MS. LEGEND OF EL CABO DOS TORMENTOS.
It is written--says the Spanish Dominican Friar and Missionary
Priest, the Padre Navarette--that the first time reports reached
Europe of a spectre haunting the Cape of Storms, was by the
narratives of certain Portuguese adventurers, who sailed into the
Southern Sea, with the Senhor Bartholomew Diaz, in the early part of
the fifteenth century, when Dom Joam II. occupied the throne of
Portugal.
His cousin and successor, King Emmanuel, fired by the discoveries
made in the reigns of his predecessors, who had planted their flag
and cross on the shores of Madeira, the Azores, and Isles of the Cape
de Verd, resolved to accomplish what they had failed in, and with
praiseworthy zeal despatched an admiral to discover a passage to
India by sea.
After a long absence this cavalier returned and reported that he had
found the _southern_ extremity of the mighty African continent; but,
that his ships had encountered great perils when off a flat-headed
mountain of wondrous form, which he had named _El Cabo dos Tormentos_.
The King of Portugal suggested that "_El Cabo de Buena Esperanto_,
(_i.e._, the Cape of Good Hope), would be a better term;" and it was
at once adopted by his courtiers, though the mariners of the Admiral
adhered to "the Cape of Torments," as they alleged that, not only had
they nearly been swallowed by the waves of a black and stormy sea,
but that they had seen a stupendous form, resembling a human figure,
riding upon the whirling scud above the Table Mountain, and spreading
his giant arms as if to clasp them in his terrible embrace, and hurl
them into the yawning deep.
They insisted that this dangerous promontory was the end of the
habitable world--the abode of devils, spectres, and torments--a place
wherein nothing human could dwell; and that the seas which washed its
shore should be shunned by all future navigators.
They ridiculed the title of _Buena Esperança_, and urged that no
mariner in his senses would visit the place again; for the old salts
of those days devoutly believed in tales of
"That sea-snake tremendous curled,
Whose monstrous circle girds the world,"
and that the earth was girt with fire at the Equator; that whoever
passed the tempestuous Cape Bojador, which was first doubled by the
Portuguese in 1433, and which forms the southern limit of Morocco,
was doomed never to return, as a mysterious breeze (the trade wind?)
blew for ever against them; that ships got into currents that ran
_down hill_--currents against which they might beat and struggle in
vain, till their shattered hulls were cast upon Bermuda--the "vexed
Bermoothes" of Shakespeare, which, as Stowe tells us, "were supposed
to be inhabited by witches and devils"--an iron shore where perpetual
storms raged, and fated ships were dashed upon the rocks.
Despite these terrors, animated by a spirit of adventure, Vasco da
Gama, a valiant mariner and cavalier of Alentejo, resolved to sail in
quest of this terrible cape, accompanied by many of his friends,
among whom was a noble young hidalgo, named Vasco da Lobiera,
grandson of the gallant knight of that name, who fought at the battle
of Aljubarotta, and received his spurs on the field from King Joam of
good memory, at whose feet, in after years, he laid his famous
romance, "Amadis de Gaul."
From his grandsire young Vasco inherited a love of wild adventure;
thus his mind was full of tales of
"The days when giants were rife
With their towers and painted halls,
And heroes, each with a charmed life,
Rode up to their castle walls--
When gentle and bright ones with golden hair
Were wooed by princes in green,
And knights with invisible caps to wear,
Could see, and yet never be seen."
Notwithstanding the alleged terrors of the spectre or storm fiend
which haunted the Cape, the brave Da Gama and his friend Lobiera
resolved to set forth upon these mysterious waters, and to double the
promontory of Southern Africa. So the former, as Captain-General,
hoisted his banner on board the _San Gabriel_, of two hundred and
twenty tons; while Paulo da Gama, his brother, commanded the _San
Rafael_, of one hundred tons.
Vasco da Lobiera had the caravella named _Nossa Senhora da Belem_ (or
Bethlehem), with Joam da Coimbra as pilot, and Gonsalo Nunez had
their great storeship laden with provisions.
All these vessels were built of the pines which were planted in the
forest of Marinha by King Denis the Magnificent, and were manned by
one hundred and sixty chosen mariners.
King Emmanuel made them a farewell oration, and gave into the hands
of each commander a white silk banner of the military order of
Christ, together with his royal letters to an imaginary potentate,
who was supposed to dwell beyond the Southern Sea, and was named
Prester John of the Indies, Lord and Emperor of Ethiopia; and so,
with the prayers of all good Portuguese for their success, the little
squadron sailed from Lisbon, on the 8th July, 1497, when it is
recorded that "thousands remained weeping on the shore, until the
last traces of the receding fleet had disappeared."
Among their own crews, as well as among those of the other two ships,
Da Gama and Da Lobiera found men averse to touching at the Cabo dos
Tormentos; and these urged, that to double this dreadful promontory,
they should stand further out to sea than the adventurers of Dom
Joam's days, and then visit in safety the realms of Prester John on
the other side. Gama and his friend heeded neither their remarks,
their exhortations, or their fears, but bore away steadily to the
southward.
After a long and perilous voyage, and after anchoring in a great bay
which they named Angra de Santa Elena, the crew of _Our Lady of
Belem_ first saw the land of Table Bay on the morning of Saturday,
the 4th of November, when, in obedience to Dom Vasco da Lobiera, the
ship's company donned their gayest apparel, discharged a volley from
their culverins, and blew all their trumpets; but, as they stood
towards the shore, they were compelled to lessen their canvas, for
the wind, which had hitherto been moderate and favourable, now
changed to the south-east, and increased to a gale, while the sun set
in dense clouds, and turning from light green to black, the waves
began to froth and break as they alternately rose into hills or sank
into valleys.
And now as night and mist descended together on the sea, and on the
Cabo dos Tormentos, lightnings began to play about the awful summit
of the Table Mountain, which rises for more than three thousand two
hundred feet above the shore. The four ships which prior to this
evening had kept close together, were compelled by the violence of
the gale to separate, lest they might be dashed against each other;
and in the murk and gloom they continued to beat against the
headwind, with their topsail-yards lowered upon the cap, their
courses close reefed, and their spritsails stowed.
When the vessels last saw each other, the Senhor Vasco da Lobiera was
much chagrined to perceive that his caravella had dropped far astern
of her companions. He had ever prided himself upon the swiftness of
her sailing, and now he burned lights, and strove to come abreast of
the Captain-General, who had beat far to windward, and who he feared
might attribute his drifting so much a-lee, and towards danger, to
want of skill or seamanship.
He set as much canvas as he dared, and _Nossa Senhora da Belem_ tore
through the angry sea with her foresail and foretopsail close reefed,
and her jib and spritsail set, while the waves lashed her worn sides,
and burst in foam over her carved and lofty prow at every furious
plunge.
The seamen told their beads, lit candles before the shrine of Nossa
Senhora in the great cabin, shook their heads, muttered under their
long black beards, or maintained gloomy silence, fearing they knew
not what, but anticipating all the terrors that had beset the
followers of Bartholomew Diaz in the same waters.
And now wave after wave broke in thundering volume over her decks,
till Lobiera was fain to cast overboard the brass culverins which had
been consecrated by the Bishop of Lisbon, and his men averred that
each uttered _a cry_ as it sank into the sea.
By midnight they were, as Joam da Coimbra stated, about six miles
from the mouth of Table Bay.
Hoarsely roared the wind through the strained shrouds of the
labouring caravella, as she rolled and pitched wildly amid the black
and fearful waste of water, and ere long she was driving under bare
poles with only her jib and staysail to lift her head from the sea,
which rushed upon her like a succession of watery mountains.
With all the firmness of true mariners and cavaliers, Vasco da
Lobiera and his friend Joam stood at the tiller, crossing themselves
ever and anon when they shouted a command through the trumpet, or
invoked our Lady of Belem. The deck had long since been cleared of
every loose spar, bucket, or other material by the waves; and more
than one poor mariner had been swept overboard to perish miserably in
the midnight sea, for no human hand could assist them.
Some there were who asserted that they had seen the claws of a giant
figure start from the black waves, and drag their shipmates down
below by their beards and trunk hose.
"We make no progress," said others, rending their hair; "a mighty
magnet, buried deep in the sea, holds us to one accursed spot!"
"Nay," said Joam da Coimbra; "'tis the teeth of a mighty fish that
grasp our keel."
"Be of good cheer, I pray you, my friends," said Vasco, pointing to
the Southern Cross, which was then visible through a rent in the fast
flying scud; "behold the sign by which we shall conquer! What says
the motto of our country?"
"_In hoc signo vinces!_" exclaimed Joam da Coimbra, throwing his
hands towards the south.
"Amen," responded the terrified crew, and still their ship bore on.
"Thou art right, Joam," said Vasco da Lobiera; and the courage of the
crew revived, for their pilot was a mariner of great experience, and,
like Chaucer's shipman--
"By many a tempest had his beard been shaken."