belonged, therefore, to great men and princes; and amongst such, he knew of no one but himself who was inclined to it. This is not an uncommon motive. A man sees something that ought to be done, knows of no one that will do it but himself, and so is driven to the enterprise even should it be repugnant to him.

[Illustration: MAP OF WESTERN AFRICAN COAST.]

IMPORTANT EXPEDITION

Prince Henry, then, having once the well-grounded idea in his mind that Africa did not end, according to the common belief, at Cape Nam [Portuguese for "not"], but that there was a region beyond that forbidding negative, seems never to have rested until he had made known that quarter of the world to his own. He fixed his abode upon the promontory of Sagres, at the southern part of Portugal, whence, for many a year, he could watch for the rising specks of white sail bringing back his captains to tell him of new countries and new men.

One night, in the year 1418, he is thought to have had a dream of promise, for on the ensuing morning he suddenly ordered two vessels to be got ready forthwith, and placed them under the command of two gentlemen of his household, Zarco and Vaz, whom he directed to proceed down the Barbary coast on a voyage of discovery. A contemporary chronicler, Azurara, tells the story more simply, and merely states that these captains were young men, who, after the ending of the Ceuta campaign, were as eager for employment as the prince for discovery; and that they were ordered on a voyage having for its object the general molestation of the Moors as well as the prosecution of discoveries beyond Cape Nam.

DISCOVERY OF PORTO SANTO.

The Portuguese mariners had a proverb about the Cape, "He who would pass Cape Not either will return or not," [Quem passar o Cabo de Nam, ou tornara ou nam], intimating that if he did not turn before passing the Cape he would never return at all. On this occasion it was not destined to be passed, for the two captains were driven out of their course by storms, and accidentally discovered a little island, where they took refuge, and which, from that circumstance, they called Porto Santo. On their return their master was delighted with the news they brought him, more on account of its promise than its substance. In the same year he sent them out again with a third captain, Bartholomew Perestrelo, to convey a supply of seeds and animals for the newly-found island. Unfortunately, however, among the animals were some rabbits, which multiplied so rapidly that they overspread the whole island, and, by devouring every plant and blade of grass which grew there, soon changed a fruitful land into a bare wilderness.

MADEIRA DISCOVERED.

In the following year, Zarco and Vaz, seeing from Porto Santo something that seemed like a cloud, but yet different (the origin of so much discovery, noting the difference in the likeness), built two boats, and, making for this cloud, soon found themselves alongside a beautiful island abounding in many things, but most of all in trees, on which account they gave it the name of Madeira (wood). The two discoverers landed upon the island in different places. The prince, their master, afterwards rewarded them with the captaincies of the districts adjacent to those places. To Perestrelo he gave the island of Porto Santo, to colonize it. Perestrelo, however, did not make much of his captaincy; and spent his life in endeavouring to make head against the rabbits, which were as destructive as a plague of locusts, and which by their fecundity resisted all his efforts to exterminate them. This captain has a place in history, as being the father-in-law of Columbus, who, indeed, lived at Porto Santo for some time, and here, on new found land, studied the cosmographical works which Perestrelo had been at pains to accumulate; meditating far bolder discoveries.

AFRICAN COAST EXPLORED.

Zarco and Vaz began the cultivation of their island of Madeira, but met with an untoward event at first. In clearing the wood, they kindled a fire amongst it, which burned for seven years, we are told; and, in the end, that which had given its name to the island, and which, in the words of the historian, overshadowed the whole land, became the most deficient commodity. The captains founded churches in the island, and the King of Portugal, Don Duart, gave the temporalities to Prince Henry, and all the spiritualities to the Knights of Christ.

From this time forth, Prince Henry prosecuted his explorations with a fixity of purpose which could not but ensure success. Through every discouragement he persevered still. Many a Swiss peak has gone through three phases. It has been pronounced, first, "inaccessible," then, "a very dangerous ascent," and finally, "a pleasant excursion." So it was with each fresh headland which seemed to bar the way down the African coast. And the travellers who came last, in each case, found it next to impossible to imagine what were the difficulties and dangers that had seemed so formidable to their predecessors.

BARRIER OF ROCKS.

For a long time Cape Bojador, which is situate seventy leagues to the south of Cape Nam, was the extreme limit of discovery. This cape was formidable in itself, being terminated by a ridge of rocks, with fierce currents running round them; but was much more formidable from the fancies which the mariners had formed of the sea and land beyond it. "It is clear," they were wont to say, "that beyond this cape there are no people whatever; the land is as bare as Libya-no water, no trees, no grass in it; the sea so shallow, that at a league from the land it is only a fathom deep; the currents so fierce, that the ship which passes that cape will never return;" and thus their theories were brought in to justify their fears.

This outstretcher (for such is the meaning of the word Bojador) was therefore as a bar drawn across that advance in maritime discovery, which had for so long a time been the first object of Prince Henry's life.

POPULAR OBJECTIONS.

For twelve years the prince had been sending forth ships and men, with little approbation from the public-the discovery of Madeira and Porto Santo serving to whet his appetite for further enterprise, but not winning the common voice in favour of his projects. The people at home, improving upon the reports of the sailors, said that "the land which the prince sought after was merely some sandy place like the deserts of Libya; that princes had possessed the empire of the world, and yet had not undertaken such designs as his, nor shown such anxiety to find new kingdoms; that the men who arrived in those foreign parts (if they did arrive) turned from white into black men; that the king, Don John, the prince's father, had endowed foreigners with land in his kingdom, to break it up and cultivate it, a thing very different from taking the people out of Portugal, which had need of them, to bring them amongst savages to be eaten and to place them upon lands of which the mother country had no need; that the Author of the world had provided these islands solely for the habitation of wild beasts, of which an additional proof was that those rabbits which the discoverers themselves had introduced were now dispossessing them of the island."

There is much here of the usual captiousness [Transcriber's note: Finding trivial faults.] to be found in the criticism of bystanders upon action, mixed with a great deal of false assertion and assumed knowledge of the ways of Providence. Still, it were to be wished that most criticism upon action was as wise; for that part of the common talk which spoke of keeping their own population to bring out their own resources, had a wisdom in it which the men of future centuries were yet to discover throughout the Peninsula.

MISGIVINGS OF PRINCE HENRY; GIL EANNES.

Prince Henry, as may be seen by his perseverance up to this time, was not a man to have his purposes diverted by such criticism, much of which must have been, in his eyes, worthless and inconsequent in the extreme. Nevertheless, he had his own misgivings. His captains came back one after another, with no good tidings of discovery, but with petty plunder gained as they returned from incursions on the Moorish coast. The prince concealed from them his chagrin at the fruitless nature of their attempts, but probably did not feel it less on that account. He began to think, was it for him to hope to discover that land which had been hidden from so many princes? Still he felt within himself the incitement of "a virtuous obstinacy," which would not let him rest. Would it not, he thought, be ingratitude to God, who thus moved his mind to these attempts, if he were to desist from his work, or be negligent in it? He resolved, therefore, to send out again Gil Eannes, one of his household, who had been sent the year before, but had returned, like the rest, having discovered nothing. He had been driven to the Canary Islands, and had seized upon some of the natives there, whom he brought back. With this transaction the prince had shown himself dissatisfied; and Gil Eannes, now entrusted again with command, resolved to meet all dangers, rather than to disappoint the wishes of his master. Before his departure, the prince called him aside and said, "You cannot meet with such peril that the hope of your reward shall not be much greater; and, in truth, I wonder what imagination this is that you have all taken up-in a matter, too, of so little certainty; for if these things which are reported have any authority, however little, I would not blame you so much. But you quote to me the opinions of four mariners, who, as they were driven out of their way to Frandes or to some other ports to which they commonly navigated, had not, and could not have used, the needle and the chart: but do you go, however, and make your voyage without regard to their opinion, and, by the grace of God, you will not bring out of it anything but honour and profit."

GIL EANNES' SUCCESSFUL VOYAGE.

We may well imagine that these stirring words of the prince must have confirmed Gil Eannes in his resolve to efface the stain of his former misadventure. And he succeeded in doing so; for he passed the dreaded Cape Bojador-a great event in the history of African discovery, and one that in that day was considered equal to a labour of Hercules. Gil Eannes returned to a grateful and most delighted master. He informed the prince that he had landed, and that the soil appeared to him unworked and fruitful; and, like a prudent man, he could not only tell of foreign plants, but had brought some of them home with him in a barrel of the new-found earth, plants much like those which bear, in Portugal, the roses of Santa Maria. The prince rejoiced to see them, and gave thanks to God, "as if they had been the fruit and sign of the promised land; and besought our Lady, whose name the plants bore, that she would guide and set forth the doings in this discovery to the praise and glory of God, and to the increase of His holy faith."

ANTONIO GONCALVEZ AND HIS CAPTURE OF MOORS

The old world had now obtained a glimpse beyond Cape Bojador. The fearful "outstretcher" had no longer much interest for them, being a thing that was overcome, and which was to descend from an impossibility to a landmark, from which, by degrees, they would almost silently steal down the coast, counting their miles by thousands, until Vasco de Gama should boldly carry them round to India. But now came stormy times for the Portuguese kingdom, and the troubles of the regency occupied the prince's attention to the exclusion of cosmography.

In 1441, however, there was a voyage which led to very important consequences. In that year Antonio Goncalvez, master of the robes to Prince Henry, was sent out with a vessel to load it with skins of "sea-wolves," a number of them having been seen, during a former voyage, at the mouth of a river about a hundred and fifty miles beyond Cape Bojador. Goncalvez resolved to signalize his voyage by a feat that should gratify his master more than the capture of sea-wolves; and he accordingly planned and executed successfully an expedition for seizing some Azeneghi Moors, in order, as he told his companions, to take home "some of the language of that country." Tristam, another of Prince Henry's captains, afterwards falling in with Goncalvez, a further capture of Moors was made, and Goncalvez returned to Portugal with the spoil. This voyage seems to have prompted the application which Prince Henry made, in the same year, to Pope Martin the Fifth, praying that his holiness would grant to the Portuguese crown all that should be conquered, from Cape Bojador to the Indies, together with plenary indulgence for those who should die while engaged in such conquests. The pope granted these requests; though afterwards, as we shall see, the Spanish discoveries of Columbus and his successors rendered it necessary that the terms of the grant should be modified. "And now," says a Portuguese historian, "with this apostolic grace, with the breath of royal favour, and already with the applause of the people, the prince pursued his purpose with more courage, and with greater outlay."

COMMENCEMENT OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

One proof of this popular approval was furnished by the formation of a company at Lagos, in 1444, who received permission from the prince to undertake discovery along the coast of Africa, paying him a certain portion of any gains which they might make. Whether the company was expressly founded for slave traffic may be doubtful; but it is certain that this branch of their business was soon found to be the most lucrative one, and that from this time Europe may be said to have made a distinct beginning in the slave trade, henceforth to spread on all sides, like the waves on troubled water, and not, like them, to become fainter and fainter as the circles widen. For slavery was now assuming an entirely new phase. Hitherto, the slave had been merely the captive in war, "the fruit of the spear," as he has figuratively been called, who lived in the house of his conquer, and laboured at his lands. Now, however, the slave was no longer an accident of war. He had become the object of war. He was no longer a mere accidental subject of barter. He was to be sought for, to be hunted out, to be produced; and this change accordingly gave rise to a new branch of commerce.

Some time before 1454 a Portuguese factory was established at one of the Arguim islands, and this factory soon systematized the slave-trade. Thither came all kinds of merchandize from Portugal, and gold and slaves were taken back in return; the number of the latter sent home annually, at the time of Ca da Mosto's visit in 1454, being between seven and eight hundred.

The narrative of the Portuguese voyages along the African coast is, for the most part, rather uninviting. It abounds with names, and dates, and facts; but the names are often hard to pronounce, the dates have sometimes an air of uncertainty about them, and the facts stand out in hard relief, dry and unattractive. Could we recall, however, the voyagers themselves, and listen to their story, we should find it animating enough. Each enterprise, as we have it now, with its bare statistics, seems a meagre affair; but it was far otherwise to the men who were concerned in it. Of the motives[4] impelling men to engage in such expeditions, something has already been said.

[Footnote 4: "They err who regard the conquistadores as led only by a thirst for gold, or even exclusively by religious fanaticism. Dangers always exalt the poetry of life, and moreover, the powerful age which we here seek to depict in regard to its influence on the development of cosmical ideas, gave to all enterprises, as well as to the impressions of nature offered by distant voyages, the charm of novelty and surprise, which begins to be wanting to our present more learned age in the many regions of the earth which are now open to us."-Humboldt's Kosmos. Sabines translation, 1848, vol. ii. p. 272]

AIM OF THE ADVENTURERS.

But besides the hopes and fears of each individual of the crew, the conjoint enterprise had in it a life to be lived, and a career to be worked out. It started to do something; fulfilled its purpose, or at least some purpose; and then came back, radiant with success-from that time forward to be a great fact in history. Or, on the other hand, there was some small failure or mischance, perhaps early in the voyage; the sailors then began to reckon up ill omens, and to say that little good would come of this business. Further on, some serious misadventure happened which made them turn, or from the mere lapse of time they were obliged to bethink themselves of getting back. Safety, not renown or profit, now became their object; and then hope was at last out the negative of some fear. Thereupon, no doubt, ensued a good deal of recrimination amongst themselves, for very few people are magnanimous enough to share ill-success kindly together. Then, in the long dull evenings of their voyage homewards, as they sat looking on the waters, they thought what excuses and explanations they would make to their friends at home, and how shame and vexation would mingle with their joy at returning.

CA DA MOSTO.

This transaction, teeming, as it did, with anxious life, makes but a poor show in some chronicle;-they sailed, and did something, or failed in doing, and then came back, and this was in such a year:-brief records, like the entry in an almanack, or the few emphatic words on a tombstone.

At the period, however, we are now entering upon, the annals of maritime discovery are fortunately enriched by the account of a voyager who could tell more of the details of what he saw than we have hitherto heard from other voyagers, and who was himself his own chronicler.

In 1454, Ca da Mosto, a young Venetian, who had already gained some experience in voyaging, happened to be on board a Venetian galley that was detained by contrary winds at Cape St. Vincent. Prince Henry was then living close to the Cape. He sent his secretary and the Venetian consul on board the galley. They told of the great things the prince had done, showed samples of the commodities that came from the lands discovered by him (Madeira sugars, dragon's blood, and other articles), and spoke of the gains made by Portuguese voyagers being as great as 700 or 1000 per cent. Ca da Mosto expressed his wish to be employed, was informed of the terms that would be granted, and heard that a Venetian would be well received by the prince, "because he was of opinion, that spices and other rich merchandise might be found in those parts, and know that the Venetians understood these commodities better than any other nation."